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Sheldon, Henry C. 1845-1928
System of Christian doctrin
SYSTEM
OF
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
BY
HENRY C. SHELDON,
PROFESSOR IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY, AND AUTHOR OF ‘‘ HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN
DOCTRINE,” “‘ KISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH,” ETC,
Revised Edition.
THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN
NEW YORK = CINCINNATI
Copyright, 1903, by
HENRY C. SHELDON
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition Printed September, 1903
Reprinted October, 1907; September, 1908; April, 1909; July, 1910; September, 1911
October, 1912; May, 1915; December, 1916; March, 1922; April, 1926
PREFACE.
Few readers will be disposed to ask from the author an
apology for the brevity of the treatise. It is in order, how-
ever, to explain that there has been no remorseless sacrifice
of dogmatic material for the sake of limiting the bulk of the
work. We have not been restrained from freeing our mind
on all the principal themes of Christian dogmatics. The
brevity attained is largely due to the sparing use of history,
except as subservient to the proof of dogmatic propositions.
It was our conviction that there is scanty propriety in at-
tempting to import into a constructive treatise a great part
of the history of doctrine. While admitting that the fruits
of doctrinal history need to be brought under contribution
by the framer of a theological system, we were persuaded
that this can be done without a bulky reproduction of doc-
trinal details.
As to the compass of the work, or the circle of admitted
topics, very little time has been spent in an attempt to deter-
mine what a theological encyclopedia of an ideal order might
prescribe. We have included such themes as seemed appro-
priate to the sphere for which the book was more directly
fashioned.
tii
iv PREFACE.
No discreet reader will expect to find in the volume a sat-
isfactory solution of all theological problems. We claim
only to have made a patient and industrious effort to explore
the great themes whose significance must forever stimulate
to thought, while their depths reach beyond the capacity of
any measuring lines that have yet been placed in the hands
of men.
So far as conscious purpose is concerned, we have not
written for the satisfaction of any party, whether conserva-
tive or radical. The oft-repeated but thoroughly flippant
assumption of the ultra-conservative, that any departure from
the traditional basis is likely to endanger the whole fabric of
the faith, has not deterred us from giving hospitality to rela-
tively new views where a sane consideration of the data
seemed to require their admission. On the other hand, the
disparaging estimate which the intemperate radical is wont
to award to the thought and belief of past generations has
not hindered us from appropriating, with affection and vener-
ation, every portion of a long-treasured faith to which good
reasoning and judicial historic sense seemed to us to leave
a place. It is our conviction that any value which may be-
long to the treatise can legitimately be ascribed in large part
to the writer’s endeavor to keep above the plane of a provin-
cial and partisan outlook.
Boston UNIVERSITY,
August, 1903.
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.
ee
The revision pertains in particular to the more construct-
ive portions of the chapters on the Person and Work of
Christ. The fundamental ideas contained in these chapters
as originally printed have not been changed; but some new
materials have been added, and such a disposition has been
given to the subject-matter as is favorable to a clear and
unified view.
Roston UNIVERSITY,
May, 1912.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2022 with funding from
Princeton Theological Seminary Library
https://archive.org/details/systemofchristia0Oshel_ 0
CONTENTS.
PART I.
LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN
SYSTEM.
CHAPTER -I,
THE PRINCIPLES OR CONDITIONS OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY.
PAGE
I. The Necessity of a Unitary ea Agent as a Con-
dition of Knowledge. 3
II. The Failure of the Sensational BevChaIoe Gaeconen
by its Denial of a Unitary Psychical Agent . . 4
IiI. The Categories, or the Primary Forms of Intuition
and of Thought, as Conditions of Cognition . : 8
IV. Question whether the Dependence of Knowledge upon
Subjective Factors is Prejudicial to its Certainty . 9
V. Question as to the Objective Validity of the Categories 10
VI. A Warrant for Believing that the World is a Snare
for the Interpretation "of Reason . 16
VII. Grounds for Rational Inference Saprlicns by ener
ence of Volitional Energy and of Various Classes
of Feelings . : ; : : A Petit Gy
VIII. Grounds of Rational Inference Furnished by Histor-
ical Continuity of Ideas or Beliefs. ; 24
IX. The Function of Reason in Relation to Revelation ata
the Possible Service of the Latter to the Former . 27
X. Relation of the Idea of God to Rational Certainty . 31
vii
Vill
Vi.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER II.
THE EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON.
Propriety of Introducing the Topic of the Divine Ex-
istence at this Point. :
. Definition of the terms ‘ Person ”’ en a Infinite,” and
Proof of the saan of ane with In-
finitude. ;
. Comparative View of Anti-T Hetstie Aiheontes ;
. Economy of Assumptions Shown not to be Character-
istic of Anti-Theistic Theories
. Criticism of Materialism .
. Criticism of Pantheism :
. Consideration of the Extent to yh Theistic “Faith
Depends upon Formal Argumentation
. The Cosmological Argument
The Teleological or Design Argument
. The Argument from Human Nature. :
. An Alleged Deficiency in the Foregoing pee ee é
. Criticism of Some Inconclusive Arguments
CHAPTER IIL.
REVELATION.
Possibility and Probability of Special Revelations in
View of the Existence of a Personal God
. Rational Presuppositions Respecting the Process of
Revelation, as Founded in the Intellectual and
Moral apne of Men
. The Method ofthe Biblical Revelation as Corresponc:
ing with the Presuppositions .
The Proof for the Bible which is Thvelged in its ecites
prehensiveness, or in the Variety and Balance of
the Factors which it Contains
The Signal Proof for the Bible which is Con eenede in
the Unique Personality of Christ with its Appro-
priate Historical Antecedents and Consequents
Evidence for the Bible in the Facts of FiNdon ri
Foresight ‘ : ‘ : ‘
PAGE
oD
34
38
39
AI
50
52
55
58
65
68
69
74
76
79
82
go
102
CONTENTS.
. The Evidence of Miracles .
. The Subjective Proof, or the Byidence Burcistien by
the Christian Consciousness .
. The Evidence Based on a So Wie of Raored
Books .
. The Proper Lamia? of the Bible, or the Tests of
Canonicity
. Questions of Authorship. as Related to Biblical Ne
thority .
. Inspiration
XIII.
Question of the Sarees of the Biblical Pevelatter
or of the Possibility of Authoritative Supplements .
BARA LE
128
149
THE DOCTRINE OF GOD AND OF HIS RELATION
TO THE WORLD AT LARGE.
CHAPTER I.
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GoD.
. Reasons for Concluding that the Theme of the Chap-
ter Lies Within the Sphere of Possible Knowledge
. The Metaphysical or Non-Ethical Attributes
. The Moral Attributes
Relation of Will in God to His Nines a fies to
the Standard of Truth and Right .
CHAPTER : II.
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS IN THE GODHEAD.
The Historical Data for the Divinity of Christ .
. Historical Data for the nae and era of
the Holy Spirit.
. Extent to which the iikeetical® ines Afford Grathha
for a Definite Trinitarian Theory .
Relation of Philosophy to the Trinitarian rae
159
167
183
Igo
1g2
212
216
222
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
Gop AS CREATOR AND UPHOLDER OF THE “Worn, AND Hits
PROVIDENCE THEREIN.
PAGE
I. Creation Considered from the Standpoint of Revelation 228
II. Creation from the Standpoint of Science . : - aesG
III. Creation from the Standpoint of Rae . eae
IV. Conservation . i 4 ; ; hae
WV eebLovidence =. B\. : ‘ ‘ ; ° : 2 zag
PART SIGL
THE SUBJECTS OF GOD’S MORAL GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER I.
ANGELS.
I. The Point of View from which the Bible Deals with
Angelology . ; Zee
II. Main Facts Respecting the Dee ontiens a Biblical
Angelology . ; 258
III. Matters More or Less Ciearly repeated Respeenne
Angels. : ; ; : : ; . 26a
IV. Points Open to Sageerae on : 262
V. Biblical Teaching Respecting Satan rie Evil anger 263
VI. The Reason why God Tolerates the met of Satan
and Evil Angels . : 270
CHAPTER II.
MEN.
I. Factors in Man’s Being . ; : “Pere
II. Question of Exemption from Bodily Death 4 Eaae
III. Question of the Soul’s Immortality . : : - 279
IV. Theories of the Origin of Souls , : odo pee
V. Conscience : A : ; ; é 4 e- 289
VI. Freedom . 5 ; ‘ ; ; ; : ~ ean
CONTENTS, xi
PAGh
VII. Original Righteousness. . ‘ 303
VIII. Grounds of the Possibility of tte ; ; 305
IX. Biblical and Rational Data as to Man’s Condition by
Birth, or the Question of Original Sin. : Sex)
PAR UG? IV,
THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE REDEEMER,
CHAPTER I.
THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
I. The Fact of Christ’s Human Nature ‘ : EL
II. Distinctive Features of Christ as Man - ' 330
III. The Problem of the Union of the Human and the
Divine in Christ . ‘ » 4338
IV. Criticism of Some Modern Christological fiheorice Hee s0
V. Grounds of Preference for the Catholic Theory of Unique
Relationship of the Divine and the Human in Christ. 351
VI. Design of the Incarnation : : : : He YS
CHAPTER II.
THe Work oF CHRIST, ESPECIALLY IN THE PHASE OF
RECONCILIATION OR ATONEMENT,
I. A General Glance at the Offices of Christ. , . 360
II. Canons for Interpreting the Scriptural References to
the Work of Atonement or Reconciliation 366
III. Points Respecting Atonement which are Fairly Estab-
lished by the Contents of Scripture ; ip Ke
IV. Theories which must be Pronounced Tadentet in
the Light of Scriptural Teaching . s 386
V. Theories which Exaggerate some Phase of Christ’s
Work of Atonement. 391
VI. The Elements of the Theory eich Best Agrees with
Scriptural and Rational Data d 401
VII. Answers to Objections to the Idea of Atigeatert eNiAr
Xil
CONTENTS.
PART eV:
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION OR THE PRACTICAL
REALIZATION OF THE REDEMPTIVE PURPOSE.
THE APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION BY THE INDIVIDUAL.
VII.
CHAPTER I.
Universality of the Opportunity to aap the
Salvation Provided in -Christ :
. The Human Conditions of Appropriation .
. Salvation in its Objective Aspect, or Justification with
its Accompaniment of Adoption and Heirship
. Salvation in its Subjective Aspect, ‘or etal
Regeneration, and Sanctification
. The Relation between the Fae and the Sibiect
tive Aspect . ‘
The Consciousness or Asatte of Salvation :
The Possibility of a Loss of Salvation . ° .
CHAPTER ILI.
PAGE
417
434
441
453
468
469
476
CHRISTIAN LIFE IN ITS ASSOCIATED CHARACTER, OR THE
Vur.
CHURCH AND HER ORDINANCES.
The Nature of the Christian Church eon e c
. Criticism of the Ultra-Sacerdotal Conception of the
Church ‘ : : ° ,
. The Ministry of the Word : : ,
. Prayer as Related to Christian Eestherhoad ‘
The Sacraments in General é a . °
. Baptism . : : j ; ; a ; :
. The Lord’s Supper . ; : , : :
The Alleged Sacrament of Panenee ; ‘ ° :
479
488
593
5°97
508
511
523
531
CONTENTS. xill
CHAPTER III,
THe COMPLETING STAGES IN THE PROGRESS OF THE CHURCH
oR KINGDOM oF Gop.
PAGE
I, The Consummation of the Church Militant . - 3§40
II, The Life after Death in its More Immediate Conditions 551
III. The Second Advent and the Resurrection ‘ Sat
IV. The Judgment. ; ; ‘ ° : . - 566
V_ The Final Dispensation . ; ; ° ° - 568
APPENDIX.
I. The Miracle of Christ’s Resurrection ; : Ox
II. Ethnic Systems Especially as Respects Trinitarian
Features : : : 4 : , Ph SO
III. Scholastic Realism . R 601
IV. The Theory of a Merely Ideal Preéxistence of Christ 609
V. Some Ethico-religious Questions:
1. Marriage and Divorce . : : : pen Ons
2. Sunday Observance. 5 ; : . 619
3. Temperance : . : : . 2 Ome
REVIEW SCHEME ‘ ‘ : ; : : A - 629
INDEXES : ; : ‘ H : : ; SEO
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LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE
CHRISTIAN SYSTEM.
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LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE
CHRISTIAN SYSTEM.
SF 9 al oS
THE PRINCIPLES OR CONDITIONS OF RATIONAL
CERTAINTY.
I.— THe NECESSITY OF A UNITARY PSYCHICAL AGENT AS
A CONDITION OF KNOWLEDGE.
CoMPLETE agnosticism involves mental suicide or immoral
dogmatism. If there are no trustworthy grounds for any
conclusion, then the conclusion that nothing can be known is
as groundless as every other, and the person who utters it in-
dulges in self-contradictory babbling or in conscious falsehood.
In the absence of knowledge, thought is without valid ma-
terials, and speech can have only the brute function of ex-
pressing blind impulse.
It may be claimed, perhaps, that there is room for opinion
where knowledge proper is denied. But the ultimate ground
of preferring any opinion to its opposite must be its better
agreement with known truths or facts. Accordingly, in the
lack of a substratum of knowledge, opinions are left without
any real justification.
Passing from these truisms we are confronted by the seri-
3
4 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
ous problem of the conditions of knowledge, or the grounds
and methods of rational certainty.
Real knowledge presupposes a real subject, a psychical
agent, unitary and persisting, capable of reacting against im:
pressions and interpreting them. Without the psychical agent
it is conceivable that there might be a succession of nerve vi
brations, but it is not conceivable that they should bear any
meaning or result in knowledge. A nerve vibration could not
know itself even as a vibration, to say nothing about connect-
ing itself with an exterior cause, without being hypostasized
by some unthinkable magic into a real subject.
Knowledge, even if it can exist at all, cannot make the least
advance without acts of distinction, comparison, memory, and
judgment. Now it requires a unitary psychical agent to com-
pare, to distinguish, to remember, and to form judgments.
One of the terms or members which enter into the process
must be held while another is brought into relation with it;
or, if the attention passes back and forth between the terms,
each must be recognized as that which was previously known.
Rule out the psychical agent with its consciousness of identity
in the midst of change, leave only a passive organism receiv-
ing impressions from the outer world (or from some unknown
source), and you have ruled out all rational conception of the
most elementary facts of the mental life. Analysis, compari-
son, memory and judgment have become enigmas.
II.—Tue FaIturE oF THE SENSATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
OcCCASIONED BY ITS DENIAL OF A UNITARY PSYCHICAL
AGENT.
Radical sensationalism, as denying a proper unitary subject
of the mental life, can provide for nothing better than a pro-
cession of unrelated sensations. It has no way of connecting
the sensations or of turning them into materials for thought.
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 5
It can assume like sensations or unlike sensations, but it
affords no basis for a judgment of likeness or unlikeness. It
can predicate a change in sensations, and, making conscious-
ness only another name for a present sensation or group of
sensations, can speak of a change of consciousness ; but it
affords no rational ground for supposing a consciousness of
change. No more does it afford a ground for consciousness
of persistence, for that involves memory, and is thus depen-
dent upon an act of combination. By excluding a unitary self-
conscious subject, which, being present to each member of a
series, can truly relate any one with the others, thoroughgoing
sensationalism runs into unavoidable bankruptcy in its psy-
chological theory.
A near approach to a confession of this outcome has been
made by so distinguished a representative of the sensational
philosophy as John Stuart Mill. “If we speak of the mind,”
he says, ‘as a series of feelings, we are obliged to complete
the statement by calling it a series of feelings which is aware
of itself as past and future; and we are reduced to the alter-
native of believing that the mind, or ego, is something differ-
ent from any series of feelings, or possibilities of them, or of
accepting the paradox, that something which ex hypothesi is
but a series of feelings can be aware of itself as a series.” !
This confession is good, and the author might well have joined
with it a practical token of repentance in an attempt to recon-
struct his philosophical system on a-sound basis.
Herbert Spencer, who in one connection and another has
given expression to the most unmitigated sensationalism, if he
has not confessed in so many words the disagreement of his
system with fundamental facts, has at least illustrated its short-
comings by irrelevant, arbitrary, or contradictory representa-
tions. His elaborate picturing of happenings, real or imagin-
ary, within the nervous system, gives no insight into mental
1 Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, p. 213.
2
6 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
reality, and, so far as founding a rational psychology is con-
cerned, reaches only to the commonplace fact that the mind
is more or less conditioned in its operations by the body. In
order to provide for mental functions he is obliged to assume
and to smuggle in that which he professes to deduce. In ac-
counting for the genesis of thought, as Thomas Hill Green
remarks, “he thinks of the multiplication of impressions as
already involving a recognition of their relations, even when
he is treating of it as the efficient cause which is gradually to
result in such a recognition. The one consciousness, equally
present to, yet distinguishing itself from successive feelings,
without which there could be no such synthesis of them as is
necessary to a recognition of their difference in kind and de-
gree, and to their constituting a consciousness of change, is
first taken for granted and then represented as resulting from
the synthesis which presupposes it.’’!_ Spencer’s resort to evo-
lution does not help the case in the least ; for the difficulty
to be dealt with is the inconceivability of mental experience
at all, as either beginning or continuing, apart from a unitary
psychical agent or conscious ego. It is also a comment on
the alleged adequacy of his sensational theory, that Spencer,
in order to escape sheer idealism, is constrained to bring back
the ego which he had expelled. His fundamental view makes
the mental order, the purely determined, a resultant of the
physical order, and reduces our irrepressible conviction of
freedom to a standing illusion. But “in his argument with
the idealist the ego acquires a new character. It is no longer
a series of faint impressions, or the inner side of nerve-motions,
but a true source of energy, and the warrant for affirming a
thing-series, apart from the thought-series, is found in the fact
that our energy is resisted by an energy not our own. This
is excellent doctrine, but it does not agree with the other doc-
trine, that the ego is only a sum of mental states, and that
1 Works, I, 438.
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 7
mental states affect no physical states.”’! Once more, Spencer
denies that anything can be subject and object at once, and
so rules out the possibility of immediate self-consciousness,
Yet, on the other hand, he makes all our psychical states, as
well as our physical states, manifestations of the absolute, that
is, of the mysterious power back of all phenomena ; he defines
consciousness as the aggregate of these psychical states, the
aggregate of thoughts and feelings present to an individual at
any time; and he maintains that there is in us not merely a
negative but a positive, though indefinite, consciousness of the
absolute. Now as being manifested in every psychical state
the absolute is the subject of all consciousness ; consequently,
it is the subject of the particular consciousness of which it is
the object, that is, subject and object at once. The conscious-
ness in question may be indefinite, but it is enough that it is
a consciousness at all. The representation logically concedes
the possibility of an immediate self-consciousness. Spencer,
therefore, if a glance be taken through his system, is seen to
offer a very fair equivalent for Mill’s notable confession. In
proportion as the great ingenuity and industry expended by
him have failed to sustain the sensational theory, he has the
more fully illustrated its intrinsic faultiness.
Sensationalism, whether formally materialistic or not, in-
volves necessitarianism. Self-determination is ruled out by
the very definition of the ego which makes it only a series of
feelings or sum of psychical states, unless, perchance, feelings
and states can be thought of as producing or transforming them-
selves. Now the doctrine of necessity, to say nothing about
its moral bearings, assails the trustworthiness of knowledge.
Spencer, to be sure, is of the contrary mind. He says: “ Psy-
chical changes either conform to law or they do not. If they
do not conform to law, this work, in common with all works on
the subject, is sheer nonsense : no science of psychology is pos-
1 Bowne, Metaphysics, first edition, pp. 386, 387; revised edition, pp. 319, 320.
8 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
sible. If they do conform to law, there cannot be any such
thing as free will.’! The philosopher at this point might
have reminded himself that there is in fact a vast deal of non-
sense in the world, — for example, the very general conviction
respecting the reality of free will ; that all this, on his premises,
is necessitated by law ; and that, accordingly, the predication of
law is no security against the presence of a great amount of
nonsense, whether inside or outside of the work entitled “ Prin-
ciples of Psychology.” A better insight would have revealed
to him, that, where all is necessitated, one event is just as con-
formable to the nature of thimgs as another, and that, accord-
ingly, only in a system which includes freedom is there any
tenable ground of distinction between truth and error. Mill,
after a fashion, confessed that there is no intrinsic distinction
between them by suggesting that, possibly, in some other
world, two and two may make five.
III. — Tuer CATEGORIES, OR THE PRIMARY FoRMS OF INTU-
ITION AND OF THOUGHT, AS CONDITIONS OF COGNITION.
The affirmation that knowledge presupposes a unitary psy-
chical agent is one way of saying that the possibility of knowl-
edge is dependent upon the existence of a mind dowered from
the start with a distinct constitution, a constitution inclusive of
powers of acting as well as of capacities for being acted upon.
Whatever may be afforded from without, cognition takes place
only as the mind reacts upon this material, in harmony with its
constitutional outfit.
It is the honor of Kant that he duly emphasized the scope
and office of this subjective factor in cognition. Perceiving
that sensations, save as they meet an organizing and inter-
‘preting faculty, could afford only a confused manifold, and
1 Principles of Psychology, I, 503.
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 9
that experience, as being always of the individual, could never
contribute the element of necessity and universality which ap-
pears in many of our judgments, he concluded that rational ex-
perience is dependent upon certain a priori forms of intuition
and of thought, such as space, time, cause, substance, unity,
plurality, likeness and unlikeness, These are not indeed, as he
acknowledged, antecedent to such experience in point of time ;
but logically they are its condition. Unless already at hand,
implicitly contained in the mental constitution, rational experi-
ence could not begin. Cognition accordingly is a work of
construction. Though the materials may be furnished from
without, the aspect which they take on in the view of the
knowing subject is due not merely to what they are in them-
selves, but also to the mental forms by means of which they
are apprehended or so related as to give rise to knowledge.
In other words, the mind knows things as they appear to it,
and the appearance is the resultant of two factors: (1) the
nature of the things; (2) the mental forms by means of which
things become matter of cognition.
Whether the list of a priort forms, as given by Kant,
is fully correct or not, we are not called upon to determine.
The point to be emphasized is that there are such forms, a
positive constitution of mind conditioning cognition, operat-
ing as a constant factor in determining the appearance of
objective reality.
IV.— QUESTION WHETHER THE DEPENDENCE OF KNOWL-
EDGE UPON SUBJECTIVE FACTORS IS PREJUDICIAL TO
Irs CERTAINTY.
Thus far the theory of Kant in no wise assails the trust-
worthiness of knowledge. The affirmation that the mind is an
active instrument in cognition, and that its forms help to de-
termine the appearance of objective reality, amounts simply to
IO LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
the statement that the mind cannot abandon itself or alienate
itself from its own standpoint. Nothing is disturbed thereby.
Community of knowledge is provided for in the common
mental constitution of men, which under the like conditions
provides for like cognitions of objective reality. This reality
is not made the less real or fixed because men are compelled
to know it after the manner of men, or as beings endowed
with a specific constitution. Neither can its significance
be regarded as in any wise disparaged by the same fact.
If things were made for minds, then what they appear to be,
that is, what they are in conjunction with minds, is of vastly
more consequence than what they are in themselves, or apart
from that conjunction. The supposition that to an order of
beings possessing a different constitution the universe would
appear different does not open the door to any appalling scep-
ticism. Very likely it would appear different in some respects
to a different cognitive agent. But then, it is to be noticed
that it remains in question how far a representative of an un-
known order of beings might differ from us in intellectual
constitution and yet be truly cognitive. This much is certain :
inasmuch as reason cannot be asked to commit suicide, it
would be gratuitous folly to admit that any fixed datum of our
rational nature can be contradicted by the experience of any
finite intelligence whatever. To that extent our confidence in
our capacity for knowledge ought to stand firm against all
hypothetical ghosts.
V.— QUESTION AS TO THE OBJECTIVE VALIDITY OF THE
CATEGORIES.
The fact that such categories as cause, substance, number,
and quantity are subjective, or inherent in the constitution of
mind, involves by itself no denial of their objective validity.
It was at this point that Kant stumbled. He did not, it is
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. II
true, hold with steady consistency to his conclusion that the
categories are only regulative of mental operations, and cannot
be predicated of external reality. In various connections
one or another category is really assigned an objective
validity. Still, his general teaching implies that the forms of
thought cannot be applied to the outer world. But why may
not this be done? Take for example the category of causality
— what stands in the way of assuming its objective validity?
In fact, this must be assumed if any consistent ground is to
be left for affirming the existence of an external world; for
only that which does something, or is a cause, has any con-
ceivable means of advertising its existence; and only that
which acts in like manner under like conditions, or according
to a regular scheme of causation, has any conceivable means
of making known (to the outside observer) its identity.
Abridge to a purely subjective range the category of causation,
and the individual man is left alone, bereft not only of his
theoretical warrant for assuming an external world, but also
of that for inferring the existence of any fellow-man. Others
of the categories — that of number for example — enforce
themselves as equal necessities of thought in relation to the
objective sphere, and no pretext for questioning their validity
can be discovered. !
Since the categories belong to the primal data of mind, and
reason cannot invite to the choice of a position which involves
1 “The fact that a category lives subjectively in the act of the knowing mind
is no proof that the category does not at the same time truly express the nature of
the reality known. It would be so only if we suppose the knowing subject to
stand outside of the real universe altogether, and to come to inspect it from afar
with mental spectacles of a foreign make. In that case, no doubt, the forms of
his thought might be a distorting medium. But the case only requires to be
stated plainly for its inherent absurdity to be seen. The knower is in the world
which he comes to know, and the forms of his thought, so far from being an
alien growth or an imported product, are themselves a function of the whole. ...
Unless we consider existence a bad joke, we have no option save tacitly to pre-
suppose the harmony of the subjective function with the nature of the universe
from which it springs.” (Andrew Seth, Two Lectures on Theism, pp. 18, 19.)
I2 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
overwhelming embarrassment to our rational and ethical life,
it is reasonable to regard any one of these mental forms as
objectively valid until convincing proof of the contrary is fur-
nished. In the view of some thinkers the possibility of such
proof being developed is not to be conceded, as opening too
wide a door to scepticism. But, certainly, it is conceivable
that the categories (the so-called forms of “intuition” as well
as those of “thought” being included under this term) do
not all stand on a precise parity as regards objective validity,
though all are equally original as mental forms. Consequently,
while it would make a fatal embarrassment to reason to sur-
render them in a body as respects their objective application,
it might not be a necessity of mental integrity and consis-
tency to assert that application for every one of them, that is,
in the sense of making all of them, without exception, to hold
good for the realm of things, over and above the réle which
they fulfill in finite minds generally as constant forms for the
representation of things. Now the history of speculation
shows that the concept of space is one that is well adapted to
provoke philosophical questioning. As a mental form it is
not on a precise parity with some others, since it has obvious
application only to a part of reality, namely the sensible; and
in its peculiar character it affords a good field for a duel be-
tween common-sense and metaphysics. On the one hand is
the well-nigh invincible force of spontaneous conviction re-
specting the objective reality of space. On the other hand
is the difficulty of defining space as real and giving it a con-
sistent relation to the First Cause. If the terms of being are
employed in the definition, something else than space is
described ; and, of course, the terms of not-being, or of purely
ideal or intellectual being, cannot be used to set forth that
which by hypothesis is objectively real. If space is made in-
dependent of the First Cause, a species of dualism is affirmed,
limitation is put upon God and He is no longer represented
as the fountain of all reality. If, on the other hand, space is
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 13
segarded as originated and dependent, as being at once the
product of energy and objectively real, it ought to express
some kind of energy; and yet who makes any kind of energy
a part of the concept of space? The difficulty of the subject
from this point of view is well illustrated by the remarks of
Samuel Harris. He pronounces very emphatically for the
conclusion that it will not do to deny the objective reality of
space. Nevertheless, when he considers the subject in its
divine relation, he says: “Space and time have no reality ex-
cept as forms or constituent elements, eternal and archetypal
in the absolute reason.” ! Now we surmise that this state-
ment will be found as crucifying to common-sense, or sponta-
neous. conviction, as the general doctrine of the ideality of
space which the learned theologian has so resolutely rejected.
The statement appears certainly to make space, in its intrin-
sic relation to the dvine mind, simply ideal or subjective.
But if space can logically be regarded as simply ideal for the
divine mind, then the necessary verdict would seem to be that
it takes rank with mental forms, and subsists only as a sub-
jective reality ; at any rate, if it is to have other reality than
this, it must be by creation — by projection from the ideal into
the actual —and the supposition of a real objective space
which is the product of creative efficiency is attended, as was
noticed, with very appreciable difficulties. Speculative per-
plexities of this sort have led some thinkers to conclude that
while space is the mental form for cognizing things, it is not
a form or condition of things themselves. As the cause of
our perception of sound or color is quite unlike the effect, so
is it, they claim, in case of the perception of space. The ob-
jective reality is a complex system of dynamics. To the im-
pact of this upon the sensorium, the mind responds with its
amazing faculty of interpretation, and gives, in place of the
unpicturable relations of forces or energies, the variegated
i te il Nt te et et Ne Ut lA LE AO EL ALARA AL ALAA RL AA ALS
1 Philosophical Basis of Theism, p. 203.
14 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
scene of the external world. This doctrine, it will be observed,
does not make our spatial representations of objects arbitrary.
The representations in all their details are determined by the
qualities of the objects; only the outward cause, as in the
perception of color or sound, is unlike the exhibition of it
which takes place in the mind. In short, the doctrine of the
ideality of space is no less compatible with the supposition of a
real, orderly, and marvellously diversified external world than is
the most realistic doctrine that can be framed on this subject.
The attempt to construe the concept of time involves simi-
lar difficulties. The stickler for the objective reality of time
may be confronted with such puzzling questions as the follow-
ing: How many years old was God before the creation of
the world? If it be said that He was an infinite number of
years old, how is the congruity between the terms “infinite”
and “number” to be conceived? What was God doing in the
time preceding creation, say for such a period of years as may
be expressed by a line of figures reaching to the fixed star
Sirius and back again? Did God find time already at hand, or
did He create it? Ifthe former alternative be taken, how does
it comport with His absolute supremacy, or with the notion
of a unitary ground of the universe, that He should have this
rival to His being? If the other alternative be chosen, how
are we to conceive of the energy which, it would seem, must be-
long to time as an objective, created entity? Furthermore, the
question insinuates itself, How are we to construe real time
in relation to the notions of past, present and future? To con-
fine time to the present seems pretty much to annihilate it,
since the present is but a line without any measurable breadth.
On the other hand, the past can hardly be regarded as really
subsistent, and the future is not yet. Thus our real time
seems to fall into two halves neither of which is real. These
are difficulties which no ordinary wit can surmount, and they
do not exhaust the list which confronts the realistic thesis on
the nature of time.
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 15
Whether the better alternative is to pronounce against the
objective reality of either space or time need not be deter-
mined here. The pertinent consideration is, that there is a
general presupposition in favor of the conclusion that the men-
tal forms which condition our cognition of external reality
have objective validity ; and that consequently no one of them
ought to be denied such validity unless the denial is required
for the satisfaction of reason. A rule of this kind provides
for the due security of intellectual confidence. Spontaneous
impressions, the ready verdicts of common sense, have to be
rectified on some points by the critical exercise of reason.
This is a fact which is known to everyone who passes in any
degree below the surface of things. The only proper demand
is that the rectification should not be hastily precipitated, and
that adequate proof should be given that it is truly required
for the satisfaction of reason.
It may be worth while to add that by reason we mean man’s
rational faculty, or power of judgment, viewed as dealing with
all available data. Taken in this sense it is a valid criterion.
What satisfies the total requirement of our rational life meets
the highest demand that we can make. If one is disposed to
suggest that perhaps our intellectual satisfaction is intrinsically
of no consequence, and so may not be in the line of truth, we
reply that if we are to begin by discrediting our faculties, or
passing a sentence of virtual self-annihilation, it is foolish to
reason either about the conditions of knowledge or any other
subject. Speech on that basis would have no sane office.
As regards the claims of the “speculative reason” and the
“practical reason,” respectively, there seems to be no good
warrant for pushing either aside in favor of the other. While
it is true that no weaving together of speculative or ideal ele-
ments can give substantial proof of the actual, it is also true
that a thought-ideal, which is not seen to be incongruous with
the actual, may give to the mind a rest and satisfaction that it
cannot secure in limiting itself to matters of observation or
16 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
experience proper. The satisfaction in question, in order to
make much of a basis of rational certainty, needs, of course,
not to be evanescent or merely personal. It must survive in
the face of all opposing forces, and serve as a perpetual spring
in the inner life of men. The thought-ideal which does not
show itself, after fair opportunity, fitted to establish itself as
an element in the life of the race, or at least in the better con-
ditioned portion of the same, has little worth for knowledge.
VI.—A WARRANT FOR BELIEVING THAT THE WORLD IS
A SUBJECT FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF REASON.
The necessary forms of thought serve as a constitutional
bond between the knowing subject and objective reality. The
presupposition that they have objective validity is a presuppo-
sition that the outer world is adjusted to reason and open to
its interpretation. The full justification of this presupposition
can be seen only in a comprehensive view of man’s relations.
It is proper, however, to notice here a subjective ground for
the reality of the adjustment in question. In whatever way
it may arise, there can be no doubt as to the felt obligation
within us to order our lives according to reason. Now the
natural inference is that the universe in which the rational life
is to be lived is codrdinated with reason. To suppose that
the world is a vast frivolity, caprice, or illusion, while the
inhabitant must be rational, is to conjure up a gratuitous and
depressing enigma. In proportion, then, as needless self-
buffeting or self-contradiction is unadulterated foolishness,
place must be given to the presupposition that the world
is conformable to reason. This, of course, does not mean that
it is transparent to limited or undeveloped reason, but only
that intrinsically it is adjusted to reason, or is a subject for its
interpretation. The most important items in the interpreta-
tion of external nature will be touched upon subsequently.
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 17
VII.— GROUNDS FOR RATIONAL INFERENCE SUPPLIED BY
EXPERIENCE OF VOLITIONAL ENERGY AND OF VARIOUS
CLASSES OF FEELINGS.
While Kant was wrong in questioning the objective validity
of the categories, he was right in assuming their barrenness
apart from experience. As method cannot take the place of
subject-matter, but has its function only in dealing with a
given subject-matter, so the mental forms have significance
only in connection with experience, for the rational interpre-
tation of which they are the constitutional means. Knowledge
of reality requires experience of the real, interaction between
the cognitive faculty and some form of reality.
The reality which is presented to the cognitive faculty, or
the intellect, as it is otherwise called, may be subjective as
well as objective. If experience of external nature through
the medium of sense-perception is a ground for rational and
far-reaching inference, so also is the experience of volitional
activity and of various classes of feelings. Facts in the latter
range are as unmistakably facts as those in the former range,
and therefore as clearly invite to scientific investigation.
It would take us out of our proper course to notice at length
the inferences which may be drawn from the facts of the inner
experience ; but a few words may be said to illustrate their
important relation to mental certitude on questions of high
concern.
Take, in the first place, the experience of volitional energy.
We know ourselves as repeatedly putting forth acts of will.
We seem to ourselves to be free in these acts, that is, to have
a veritable power of choosing between alternatives. Practi-
cally nothing can beat out of our minds this conviction of
free-will. Theoretically, also, it is found to harmonize with or
to explain fundamental facts which otherwise are utterly
opaque. It makes errors and sins chargeable to the misdi-
rected faculties of individuals, whereas the opposing theory of
18 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
an all-embracing necessity, as leaving no room for misdirection
of any sort, cancels the proper notion of both error and sin,
and thus runs into stultification of the intellect and the moral
sense alike. In fine, the warrant for predicating free-will is
as clear as that for any truth which depends in the least degree
upon inference.
Now this freedom is a pregnant fact. Once admit it, and
man’s intrinsic relation to the supernatural is brought to view.
Can necessity produce freedom? Can the self-determining
spring from the purely automatic? Can the mechanism of
nature generate that which transcends all the principles and
laws of mechanism? If not, then man has a higher parentage
than nature; his freedom is a badge of kinship to a super-
natural power which has made him in its own likeness.
In a similar manner the experience of various kinds of
feelings or emotions affords to the intellect a significant out-
look. The testimony which they offer may need to be care-
fully scrutinized. The individual and the transient mingle
more or less with the sources of the feelings. They are
shaped by ignorance, misconception, imagination, and _per-
versity, as well as by better causes. Still they are facts, and
in spite of all inconstancy and contrariety furnish grounds for
rational inference. Suppose it to be ascertained that there
are certain feelings which expand and ennoble any life to
which they furnish the dominant incentive. Suppose, further,
that certain assumed truths and agencies are found to be
uniquely efficient to enthrone these feelings and to secure for
them a constant reign. Then manifestly, in proportion as the
ennobling of human personality is regarded as a true end,
credit must be given to the truths and agencies in question.
Now the former supposition requires no confirmation. It
does not need to be demonstrated that the feeling of personal
obligation proclaims for man a high calling, and that, in pro-
portion as this feeling becomes intense and constant it tends
to uplift the life from apathy and weakness into a healthful
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 19
earnestness and efficiency. It does not need to be proved that
a love such as Paul celebrates in the thirteenth chapter of First
Corinthians is intrinsically excellent. No more is it necessary
to justify reverence for holiness, dread of moral contamination,
the humility which readily accepts known dependence, and
aspiration after ideal goodness. Feelings of this order need
only to be apprehended in their true character to be approved.
They are known, if recognized at all, to belong to the very
crown of inward nobility. It is seen that to make them habit-
ual would be the glorification of the human spirit.
The second supposition may not be able to claim so unani-
mous a witness, since it rests upon historical as well as other
data. Still, it is not arbitrary to conclude that what is best
and holiest in feeling has in the gospel revelation — in the
person, work, and truth of Jesus Christan incomparable
spring. A sober induction leaves no escape from this conclu-
sion. Grant that so-called Christian history has been stained
by many enormities, — they are so plainly in contradiction to
the spirit and precept of the gospel, that they but make a dark
background for the brighter exhibition of the person and truth
of Christ. Facts of this order reveal what the gospel has to
contend against, while those of a contrary order show that
it has efficacy to contend successfully. Facts of the latter
kind are not scanty. He who will gather them up and reflect
upon them need not. lack for a fair equivalent of the Revela-
tor’s sight of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven.
To an innumerable multitude it has been made entirely credi-
ble that the voice of Christ stilled the waves of the sea, for
the tumult of passion and sin within them has been stilled as
they have come to Him in faith and self-surrender. In spirit-
ual fellowship with Him they have obtained inward harmony,
hope for moral conflict, love and humility for self-denying
service. From the days of the apostles and apologists this
story of Christian experience has been repeated, and thou-
sands of new voices and changed lives add every year their
20 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
confirmatory witness. Now the force of such evidence cannot
easily be evaded. There is at least a presumption in favor of
the essential truth, sanctity, and rightful supremacy of that
which has this unique power to awaken in the human spirit
the deepest and most efficacious emotions.
In a well-guarded view of the importance of the feelings
it will not be overlooked that they fulfill their normal func-
tion only in close conjunction with the intellect. In relation
to cognition, they supply grounds which need to be supple-
mented by rational inference. In order to issue into knowl-
edge proper they must be viewed in their relations, and this
involves a distinctively intellectual activity. Doubtless as the
mind responds to sense-impressions with so swift a reference
to the external cause that sensation and perception seem to be
merged in one, so feelings that have a moral or religious value
may be so readily and spontaneously construed that the act of
interpretation shall not be distinctly noted in consciousness.
But the celerity of an intellectual function is no disproof of its
importance. Feelings make their full contribution to man’s
rational life only through interpretation. Moreover, there is
often much need for a painstaking interpretation, so as not
rashly to transfer to an objective range that which has only a
personal or subjective source. To ignore this requirement is
to open the door to the flights of an unhealthy mysticism.
Such flights may promise great enlightenment, but they afford
rather symbols for the imagination than the secure treasure of
knowledge. Ife who goes out of himself in an ecstasy may
possibly bring back from his experience in the time of self-
abdication a new sense of mystery; but he will not return with
any new means of explaining mysteries to others or even to
himself. If anyone wishes proof of this let him take a com-
parative view of all trance-like experiences and theosophic
flights of which record has been left, and attempt to deduce
from them any congruous or intelligible system. The ample
testimony of history supports the conclusion that the consti-
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 21
tuted order of the universe has not placed any premium upon
intellectual indolence. An exclusive intellectualism may doubt-
less issue in ethical and religious barrenness; but a one-sided
emotionalism is quite as likely to run into a forfeiture of high
interests. ‘A religion divorced from earnest and lofty thought
has always, down the whole history of the Church, tended to
become weak, jejune, and unwholesome ; while the intellect,
deprived of its rights within religion, has sought its satisfac-
tion without, and developed into godless rationalism.” !
If it is a gross error to make feelings a substitute for the
intellectual process, it savors at least of exaggeration to
suppose that they can afford, even under the closest inspec-
tion, decisive evidence for the details of doctrine. As was
asserted above, the evidence which comes from this source is
indeed important. It relates, however, only to the more
prominent and practical items of the theistic and Christian
systems. An analysis of the feelings of dependence and obli-
gation doubtless affords a warrant for the idea of God; but it
does not supply distinct data for settling the manifold specula-
tive questions which may be raised respecting the divine nature.
So also a true inspection of the new consciousness which
springs up in connection with an inner appropriation of the
gospel points to the reality of a gracious deliverance through
Jesus Christ; but it cannot determine the details of the
redemptive economy. The grounds of judgment here, it is
true, are largely subjective. There is a chance to assail the
1 James Orr, The Christian View of God and the World, pp. 23, 24. The
following may fitly be subjoined: “ Feeling viewed as the foundation of thought is
great.... But feeling used as a substitute for reason is one of the least worthy of
things.” (Gordon, The Christ of To-Day, p. 60.) “Unless you lift it up into the
light of thought and examine it often, how do you know into what your cherishes
religious ideal may not have rotted in the darkness of your emotions?” (Royce
The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, p. 13.) ‘To say that Christianity is a life
therefore it is not a doctrine, is to reason very badly. We should rather say,
Christianity is a life, and therefore it engenders doctrine; for man cannot live his
life without thinking it. The two things are not hostile; they go together.”
(Sabatier, Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion, p. 24.)
3
22 _ LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
critic, who limits the scope of the evidence, with the sugges-
tion that he has not been blessed with an adequate experience.
He is not, however, entirely defenseless. He can appeal to
the judgment of thoughtful minds to confirm the verdict that
the feelings are not so sharply diagrammed in consciousness
that they can reflect the distinctions of a detailed theological
system. He can also cite the fact, that men who seem to be
imbued equally with an evangelical temper and equally desirous
to know the whole truth can differ very widely in doctrinal
conceptions. He will thus have sufficient ground to stand
upon while he is waiting for some one to prove him in the
wrong by actually developing from a simple analysis of
emotional experience a doctrinal system which shall not appear
arbitrary and far-fetched.
The connection calls only for a consideration of feelings as
related to knowledge ; but it will be a pardonable digression
to notice briefly the relation of feelings to personal religion
or piety. It is well known that Schleiermacher located the
essence of personal religion in feeling, and especially empha-
sized the feeling of dependence. Religious feeling, he claimed,
is a self-consciousness which is at the same time a conscious-
ness of a dependent relation to God. In its specifically Chris-
tian sense it is a consciousness of relation to Jesus of Nazareth
as the Redeemer of men. Schleiermacher argued that religion
cannot consist in knowledge, since, in that event, the amount
of knowledge respecting ethical and dogmatic truths would
be the measure of religion—a plainly inadmissible hypoth-
esis. No more can it consist in action, since the moral worth
of action depends on the impelling motive ; and besides, there
are internal states which must be pronounced pious apart from
all consideration of outward manifestation. This reasoning,
as Schleiermacher took pains to state, does not imply that
knowledge and action are of no consequence in relation to
religion. As accessories, as means of nurture and manifesta-
tion, they are of very high importance.
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 23
It may reasonably be conceded to Schleiermacher tnat a
purely intellectual act, as such, cannot be credited with moral
worth, or be counted intrinsically religious. A speculative
thought about God, taken simply in that character, has no
moral worth, whether it be in the mind of saint, angel, or
devil. Doubtless to pursue knowledge for a good end, to
think for a godly purpose, is morally worthy and in that
sense religious. But then, the religion lies rather in the self-
determination to the intellectual activity in view of a godly
purpose, than in the intellectual activity itself. The former
is immediately religious ; the latter is so only instrumentally,
or by virtue of its subordination to the former. It may like-
wise be conceded to Schleiermacher that feelings of a certain
order are intrinsically of religious value. Pure benevolence,
unselfish love, penitence for sin, and awe for moral order are
subject to no discount. They must be immediately approved
as part and parcel of true piety.
The representation of Schleiermacher needs, however, to be
qualified in a twofold respect. His emphasis upon the feel-
ing of dependence was somewhat too exclusive, and he failed
properly to distinguish and exalt the self-determining faculty,
the holy will which is central to the morally worthy, at the
heart of the truly religious.
Having made one digression in the interest of a definition
of personal religion, we may as well make a second by further
defining religion on the side of its relation to morality. If we
take the latter in its broad sense we find the two to be dis-
tinguished mainly in respect of relative stress and order of
thought. The primary point of view in morality is the moral
constitution and what it demands in relation to one’s self and
to one’s fellows. But morality cannot stop here. In so far as
the moral constitution and experience point to the existence of
a supernatural or divine person, morality calls for a suitable
bearing toward that person, for an essentially religious relation,
and out of this relation come added light and incentive for
24 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
the whole sphere of duty. Religion recognizes at the very
start man’s relations to a supernatural power or to a divine
person. That is its fundamental and controlling point of
view. But it cannot stop here. The relation to the divine
person cannot be taken in an isolated fashion. Right relation
to God is incompatible with an immoral relation of any sort,
whether with one’s self or with one’s fellows. If religion
does not begin with a well-rounded code of morality it cannot
end without one. Thus the order is not the same and the
stress may not be just the same in both cases, but no impor-
tant element in the one can be ignored in the other. Both
accentuate obligation, but neither stops with the bare idea of
obligation as opposed to the notion of a good. Morality finds
a legitimate incentive to duty in the notion of a supreme good
for one’s self and one’s fellows, and religion ever looks to a
divine person as at once a standard of holiness and a fountain
of blessedness.
VIII.—Grounpbs oF RATIONAL INFERENCE FURNISHED BY
H{isroricAL ConTINUITY OF IDEAS OR BELIEFS.
Individual experience finds a vast supplement in race experi-
ence. Whatever has been continually repeated in thought,
feeling, or action affords a ground for inference. In this con-
nection, however, we notice only the first of these factors.
The point of inquiry is the extent to which ideas or beliefs
which have been handed down more or less as a race contri-
bution can fix the content of knowledge for the individual or
bind his reason.
The actual force of historical connections is undoubtedly
enormous. Each generation is a schoolmaster to the suc-
ceeding, during the term of its minority. Beliefs, like house-
hold goods, are passed along from parents to children. The
type in one family is influenced by that of neighboring fam-
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 25
ilies. The type of the neighborhood is influenced by that of
the tribe or nation. Where national bounds are clearly
marked and of long standing, the national type is likely to be
firmly compacted, and thus to serve as a strong barrier against
innovations.
That the arrangement operates beneficially in important
respects is quite evident. By community of thought bonds of
union are established ; and the lives of men, instead of remain-
ing barren in isolation or clashing in wasteful confusion, are
woven into great social fabrics. Along with social benefits
there are also distinct intellectual advantages. The oppor-
tunities of orderly society are themselves favorable to mental
acquisition. Moreover, the continuity which is established
secures to each new generation the advantage of inheriting a
definite mental capital. The inheritance may be defective in
one point or another ; but that fact does not disprove its util-
ity as a whole. It is an uncritical imagination which leads
anyone to suppose that if children could keep clear of the
tuition of their elders until, by virtue of their intellectual
maturity, they can think for themselves, they would thereby
escape the warping of prejudice, and so come to sound beliefs.
The difficulty is that an empty mind can make little or no
progress toward maturity. The mind grows by exercising
itself with ideas, and defective as the inherited stock may be
for any generation, it is likely to be better than its childish
capacity could fashion for itself.
Persistence of an idea through successive ages establishes
a certain presumption in its favor. It is to be noticed, how-
ever, that the strength of the presumption is not necessarily
in proportion to the antiquity of the idea or the extent of its
constituency. The amount of real mental scrutiny and test-
ing to which a notion has been subjected is rather the true
measure of the presumption. Now that amount is far from
being determined merely by length of time or breadth of geo-
graphical area. By accident, by error, or by fraud, an idea
26 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
may receive an accredited place in a system, and then be upheld
and propagated by the prestige which belongs to the system.
A powerful ecclesiasticism may so innoculate its subjects with
the conviction that the creed is holy in every part, and cannot
be denied in a single article without peril of damnation, that
critical inquiry shall for the most part be paralyzed. In fact,
there have been so much indolence and passivity in the face of
loud-speaking authority, and the race has been so largely
befooled, that something might be said in behalf of the pre-
sumption that on all disputed points the truth lies rather with
the few than with the many.. The better statement, however,
comes from putting together the considerations just noted,
and may be framed in terms like these: Long-continued
and wide prevalence of an idea or belief creates a presump-
tion in its favor, provided it seems to have stood by the
free judgment of men, and not to have been sustained by
extraneous means.
From this standpoint it may be said that substantial uni-
versality of an idea or belief, its appearance and persistence
within the compass of varied and contrasted systems, fur-
nishes a strong presumption that it has at least a substratum
of truth. To lightly pass over its claims would savor of cap-
tiousness. But, on the other hand, even historical universal-
ity cannot forestall the critical exercise of reason. Repetition
of a thought makes something less than a necessity of think-
ing. The mind affirms the latter not on the ground that a
thing has been reckoned true so many times in the past, but
in virtue of the insight that it must always be reckoned true
where rational procedure is duly observed. Anything which
is not included in this insight, though it may make a good
provisional ground to rest upon, falls theoretically under
liability of more or less revision.
The attitude which is actually taken toward the historical
deposit is apt to be affected in no small degree by a moral ele-
ment. If, on the one hand, excessive vanity and repugnance
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 27
to restraint may prompt to a reckless disparagement of the
wisdom and authority of the past, on the other hand, love of
ease, intolerance of opposition, and thirst for supremacy, may
prompt to an arbitrary closure against critical investigation
through appeals to alleged sanctities of antiquity. The erratic
flights of an intemperate liberalism may be matched by the
caprice of an indolent and self-confident orthodoxy ; a Vatican
council may vie with the extravagance of a Jacobin club. It
requires, indeed, a high measure of unselfish devotion to the
truth to keep to the right point between the two extremes.
The task is the more difficult because its fulfillment involves
progressive readjustment of one’s position. A degree of defer-
ence to given antecedents which is appropriate to one stage of
mental development might indicate, if continued beyond that
stage, an unseemly apathy or servility of spirit. Now, to
know when and how much to change one’s attitude, so as to
keep equally clear of intellectual idolatry and intellectual arro-
gance, implies a perspicuity of vision which certainly cannot
exist apart from perfect sincerity, and which even that can
‘guarantee but partially.
IX.— THE FUNCTION OF REASON IN RELATION TO REVE-
LATION AND THE POSSIBLE SERVICE OF THE LATTER
TO THE FORMER.
In the foregoing discussion, ideas and beliefs have been
viewed simply as products of the ordinary operation of human
faculties. The supposition that the historical evolution has
included a process of divine revelation will of course involve
special considerations.
It would anticipate the theme of a later chapter to discuss
here the fact of revelation, or to look closely into its nature
and conditions, but a glance may properly be taken at the
general idea of revelation as related to the exercise of reason.
28 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
If revelation be taken not simply as a fact but also as a
unit, then obviously the mind that accepts the fact of the
revelation must subscribe equally to all its contents. To
challenge or to qualify the authority of any part would at
once involve a denial that the revelation can be taken
strictly as a unit.
But what is valid ground for taking an alleged revelation
strictly as a unit? Certainly there can be no @ priori deter-
mination of a point like this. It may, perhaps, be said that
the supposition of anything less than complete infallibility in
every part would open the door to questioning and incerti-
tude, and so would be inconvenient. But it is not to be taken
for granted that convenience is a test of reality. It has no
proper claim to that office, unless an extravagant breadth is
given to the term, and it is made to cover an unequivocal and
universal demand of rational life. No religion will concede to
a rival that its oracles can be judged by the mere convenience
of those accepting them. Such a canon is worthless in deal-
ing with outside parties, and is essentially too arbitrary and
unsubstantial to control a fundamental conclusion. The provi-
dential order of the world points to the verdict that develop-
ment is a much higher end than convenience. Development
of the better type, however, comes from free contact with a
worthy content, such as is intrinsically fitted to be food for the
higher nature, rather than from the constraint of formal
authority. Quite too high a value is attached to convenience
when it forecloses investigation and is made the standard for
judging an extended array of facts. It is not and cannot be
certain beforehand that in a vast cycle of revelations, mediated
through human instrumentality under varying conditions, all
parts and items are upon a precise parity as respects elevation
above error. The general fact of a revelation, however well-
established it may be, does not determine what traces may
have been left upon it by the human mediums. _ So far as that
can be determined at all, it must be by an inductive process
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 29
which takes account of all pertinent facts, including the rela-
tion of agreement or discrepancy between the parts.
This line of representation would be a superfluity were it
not for an easy-going assumption which still has some cur-
rency. While it is commonly granted that the fact of a reve-
lation must be established upon grounds that are satisfactory
to reason, it is sometimes assumed that the revelation, if
accepted at all, must forthwith be taken as a unit, and its
whole content be placed beyond rational criticism. The as-
sumption is arbitrary, and collapses when the false standard
of convenience on which it depends is set aside. It is entirely
conceivable that some of the sacred writers may have been
more responsive to the divine message than others, and that
in no mind beside that of Jesus Christ was a perfect vehicle
provided for the revealing Spirit. It is not asserted here that
such was the fact, but only that there is no summary method
for establishing the opposite conclusion.
The acceptance, then, of a revelation, especially of one that
is comprehensive and manifold, cannot foreclose all judgment
upon its contents. The office of revelation is not to confound
and suppress reason, but rather to afford light and guidance.
To suppress reason would be to close the door against revela-
tion. A blank is no subject for a revelation. Only a rational
nature, living and active, is a fit subject; and such a nature
cannot apprehend what is contradictory to reason. To ask
reason to contradict itself is to demand mental disruption and
chaos,
The prerogative of reason to pursue the path of honest
inquiry in relation to the contents of revelation needs doubt-
less to be exercised with much discretion. For, what reason
really demands may be in various connections quite problem-
atical. It is an unfounded conceit which is indulged in when
the reason in man is taken as a fixed or full-grown entity,
always equal to itself. While all the elements of the faculty
were given in the original outfit of the mind, there may be
30 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
such an increase of approved data, and such an enlargement
of power to deal with complex data, as shall greatly extend
the field of rational insight. What seemed impossible at one
stage may, therefore, be approved at another. It is reasonable
that the reason should be moderate and modest in dealing with
an accepted revelation, or with oracles which, on the whole,
seem to have fulfilled the function of revelation. But certainly
it cannot be asked to hold both of two statements which,
though each taken alone is quite possible, are seen to be con-
tradictory to one another. No more can it be asked to assent
to any individual statement which is distinctly contrary to
rational insight. If aught in either line is found within the
compass of an accredited revelation it must be regarded as
the product of human fallibilty. To attempt to give it any
better character would be to dishonor the author of the rev-
elation for the sake of affirming the perfect agency of the
instruments.
The main points in the discussion may be included in this
summary: (1) There is no theoretic necessity for taking rev-
elation, or the whole body of oracles representative of a dis-
pensation, strictly as a unit. (2) Reason is allowed to inspect
the contents of an accredited revelation as well as to make a
preliminary judgment on the general fact of a revelation hav-
ing been given. (3) As reason, in this use of the term,
denotes a faculty which is under training, and may progress to
wider and deeper insight in relation to various problems, it
should observe the dictates of prudence and sobriety in judg-
ing the contents of an accredited revelation. (4) It is possi-
ble that what is merely improbable to reason at a certain stage
may be approved by revelation, but never can it come withip
the province of any authority to give credit to plain contra-
dictions or to enforce belief in that which is distinctly opposed
to rational intuition.
If anything needs to be added to these points, it is an
explicit emphasis upon the truth that revelation itself may be
PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 31
a very eminent factor in the improvement of the standpoint or
conditions of rational judgment. It was a cardinal error of
the old deistic speculation that it put an abstraction in the
place of man’s actual faculty, a fictitiously independent and
complete reason in place of a growing power of rational
insight. Once grant the fact of growth or development, and
immediately the notion of tuition, guidance, assistance, becomes
pertinent, — the notion that revelation may conduct to a wider
and more certain outlook than could be obtained apart from
its agency.
X.— RELATION OF THE IDEA OF GOD TO RATIONAL
CERTAINTY.
In enumerating the conditions of rational] certainty it is not
possible to ignore the goal and summit of all thinking, the
idea of God, It enforces entrance by its intrinsic relation to
the subject.
If the idea of God is not directly needed to guarantee the
trustworthiness of our faculties, it is indirectly required for
that end, as alone providing an intelligible and satisfactory
account of our faculties. Some sort of a background of the
univers> as known in experience must be postulated. To
postulate a background which darkens and dwarfs the deepest
facts of the intellectual and moral life, which logically con-
signs those facts to the mean category of illusions, is to assail
the very foundation of rational certainty. We are left to con-
fusion and despair in the face of so radical an incongruity.
In order not to eliminate our standing-ground we must
have a postulate which does not turn our mental and moral
life into insoluble enigmas ; and that postulate —as we shall
attempt to show presently— is alone the existence of a
personal God.
It may be true that we assume the trustworthiness of our
32 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
faculties in deducing the idea of God. But it is no less true
that the harmony of the idea with the intellectual and moral
demands of our being rightly seconds and confirms our primi-
tive confidence in our faculties. _To pursue this line of thought
makes no vicious circle in reasoning. We have here simply
an illustration of the fact that in a consistent system the
members are mutually supporting.
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE. PERSON. 33
CHAPTER II.
THE EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON.
I. — PROPRIETY OF INTRODUCING THE TOPIC OF THE
DIVINE EXISTENCE AT THIS POINT.
THE more complete view of the divine nature is properly
postponed till the scope and authority of revelation have been
duly considered. But as we cannot be well-prepared for the
thought of a revelation without some conception of a revealer,
or possible source of specific disclosures, it is appropriate to
justify at this point the general notion of a Divine Person.
Proof of the existence of such a person is of course in one
sense proof of the fact of a revelation, since He can be known
to exist only by being manifested or revealed. Manifestation,
however, may be of different orders and degrees. On the one
hand, the facts of common observation and experience may be
the means of manifestation. On the other hand, the world
with its standing arrangements may serve as the theatre, and
the means of manifestation be a special series of events, a
history peculiarly shaped and directed. Now it is evidently
the normal method to begin with the order of facts which by
hypothesis is common rather than exceptional, and then take
the warrant which it affords for the existence of a personal
God as a starting-point in weighing the claims of the special
revelation. The contents of the assumed revelation may,
doubtless, themselves attest more or less clearly the existence
of a supreme intelligence and will, since they may convey an
impression of superhuman wisdom and virtue. Still, it is an
34 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
advantage in defending the claims of a specific revelation,
or revealed system, to be able to come to the argument on a
well-established theistic basis.
II.— DEFINITION OF THE TERMS “PERSON”’ AND “INFINITE,”
AND PROOF OF THE COMPATIBILITY OF PERSONALITY
WITH INFINITUDE.
The word ‘‘person”’ denotes a being characterized by self-
knowledge and by self-determination or will. In the nor-
mal personality feeling is also doubtless fundamental. By
the term “infinite” is indicated the fact that the person here
contemplated has no limits which are not either self-imposed or
demanded by His perfection.
This definition of the infinite, it is believed, will make no
trouble for real thinking. So long as we keep out of the
region of abstraction and direct our attention to actual being,
we can frame no other consistent notion of the infinite. A pro-
found reverence for etymology, it is true, may insist that the
infinite is that which rejects all limits whatsoever. But must
the infinite be unbounded in such sense that it shall submit
to no barriers against self-contradiction? Is not infinitude a
bar against finitude? Is not unmeasured power a bar against
impotence ? Can supreme wisdom co-exist with blank ignor-
ance? To ask such questions is to answer them. Nothing
can be plainer than that the positing of a perfection is equiva-
lent to the exclusion of an imperfection. Whatever has the
perfection is shut out from the imperfection. As regards
the item of self-limitation, that implies only that the infinite,
forming plans in unblemished wisdom and entering upon their
execution, may be bound by self-consistency to shape action
in conformity with the plans.
From this standpoint we may estimate the sagacity of those
who deny the personality of God in the interest of His infini-
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 35
tude. For the sake of affirming an abstract greatness, or one
which has no definable content, they exclude such fundamental
factors of real greatness as self-knowledge and self-determina-
tion. They shut up God in eternal darkness, and place Him
under the limitations of invincible ignorance, in order that they
may set Him above all limitations.
In this procedure, there seems to be an implicit assumption
that only the indefinite is great ; that accordingly the infinitely
great is only one step from the infinite void, if not identical with
the same. A noted saying of Spinoza gives a formula for this
assumption. It runs thus: “Omnis determinatio est negatio.”’
The maxim, it may be allowed, has an application. In logical
classification we proceed from the larger to the smaller group
by adding some new characteristic. Each addition narrows
the circle of the objects comprehended. The determination
is in this sense a negation. But a convenient method of regard-
ing objects in their class relations is one thing; a standard of
intrinsic greatness is another thing. The mere pushing out of
a line to a wide circuit gives no true image of greatness, apart
from a consideration of what falls within the line. Any amount
of nothingness amounts simply to nothing. Any amount of
inferior being amounts to less than a supremely exalted per-
sonality, who, as possessed of a free creative will, is competent
to produce any amount of inferior being. Deny such a will
to the Divine Being and you make what actually exists the
measure of His ability to produce. As being under absolute
necessity, He cannot produce either more or less than He does.
The impersonal God has no power to add a single star to the
_ number which at any time brightens the sky. The personal
God, on the other hand, may be conceived as able, by virtue
of a free creative will, to transcend the existing order and to
bring in any number of new worlds or world-systems. Plainly
we are off the track of rational procedure when we attempt to
construe greatness in a vague extensive sense. Mere bulk is
a lower category than amount of actual and possible agency.
36 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
Being is great by quality, infinitely great as being above all
qualitative improvement. To honor, then, to the utmost the
thought of God, we must predicate of Him the loftiest and
most glorious attributes. To leave out intelligence and will
makes a fatal deficit. As well blot out sun, moon, and stars,
in order to enlarge one’s notion of the encompassing heaven,
as to deny to God, in the name of His infinitude, the lofty
predicates of personality.
An objection against the personality of the infinite has been
found in the supposed requirements of self-consciousness. The
consciousness of self, it is claimed, springs out of the opposi-
tion of subject and object. Self is revealed only in reaction
against a not-self. Therefore, since the infinite has no rival
to its eternal being, no object set over against itself, it has
no means of self-consciousness, and so lacks the distinctive
feature of personality.
An assumption of the essential passivity of mind lurks in
this objection. It seems to be imagined that there can be no
positive mental states save as they are wrought by external
agency, no mental activities save in response to a stimulus
from without. For, if the states or activities be assumed,
there is evidently no lack of an object of cognition (or of a
positive subject-matter of consciousness). The only kind of
object which can ever be immediately present to a conscious-
ness like ours is already present. The states and activities
are material for self-knowledge. They are at once a ground
for the immediate feeling of self and for a reflective considera-
tion of self. What, then, it must be asked, is the warrant for
affirming the essential passivity of mind? No analysis of ex-
perience can discover that this is the character even of finite
mind. On the contrary, it is the consciousness of subjective
energy which is the principal means of interpreting to us
the notion of force generally. Doubtless the undeveloped or.
feebly developed mind is largely dominated by the impressions
which come from the physical environment. But an experi-
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 37
ence which is explained by special conditions does not declare
the essential nature of mind. If it be true that the infant is
born a slave of physical nature, it is also true that he may
advance toa relative lordship. Not a few hints are given us in
the human range that mind is intrinsically the power of initia-
tion, the original spring of energy. Accordingly it is no specu-
lative rashness to conceive that the infinite mind, notwithstand-
ing the absence of external stimulus, may be alive, energetic,
inclusive of all loftiest feelings and purposes, and thus have
abundant means of self-consciousness. Indeed, there is good
reason for concluding with Lotze that complete self-conscious-
ness, or personality in the highest sense, can be predicated of
the infinite alone. A being in order to give a full account
of itself should comprehend fully its laws and essential rela-
tions. But the finite spirit cannot do this. It is under laws
which are imposed from a higher source, and stands in relations
which are not of its own choosing. Being thus implicated with
that which is beyond itself, and which it did not originate, it
has no security of being able to explore its own nature and
significance to the utmost. The explanation of itself lies in
part beyond the sphere of experience, beyond the province
over which it has mastery. But the infinite having naught
back of itself, and being conditioned by nothing which is not
the product of its own volition or the implication of its own
perfection, has to wrest no secret from a foreign field in order
to reach self-understanding, and so may be completely lumin-
ous to itself.”
1 See Mikrokosmos, Buch ix, Kap. iv. The following from Bowne sets the
main truths respecting self-consciousness in a clear light. ‘ There are two factors
in human self-knowledge: (1) a direct feeling of self; and (2) a conception of
self or of the powers and properties of self. This conception of self is developed,
but the feeling of self is present from the beginning. The child has little or no
conception of itself, but it has the liveliest experience of itself. This experience
of self is quite independent of all antithesis of subject and object, and is underived.
But allowing all that can be claimed for the development of our self-consciousness,
it does not lie in the notion of self-consciousness that it must be developed. An
4
38 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
IJI.— CoMPARATIVE VIEW OF ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES.
We conclude then that we are not debarred from the theis-
tic argument by a speculative foreclosure, since personality is
not found contradictory of infinitude when the latter term
is understood in a legitimate sense. In taking up that argu-
. ment it will be best to scan in the first place the leading anti-
theistic theories, since an exposure of their shortcomings will
provide a suitable ground for estimating the positive supports
of theistic faith.
As deism accepts the existence of a personal God, and only
disputes or greatly limits His present agency in the world, it
need not be noticed in the present connection. A formal con-
sideration of agnosticism may also be waived. This will be
the more appropriate since the professed agnostic hardly ever
holds consistently to the neutral position on the question of
the divine existence, but almost invariably insinuates a materi-
alistic or pantheistic conception. His ostensible position will
be virtually passed upon by the positive theistic argument, as
will also the creed of formal atheism. The anti-theistic theo-
ries which call for our attention are accordingly materialism
and pantheism.
At the first look these two theories appear widely contrasted.
Materialism regards matter as filling out the whole category of
being, so that mind, if not a definite quantum of matter, is only
an effect or modification of matter. Pantheism, on the other
hand, makes both mind and matter manifestations of a unitary
being. Instead of regarding mind as secondary and resultant,
it may make it coordinate with matter as was done by Spinoza,
eternal self is metaphysically as possible as an eternal not-self. To say that
because our self-consciousness is developed all self-consciousness must be de-
veloped, is just as rational as to say that all being must have a beginning because
we have. It is to transfer to the independent all the limitations of the finite,
which is the very thing the pantheist claims to abhor.” (Studies in Theism,
P- 274.)
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 39
wr exalt it to a distinct primacy as was done by Fichte and also
by Hegel. Materialism commonly finds God nowhere. Pan-
theism assumes to discover Him in all things.
In spite of this contrast, however, materialism and the
typical Occidental pantheism are closely allied. The idea of
creation is foreign to both. In both alike all change is im-
puted to necessitated evolution. If to the materialist the world
is all, it is scarcely less to the pantheist, since he acknowl-
edges no extra-mundane Deity, affirms God only as the inner
life of the world, and allows to Him no further self-knowledge
than is contained in the fragmentary reflection of Himself
in finite consciousness. Indeed, when materialism becomes
mystical and begins to insinuate that matter is something
more than atoms operating under mechanical laws, that it is
the seat of potencies which the ordinary terminology of physics
is utterly unable to describe, it approximates very closely
to pantheism. In the recent history of thought a material-
istic pantheism, or pantheistic materialism, has not been an
unknown product.
I1V.— Economy oF ASSUMPTIONS SHOWN NOT TO BE CHAR-
ACTERISTIC OF ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES.
As regards either materialism or pantheism there is small
occasion for glorying in the fewness of the assumptions
in which refuge must be taken. The materialist can make
nothing of his atoms without motion. He must assume
therefore the eternity of motion, or else predicate an abso-
lute beginning of the same. Either conclusion is entirely be-
yond the range of experience, a pure assumption. Given a mul-
titude of moving atoms, and there is not the slightest pledge
that an orderly universe will result. Chaos rather than
cosmos will be the outcome, unless the atoms are endowed
with tendencies to combine in particular ways. ‘Tacitly,
40 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
if not in outspoken terms, vast account must be made of
tendencies which no analysis of matter has discovered, and
the reality of which therefore has no guarantee outside of the
demands of materialistic speculation. Still further, the fact
of life has to be explained. Either life must have been eter-
nal, or it must have sprung from not-living matter. If the
former alternative is taken, the question arises as to how life
was able to survive the intense heat of the primitive nebula ;
or, in case it is preferred to dispense with the nebular hypoth-
esis, an account is demanded of the way in which the atoms
became aggregated into world systems. If the second alter-
native be chosen, then a spontaneous generation must be
assumed, which no observation has ever shown to be within
the capacity of physical nature.
As for the pantheist, the impersonal, unconscious infinite
with which he starts, is scarcely more adequate to explain
the sum of reality than the primitive atoms of the materialist,
and it is his custom accordingly to add in like manner a
liberal supply of assumptions. Spinoza imports into his one
infinite substance the dual characteristics of thought and
extension, not by any process of deduction, but by sheer affir-
mation ; and he also leaves entirely unexplained the correspon-
dence between the thought series and the extension series,
since he assumes that there is no interaction between them.
Hegel makes the sweeping assumption that thought and be-
ing are identical, and that the logical evolution of thought
mirrors the whole process of the unfoldment of the universe.
Spencer, whose system is a species of materialistic pantheism,!
attempts to get a starting-point for the evolution of the abso-
lute by postulating the instability of the homogeneous — a
speculative expedient which looks very much like founding
difference upon blank identity.
Further illustration would be gratuitous. The hypothesis”
ae
1 Tt has been characterized as an attempt to engraft Pantheism upon Positivism.
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 41
of an eternal self-conscious mind is quite as conceivable as
the speculative items which must be assumed in these sys-
tems. Unless, therefore, the one or the other shows a supe-
rior congruity with important facts and interests, there is no
reason for preferring it to the theistic theory, while an inferi-
ority or relative failure in this respect would be adequate
ground for its rejection.
V. — CrITIcISsM OF MATERIALISM.
A test of the sort just indicated is exceedingly trying to
materialism. In the first place, it cannot construe the facts
of cognition. According to a consistent materialism the
knowing subject is simply a physical organism, an aggregation
of atoms or material particles, any one of which is but a tran-
sient constituent. Since the organism is wholly composed
of material particles, any conceivable change within it must
be a change of these particles. But what other change can
materialistic science, so long as it keeps to terms in the slight-
est degree intelligible to itself, specify for the particles, than
one of motion or aggregation! (or something equally remote
from all suggestion of mental facts)? A hasty imagination
may indeed bring up the instance of the smitten chord, and
suggest that as the resulting music is unlike the chord, so
the result of a movement in the brain may be unlike the
brain or any of its modifications that can be inspected. The
supposed analogy, however, is entirely at fault. The smitten
chord produces only vibrations in a material medium, and no
1 Much scientific authority could be cited against the need of adding any
qualifying clause. Thus Romanes says: “It is no longer a matter of keen-sighted
speculation, but a matter of carefully demonstrated fact, that all our knowledge of
the external world is nothing more than a knowledge of motion. For all the
forms of energy have now been proved to be but modes of motion.” (Mind,
Motion and Monism, pp. 2, 3.)
42 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
music is found until we pass out of that which can be de-
scribed in terms of matter, and come to that which can be
described only in terms of consciousness. No other analogy
is likely to render any better service. Keeping to terms in-
telligible to itself, materialistic science can predicate for the
material particles of an organism no change but one of mo-
tion and aggregation. It follows then that if thoughts and
feelings are to be ascribed to the material organism they must,
in so far as they are accounted for at all, be identified with
such realities as motions and aggregations of material parti-
cles. This means not merely that the motions and aggrega-
tions may serve as symbols of thoughts and feelings, for sym-
bols have no use apart from an interpreter, who, by hypothesis,
is not present ; it means that the thoughts and feelings are
strictly identical with motions and aggregations. In other
words, the proper mental phenomena are denied, and that
which has no perceived or thinkable resemblance to them is
put in their place.) If not willing to accept this outcome the
materialist must grant that, on his theory, mental phenomena
appear magical and unaccountable.
With this difficulty is conjoined another which presents
an equal challenge to materialistic theory. It was noticed in
the preceding chapter that there must be a unitary subject
of the mental life, and that the sensational psychology, as
neglecting to provide such a subject, is condemned to failure.
Now, materialism in its psychological theory is a branch of
sensationalism, and shares in all the shortcomings of that
system. It has no unitary subject. The physical organism
is an aggregate of parts. The state of one atom may affect that
of another, but it can never be identical therewith. A number
of atoms or ultimate particles may have similar states, and in
a loose rhetorical fashion these may be spoken of as making a
common state; but in strictness, the states must be as many
1 On the absurdity of identifying thought with a movement of brain-substance,
see Paulsen, Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 82, 83.
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 43
as the atoms, otherwise we shall have individual particles wnich
are without states, or states which are states of nothing. The
separability of the atoms, the fact that they are continually
passing out of the organism, also emphasizes the impossibility
of finding in it the unitary subject required by the mental life.
This irreducible plurality of shifting units can never be made
to explain the unity of consciousness which conditions rational
experience, or be harmonized with the memory which unites
the past and the present.!
In its mystical phase, materialism may perhaps disguise in
a measure these difficulties, but it cannot escape them with-
out denying itself. Suppose matter is described as a double-
faced reality, of which the inner face is manifested in mental
phenomena; the question arises at once as to the relation
between the two faces. If it be assumed that the inner is not
determined by the outer, then the presence of the mental phe-
nomena is no certain ground for inferring an outer reality in
correspondence therewith, and the way is opened to doubt the
existence of that reality, in other words, to surrender materi-
alism in favor of idealism. If, on the other hand, the inner
face is regarded as being, in its whole extent, determined by
the outer face, that is, a resultant of purely physical causes,
such as nerve vibrations, we come back, in effect, to the ordin-
1 No serious account needs to be made of the supposition of a central atom in
the brain which fills the place of a unitary subject, inasmuch as all other atoms
in the brain communicate to it the effects made upon them severally. Physiology
knows nothing about any such extraordinary atom. On the contrary it pronounces
it mythical, and favors the conclusion that any very minute portion of the brain
could be detached without destroying the mental life of the subject. ‘ There is no
cell,” says William James, “or group of cells in the brain of such anatomical or
functional preéminence as to appear to be the keystone or centre of gravity of the
whole system.” (Principles of Psychology, 1, 180.) “It is worthy of note,”
remarks Paulsen, “that the older attempts to find a point in the brain, the destruc-
tion of which would result in immediate death, have all proved futile. The gan-
glion of life assumed by Flourens does not exist; the patient survives the destruc-
tion of any portion of his brain, if it is not too extensive.” (Introduction to
Philosophy, p. 137.)
44 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
ary materialistic theory and encounter all the difficulties which
belong to that theory. Aside from furnishing a pretty phrase,
the supposed “inner face of matter’’ is found to render very
scant service. It affords no explanation of psychological facts,
except as it is elevated to the rank of a distinct subject; and
in proportion as this result is approximated there is a virtual
abandonment of materialism.
The failure of materialism to give any intelligible account
of cognition is aggravated by its inherent fatalism. Where all
thinking and all action are under the bonds of an inexorable
necessity, it is not only difficult to distinguish between the
normal and the abnormal, but to conceive that there is any
valid distinction between them. If we suppose a divine mind
as the standard of truth, and free beings, who may make a
better or worse use of their opportunity, to find out what
accords with the supreme reason, there is at least an intelli-
gible ground of distinction between truth and error, whatever
difficulty there may be in passing judgment upon this or that
item of opinion or belief. In this case, man’s fallibility in no
wise denies that there is an unchanging standard of truth.
But where the supreme power enforces with invincible neces-
sity contradictory opinions and beliefs, what ground is there for
conceiving any real standard? If matter acting under inva-
riable laws is the ultimate entity, the determining power back
of all events, then the contradictions in human opinion are the
contradictions of the supreme power itself. Being thus in
the habit of contradicting itself, when shall it be trusted?
Shall the democratic principle of the right of the majority to
rule determine whether confidence shall be given? This would
be a poor makeshift, since there is no intrinsic certainty that
a majority is in the right, or that the majority of to-day will
not be the minority of to-morrow. Shall it be argued that
opinions which persist must be in harmony with the nature of
things, since they can persist only by ministering to the sur-
vival of those who entertain them, and this survival supposes
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 45
the harmony in question? This would be a covert treason
against the genuine materialistic theory, which makes all men-
tal facts the purely determined, and allows them no power of
reaction whatever upon their physical antecedents. Being thus
unable to reach or to modify the physical causes, they are by
hypothesis perfectly impotent to have any effect upon the sur-
vival of their subjects. The persistence of opinions, therefore,
affords, from this point of view, no ground of inference respect-
ing their truth or error. In short, a supreme power, which
proves by the fact of necessitating contradictory opinions its
capability of enforcing error —if perchance there is any truth
or error — affords no secure pledge that it will not regularly
necessitate erroneous thinking in this or that line.
In a more direct view, materialistic fatalism is seen to work
for mental disruption. It is not merely a humiliation for men
to reckon themselves automata, it is practically an impossibil-
ity. No doubt, under the pressure of a speculative exigency
a man will sign away his title to all free agency ; but before
the ink is dry the inalienable feeling of freedom within will
begin its protest against the assignment. At most, the feel-
ing can be wounded and weakened by the speculative denial
of its legitimacy ; it cannot be eliminated so long as any vital-
ity remains in the human spirit. Materialistic fatalism, there-
fore, makes a demand for self-contradiction. It works for
inward schism, assailing that which is felt to be most essential
to personal dignity and worth. The undermining of intel-
fectual confidence, inward confusion, despair of the truth, is its
natural result, so far as it is seriously accepted.
In denying freedom materialism also cancels morality. It
may be that it leaves room for an aesthetic distinction between
different kinds of conduct. Some necessitated actions may
be more agreeable to contemplate than others. A deed of
beneficence may be pronounced intrinsically fairer than a deed
of mischief or destruction. But morality is not summed up in
aesthetics. We apply to the field of conduct other canons
46 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
than those by which we estimate a flower-garden. Central to
our judgment upon ourselves and upon others are the ideas of
merit and demerit, of innocence and guilt, of non-liability and
responsibility. To ignore these ideas is to ignore funda-
mental facts of moral experience and to rob morality of the
more significant part of its content. But to rationally found
these ideas is impossible save on the presupposition of free-
dom. The notion of a guilty automaton or responsible mechan-
ism may well be left to the child who, in his foolish passion,
kicks the stone over which he has stumbled. Materialistic
necessity abolishes all distinction between merit and demerit,
and renders the use of the terms inept or mendacious.
In cancelling the proper subject of morality materialism
strikes at the efficacy of moral motive. It is not a matter of
practical indifference what views are taken of human nature
and destiny. A low view tends in the long run to lessen the
incentives to noble conduct. Human personality must be
seen to be sacred, in order to be secure of being treated as
sacred. Hewho educates himself into the conviction that his
fellow-men are only curious automata is, other things being
equal, in a poor condition to respect their interests as com-
pared with the one who sees in them the actual or possible
children of a heavenly King and heirs of immortal life.
Finally, materialism tends to impoverish the human spirit
by denying the proper object of worship. It has no lofty ideal
to summon forth reverence, adoration, and affection. The
materialist, it 1s true, may attempt to habilitate nature as a
suitable deity, following the example of Strauss, who in his
later days concluded that the cosmos should be made the
object of worship. But altars reared to such a deity are
likely to be scantily furnished with incense. The worshipper,
reminding himself that the highest heaven of matter has
nothing intrinsically better than the ground upon which he
treads, and that nature has no hearing whatever for his praises
or petitions, will naturally be tempted to neglect his devotions.
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 47
He can have no such perennial incentive to pour out his heart
in worship as comes from the thought of the God pictured
by psalmist, prophet, and Messiah, — the living God, holy,
exalted, and responsive, who grants the light of His counte-
nance to those who seek to know and to do His will.
What was said of materialism in its mystical phase may be
regarded as having a certain application to the theory which
is styled sonism. This term has indeed a varied use. An
idealistic pantheism may claim that it describes very appro-
priately its own standpoint. Even a stanch theism, with its
insistence upon the thoroughgoing and constant dependence
of all finite things upon a supreme agent, may be credited with
a species of monistic doctrine. But while the name of monism
has no exclusive association with materialism, it is not infre-
quently used to cover views which are justly suspected of being
strongly allied with materialism.
In its least credible form monism identifies the physical and
the mental. This seems to have been done by Romanes in
the following attempted illustration of the way to overcome
the duality of mind and matter, of subject and object. “We
have only,” he says, ‘to suppose that the antithesis between
mind and motion — subject and object — is itself phenomenal
or apparent : not absolute or real. We have only to suppose
that the seeming duality is relative to our modes of apprehen-
sion; and, therefore, that any change taking place in the
mind, and any corresponding change taking place in the brain,
are really not two changes but one change. When a violin is
played upon we have a musical sound, and at the same time
we see a vibration of the strings. Relatively to our conscious-
ness, therefore, we have two sets of changes, which appear to
be very different in kind; yet we know that in an absolute
sense they are one and the same; we know that the diversity
in consciousness is created only by the difference in the modes
of our perceiving the same event — whether we see or whether
we hear the vibration of the strings. Similarly, we may sup-
45 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
pose a vibration of nerve-strings and a process of thought are
really one and the same event, which is dual or diverse only
in relation to our modes of perceiving it.” !
The trouble with this illustration is that, so far as it is
intelligible, it does not illustrate. The intelligible notion of
the facts cited is that the same exterior cause, operating upon
the subject through the medium of two different sense-organs,
produces two different orders of nerve vibrations, which in
the interpretation of the subject become the seen and the
heard respectively. The method of the subject’s interpre-
tation is of course a mystery ; but that the cognition should
be dual is intelligible enough, seeing that two distinct orders
of events are supposed to be furnished, namely, the two or-
ders of nerve vibrations. There is no identification here of one
thing with another. The illustration accordingly fails, as not
affording a parallel case. The monistic philosopher should
have shown that the vibration itself of the musical string is at
the same time something entirely different —- say the round-
ness of a kettle, the transparency of glass, the flight of a bird,
or the configuration of a leaf—-in order to have given any
illustration of a possible identification of a movement of brain
substance with a mental fact. That an event under certain
conditions should be the source or cause of two others, and
that these should give rise to a dual perception in a knowing
subject is easy enough to understand. What we want, in
order to make credible the monistic theory, as defined here by
Romanes, is not an illustration of how one event or change
may be the cause of two others, but how the given event or
change can rationally be counted identical with something as
thoroughly different to our mental view as can be conceived.
In spite of the proffered illustration, it seems to us that we
i Mind, Motion, and Monism, pp. 27, 28. It should be observed that we are
concerned here only with the success of the illustration offered in behalf of the
given statement of the monistic theory. The question whether the distinguished
writer remained consistently by this statement lies outside of our consideration.
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 49
should need two minds working in indescribably different ways
in order to be able to contemplate one and the same event as
a nerve vibration and a thought.
More commonly, monism avoids an unintelligible identifica-
tion of the physical and the mental, and contents itself with
asserting that both are phenomenal, different forms of mani-
festation of fundamental being. In this case we have repeated
the same difficulties as were noted respecting the attainment
of a consistent view of the interrelation of the two faces of
the double-faced matter considered above. Moreover, it is to
be remembered that phenomena cannot well be phenomena
simply to themselves. They are such only to a thinking sub-
ject. Appearances without any subject to appear to are as
good as iron made of wood, Nor will it do to posit simply an
infinite subject. We can give no proper account of our own
thoughts save as we regard them as the acts of thinking sub-
jects. The speculator who assumes to divorce thought from
a subject, or real self, sooner or later hypostasizes thought
itself, or turns it into a real subject. As was illustrated in
the case of Herbert Spencer, the expelled ego is bound to get
back, and to receive a surreptitious if not an open acknowl.
edgment. It is only an artificial alienation from its own point
of view, an unnatural transference of itself to an objective
range, which permits the thinking subject to question its own
substantial agency and to rate itself alongside the physical as
simply phenomenal.!
On the general merits of the monistic theory the following
from Professor Ladd is pertinent : “ Monism is the most waste-
ful possible form of metaphysical theory for the relation
between body and mind. Body we know and mind we know ;
and if we are compelled to assume any real being to furnish a
metaphysical ground for the phenomena, then we can afford
one kind of being for each kind of phenomena, But this third
1 See Bowne, Metaphysics, revised edition, pp. 314 ff.
50 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
unknown and unknowable sort of being, what does 7¢ here?
If the phenomena are not so incomparable that they cannot
properly be referred to one reality as its manifestation, then
our choice lies between the so-called body and the so-called
mind ; and thus materialism and spiritualism must fight it out
between themselves. Monism has no standing as a third
metaphysical theory. But if the incomparable character of
the two sets of phenomena forbids either the materialistic or
the spiritualistic hypothesis, then the dualistic hypothesis
would seem for the time to hold the field. Monism again,
however, has then no ratson d’étre as a rival metaphysical
theory.” !
VI.— CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM.
The objections to materialism are in large part valid
against pantheism. The psychology of the latter may not
be cumbered with all the difficulties which burden the former.
But it is vitiated by the same unmitigated necessitarianism.
Spinoza was outspoken in the denial that there is any real
freedom or self-determination in the universe. Herein he
voiced the customary thought of strict pantheists. It is
contrary to their fundamental interest to admit the fact of
freedom. They cannot concede it to the infinite, for they
deny its personality. They cannot concede it to finite spirits,
for unity of being is their shibboleth. To make finite spirits
anything more than the modes of the activity of the infinite,
to grant them such independence as is implied in a power of
self-determination, would threaten to cancel strict unity, and
to replace the one unfolding infinite with an irreducible aggre-
gate. A necessitated evolution is therefore as characteristic
of pantheism as of materialism. In its theory of cognition
1 Philosophy of Mind, pp. 345, 346.
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. SI
and in its ethics it is subject to all the embarrassments which
are properly associated with materialistic fatalism.
In so far as it emphasizes the divine immanence, pantheism
promises a satisfaction to religious needs. Its service in this
direction, however, is mostly illusory. The thought that God
is in all things becomes barren of religious incentive and
consolation when it is remembered that this presence is only
the presence of impersonal power and affords no possible
ground of real fellowship. As has been aptly remarked by
Flint: ‘‘If the God who is in the sunbeam can only be
present as its light and heat, the sunbeam without God must
be equivalent to the sunbeam with God. If He is even only
so present in ourselves that there is no distinction between
Him and us, between His power and our power, His pres-
ence with us is not distinguishable from His absence from us.
Another sort of presence is needed before the soul can be
satisfied,—the presence of one spirit with another spirit.’”!
In another respect also pantheism is adverse to religion.
It degrades the object of worship It brings God under the
limitations of a mundane process, ever going on, but never
completed. It makes Him as truly identified with the evil
and the vile in the universe as with the good and the noble.
It places Him in a very important respect below the plane of
His creatures, since it represents Him as never able to attain
to any proper self-knowledge.
That the worshipper should thus have the advantage over
the worshipped certainly makes a stumbling-block for the relig-
ious feelings. It is likewise somewhat of a riddle for the
1 Anti-Theistic Theories, pp. 385-386. Professor Howison enforces a like
consideration, when, after granting to the mystics the merit of bringing God near
to us, he adds: “ But nearness may become foo near. When it is made to mean
absolute identity, then all the worth of true nearness is gone, — the openness of
access, the freedom of converse, the joy of true reciprocity. These precious
things all draw their meaning from the distinct reality of ourselves and Him who
is really other than we.” (The Conception of God. By Royce, Le Conte,
Howison, and Mezes, p. 112.)
52 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
understanding. To derive the superior from the inferior, the
knowing from the unconscious, resembles too closely the evo-
lution of something out of nothing. In view of the necessities
of his own system the pantheist would do well to repress his
abhorrence of the notion of creation. That an infinite person
should produce that which is within or beneath the plane of his
own attributes is quite as conceivable, to say the least, as that
an impersonal power should transcend its own attributes by
producing self-conscious beings.
Doubtless in pantheistic thinking the stress may be vari-
ously located. One form. emphasizes the notion that God
is simply the immanent ground of the world. In another
form the stress is upon the sole reality of God as against
the world. This acosmistic pantheism might concede to
God a kind of conscious selfhood, but it provides no real
standing-ground for men as moral and religious personalities,
since it requires them to reckon their individual being as but
part and parcel of a sphere of illusion.
VII. — CoNSIDERATION OF THE EXTENT TO WHICH THEISTIC
FairH DEPENDS UPON FORMAL ARGUMENTATION.
As we come to the positive theistic argument, it will not be
amiss to guard against certain errors respecting its function.
It would be rating the practical worth of the argument much
too high to suppose that it affords the whole ground or incen-
tive to theistic belief. Constitutional impulse is prior to syllo-
gisms. The needs of the emotional, the zsthetic, and the
moral nature stimulate to thought, and unite with intellectual
needs to beget and to keep alive the idea of a supernatural and
overruling power. The history of the race pays too large
tribute to the force, persistency, and universality of this idea
to allow the supposition of its adventitious origin. In one form
or another it seems to be the possession of every tribe of men
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. $3
on the face of the earth. Supposed instances of its absence
have repeatedly failed to endure close scrutiny. It has been
found that the religion of the savage has been disguised by
the poverty and strangeness of his dialect, or hidden by his
suspicion and reticence. As has been remarked by an investi-
gator of the subject, “Even with much time, and care, and
knowledge of language, it is not always easy to elicit from
savages the details of their theology. They try to hide from
the prying and contemptuous foreigner their worship of gods,
who seem to shrink, like their worshippers, before the white
man and his mightier Deity.” 1 But even if a genuine instance
of the complete lack of religion should be found among deeply
debased men, it would prove little or nothing against the con-
stitutional basis of the religious impulse. As springing from
an abnormal degradation, a sinking below the plane of true
manhood, it would not be an index of man’s real nature any
more than an instance of complete apathy towards the beauti-
ful would be such an index. The witness of history, therefore,
is substantially unqualified as to man’s native religiousness, or
bent to recognize a supernatural power. A lively impression
of natural objects has doubtless had much to do with shaping
the specific direction of this bent. But natural objects would
have remained simply objects of sense, had it not been for the
working of religious needs and impulses. Only the powerful
stimulus coming from this source could create and sustain the
disposition to translate objects of sense into symbols and
vehicles of the supernatural. Possibly, as has been alleged,
dreams and apparitions may have had something to do in foster-
ing belief in spirits. This belief, however, would never have
been the basis for a persistent conviction of vital connection
with and obligation toward an intangible power, but for needs
and tendencies imbedded in the nature of men. The particu-
lar direction of a current is one thing; the perennial source
Te
1K. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. 382.
$4 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
of the current is quite another thing. The manifestation of
religion may have been shaped by various causes. The power
urging to manifestation, so universally and persistently, cannot
reasonably be regarded as anything less than inborn needs and
tendencies of the human spirit. The function of formal argu-
mentation, therefore, can only be supplementary. The basis
of theistic faith is always at hand before philosophy or theol-
ogy begins to set its proofs in order.
It would also be an overvaluation of theistic argumentation
to suppose that it is competent, in the strict sense of the term,
to demonstrate the existence of a divine person. Demonstra-
tion proper belongs to the sphere of ideal quantities and
relations, where the data are thus and so by hypothesis,
and no account needs to be taken of any uncertainties and
imperfections of observation or experience. It cannot, there-
fore, apply to the sphere of objective reality. In this domain
an overwhelming preponderance of grounds in favor of a par-
ticular conclusion is the most that can be attained. This
suffices for practical needs, and speculation becomes intem-
perate when it asks for more, whether in physical science or
in theology.
On the other side, well-ordered proofs of the divine exis-
tence are not to be disparaged as illegitimate or useless.
Though faith may not have been wholly or mainly indebted
to them for its origin, it may be confirmed by them and put in
position to withstand the attacks of a subtle scepticism. More-
over, faith in its more spontaneous forms is not well-guarded
against aberrations. A vivid conviction of the reality of the
supernatural does not necessarily imply an unblemished or ade-
quate view of the character of the supernatural. That is a
subject which calls for the critical use of reason. No one
would think of denying this in the face of the vast crowd of
misconceptions which have shadowed and mutilated man’s
thought of God. But a critical use of reason to determine
the nature of God implies logically a critical canvassing, in
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON, 55
large part, of the grounds which legitimate belief in His exis-
tence. No strict line of division can be drawn between the
two fields. That which truly reveals to reason the existence
of God must at the same time be a disclosure in some degree
of His attributes. So long, then, as one allows the propriety of
using reason to clarify the vision of the divine attributes, he
contends for little else than a point of arrangement and nomen-
clature when he would rule out proofs of the divine existence
as needless or impertinent.
VIII. — Tue CosmMoLocicaL ARGUMENT.
Among the standard arguments for the divine existence,
the cosmological comes first in the natural order. If it does
not reach the goal of proof, it is still very serviceable in pro-
viding a suitable basis for the completing arguments.
In the cosmological argument the world is regarded in its
general aspect as a theatre of contingent existence. It is
assumed as a self-evident truth, that things which had a begin-
ing must have been caused. The process of the argument, as
it is usually put, is to go back from the beginnings or changes
in the world to that by which they must be supposed to have
been originated.
It is commonly agreed that the world, so far as it comes
within the sphere of observation, contains indubitable marks
of being an effect or sum of effects. The advance of science
continually emphasizes the fact that everything visible and
tangible has had a history. The primitive or ultimate is
nowhere discoverable. Rocks, mountains, and continents are
found to catalogue innumerable changes, and the globe itself
seems to have scarcely more claim to the attributes of eternity
and unchangeability than the gourd of Jonah, which grew up
in a night and withered in a day. Now the mind cannot rest
upon universal contingency. Tracing back the chain of causa-
56 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
tion from one link to another it must sooner or later ask for
an ultimate ground or cause. If it be said that it is not author-
ized to make this demand, and should content itself with the
supposition of an endless chain of causes, the reply is that
the mind does not and cannot content itself with that supposi-
tion. By virtue of its constitution it rejects an everlasting
interrogation as to what next, while tracing back the depen-
dent. It is forced to believe that the efficiency which runs
down through a series of causes could not have come from
nowhere and nothing. To impute self-sufficiency to the series,
while each of the members is confessedly dependent, is seen
to be an implicit denial of the principle of causality. The
mind, therefore, in fulfillment of a rational demand, springs to
the thought of a real source of efficiency in a self-sufficient
being or first cause.
But, it may be inquired, cannot the world itself, in its
totality, be taken as the self-sufficient being or source of effi-
ciency? Instead of running back the series of causes in a
straight line, may we not suppose them to be arranged, so to
speak, in circles? In other and less figurative words, may not
the world be viewed as an aggregate of interacting members,
and all the changes which take place within it be imputed to
the mutual relations or interplay of the parts?
Undoubtedly, the world is a system of interacting members.
This is the common assumption underlying scientific investi-
gation. But the very fact that the world is a system of inter-
acting members compels us to look beyond the mere sum of
the parts and to seek for an adequate bond of unity. Each
part is conditioned by its relation to the rest. Independence
or self-sufficiency is not found in any part. Therefore it is
not found in any number of parts, since the mere addition
of the dependent cannot bring about the independent. Con-
sequently it is not found in the sum of the parts. In truth,
this sum is only a mental representation and can have no effi-
ciency whatever. Starting with the notion of interacting or
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 57
dependent members, we cannot reach a satisfactory view of
unity, unless we resort to a completing notion, and assume that
back of the members there is a unitary being which coérdi-
nates them, and is the independent ground of their depen-
dent existence. ‘An interacting many,’’ says Bowne, “can-
not exist without a codrdinating one. The interaction of our
thoughts and other mental states is possible only through the
unity of a basal reality which brings them together in the unity
of one consciousness. So the interactions of the universe are
possible only through the unity of a basal reality which brings
them together in its one immanent omnipresence.” !
Thus, as the chain of causes required for its interpretation
the notion of a first cause, so the thought of a world-system
requires for its completion the predication of a unitary ground
of the world.
The unitary power which sways the components of the
world, so as to form them into one great system, may ration-
ally be regarded as the source of their being, as well as of
their relations. The relations of the components are con-
ditioned on their qualities. Consequently, no power save
that which ordains the qualities can have full sovereignty
over the relations. But ordaining the qualities of the com-
ponents means nothing less than originating their being.
Indeed, to predicate any sovereignty at all over the indepen-
dent seems to be a contradiction in terms. If we start with
independent being we can never find any speculative warrant
for regarding it as otherwise than independent, or above all
necessitated relations. In any case, we are authorized by
the law of parsimony to reject a needless duality. In the
absence of a positive disproof of the origination of the mate-
rial elements of the world, it would be a trespass against the
philosophical demand for unity to assume for them an unde-
rived being.
1 Metaphysics, first edition, p. 126. Compare Ulrici, Gott und die Natur,
pp. 483-486.
58 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
This is the outcome of the cosmological argument. As
necessitating the assumption of an ultimate and unitary
ground of the world it excludes polytheism in the sense of a
plurality of independent beings. In relation to pantheism, it
has a less decisive advantage. So far as supplying the neces-
sary basis of the dependent members of the system is con-
cerned, the unitary ground may be regarded as_ simply
immanent, in other words, may be understood in a pantheistic
sense. In order, therefore, to establish the theistic concep-
tion it will be necessary to pass on to other arguments.
IX.— THE TELEOLOGICAL OR DEsIGN ARGUMENT.
The ability to select and to pursue ends can rationally be
predicated only of an intelligent, self-conscious, and free
being. Intelligence is required for the conception of an
end, and as no supposable thing can be an end, save as it is
brought into known relation to the subject which conceives
it, self-consciousness is seen to be implicated in the notion
of an end. Freedom is equally implicated, since anything
can become an end only by being appropriated or chosen.
Verbally, of course, ends or designs may be conjoined with the
unconscious or non-intelligent. But there is no thought cor-
responding to the verbal collocation. Unconscious design
equals undesigned design, and unconscious intelligence equals
non-intelligent intelligence. The adjective cancels the mean-
ing of the noun.
A proof then that nature reveals the choice and pursuit
of ends would be a proof that an intelligent, self-conscious,
and free being is back of nature. In other words, the tele-
ological or design argument, if it is properly sustained by
facts, takes us beyond the simple conception of a unitary
ground of the world and enforces upon us the idea of a
Divine Person.
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 59
As regards the validity of the argument, spontaneous con-
viction is certainly on its side. While nature may contain
not a little that seems arbitrary, not to say fortuitous, it con-
veys on the whole an overwhelming impression of regnant
purpose. Throughout the general range of the organic world
there is as clear an adaptation of means to ends as can be
found in any works of human art. In the vast compass of the
inorganic world there is an exactness of relation between part
and part that surpasses the most delicate adjustments of human
machinery. Mathematical relations are everywhere observed.
The atoms attract in fixed ratios for given distances. The
elements combine in fixed ratios. The masses are whirled
through space in well-defined curves, and give in the aggregate
an amazing spectacle of harmonious movement. The purpose
of many of the particular arrangements of the inorganic world
may not be clear. But the general outcome — the harmony,
the regularity, and the stability——is seen to be admirably
adapted to the needs of sensitive and rational being. In
short, enigmatic instances might be much more numerous
than they are, and still nature be able to afford an ample wit-
ness to a designing intelligence. John Stuart Mill says the
least that the facts call for when he remarks: “I think it must
be allowed that, in the present state of our knowledge, the adap-
tations in nature afford a large balance in favor of creation by
intelligence.” 1
The deification of chance by erecting it into the author of
nature is too wild a species of idolatry to call for more than a
word of comment. Those who urge that the world might
have arisen by the fortuitous concourse of atoms, just as the
Iliad might conceivably be produced by the casting forth of
letters, need no other answer than the challenge to produce a
page of the Iliad by throwing down handfuls of letters from
a promiscuous heap. All eternity may safely be given them
1 Essay on Theism.
60 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
for a trial. To suppose that countless factors should come
out of chaos into harmonious adjustment by mere chance, is
the height of insane credulity. Some, who would shun an open
appeal to chance as the great world-maker, seek to evade the
force of the design argument by makeshifts scarcely less
whimsical. Thus an attempt is made to crowd out the notion
of final cause, or design, by that of efficient cause. In relation
to the eye, for example, it is said, the proper inference is that
it is a cause of sight, not that it was made for the purpose of
seeing. And so of any organ, the use to which it is put is to
be regarded simply as the result of the existence of the organ,
and not the existence of the organ as brought about for the
sake of the use. But this is arbitrary assertion. Theoreti-
cally, there is no incompatibility between efficient and final
cause. Both may be implied in any namable arrangement.
Indeed final cause always supposes efficient causes as its
ministers or agents. To allow that seeing is caused by the
eye does not imply that the eye was not made for seeing,
any more than the fact that light is caused by an ignited
candle implies that the candle was not made for the purpose
of giving light. The appeal, in short, to efficient as against
final cause means simply that we must ask for no explanations,
but turn everything over to an opaque necessity. This may
answer for those who are ready to pronounce themselves mere
automata; but beings who believe themselves capable of self-
directing purpose may consistently look for marks of purposeful
action in nature.
Again, it is objected that design in nature is beyond the
reach of our inspection. The most that we are competent to
affirm is that things appear as if they were designed for
special uses. But why is not the appearance, in the absence
of insuperable objections, a sufficient ground for affirming
design? There are no conclusions in natural science that can
claim any better foundation. The best of them are inductions
from the appearances of things. With respect to our fellow-
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 61
men, also, we have to base our inferences upon appearances.
We have no direct vision of design in their case, and we judge
them to be ruled by purpose simply because they act as if they
were. So design is properly inferred in connection with the
manifold arrangements of nature because they appear just as
if they had been dictated by intelligent purpose. If it be
pleaded that our finite minds are too circumscribed to pass
uny judgment on the designs of the Infinite, it must be an-
swered that this anti-theological modesty is overstrained. The
designs of the Infinite, in their full reach, are indeed too wide
and high for our grasp. But as we are not excluded from the
field of scientific induction because we cannot draw our scant
line around the universe, no more are we excluded from philo-
sophical or theological induction because we cannot perfectly
comprehend the Infinite. If the Infinite is the cause of na-
ture, then it is manifested to a greater or less extent in
nature, and nothing can be more legitimate than to search
out and to express the import of that manifestation. To
ignore marks of purposeful action in that which is revealed,
because much lies back of the revealed, would be like refusing
to make use of the light of day because, forsooth, there may
be a vast stretch of dark regions in space.
Another expedient for evading the design argument consists
in an appeal to law and time. It seems to be imagined that
law, if only it is given sufficient time to work, is competent to
build up the most complex and finished universe. But the
obvious truth is that law is not an agent at all, and has no
power to work out anything. The only agents are beings.
Law is but a name for the method of their action and inter-
action. It cannot therefore be in the least degree opposed
to the supposition of design. The methods in question may
themselves express design ; and also there may be reasons for
inferring preéstablished conditions upon which the permanent
methods of nature were superinduced. As for time, it ought
not to be necessary to say that it has no efficiency of any sort.
62 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
A thousand years have no more of creative potency than one
moment. So far as efficiency is concerned, it is a case of zero
multiplied by zero when law is conjoined with time. What is
immanent in already existing being may be evolved according
to law through long stretches of time. But the outcome
cannot be made by law or time to exceed the immanent
content. Whatever of intelligent purpose is expressed in
the outcome must have dominated the development from the
beginning.
It may be granted that the supposition that organic forms
were gradually evolved through long ages by natural selection,
or some equivalent method, brings purely physical agents
prominently into view as the proximate causes of special adap-
tations in the organic world, and abridges the distinction
between it and the inorganic world in this respect. But even
on the ground of this supposition there is plenty of room to
predicate design in the marvellous codrdination of physical
causes. As Romanes has remarked: “Although this and
that particular adjustment in nature may be seen to be proxi-
mately due to physical causes, and although we are prepared on
the grounds of the largest possible analogy to infer that all other
such particular cases are likewise due to physical causes, the
more ultimate question arises, How is it that all physical causes
conspire, by their united action, to the production of a general
order of nature? It is against all analogy to suppose that
such an end as this can be accomplished by such means as
those, in the way of mere chance or the fortuitous concourse
of atoms. Weare led by the most fundamental dictates of our
reason to conclude that there must be some cause for this
codperation of causes.’’! It only needs to be added that if
1 Reprinted from the Mineteenth Century in Thoughts on Religion, by the
late George John Romanes, edited by Charles Gore, 1895. The reasoning of Otto
Pfleiderer may be compared. Having premised that organisms, such as appear in
living and conscious beings, cannot result from a mere compounding of parts,
since the parts have their function only in subordination to the idea of the whole,
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 63
there is any reason for not understanding this cause of causes
in a theistic sense, it is not to be found in evolutionary
science.!
Once more, appeals have been made to the phenomena of
instinct as indicating that a blindly working power may vie
in achievement with intelligent purpose, and that accordingly
the latter may be dispensed with in our interpretation of nature.
But it is to be observed that instinct is discoverable only in
connection with organisms, and that no reason is apparent for
regarding it as anything else than a resultant of the animal con-
stitution. That it is able to mimic so marvellously the work
of intelligence may suggest unspeakable skill in the power
which fashioned and adjusted the physical and psychical con-
stitution of animals. But why should it suggest the compe-
tency of matter, or blind force, to do the work of intelligent
purpose? Make instinct instrumental, place intelligence back
of it, and you have an adequate hypothesis to account for its
working. Place the non-intelligent back of it, and you have
an enigma. The appeal to instinct, in truth, like that to
efficient causes, is a way of negativing inquiry after a real
explanation, a virtual injunction to rest upon an opaque
necessity.
The argument in general enforces the conclusion that choice
lies between explaining nature by reference to a supreme
intelligence and taking refuge in an opaque necessity. If it
he adds this weighty statement: “ Now as the world incessantly produces organic,
sentient, and conscious life, and that not fortuitously but with a manifest tendency, a
striving of its whole process of becoming, to this production, the cause of the world
must be conceived as answering to this effect, not therefore as dead matter or
blind force, but as purposeful reason, and as will realizing a purpose, or as the
omnipotent reason which we call God.” Philosophy of Religion, III. 262, 263.
1 Tt may be noticed that Darwin, though at one time he expressed the belief
that natural selection excludes design, was inclined in his later years to predicate
designed laws which govern the general disposition of things without excluding
fortuitous elements in the details. In 1864, Professor Kélliker, an opponent of
design, accused Darwin of having become “in the fullest sense of the word a tele-
ologist.”
64 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
be alleged that such an intelligence is as remote from expla-
nation as nature on any supposition can be, we are content to
reply that in making a supreme mind the ultimate mystery we
effect a reasonable choice, since that, besides explaining nature,
is alone consonant with the deepest facts and needs of the
human spirit.!
This thought opens the way to our next argument. But
we must pause for a moment to notice the curious allegation
that evidences of design are indications of the limitation of the
Creator. Design, says John Stuart Mill, implies contrivance
or adaptation of means to ends, and so is contradictory to the
supposition of omnipotence, since an. omnipotent being can-
not be in need of means for accomplishing His ends. The
argument overlooks the consideration that in an intelligible
system things must exist in relations, and that the means are
very largely implied by the ends, so that the latter cannot be
realized apart from the former. Omnipotence cannot provide
for righteousness in the world without first creating moral
beings, or for happiness without the presence of sensitive beings,
or for family life without the union of the sexes, or for the
discipline of individuals and communities without a determinate
scheme of laws, chastisements, and rewards, or for an ideal
kingdom without subjects well established in holy character
by a right use of freedom. Speed or directness in reaching
a given end is not the only thing to be regarded in a cos-
mos. Respect must be had, also, to consistency, or the har-
monious relation of part with part. The fact, then, that
means are employed is no token that the end is difficult to
the Creator. We are free to suppose that every means that
is chosen is subordinate to the total end to be realized, so that
that end could not be realized in its full extent without it, or
at least without some equivalent.
1 “Tt is always by accepting one mystery that we make many mysteries plain.
Reason, insight, lies just here in accepting ultimates wisely.” (John Bascom, The
New Theology, p. 87.)
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON, 65
X. — THE ARGUMENT FROM HUMAN NATURE.
Adaptations within the higher range of man’s being which
look toward individual perfection, or toward the lofty ideal of a
kingdom of righteousness, might properly be considered under
the teleological argument. But the evidence which comes
from this point of view may also be conveniently included in
the argument from human nature. In the preceding discus-
sion, especially in the criticism of anti-theistic theories, we
have anticipated the main points of this argument, and there-
fore need here to repeat scarcely more than a summary of
them.
Each cardinal distinction of human nature demands faith in
a Divine Person, and, apart from that reference, cannot be sat-
isfactorily explained. Is man gifted with intelligence? The
supposition of a Divine Person points to an adequate fountain
of that intelligence, whereas, if the fundamental reality of the
universe is viewed as non-intelligent, no sufficient cause for
the rise of intelligence can be conceived. Emptiness might
as rationally be made the source of fullness as the non-intelli-
gent of the intelligent. The psychology which attempts to
deduce thought from jarring atoms can always be convicted of
inconsequent reasoning. Is man endowed with an inalienable
conviction of his freedom? Necessity cannot be supposed to
contradict itself by creating the free. To legitimate the sense
of freedom, and to lift it above the category of mockery and
illusion, the thought is needed of a self-determining Being at
the head of the universe, who both knows His own freedom
and is able to create in its likeness. Is man conscious that
he is a subject of moral obligation? This means that a law is
set over his will, a categorical imperative as Kant phrased it,}
which was not enthroned by any election of the individual, or
1 The formula of the law as given by Kant reads thus: “So act that the maxim
of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of universal legis-
lation.” (Critik der practischen Vernunft, Buch I., Theil I., § 7.)
66 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
by any vote of his fellows, since personal inclination cannot
abolish it, and it will not abdicate at the call of majorities. It
is true that the detailed application of the sense of obligation
may depend largely upon the judgment of the individual, and
this judgment may be influenced by the sentiments of the
community. But the sense of obligation itself, the conviction
that there is a right and a wrong, and that the former is a law
for all conduct, is not accidental. It is so indubitably consti-
tutional that the person in whom it should not appear with the
unfolding of intelligence would, by common consent, be reck-
oned inhuman and monstrous. Whence came this universal
feeling of subjection to moral law? If there is a holy will
above the skies, it is adequately explained as the imprint of
the Lawgiver, who, in fashioning men, designed them to be
the subjects of a kingdom of righteousness. On the other
hand, if the thought of God be excluded, no satisfactory ex-
planation can be given. ‘To deduce the moral from the non-
moral involves the same violence to the maxim of sufficient
cause as the derivation of the intelligent from the non-intelli-
gent. Is man proved by his history to be a religious being?
Then his nature finds its perfect complement in the conception
of a Being who, as personal, promises communion, and as per-
fect invites to adoring contemplation. Is the zsthetic sense
accessory to religion and an avenue of refined enjoyment?
Faith in God affords assurance that the “soul of loveliness ”’
shall never vanish out of the system of things, since beauty is
linked with absolute being, and may flow forth forever with-
out expending its fullness. Does the whole nature of man —
intellectual, moral, religious, and sesthetic-——demand for its
satisfaction the thought of an everlasting kingdom of righteous-
ness? God is the necessary presupposition of such a kingdom,
its founder, conserver, and bond of unity.
But, it has been urged, this way of arguing is anthropo-
morphic. It arbitrarily erects man into a measure of reality,
and assumes that there must be a counterpart to his attributes.
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 67
Herbert Spencer has thus objected to this method: “If we
make the grotesque supposition that the ticking and other
movements of a watch constituted a kind of consciousness,
and that a watch possessed of such a consciousness insisted
on regarding the watchmaker’s action as determined, like its
own, by springs and escapements, we should simply complete
a parallel of which religious teachers think much. And were
we to suppose that a watch not only formulated the cause of
its existence in these mechanical terms, but held that watches
were bound out of reverence so to formulate this cause, and
even vituperated as atheistic watches any that did not venture
so to formulate, we should merely illustrate the presumption of
theologians by carrying their own argument a step further.” !
To this Samuel Harris well replies: “The objection rests on
the absurdity that if a watch should become endowed with
reason, it would still remain a mere machine, just as it was be-
fore, and therefore would see nothing in itself but mechanism,
and could ascribe nothing but mechanism to its maker. But
if a watch were endowed with reason it would no longer be a
mere machine, but a rational person. Then contemplating its
own mechanism it would infer, precisely as a rational man
does in contemplating it, that it had a maker like itself in
intelligence, but not necessarily like itself in mechanism.
And should this intelligent watch ridicule all intelligent
watches that believe they were made by an intelligent maker,
it would be like Mr. Spencer ridiculing intelligent men for
believing their Creator to be an intelligent being.” ?
A crude anthropomorphism deserves no apology. But it
would take some better evidence than the ticking of a hypo-
thetical watch to show that it is illegitimate to represent the
fundamental reality as congruous with what is loftiest in
the nature, experience, and conception of man. It is certainly
1 First Principles of a New Philosophy, pp. 110, 111.
2 The Self-Revelation of God, pp. 434, 435. Compare Bowne’s Review of
Herbert Spencer, pp. 74, 75.
68 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
quite as philosophical and quite as honoring to the funda-
mental reality to think of it anthropomorphically in this sense,
as to think of it in an earthy or nihilistic manner. The alter-
native of not thinking at all is inapplicable wherever there is
living intellect.
XI.— An ALLEGED DEFICIENCY IN THE FOREGOING
ARGUMENTS.
It will perhaps be suggested that the arguments presented
do not yet reach the proper goal, since they prove only the
existence of an adequate cause of the world (including man in
his intellectual and moral nature), but the world as known
to us is finite, and no finite effect necessarily implies an in-
finite cause.
The objection may be formally valid, but it is practically
insignificant. Any one who acknowledges an intelligent author
of the world will never be subject to any painful anxiety as
respects His infinitude. The creature universe is so vast that
the imagination faints before the task of picturing its immen-
sity. There is nothing too in the way of the faith that the
power which was able to make the known world could make
another world, or any number of other worlds, of equal magni-
tude. Indeed, our own experience of intelligence and will as
not being exhausted in their products, naturally directs us to
the inference that the supreme will and intelligence abide
in inexhaustible fulness, beyond all the accomplished work of
creation. We cannot, without violence to our spontaneous
conviction, withhold the conclusion that there is no conceiv-
able outpost which the power of the Creator may not tran-
scend.,
In reaching this view, however, we have come to as posi-
tive a notion of the infinite as we are able to form. If God
is the source of all actual being, and there is also in Him an
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 69
unlimited possibility of being, He realizes truly the notion of
the Infinite One.
If it be still insisted that it is only natural, not strictly
necessary, to infer infinitude, the answer must be: An ideal
against which no objection can be urged, which always springs
into view with the advance of intelligence and is intrinsically
agreeable to the human mind, rightly demands acceptance.
XII. — CRITICISM OF SOME INCONCLUSIVE ARGUMENTS.
It will be noticed that no account has been taken of the
so-called ontological argument. The reason of the omission
is the conviction that this argument fails to accomplish what
it professes. It affords no real demonstration, and all the
truth which lies at its basis has already received due credit in
the specification of the cogency with which the idea of the
infinite or perfect takes hold of human intelligence. As Lotze
puts the subject: ‘“ Not out of the perfection of the Perfect as
a logical consequence is His real existence inferred, but with-
out the circumlocution of a deduction the impossibility of His
non-existence is immediately felt.” }
As is intimated in the foregoing, the ontological argument
assumes to prove the existence of God from the idea of God.
Its distinct formulation was first given by Anselm. We are
to define God, he says, as the greatest that can be conceived.
Even the fool who denies in his heart that there is a God can
take this definition into his understanding. So he can be con-
vinced that the greatest that can be thought is in the under-
standing (7 zutellectu). But the greatest that can be thought
cannot be in the understanding alone, since to be in reality
(tz re), as well as in the understanding, or mental conception,
is greater than to be in the latter alone. ‘‘ There undoubtedly
1 Mikrokosmos, IX, 4.
7O LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
exists therefore something, than which a greater cannot be
thought, both in the understanding and in reality.”’"! Descartes
reproduced essentially the same argument. As the mind, he
says, from seeing that the idea of a triangle involves the
equality of its three angles to two right angles, undoubtingly
concludes that the three angles of a triangle are in fact equal
to two right angles, ‘“‘so, from its perceiving necessary and
eternal existence to be comprised in the idea which it has of
an all-perfect Being, it ought to conclude that this all-perfect
Being exists.” ?
What the reasoning of Anselm or Descartes really amounts
to is an illustration of the truth that the complete and consist-
ent idea of a perfect being must include among other things
the notion of necessary or real existence. But the argument
is as far from proving the real existence of such a being as the
idea of real existence is from identity with real existence. In
other words, the greatest conceivable being is hypothetical
in the definition ; otherwise there is no excuse for the form
of anargument. The argument, therefore, as merely analyzing
the hypothetical, cannot deduce the real, since analysis never
legitimately draws out anything which was not before included.
The self-consistent hypothesis, or idea of the perfect, must first
be joined with some reality before it can in any wise evidence
the real. Join it with the historical fact that it is an idea to
which the intellect and heart of man most profoundly respond,
and it becomes at once supported by all our confidence in our
mental and moral constitution. But, in taking this step, we
have departed from the ontological argument; we are now
depending on a historical datum, rather than on the demon-
strative virtue of a mere idea.
1 Proslog. II. 2 The Principles of Philosophy, Part I.
3 Compare the remark of Andrew Seth: “There is no evolution possible of a
fact from a conception. The existence of God must either be an immediate
certainty, or it must be involved in facts of experience which do possess that
certainty.” (Hegelianism and Personality, p. 119.)
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 71
Besides reproducing the proper ontological argument, Des-
cartes reasoned that the idea of God is such that its presence
in the mind cannot be explained except on the supposition of
an author possessing infinite perfections. “Though the idea
of substance,” he says, “be in my mind owing to this, that I
myself am a substance, I should not, however, have the idea
of an infinite substance, seeing I am a finite being, unless it
were given me by some substance in reality infinite. And
I must not imagine that I do not apprehend the infinite by a
true idea, but only by the negation of the finite, in the same
way that I comprehend repose and darkness by the negation
of motion and light: since, on the contrary, I clearly perceive
that there is more reality in the infinite substance than in the
finite.” ?
The underlying assumption in this argument seems not to
be well taken. While the vitality of the idea of God, or its
power over the human spirit, makes credible the supposition
that it is in fact divinely fostered, there is no good reason to
suppose that the mere fashioning of the idea is beyond the
capability of a finite mind. It may be true that finite and
infinite must be taken in mutual opposition in order that either
should be properly understood. But it is entirely conceivable
that the mind should initiate observation and comparison with-
out a formal recognition of either. It can take note in the
first place of a given magnitude. Then observing a second
magnitude, it can pronounce it greater than the first. Of a
third magnitude, it can pronounce that it is greater than the
second ; and so on towards the limits of observation. In carry-
ing forward this process of comparison, the mind, it is true, so
long as it keeps strictly to the process, will not get beyond the
relative. But who will say that the mind, after having pro-
nounced one thing greater than another in succession, cannot,
sooner or later, raise the inquiry whether there is not some-
es
1 Meditation ITI.
72 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
thing so great that no greater can be supposed? If, in virtue
of its own endowments, it can make this inquiry, Descartes’
argument is invalid, since in making the inquiry it has grasped
the notion of the infinite, and with that has also provided for
a proper definition of the finite. Now, it seems to us a very
poverty-stricken notion of the mind which would deny its com-
petency to make the specified inquiry. It uses data for sug-
gestion as well as for strict logical procedure. Invention often
takes place in this manner. Why may not the method of sug-
gestion apply on the subject of the divine existence? Surely
it is not at all extravagant to believe that the mind can spring
from the last member, which has been noted in an ascending
rank of greatness, to the thought of the unqualifiedly great,
or the infinite; just as it can complete its representation of a
chain of conditioned causes with the thought of an ultimate
cause.
The theory that God is known by direct intuition must also
be reckoned among views that lack a solid basis; at least, if
these terms be taken strictly, and be made to mean more than
the fact that the traits of man’s intellectual and emotional
nature lead naturally, and almost of necessity, to the recog-
nition of a Divine Being. If the intuition (or direct mental
vision) is regarded as common to men, it ought to have secured
a much more uniform conception of the divine nature than is
found to have actually existed. If the intuition is allowed to
be exceptional, an explanation of its limited presence may
reasonably be asked for. Moreover, there is a certain intrin-
sic difficulty in conceiving of such an intuition. A limited
mind, though it undoubtedly has the thought of the infinite,
cannot be regarded as competent actually to see the infinite.
An intuition of God in His infinitude is therefore excluded.
But if the intuition is not of God in His infinitude, it is of
something less than God. This lesser something may, indeed,
partially reveal God by way of token or suggestion; but it
cannot be anything more than a limited theophany presented
EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 73
to the inner vision. Such a theophany, as well as any other
partial disclosure, would need to be supplemented by rational
inference ; and the question could be raised whether it would
be a surer ground of inference than that which is provided in
nature and in the moral constitution of man. It would, in
any case, need to be well coordinated with a system of objective
reality before assurance could be given that it was due to any-
thing more than a peculiar subjective affection.
Laying aside, then, doubtful proofs, we may sum up the
_tenor of the discussion in the conclusion, that faith in the
existence of an Infinite Person is justified by the compatabil-
ity of personality with infinitude, rightly understood, by the
unsatisfactory and ruinous outcome of anti-theistic theories,
and by the validity of the cosmological and teleological argu-
ments, as also of that from human nature.
74 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
CHAPTER IIL.
REVELATION.
I. — PossiIBILITY AND PROBABILITY OF SPECIAL REVELA-
TIONS IN VIEW OF THE EXISTENCE OF A PERSONAL
Gop.
THE idea of revelation is provided for in the existence of a
Supreme Person. As was noticed in the preceding chapter,
it best suits simplicity and consistency of thinking to make
nature dependent upon God for its being as well as for its
order. In this view, as being through and through an effect
of divine agency, it manifests God in so far as it has any dis-
tinct significance for the human mind.
As Supreme Person, however, God is not merely back of
nature, but over it and free to act upon it, or within it, as may
suit His pleasure. That is, upon the stated manifestation of
Himself in nature He may superinduce special manifestations
of His attributes and purposes. If He never acts in this
way it cannot be from lack of ability, but only from lack of
occasion. To assume the contrary is to deny to Him that
self-determination which is essential to the proper notion
of personality. As regards possible occasions for special
manifestations, there can be little motive to enter a denial,
except in pursuance of the theory that nature is an end in
itself, or that it is an entirely adequate means for compassing
all the ends which God contemplates in connection with the
creature universe. But what warrant is there for either as-
sumption? Impersonal nature has no worth to itself, and
REVELATION. rE
consequently can have no worth at all, except as it is subordin-
ated to the good of beings characterized by feeling and inteili-
gence. An eternal kingdom of righteousness is most fitly
regarded as the crown of the divine intention in the creation.
The race is in training for that kingdom. In proportion to
the supreme worth of the kingdom the exigencies of this
training must become matters of the profoundest concern in
the divine administration. That the ordered course of nature
is competent to meet all such exigencies is by no means self-
evident. While man’s limitations put him in need of spiritual
education, his sin makes him a difficult subject to educate
properly. Divine tuition must contend against apathy, per-
versity, and blindness. The abnormal condition of the subject
of the tuition makes a demand for special remedial agency.
His attention and interest, his ambition and aspiration, must
be elicited by something more awakening than the every-day
appearance of things. In fine, a single glance at the tragedy
of human sin and folly ought to dissipate the fiction that
nature affords an adequate revelation for man in his actual
condition. It may be indeed sufficient to involve a measure
of responsibility, but it is not sufficient to supply the highest
motive-power or the most efficient guidance.
The objection that the doctrine of special revelation is dis-
paraging to the wisdom of God, inasmuch as it represents
Him as mending and supplementing His work, has no solidity.
Nature doubtless accomplishes all that God ever intended that
it should accomplish. It serves His full purpose in the line
of a general revelation, and affords moreover the requisite
theatre for special revelations. The special, or extraordinary,
has the virtue of the extraordinary only as it stands in antith-
esis to the ordinary. By the union of the two, God is known
not merely as law, or force working according to law, but as
living and present personality, interested in men, and reaching
forth a hand to lift them up into fellowship with Himself.
Nature is sufficiently honored by this view, since it is left to
76 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
accomplish all that it is intrinsically fitted to accomplish ; and
divine wisdom is sufficiently magnified, since it is represented
as making that combination of factors which is intrinsically
best suited to the enlightenment and education of the race —
that combination, namely, in which the impression made by a
persistent scheme of natural law is supplemented by the vitality
of incentive which belongs to the special or extraordinary,
partly by reason of the essential worth of its content, and partly
by reason of its very contrast with the ordinary and recurring.
Special revelation may be outward, in the sphere of external
nature or in the visible history of men and nations ; or, it may
be inward, consisting in a message to some elect spirit among
men, who then becomes the instrument for its communication
to others. By the union of these forms of manifestation the
body of truth which is contained in the Bible has been provided.
The Bible is the great depository of special revelations. In
considering therefore the process by which it has been pre-
pared, and in examining the characteristics which legitimate
the belief that it contains the authentic truth of God, we are
filling out the theme which is most prominently suggested by
the term revelation.
II. — RATIONAL PRESUPPOSITIONS RESPECTING THE PRO-
CESS OF REVELATION, AS FOUNDED IN THE INTELLEC-
TUAL AND MorAL LIMITATIONS OF MEN.
\
As respects the process of revelation, certain rational pre-
suppositions may be laid down with a good degree of certainty.
In the first place a sound theory of cognition will not allow us
to assume a purely passive subject of revelation. In order to
mental assimilation a certain amount of mental action is indis-
pensable. A manifestation upon which the mind should not
react according to its constitution would induce only a blind
impression. It could have no real import for the person to
————
REVELATION. 77
whom it might be addressed, and of course he could be no fit
instrument for communicating its import to another.
Since mental activity is requisite for any appropriation of
knowledge, the capacity for revelation — that is, for appre-
hending the import of divine manifestation —- must in a sense
be measured by the capacity for mental activity. As the
human teacher cannot immediately transfer the treasures of
his learning to the child, but must wait on his gradually un-
folding capacity, so the Divine Teacher cannot discard the
limitations of the human mind. What if there is infinite
ability on the divine side to impart? There is limited power
of apprehension on the human side. This power may be en-
larged through a certain scale without violence to the mental
constitution, but there is always a point, at any given time,
which cannot be passed in consistency with personal identity
or the continuity of the mental life. To make an undeveloped
mind, which is still struggling with the mysteries of the alpha-
bet, suddenly recipient of profound metaphysical truth, would
be like alienating it from itself, or displacing it by another
mental subject —a consummation to be characterized rather
as profoundly unnatural than as simply supernatural. A simi-
lar stretch of magic would occur if a soul which had been
immersed in the life of sense should instantaneously be lifted
up to a lofty and comprehensive understanding of things
spiritual. God cannot be expected to treat His workmanship
with so little regard as to cancel the laws of development
which He has implanted in the mental constitution.
If there are inteliectual limitations to revelation, there are
also moral. The two are, in fact, closely related. As man is
not a purely intellectual being, the ground upon which opin-:
ions are held is very apt to be something else than purely
intellectual considerations. The will and the affections are
potent factors in the choice and tenure of opinions. In _pro-
portion as there is egoism or self-idolatry in a person, he will
naturally be inclined to regard his customary judgments with
78 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
somewhat of idolatrous veneration. In proportion as impetu-
ous zeal is characteristic of a man he will be likely to answer
opposition to cherished opinions with quick resentment. Preju-
dice instinctively repels as an enemy all light that shines for
an opposing conclusion. Thus opinions and beliefs become
intrenched behind tempers and tendencies that have more or
less of a moral character. This is true of the best and sin-
cerest men. Accordingly, in almost any human subject of
revelation that can be selected, we must suppose a moral bar-
rier to perfect recipiency ; some tinge of egoism, some rem-
nant of prejudice, some pride of opinion, some disinclination
to revise what has been closely associated with one’s self, one’s
nation, or one’s sect. No doubt hindrances of this order may
be ameliorated by divine grace. There are, in truth, indications
that the same Spirit which illuminated the minds of the
prophets as to outside matters, disclosed to them so vividly
their own imperfection as greatly to humble and chasten.
But, still, in proportion as it is unwarrantable to assume irre-
sistible grace, or to take for granted the entire sanctification
of any given subject of revelation, it is necessary to suppose
recipiency for the divine message to be qualified on one side
or another.
Analogy points in the same direction as the foregoing con-
clusions. The natural kingdom hes before the face of all
men, and is ever uttering its message. Why has that message
been understood so slowly? Because the object has been so
much larger than the mental capacity, or power of insight,
which has been set over against it. Even the foremost minds
have been recipient of only a part of the message. Inherited
misconceptions have restrained them on the one side, and
on the other they have been hemmed in by their own limited
vision. By the necessities of the case, the interpretation of
nature has advanced through many successive stages, the dis-
coveries of one age serving as a platform for a wider outlook
in the succeeding. Why, in man’s understanding of the vast
REVELATION. 79
spiritual universe, should it be conceived that there is a radi-
cally different law of progress? Special divine interposition
may undoubtedly facilitate progress in this sphere, and bring
to a goal which could not be reached without its aid ; but even
omnipotence cannot make finitude anything else than finitude,
nor consistently cancel the law of gradual unfoldment which is
a prime condition of mental integrity.
It is seen, then, that if we are to credit such considerations
as the necessary activity of the mind upon anything which is
really appropriated, the fact that this activity is subject to intel-
lectual and moral limitations, which cannot be eliminated on
the instant, and the analogy of progress in the understanding
of the natural world, we must conclude that an ample revela-
tion from God could become the property of the race only by
an extended process.
III. — THe METHOD OF THE BIBLICAL REVELATION AS
CORRESPONDING WITH THE PRESUPPOSITIONS.
A glance into the Scriptures will readily show that they
exhibit a method of revelation which is in full accord with the
rational presuppositions. Everywhere they illustrate the re-
quirement of deference to the limited capacity of men, the
need of disciplinary and educational expedients, the demand
that providence should concur with inspiration, or the practical
necessity of employing the aid of special historical circum-
stances in leading ferward the organs of revelation to enlarged
religious perceptions. Take such a favored group of men as
the apostles. After having enjoyed the matchless tuition of
Christ throughout His public ministry, had they come to a per-
fect understanding of the divine kingdom? On the contrary,
they were still greatly in need of light, and apparently were
not able, in the days of their consternation and bereavement,
ta construe at all the foundation facts of Christianity as em-
80 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
bodied in the sufferings and death of the Redeemer. Nor
did the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost
complete their furnishing. For years after that great endue-
ment their minds were more or less clouded on so important a
question as the relation of the newly-founded Church to Juda-
ism. It required the march of events — the spread of Chris-
tianity beyond Jewish limits, and the demonstration that the
acceptance of the gospel message brought to the uncircum-
cised all the fruits of the Spirit — to fully convince the apostles
that the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile had
been broken down. To bring their feelings into complete
unison with the new point of view still more may have been
needed. We can easily believe that such a complete surmount-
ing of ingrained preference for the Jewish people as appears
in the fourth Gospel could not have been illustrated among
the original disciples, until the destruction of the temple and
prolonged experience of the stubborn hostility of the Jewish
nation to the name of Christ had severed old bonds, and allowed
the attention to be directed to the Gentile world as the field of
real promise for Christianity.
If the law of gradual progress was thus illustrated by those
who stood in the culminating light of revelation, there is no
reason to doubt that it was operative during the antecedent
stages. Grant that it is going beyond warrant to make the
Old Testament revelation simply a product of the historic evo-
lution of Israel; it is still legitimate and necessary to regard
the revelation as closely connected with and dependent upon
the history. The exceptional experiences of the nation were
made efficient means for impressing religious lessons, and none
profited so much by these lessons as the elect spirits who were
naturally chosen to be the spokesmen for Jehovah. Majestic
providences went before lofty conceptions of God. That mar-
velous interposition, by which Israel was rescued from Egyp-
tian bondage and settled in the land of promise, became a
permanent factor in the higher range of Hebrew piety. In
REVELATION. $1
the whole list of great prophets there was not one whose
conceptions of the divine attributes and the national vocation
were not shaped by the story of the exodus and the wilder-
ness march. And the great events of the following ages had
not a little to do with the current of religious ideas. Especially
fruitful was the long ordeal of apprehension and disaster which
reached its crisis in the desolation of the Holy Land and the
scattering of its people in exile. The greatest prophets wrote
under a profound impression of divine chastisements appointed
to their nation. They felt, as it were, the tremor in the ground
caused by the distant tread of hostile armies, or were wit-
nesses of the ruin which the spoilers left in their track. The
flood of afflictions was like a new and greater Red Sea baptism,
testing faith in Jehovah, exalting it where it stood firm, and
imbuing it with an element of peculiar tenderness. Hope,
stimulated and fortified by the record of marvelous provi-
dences in the past, mingled with patriotic grief over impend-
ing or accomplished disaster to produce an unrivaled literature.
If it is true that the prophets were divinely-guided interpre-
ters of events, it is equally true that the events which came
under their contemplation were utilized to shape their thought
and feeling, and helped to interpret to them the character and
purposes of God.
In the Psalms, also, the historic basis of revelation is very
conspicuous. The experiences of a thousand years are wrapt
up in these lyrics. Back of their interplay of light and shadow
was the long record of glory and shame, deliverance and chas.
tisement, victory and humiliation. They are filled with mani-
fold riches, and have a catholic adaptation because they reflect
so widely the heights and depths of national and personal ex-
perience. Whatever else may have been indispensable, the
long train of experiences was needed to evoke from Israel’s
harps these deep and varied strains.
In the progress of revelation, the outward and the inward,
the element of historic suggestion and the element of spiritual
82 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
impact or monition, were doubtless woven together too subtly
for finite insight to determine exactly their respective spheres.
I{fuman onesidedness can easily be betrayed into an undue
disparagement of the latter as well as of the former. Still, it
is clearly none too much to say, that both a rational estimate
of man’s limitations and a candid observation of the conditions
of biblical production emphasize the dependence of revelation
upon a historic process. Divine deeds, quite as much as divine
inspirations, have furnished the subject-matter of the Bible.
Indeed, revelation might be defined with approximate exact-
ness as a series of divine deeds, apprehended in a conscious-
ness vivified and illuminated by the Divine Spirit. The
contrary view, which makes revelation simply a bundle of
communications that were delivered out and out from heaven
into the minds of passive recipients, 1s unphilosophical, and so
far aside from reality as to be fairly whimsical.
1V.— Tuer PROOF FOR THE BIBLE WHICH IS INVOLVED IN ITS
COMPREHENSIVENESS, OR IN THE VARIETY AND BALANCE
OF THE FACTORS WHICH IT CONTAINS.
The intimacy and breadth of historical connections, which
distinguish the contents of the Bible, rightly arrest the atten-
tion when one is looking to the grounds of the belief that a
veritable revelation has been given to men. Indeed, histori-
cal comprehensiveness, or that which it provides for, namely,
a special variety and balance of factors, is no mean credential
of the Christian’s Bible. As respects this character it may
safely challenge comparison. No other compendium of sacred
literature appears as a successful rival. It is the unique glory
of the biblical revelation, that, in the vast sweep and variety
of its movement, it offsets its own limitations, lifts, sooner or
later, into due prominence all important truths of religion, and
presents them as parts of an organic whole.
REVELATION. 83
Even if we limit our view to the Old Testament, we may
notice a very significant balance of factors. On the one hand
was the Law, majestic in its Sinaitic compendium, stern in
many of its prescriptions, minute and exacting in its cere-
monial requirements. It was Israel’s schoolmaster, and ful-
filled a needed function of discipline. To everyone who was
at all alive to its import it was a standing witness and object-
lesson on the claims of the divine holiness. It served also as
a national cement, impressed upon Israel a sense of her peculiar
vocation, and fostered such definite religious habits as were
adapted to be a bulwark against the intrusion of alien systems.
On the other hand was Prophecy, the advocate of the spirit
rather than of the form ; emphasizing inward righteousness
incomparably more than ceremonial cleanness ; not disdainful
of outward sacrifices, but capable of spurning them when pre-
sented as a substitute for the inward offering of true submis-
sion and loyal devotion to Jehovah ; a faithful witness to the
supremacy of ethical interests, a foe to empty ecclesiasticism,
and a friend of spiritual worship.
Some modifications of this broad contrast might perhaps be
pointed out ; but the general antithesis holds good, and is a
mark of comprehensiveness in the Old Testament religion. By
the union, in the same dispensation, of Law and Prophecy dif-
ferent and apparently conflicting interests were satisfied. If
the Law served to impress the notion of duty, to compact the
religion of Israel, and to fortify it against disintegrating con-
tact with Gentile systems, Prophecy was needed to spiritualize
the conception of duty, to add progressiveness to stability, to
bring the universal principles of religion into view, and thus
to act as the congenial forerunner of the universal faith of
Christianity.!
1 It may be noticed that recent criticism, while subordinating Law to Prophecy
in respect of value, does not deny an important vocation to the former. Thus
W. Robertson Smith says: “The legal ritual did not satisfy the highest spiritual
needs, but it practically extinguished idolatry. It gave palpable expression to the
84 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
A less distinct antithesis than that between Law and Proph.
ecy, but one which nevertheless illustrates the balance of
factors in the Old Testament, is that between the Literature
of Devotion and the Literature of Wisdom. ‘The one is the
outburst of religious feeling under all varied conditions ; the
other is the product of moral and religious reflection, joined
with not a little of the prudence derived from a large expe-
rience of the world. The former has its great compendium
in the Psalms, which share largely in the spirit of Prophecy,
but constitute a distinct type of sacred writing in the predomi-
nance of the devotional over every other interest. The latter
includes both the terse aphorisms of the Book of Proverbs and
the lofty poem in which Job and his companions discuss the
deep problem of the divine rule in its, relations to human suf-
fering. The one group supplements the other as clear-sighted
prudence and reflective wisdom supplement spontaneous emo-
tion. That the two should be combined in the same volume
which contains the Law and Prophecy is no mean token of
comprehensiveness. Had the Old Testament, like the Koran,
been prepared by a single hand, it could have included no such
wealth of mutually supplementary factors.
In the framework of its theology, also, a comprehensiveness
and balance pertain to the Old Testament which place it in
favorable contrast with the ethnic systems. It conserves
reality both to God and the creature, and upholds the ethical
relation between them. All pantheistic and nihilistic theories,
with their ultimate sacrifice of ethical values, are quite aside
from its standpoint. It has no affinity with the Brahmanical
doctrine of reabsorption, no share in the Buddhistic aspiration
spiritual nature of Jehovah, and, around and within the ritual prophetic truths
gained a hold of Israel such as they had never had before... . That the Law
was a divine institution, that it formed an actual part in the gracious scheme of
guidance which preserved the religion of Jehovah as a living power in Israel till
shadow became substance in the manifestation of Christ, is no theory, but an _his-
torical fact, which no criticism as to the origin of the books of Moses can in the
least degree invalidate.” (The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, pp. 313, 314.)
REVELATION. 85
after the suspension of concrete existence. On the contrary,
endless fellowship with God, ministered through moral like-
ness, is the ideal toward which it tends by virtue of its interior
truth and life, even where it does not come to an explicit
affirmation of that ideal. It also keeps clear of the dualistic
extreme. While it is penetrated by an intense view of the
might and prevalence of evil in the world, it does not, like
Zoroastrianism, abridge the ethical character of the antithesis
between good and evil by carrying it up into the Godhead, or
making it originally characteristic of created being. If its
stress upon the supremacy and sovereignty of God is some-
what akin to a trait of Mohammedanism, in its broader por-
trayal of the divine attributes, it gives in the aggregate no such
image of arbitrary might as dominated the Mohammedan con-
ception. In the Psalms and the prophetical writings there
are passages descriptive of the divine tenderness which cannot
be matched from the pages of the Koran. It is also to be
remembered in any comparative view, that Mohammedanism in
the better range of its contents is rather to be described as a
mutilated copy of the Old Testament religion than as an origi-
nal contribution of the Arabian prophet.
If we extend the view so as to include the New Testament,
we shall greatly enlarge the illustration of the sweep of revela-
tion and of the effective way in which it has brought organic
completeness out of variety and contrast. In the first place,
as respects the relation between the two Testaments, a
broad contrast is undoubtedly apparent. But the contrast is
one which rather confirms than denies the divine office of the
Hebraic dispensation. It is, in large part, the contrast between
approaching dawn and the bright sunrise. If there is any
contradiction between the earlier and the later revelation, it is
on points which the earlier, by its own advance, tended to
revise in the direction of the later. Does the New Testa-
ment rise above all national bounds and race distinctions ?
There are foregleams of this grand universalism in the Old
7
86 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
Testament.' Does the gospel disclose God to men as the
Father in heaven? The Old Testament made at least an
initial advance towards this conception; if in the main it did
not venture to represent the individual as standing before
Jehovah in the filial relation, it did assume that relation for
Israel as the chosen people.?, Does the New Testament light
up the world beyond with the anticipated glory of an immortal
life? The volume of the older dispensation was not closed till
it had recorded some premonitions or glimpses of victory over
death and the grave.2 And so as regards other truths which
may be considered distinctive of the New Testament system ;
if they are to be pronounced beyond the Old Testament, this
is to be understood generally in a comparative rather than in
an absolute sense. The movement of that revelation was
in their direction, even as Christ declared that He came not to
destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill, that is, to
achieve their ideal meaning and purpose.’
While the general character of the antithesis between the
two grand divisions of revelation is that between limited and
full disclosure, a qualification is necessary. The majesty
and holiness of God are portrayed in such lofty terms in the
Hebrew Scriptures that it is not easy to conceive of the possi-
bility of more impressive delineations. It was not necessary
that the New Testament should make God more transcen-
dently majestic, but that it should facilitate the sense of fellow-
ship with Him, by clothing His overshadowing greatness with
1 Ps, Ixxxvii; Isa. ii. 2-4, xix. 23-25, xlix. 6, lvi. 3-7, Ix. 3; Mic. iv. 1-4; Jer.
iii. 17; Zeph. iii. 9, 10; Zech. xiv. 16.
2 Ex, iv. 22; Deut. viii. 5; Ps. Ixxiii. 15; Prov. iii. 12; Hos. xi. 1; Isa. lxiii. 16,
leiv.' 83) Jer. xxxi.' 97) Mal.16,
3 Deut. xxxii. 39; 1 Sam. ii. 6; Ps. xvi. 10, 11, xlix, 15, lxxiii. 24-26; Hos. vi.
2, xiii. 14; Isa. xxv. 8, xxvi. 19, lili. 9, 10; Dan. xii. 2.
4The words of Hermann Schultz may appropriately be eds “There is
positively not one New Testament idea that cannot be conclusively shown to be a
healthy and natural product of some Old Testament germ, nor any truly Old
Testament idea which did not instinctively press towards its New Testament
fulfillment.” (Old Testament Theology, I. 52.)
REVELATION. 87
the light of fatherly goodness and redeeming love. Asa mind
which has felt the unapproachable majesty and purity of God
is best prepared to appreciate the privilege of fellowship with
Him, it is evident that the function of the Old Testament was
not wholly absorbed in preparation for the New. It does more
than register the historic process which led on to the gospel.
In its sublime descriptions of the divine exaltation and holiness
it provides in perpetuity a fitting background for true worship.
Also in other lines the Old Testament remains serviceable,
both as approximating to the plane of the New in its subject-
matter, and as putting truth in that vivid concrete form which
most readily takes hold of the imagination. It remains thus a
book of edification, notwithstanding a great expansion of the
spiritual horizon was effected by the gospel.
Taking still further the New Testament by itself, it is not
difficult to see how different types have supplemented one
another, and so ministered to the wealth and completeness of
the revelation. This holds of the Gospels. It was undoubtedly
of great importance to have the life of Christ presented in its
plain objectivity, and this has been accomplished by the Synop-
tists. To a very large extent they kept themselves out of
their narratives, and occupied themselves with reproducing
as far as possible the words and deeds of Christ. Doubtless
they used some liberty in grouping the sayings of the master.
It may also be granted that the peculiarities of their individual
position had a certain effect. For example, Matthew, because
of his antecedents and surroundings, may have had more
ambition to associate the events of Christ’s life with Old
Testament types and foreshadowings than was shown by
Luke under the influence of a close association with the Gen-
tile world. But still, there is only moderate evidence of sub-
jective tinge in any one of the Synoptical Gospels. We have
here a record of what had been offered at large to the eyes and
ears of men, or at least had fallen under the observation of the
disciples in common, Narratives so nearly colorless, giving
88 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
such a line of events in their simple objectivity, are of inestim-
able value. But, on the other hand, congenial interpretation
is not of slight consequence. To know how Christ was imaged
in the mind of one who stood specially near to Him, and whose
receptive spirit retained a distinct impress of the more private
discourses of his Master, as well as of His public words and
deeds, is to gain an additional means of acquaintanceship with
that Master. In this view, the fourth Gospel makes an invalu-
able supplement to the other three. Grant that the words of
Christ are rendered therein somewhat freely, are given, so to
speak, in a Johannine dialect; it is still an advantage to have
the report of one whose spiritual and idealizing temper fitted
him to appropriate and to transmit the more ideal import of
the life and teaching of Christ.
The Johannine literature, especially that portion of it which
embraces the fourth Gospel and the Epistles of John, repre-
sents a distinct theologic type, on the extreme border of the
apostolic age. It was preceded by two other types, one of
which, the Pauline, was no less clearly marked ; the other,
the Petrine, if not given so distinct literary expression as the
Johannine and the Pauline, is still capable of being defined.
The three types may be distinguished by their dominant view
of the office of faith. In accordance with its practical bent
the Petrine type conceives of faith preéminently as the
energetic principle of a new life of consecration, steadfastness,
and victorious struggle. In the Pauline type the stress is upon
faith as an instrument of justification, the gracious condition
of appropriating divine righteousness, the means of escaping
from condemnation and legal bondage into the assured position
of the children of God. The Johannine type portrays faith
in particular as the medium of an eternal life begun in the
present and realized progressively through abiding in the life
and love of the Redeemer.
The significance of this union of different types needs little
comment, It is an illustration of the rounded character of
REVELATION. 85
the New Testament revelation ; for these types are not exclu-
sive but mutually supplementary. The manly energy of
Petrinism is needed to guard Paulinism from an inert reliance
upon the fullness of divine grace. The Pauline demonstration
of the futility of legal righteousness is needed to secure
Petrinism from the snare of an impertinent self-confidence
and superficial piety. Both Petrinism and Paulinism need the
softening and deepening effect of the Johannine conception
of an interior union with God by the bond of love. The last
needs both the Petrine and the Pauline standpoints to guard
the doctrine of the interior life from being pushed into mysti-
cal exaggeration. In fine, by the addition of one type to
another the circle of truth is filled out, and a corrective to
one-sided developments is held forth to the view of all com-
ing ages.
The illustration might be carried still further by consider-
ing such special varieties of form and contents as appear in the
Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse —the one an elo-
quent and powerful plea for the superiority and finality of
the dispensation inaugurated in Christ, the other affording
peculiar riches to the religious imagination by its intense
portrayal of struggle, triumph and reward. But enough has
been said to indicate the extraordinary sweep of the biblical
revelation and the extraordinary balance of its varied contents.
These characteristics, we claim, are properly reckoned among
the credentials of the Scriptures. We see, in face of them,
how the method of the scriptural revelation corresponds to the
facts of human limitation, inasmuch as completeness is reached
through an age-long process wherein the varied capacities of a
great circle of agents are utilized. The prolonged waiting on
historical opportunities and the blending of diverse factors
into a consistent system give an impressive view at once of
divine patience and of divine skill.
go LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
V.— THE SIGNAL PROOF FOR THE BIBLE WHICH IS CON-
TAINED IN THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST, WITH
irs APPROPRIATE HIsTORICAL ANTECEDENTS AND
CONSEQUENTS.
The scriptural revelation is essentially an organism of redemp-
tion. As such it finds naturally its unifying principle in the
person and work of the Redeemer. We may specify accord-
ingly, as a distinctive characteristic, the unique personality of
Christ and its intimate and harmonious connection with the
revelation asa whole. This.is not merely among the foremost
credentials of revelation; it is distinctively the foremost. The
unique personality as it is imaged in the gospel narratives, the
forecast of the same in Messianic prophecy, and the Christ-
filled content of the whole apostolic literature, make together
the very heart of Christian evidence.
Without attempting any complete study of Christ’s person,
in this connection, we may properly notice some of the points
which make His life unique in earthly biography. Taking
what lies on the surface of the New Testament story, we can-
not fail to be struck with a certain appearance of breadth and
magnanimity in Christ, a union of contrasted qualities such as
never could have been reconciled within the compass of an
ordinary nature.
A true marvel is Christ’s union of meekness with strength.
He characterized Himself as meek and lowly in heart, and
the tenor of the gospel history confirms the description. His
childhood was spent in quiet subjection to parental authority.
Apparently no advantage was taken of any presage respecting
His lofty dignity and office which may have found a place in
His consciousness. To be sure, we read that at the age of
twelve He talked with the doctors in the temple. But there
is no reason to suppose that in this He made any impression
of a brusque forwardness, or manifested any other disposition
than that of a sweet-spirited inquisitiveness and intelligence.
REVELATION. OA
He contented Himself with obscurity till the appointed hour
for the manifestation of His Messianic dignity; and then,
though He accepted unavoidable publicity, He rejected osten-
tation. He was ready always to work miracles at the dictate
of benevolence, but never at the call for mere display. Mis-
calculating zeal for His person was repressed rather than
encouraged ; when the overflowing enthusiasm of the people
would sweep Him on to kingly honors He retired and hid
Himself. But, with all this meekness, what strength! In
the very manner of His speech there was something singu-
larly masterful. He spoke as if truth were His by insight,
and there was no need to draw from outside sources. As
Beyschlag remarks, ‘“‘ The spring of divine revelation wells up
in Him quietly and constantly, not while he is exalted above
Himself, but while simply Himself and giving Himself. It is
the eternal foundation of His personal life from which His
words of eternal life at all times flow.’”’! He quoted indeed
from Moses and the prophets, but evidently not as unquali-
fiedly subject to their point of view ; for He distinctly placed
Himself above the plane of the Mosaic legislation, and assumed
at one point and another to provide better maxims than it con-
tained. And not only did He teach in this authoritative
manner ; He made claims to personal allegiance which He
would not allow to be abated by any rival whatever. When
men pleaded the ties of kinship for delay or compromise in
His service, He told them that no one could be His disciple
who should allow father or mother, sister or brother, to take
precedence of Him. When vested authority, tradition, and
priestly assumption crossed His path in the persons of the
Pharisees, He met their opposition with a perfectly unbend-
ing mien, and responded to their captious criticisms with a
scorching exposure of their hypocrisy and selfishness. Indeed,
no teacher besides, to whom-men attach sanity, ever assumed
1 New Testament Theology, I. 37,
Q2 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
such authority or was so absolutely remote from all com-
promise,
A true marvel also in Christ is the union of full compassion
toward the sinner with sharp intolerance for sin. This isa
combination which overtaxes human infirmity. With men,
ordinarily, either sympathy infringes more or less upon the
domain of principle, or principle trenches in some measure
upon that of sympathy. It does not seem to have been so
with Christ. Who can imagine a being more tenderly com-
passionate toward the sinner, more warmly sympathetic toward
unworthiness struggling up toward better things? Surely if
the prophetic picture of one who should not break the bruised
reed or quench the smoking flax was ever fulfilled, it was here.
His ministry was like the dew and the sunshine, reviving sensi-
bility and hope where there had been indifference or despair.
Persons who would have shrunk from the ordinary teacher had
the confidence to come to Him. But, on the other hand, who
can imagine a being more intolerant of sin than Christ appears.
He scourges it out of the temple and locks every door against
it. He goes back of the outward act and raises a judgment-
seat over the inward motion and the disposition. He arraigns
intemperate and unfounded anger as proximate to the guilt of
murder. He brands the unchaste desire which follows the
glance as having already the stain of adultery. He will have
no division in the heart between God and mammon, no dally-
ing with any form of evil. “If thy right eye offend thee,
pluck it out and cast it from thee. And if thy right hand
offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee.” His language
expresses a mighty vehemence against sin, an intense repulsion
against all unrighteousness.
Again, a remarkable union of spirituality and kindly contact
with the world may be noticed in Christ. His life was most
unworldly in tone. It mounted so completely above the ordin-
ary interests and ambitions of men that it is difficult for us to
conceive how they could be to Him any source of temptation.
REVELATION. 93
His exhortations to renounce anxious cares about the stores
which the morrow may bring, to lay up treasure in heaven, and
to estimate the recording of one’s name there the supreme
cause for rejoicing, indicate how lightly he trod upon the face
of this temporal world, and how truly the spiritual realm was
His real home. But, at the same time, the life of Christ gives
no impression of asceticism or monastic severity. We never
see Him standing with a scourge over the body; He heals
instead of mutilating. He manifests no reluctance to grace
with His presence the innocent festivities of the day. We
never hear Him denouncing the material world as evil or
unclean. He treats it rather as the workmanship of His
Father’s hands, and uses it as a book of divinity from which to
read off to His hearers most spiritual and beautiful messages
of truth. In short, He stands in two worlds, and shows how
a lofty estimate of the one need not cancel a sympathetic
interest in the other.
Once more, a transcendent distinction of Christ is seen in
the union which He exemplifies of human sensibility with
superhuman grandeur. Page after page of the gospel narra-
tive approves to the full the title which He gave Himself.
He was truly the Son of Man, full of all human sensibility.
We see it in His affectionate discourses to His disciples, in
His embracement and blessing of little children, in His com-
passion for the fasting multitude, in His intimacy with the
family at Bethany, in His tears at the tomb of Lazarus, in His
desire that chosen friends should be near Him in the time of
His agony in the garden, in the tender words which He spoke
from the cross, commending His mother to the care of a faith-
ful disciple. But with all this fullness of human sensibility,
how much is revealed that rises above the human plane. Not
a single token of repentance is found in the life of Christ.
A liturgy formed after the pattern of His intercourse with
heaven would not be adapted to any church or to any in-
dividual upon earth. So far as can be discovered, no feeling
94 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
of ill-desert ever weighted the flight of his soul toward the
Father. Standing apart from sin, exempt from its stain, its
humiliation, and its confusion, he recognized Himself as being
at once the redeemer and judge of a race of sinners. In the
assured confidence that He was mediating the true knowledge
of God, He declared that whoever had seen Him had seen the
Father, and proclaimed Himself the way, the truth, and the life.
Though consciously proceeding to crucifixion, without a soldier
or a statesman in His retinue, He yet spoke as though He
had under His feet a kingdom such as had never been pictured
in the dreams of earthly ambition-— a kingdom whose full
circuit sweeps around all times and worlds and ranks of intel-
ligent beings.
When we observe that the lofty consciousness in Christ
respecting His station and vocation was combined with the
most perfect balance of the finest human traits, we cannot
deny it great significance. The extraordinary balance pledges
clearness and sobriety of self-consciousness. Christ’s sense
of a special union with the Father is made thus a congruous
element in the gospel picture, and certifies to us that He was
the Son of God as well as the Son of Man, Lord over men as
well as brother of men.
The appearance of this unique personality is, and must
remain, the great event of history, the fact to which the atten-
tion and the inquiries of men must ceaselessly revert. As
Bushnell has said: “It were easier to untwist all the beams
of light in the sky, separating and expunging one of the colors,
than to get the character of Jesus, which is the real gospel,
out of the world.’ It must stand as the superlative miracle.
No miracle that Christ is recorded to have wrought approaches
the miracle of His personality. We see Him indeed through
the mirror of the gospel narratives. But we are compelled to
credit their substantial accord with the historical reality. The
incomparable model must have been before the primitive dis-
ciples, or the characteristics of the gospel picture mount above
REVELATION. 95
all rational explanation. Moreover, the historical reality is
needed to give a consistent meaning to most remarkable ante-
cedents and consequents.
If the singular wealth of Christ’s person attests His divine
mission, that misson is also approved by the singular prepara-
tion which was made for His advent. What earthly biography
beside ever had such a preface as was furnished to that of
Christ by Messianic prophecy ?
It is doubtless true that prophecy did not attain to complete
foresight either of Christ’s person or work. The prophets
saw in a mirror darkly. Sharing in the common limitations
of men, they were compelled to use the colors at hand in
painting the future. Much, therefore, of the local and the
specifically Judaic entered into their pictures. The coming
salvation was not always seen by them in the full glory of its
spirituality and universality, nor its bearer in the full height
of His unique character. The reality in the gospel, it must
be confessed, was in very important respects better than the
prophetic ideal. But itis still one of the marvels of history
that an ideal was wrought out which so aptly prefaced the
crowning revelation of divine grace.
It may be conceded, also, that, in order to conserve a
Messianic application to many passages, the principle of a
typical sense in prophecy must be taken with considerable
latitude. And this may reasonably be done, though of course
there is in this line some danger of arbitrariness and excess.
An idealizing faculty, working within the limits of a prelimi
nary dispensation, is naturally constructive of typical repre-
sentations. As the dispensation reaches forward to consum-
mations lying beyond itself, so the ideals that are gathered
out of it, whatever partial fulfillment they may find at an
earlier stage, cannot have their complete realization short of
the dispensation lying beyond. In the onward movement a
partial fulfillment is equivalent to a demand and a presage of
96 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
a more perfect fulfillment; in other words, a preliminary
stage in the unfoldment of an ideal becomes a type for the
stage of perfection, much as in the evolution of organic na-
ture a characteristic belonging to a given stage may serve as
a type or prophecy of what is to be found at a more advanced
stage. Take, for example, the picture of a righteous sufferer
in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. Suppose that the prophet,
as some interpreters have thought, conceived of afflicted Is-
rael collectively, or at least of an elect portion of the nation,
as the subject of this tender portrayal. In proportion as
Israel failed to realize the ideal of a guiltless sufferer and
intercessor, a demand was evoked for a more perfect realiza-
tion, and the immediate subject of the delineation necessarily
became typical of the ultimate subject. And so of other pas-
sages. As in the ascending scale some of the features of
Christianity are of necessity typical of heaven, so much that
came nearest to the ideal in Judaism was of necessity typical
of Christ and His kingdom. It is in this significance that a
second sense may be attached to various prophecies. The
prophet, in uttering them, had no double meaning in his
mind ; but sketching an ideal within the limits of a prelimi-
nary dispensation, he gave a pattern which could be only par-
tially filled out by a near development, the completer realization
having to wait for the more perfect dispensation.!
The minds of the prophets were directed to a Messianic
outlook by two great motives, either of which must be regarded
as worthy of the Spirit of God. These were an intense love
of righteousness and a courageous optimism. The former
1On the rational grounds for conceding a considerable place to Messianic
types in the Old Testament, the following will not appear out of place: “ If
the incarnation was, indeed, a great ‘ recapitulation of the past,’ the manifestation
in its fullness of a divine purpose predestined from the beginning, it is not sur-
prising that the actions and experiences of ancient prophets, saints, priests, martyrs
and kings, should have been prophetic ; that in these should have been foreshad-
owed different aspects of Christ’s office and person.” (Ottley, Aspects of the Old
Testament, p. 410.)
REVELATION. 97
would not allow them to be satisfied with any lesser end than
the triumph of righteousness, the establishment of such a holy
commonwealth as should be a delight to Jehovah and a praise
to His name. The latter would not allow them to despair of
the attainment of this great end, but kept their hearts aglow
with bright anticipations, even in the face of dire calamities.
Clinging tenaciously to their lofty hopes, they apprehended
some compensation for every failure, and over every imperfect
phase of the national life and economy they drew the out-
lines of a high ideal. Was the ancient covenant before the
minds of the prophets as something which had been broken,
and was no longer effective to bind Israel? They looked
forward to a time when a new and better covenant should be
introduced ; when the Lord should betroth Israel unto Him-
self in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness,
and in mercies; when the law shall be written upon the hearts
of the people, and they shall know the Lord, from the least
unto the greatest of them; when a redeemer shall come to
Zion, and to those that turn from transgression in Jacob, and
the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon them, and His words
shall not depart out of their mouth.’ Was the attention of the
prophets directed to their own order? They apprehended
that the prophetical succession would be crowned by one who
should more than realize the mediatorial position of Moses, —
a faithful servant of Jehovah, who shall bring forth judgment
unto the Gentiles, who shall be given for a covenant to the
people and a light to the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to
bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and them that sit
in darkness out of the prison house, being anointed to preach
good tidings, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, to
comfort all that mourn, that he may be the salvation of the
Lord to the ends of the earth.?, Did the minds of the prophets
1 Hosea ii, 18-23; Jer. xxxi. 31-37; Isa. lix. 20, 21, xlii. 6, lv. 3; Ezek. xxxvii.
26-28.
2 Deut. xviii. 15; Isa. xlii, 1-7, xlix. 1-6, lxi, 1-3.
98 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
revert to suffering and sacrifice as conditions of salvation ?
They caught at least occasional glimpses of a great sufferer,
a reproach of men and despised of the people, whose hands
and feet were pierced, whose visage was marred more than
any man, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, wounded
for others’ transgressions and bruised for their iniquities, led
as a lamb to the slaughter, bearing the iniquities of many, and
having his soul made an offering for sin.) Did the prophets
reflect upon the possibilities of a consecrated kingship as an
instrument of righteousness? They looked forward to the
appearing of a scion of David’s house, a Messianic king, under
whose benign and everlasting rule mercy and truth should
meet together. As described by the Psalmist, he is the Lord’s
son, to whom the nations are appointed for an inheritance and
the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession. He shall
come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that
water the earth, and his dominion shall be from sea to sea and
from the river unto the ends of the earth. He shall be at
once priest and king-—a priest forever, after the order of
Melchizedek.? In like exalted strains, Isaiah pictures the
anointed king: ‘“ There shall come a shoot out of the stock of
Jesse and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit: and the
Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, and the spirit of wis-
dom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the
spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. Righteousness
shall be the girdle of his reins. The government shall be
1 Ps, xxii; Zech, xii. 10; Isa. lii. 14, lili. In reviewing Isaiah liii, one can easily
sympathize with the opinion of Hermann Schultz, that the writer was carried over
from the contemplation of the suffering of Israel’s saints, and led to picture an ideal
sufferer and intercessor. He says: “The figure from which he starts is the actual
historical figure of which he has so often spoken. But he is raised above himself.
The figure which he beholds is embodied in an ideal figure in which he sees salva-
tion accomplished, and all the riddles of the present solved. If it is true anywhere
in the history of poetry and prophecy, it is true here, that the writer, being full of
the Spirit, has said more than he himself meant to say, and more than he himself
understood.”’ (Old Testament Theology, IT. 431-433.)
2 Ps, ii, Ixxii, cx. Compare Zech, vi. 12, 13.
REVELATION. 99
upon his shoulder ; and his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government, and of peace, there shall
be no end upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to
establish it with judgment and righteousness from henceforth,
even forever.” ! Something of the same inspiring hope ap-
pears with Jeremiah. ‘“ Behold the days come, saith the Lord,
that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and he shall
reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute judgment and
justice in the land. In his days, Judah shall be saved, and
Israel shall dwell safely: and this is the name whereby he
shall be called, The Lord is our righteousness.”’? Micah and
Zechariah picture the earthly circumstances which are to
mark the coming prince of David’s house. “Thou, Bethlehem
Ephratah, which art little among the thousands of Judah,
out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler
in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlast-
ing.’ ® “ Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daugh-
ter of Jerusalem: behold thy king cometh unto thee: he is
just, and having salvation, lowly, and riding upon an ass, even
upon a colt, the foal of an ass.’’* In Daniel’s picture, on the
other hand, the aspect of heavenly majesty stands in the fore-
ground. ‘I saw in the night visions, and, behold there came
with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he
came even to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near
before Him. And there was given him dominion and glory,
and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and languages
should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall
not be destroyed.” ®
As is the glory of the Messianic king, so also is the blessed-
ness of hiskingdom. It is described as a kingdom from which
1 Tsaiah xi. 1-5, ix. 6, 7.
2 Jeremiah xxiii. 5,6. Compare xxxiii. 15; Ezek. xxxiv. 23, xxxvii. 25-28.
* Micah v.2. ‘ Zech.ix.9. © © Daniel vii. 13, 14.
100 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
all malice and wildness have been banished, a realm of peace
and fruitfulness, abounding in such life-giving streams as make
even the desert to blossom as the rose, enriched with a plenty
which offers wine and milk without money and without price,
over whose people Jehovah rejoices as the bridegroom over the
bride, to whose dwellings no darkness approaches, for the Lord
shall be Israel’s everlasting light, and the days of her mourn-
ing shall be ended.! Indeed, unless the descriptions be taken
as highly wrought emblems of spiritual peace and fullness, the
prophetic vision lies ahead of us still, and will not blend fully
with the reality this side of the heavenly border. Whether
taken in the nearer or the more remote application, it appears
as a glorious forecast of the Messianic kingdom.
Thus the love of righteousness in the prophets, and their
courageous optimism, flowered forth under divine guidance
into various lines of prediction. What though one and an-
other representation bears, as has been granted, traces of the
writer’s special surroundings? The drawing of so many minds
toward such high levels of hope and the adaptation of their
varied representations to fill out the picture of the Messiah
are deeply significant facts. That prophetic idealism moved
so far toward gospel reality is a manifest token that the same
divine providence, wisdom, and love were back of both.
The picture which supplements the manifestation of the
unique personality of Christ is as congruous with that person-
ality as the picture which prefaced the manifestation. In full
accord with the claims of Christ as the world’s redeemer, the
apostolic literature is permeated with a sense of His tran-
scendent dignity and of the dependence of all the spiritual
interests of men upon His gracious offices. He is described
as the one Lord through whom are all things ;? as having all
things summed up in Himself ;* as being the one in whom it
1 Isa. xi, 6-9, xxxv,, liv., lv., lx, Ixv. 17-25. 2 1 Cor. viii. 6. 3 Eph, i. 10,
REVELATION. IOI
pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell, and by whom
He reconciles all things unto Himself ;! as the foundation for
which there is no substitute;* as the power of God and the
wisdom of God ;? as the Lord of the dead and the living ;4 as
the Saviour who has abolished death and brought life and incor-
ruption to light;® as the Lord of glory ;® as the one whose
face reveals the light of the knowledge of the glory of God ;7
as being the effulgence of the Father's glory and the very
image of His substance ;*8 as the author and perfector of
faith ;® as having a name in which every knee shall bow ;?°
as the first and the last and holding the keys of death and
Hades ; 4 as the object of the doxology, in which the heavenly
hosts unite in saying ‘“ Worthy is the Lamb that has been slain
to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and
honor, and glory, and blessing’’; as being along with the
Lord Almighty the temple and the light of Heaven.
Believers are described as the body of Christ ;/ as having
redemption and cleansing from all sin through the blood of
Christ ;!° as walking in Christ and rooted and built up in Him;
as being free in Christ from all condemnation ;" as being cru-
cified with Christ and finding also their life in Him;!8 as having
Christ made unto them wisdom, and righteousness, and sancti-
fication ; as being in Christ new creatures.” In fine, the
apostolic literature is one continuous illustration of the signifi-
cance of Christ’s person and of the overmastering impression
made by His revelation of divine truth and saving purpose.”!
1 Col. i. 19, 20. © Heb. i. 3. 16 Eph. 1. 7; 1 John i. 7.
2 1 Cor. iii, II. 9 Heb. xii. 2. 16 Col. ii. 6, 7.
3 1 Cor. i. 24. 10 Phil. ii. 10. 17 Rom. viii. I.
4 Rom. xiv. 9. 11 Rev, i. 17, 18. 18 Rom. vi. 6; Gal. ii. 20.
5 2 Tim. i. 10. 12 Rev, v. 12. 19 t Cor. i. 30.
6 James ii. I. 18 Rev, xxii. 23. #'2 Cor. ¥, 17.
7 2 Cor. iv. 6. 14 1 Cor. xii. 27.
21 A testimony supplementary to that afforded by the apostolic literature might
be taken from the tenor of history in later times. Here the words of Edgar Quinet
are very suggestive. ‘The personal grandeur of Christ,” he says, “ is better demon-
102 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
Thus the chief factors of the Bible are united into a system
of salvation. In the character of these factors and their har-
monious relation to each other we have the incomparable evi-
dence for revelation. The unique personality of Christ, the
prophetic forecast of the same, and the manifested power of
that personality in the apostolic literature unite to furnish a
firm ground for rational faith.
VI.— EVIDENCE FOR THE BIBLE IN THE FAcTS OF PRo-
PHETIC~ FORESIGHT.
The divine element in Messianic prophecy appears for the
most part not so much in a minute forecast of the future as in
the reach, elevation, and general appropriateness of expecta-
tion. It may be said also of prophecy as a whole that it gives
the substance of coming developments rather than a precise
sketch of events in their external features. Moreover, the
demand for correspondence between prediction and the his-
torical outcome may legitimately be regarded as modified in
some instances by a conditional element in prophecy, or the
understanding that a change in human conduct may effect a
change in the divine ruling. Nevertheless, it is not to be
overlooked that the Scriptures contain distinct predictions of
strated by the movement and spirit of the times which have succeeded Him than
by the Gospels themselves. If I knew nothing of the Scripture and had never
heard the name of Jesus, I must always have thought that some extraordinary impul-
sion took place in the world about the time of the Czsars. Whence came this
impulsion and its wonderful results? When Strauss says that he regards the inven-
tion of the compass and steamboats as of more importance than the care of a few
sick folk in Galilee, he is evidently the dupe of his own reasoning; for he knows
as well as I do that the miracle of Christianity is not there, but rather in the great
marvel of humanity cured of the evil of slavery, of the leprosy of caste, of the
blindness of pagan sensuality, able to rise up and carry its bed far away from the
old world. . .. The continual miracle of the gospel is the reign of a soul which felt
itself greater than the visible universe.” (Cited by C. M. Tyler, Bases of Religious
Belief, pp. 227, 228.)
REVELATION. 103
special events. Here and there are manifestations of a fore-
sight which cannot be explained by any natural capacity
of men.
As appears from Christ’s conversations with His disciples,
He contemplated His crucifixion as an event that was perfectly
certain to occur. He foresaw His betrayal and the disper-
sion of His disciples. He pictured beforehand the denial of
Peter, at the very moment when the confident disciple was pro-
testing his undying fidelity. He painted in terms that were ful-
filled to the letter the doom impending over Jerusalem and the
temple. He forecast without a shadow of doubt that the very
disciples who were to forsake Him in the hour of His humilia-
tion would take up the cause of their crucified Master with the
courage and zeal of martyrs, and would carry His gospel well
towards the ends of the earth. He signified to Peter by what
death he should glorify God. In short, the future seems to
have been transparent to Christ so far as His vocation made
a demand for foresight.
The prophets of Israel, also, in one and another instance con-
fidently foretold specific events. A writer of known modera-
tion, while contending that the prophets were not wont to
picture events that had no apprehended connection with the
circumstances of their age, adduces the following list of par-
ticular and unconditional predictions:! ‘ Michaiah, the son of
Imlah, prophesied that Ahab and Jehosaphat would be defeated
by the Syrians, and permitted himself to be thrown into prison,
with the declaration that he was willing to be regarded as a
false prophet if his prediction were not fulfilled.? In a similar
manner Amos predicted the approaching destruction of the
Damascene kingdom and the carrying of the Syrians to Kir.®
Isaiah had the fullest certainty that the kings, Rezin and Pekah,
would not succeed in taking Jerusalem, and that in less than
three years their countries would be devastated by the Assy-
a ae ne re en rrr rr te
1 Riehm, Messianic Prophecy, pp. 92, 93. 8 Amos i, 3-5; 2 Kings xvi. 9.
2 1 Kings xxii, 17-36.
104 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
rian armies,! and that the kingdom of Judah would be heavily
afflicted by Assyria, from which it had expected help? He
also published the deliverance of Jerusalem from the army of
Sennacherib, and the destruction of the latter by the direct
interposition of Jehovah and the hasty flight of the remnant.®
On the other hand, Jeremiah predicted the fixed purpose of
God to accomplish the destruction of Jerusalem and the over-
throw of the Jewish kingdom by His servant Nebuchadnezzar ;*
but he also foretold that in seventy years the judgments of God
should overtake Babylon and bring about the deliverance and
the return of the exiles;® and the same prophet predicted
the death of the false prophet Hananiah in the course of the
year.’ ® Various items might be added to this list. Hosea,
for example, foretold the downfall of Samaria at the hands of
the Assyrians.’ Micah predicted the destruction of Jerusalem
and the Babylonian exile.’ Isaiah declared in the days of
Hezekiah that the royal treasures and princes should be carried
off to Babylon.2 The utter desolation prepared for Babylon
was graphically described by Isaiah,!° and Nahum portrayed
the like fate for Nineveh.
In the case of Christ, foresight of the future must be
regarded as harmonious at once with His lofty personality
and with His unclouded intercourse with the Father. As
regards the remaining circle of predictions, when we observe
that their authors gave, in general, tokens of an intimate com-
munion with God, it seems by far more reasonable to suppose
here the work of the revealing Spirit than a series of merely
human forecasts. Apparent failures of prophecies to meet a
proper fulfillment cannot prove that there were no genuine or
authoritative predictions. So far as not accounted for by a
1 Isa, vii. 7, 16, 2 Isa. vil. 18-25, vili. 5-7.
8 Isa. x. 33, 34, xiv. 24-27, xxix. 7, 8, xxx. 27~—33, xxxi. 5-9, xxxvii. 33-35.
4 Jer. v. 15-17, xv. I-4, xxi, I-10.
§ Jer. xvi. 14, 15, xxv. II, 12, xxx. 18-20, xxxii. 42-44.
© Jer. xxviii. 16. 8 Micah iii. 12, iv. 10. 0 Tsaiah xiii,
7 Hosea viii., ix. 3. 9 Isa, xxxix; 2 Kings xx, 14-17.
REVELATION. 108
conditional element in prophecy, they would simply show that
the prophetical spirit did not always operate under the fullest
illumination. After all necessary abatement has been made it
remains a significant distinction of the biblical revelation that
the element of premonition which runs through so large a
portion of its content reaches up, at one point and another, into
the region of a supernatural foresight.
VII. — THe EvipENcCE FURNISHED BY MIRACLES.
To one who accepts the fact of prophecy there can be no
insuperable difficulty as respects the fact of miracles. They
belong in common to the category of special revelations, and
all the considerations which were urged at the beginning of
this chapter for the credibility of such an order of revelations
are as available for establishing the possibility of the one as of
the other. No good reason can be assigned why the same
God who elevates expectation and foresight above the plane
of nature in the minds of the prophets may not manifest in
external nature an energy which is above the plane of regular
physical causation. Special revelation in the latter sphere
cannot be more difficult than in the former.
As appears from the foregoing sentences, the term miracles
is taken here in the limited sense which it has in current
usage, and denotes that form of the supernatural which has its
theatre in the sphere of sense-perceptions. Its significance is
well expressed by Dorner as follows: “ Miracles are sensuously
cognizable events not comprehensible on the ground of the
causality of nature and the given system of nature as such,
but essentially on the ground of God’s free action alone.” !
Freedom and power supply the necessary conditions of
miracles. As free personalities, men are able to produce in-
1 System of Christian Doctrine, § 55.
106 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
numerable changes in the external world which the laws of
nature, left to themselves, would never bring about. How
shall that which lies within the competency of men be placed
beyond the reach of the Divine Being? If God is free per-
sonality, nothing can be clearer than that He is able to work
directly in the sphere of nature, and to work with a power
which, transcending the human or creaturely measure, gener-
ates the miracle. Such working, supposing it to subserve a
high moral purpose, would be in no sense eccentric, unnatural,
or self-contradictory. It would rather be an exhibition of the
eccentric and the unnatural if impersonal nature should be
treated as though it were an end rather than an instrument,
and its inviolability should be set above the necessities of the
kingdom of righteousness. Doubtless the system of nature
must have steadfastness and relative inviolability in order to
accomplish its end. Without this character it could serve
as no proper theatre for the subsistence and the education
of the race. The miracle, however, does not interfere with
this character in nature. It displaces and subverts no nat-
ural law.
As the free working of men introduces effects into nature
without any injury to the integrity of the system, so also may
the free working of God. The higher range of the effects in
the latter case, which entitles them to be called miracles, makes
no difference. The greatest miracle is as harmless as the least
physical expression of man’s free agency. Its introduction
makes no jar, and when once introduced its total physical
result blends harmoniously with the system of things. As
when a man by his free choice casts a branch into a stream,
it is borne on in accordance with the laws of nature, though
those laws might never have brought it into the stream, so
the physical effect of a miraculous working enters the stream
of natural causes, and is borne on with its ceaseless flow. The
stream neither generates the effect nor is turned aside by it ;
it simply takes up what is brought to it by divine interposition.
REVELATION. 107
Miracles, then, in no wise undermine nature, and it can only
be asked that divine prudence should so regulate their con-
ditions that they shall not undermine a healthy reliance in.
men upon natural laws or the ordinary processes of the physi-
cal world. To secure this end it is necessary that miracles
should be exceptional, and at that should be linked only with
serious occasions.
Among the criteria of genuine miracles, and conditions of
their evidential value, are to be named in particular the follow-
ing: (1) intrinsic and recognizable connection with ends that
may be regarded as worthy of divine wisdom and benevolence ;
(2) demonstrated efficiency to impress men healthfully, or to
promote their moral and spiritual development ; (3) confirma-
tion by a sufficient amount of honest and intelligent testimony.
These three tests, it may be said without any undue dis-
paragement of the last, belong together. Hume was, indeed,
begging the question when he arrayed experience against testi-
mony, and assumed that the former is so opposed to miracles
as to completely negative the force of the latter in their favor.
On that basis, nothing new or extraordinary could be made
credible by testimony, which is just the same as saying that
ordinary experience can reasonably be made the measure of all
possible experience. Since by hypothesis miracles are excep-
tional events, experience of them must also be exceptional ;
and the force of this exceptional experience cannot, therefore,
be regarded as nullified by the general lack of experience.
Unless it be tacitly assumed that miracles are intrinsically
improbable under any and all conditions, testimony may con-
ceivably establish a balance in their favor. The assumption
in question, however, is something which has never been estab-
lished, and is always put to flight before the thought of a
Divine Person who holds a free relation to nature. Still, the
virtue of testimony is by no means such as to be independent
of all conditions. No divine act can contradict divine right-
eousness. By the verdict of the Bible, no impure wonder-
108 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
worker has any claim to credence. All marvels, in proportion
as they are not plainly linked with holy ends, are properly
subject to doubt, while those which are discovered to be antag-
onistic to moral interests are but lying wonders, products of
human or diabolical fraud. In general, it may be affirmed
that an increased demand is placed upon testimony in the
measure that any supposed case of miracles fails to meet either
of the other two tests.
If, now, we apply our tests to the gospel miracles, it will
not take long to determine that the first two are, in general,
fully satisfied by these events. They are consistent with the
divine holiness. They manifest divine love and compassion.
They enter as congruous elements into the most perfect life that
was ever lived among men. They stand in natural relation to
the pure and lofty teaching of Christ ; indeed, the two are so in-
timately linked, in many cases, that a separation is impossible
without a grievous mutilation of the evangelical narrative.
The gospel miracles exhibit, also, the fitting measure of spirit-
ual potency. Through their harmonious relation to the per-
son and message of Christ they are made permanently edify-
ing, awakening, and consoling to the human spirit. They are
a veritable factor in the spiritual life of men, and must remain
so as long as the gospel has any power in the world.
An examination of the testimony which vouches for the
gospel miracles will likewise indicate that they do not lack the
needful basis. That this testimony cannot easily be dislodged
is shown, in the first place, by the failure of the cardinal at-
tempts to construe the life of Christ while putting a negative
upon His miracles. The attempt of Paulus to eliminate all
supernatural elements from the Gospels by pronouncing them
honest but uncritical interpretations of natural events has long
since been condemned as artificial. It also impinges upon
the explicit testimony of Christ, contained in passages that
have as distinctive marks of genuineness as any that are on
record, such, for example, as the reply which was made to the
REVELATION. 109
messengers sent by John the Baptist. This is so thoroughly
in the style and spirit of Jesus that he who puts it aside goes
far toward removing all historic ground from under his feet,
and needs to ponder by what magic a story of such beauty,
symmetry, and life-like reality as is that of Christ’s ministry
ever came to be fashioned. Scarcely more successful is the
mythical theory of Strauss. This assumes that, by a gradual
process, expectations respecting the office of the Messiah,
which had been instilled into the popular mind, were uncon-
sciously objectified, and took on the garb of a miraculous his-
tory. But if these expectations that the Messiah would work
miracles were so vital a thing, how did it happen that Jesus
obtained any recognition as the Messiah if no miracles were
wrought by Him? How did the people so completely triumph
over the chill of disappointment as to put in place of a dismal
blank a glowing account of miraculous deeds? Moreover, the
theory of Strauss, equally with that of Paulus, overrides pas-
sages in the Gospels which have as clear marks of genuineness
as any that can be selected, and so logically issues in a help-
less nihilism, the vapid conclusion that nothing is known of
the historical character who produced the mightiest effects
that ever emanated from a single life. The shortcomings of
his theory were not wholly hid from Strauss himself, and
ultimately he revised it by giving considerable scope to the
hypothesis of invented reports. An hypothesis still more
violent appears with Renan. Stripped of its rhetorical gloss,
Renan’s expedient for blotting out the record of miracles is
the sacrifice of the moral integrity of Jesus. Not able to
close his eyes to the fact that Jesus sanctioned belief in the
reputed miracles, he concludes that He accommodated Himself
to the unwelcome demand enforced by popular delusion, and
took up the réle of a half-hearted wonder worker. Thus the
unsparing censor of every covert form of wickedness, the one
1 Luke vii. 19-23.
IIo LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
who denounced sin without respect of persons, the teacher
whose words and example have ceaseless power to vitalize
conscience and to persuade to holiness, descended to un-
worthy thaumaturgic arts! A speculative antipathy to the
supernatural which flies to this extreme of the unnatural has
sufficiently judged itself in the sight of all sober minds.
The original theory of Strauss supposes the stories of
miracles to have sprung up beyond the circle of the primitive
disciples. But there are good reasons for deeming this sup-
position utterly unhistorical, and for regarding the primitive
disciples as witnesses for the miraculous deeds of their Master,
as they were, undoubtedly, for His resurrection. Every argu-
ment for the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel makes
of course for this conclusion. As regards the Synoptical
Gospels the unmistakable tendency of recent criticism is to
affirm that their groundwork was furnished at least in large
part with the knowledge and coéperation of the primitive dis-
ciples. According to a widely current theory, Mark’s Gospel
served as an important factor in the basis of the Gospels by
Matthew and Luke. Now, an early and credible tradition
represents that Mark stood in close relation with Peter and
depended largely upon his testimony. It is concluded, more-
over, that both our canonical Matthew and Luke made use
of a document which may be identified with the Logia of the
Apostle Matthew, written originally in Hebrew or Aramaic.
It is true that this document is supposed to have been occupied
mainly with Christ’s discourses. But, then, various of these
discourses were so connected with miracles that they could
not be reported intelligibly without reference to them. Thus
the literary criticism of the Gospels gives good reason for as-
suming that these writings, as we have them, exhibit in their
reports of Christ’s miracles substantially the fruit of apostolic
testimony. The sobriety also with which they treat the sub-
ject of miracles argues not a little for an apostolic basis.
Their tone is harmonious with the supposition that the report
REVELATION. Itt
of judicial eye-witnesses was back of their narratives. That
their composition was not dominated by a greed for the mar-
vellous is seen in the fact that not a single miracle is ascribed
to John the Baptist, and not less by the fact that the canonical
Gospels, in striking contrast with the spurious Gospels of a
later date, ascribe no miracles to the youth or early manhood
of Jesus, but make all His miracles incidental to His public
ministry. The evidence contained in the New Testament
Epistles is, moreover, fully consonant with the verdict that
apostolic testimony was distinctively the basis for the reports
of the gospel miracles. The Epistle to the Hebrews, written
at all events within the first century, and very likely before the
year 70, assumes that the preaching of the gospel was accom-
panied by miraculous attestations.! Paul testifies to the same
effect in more than one instance.” As appears from his lan-
guage,®> as well as from the Book of Acts, the apostolic
miracles were regarded as wrought by the virtue of Christ.
Now it is not natural to suppose that the very men who
claimed to be working miracles in the name of Christ believed
themselves to be doing an order of works in confirmation of
His gospel which He had never done Himself. The whole
New Testament picture contradicts such a supposition. The
words which Peter is reported to have spoken on the day of
Pentecost, when he described Jesus as a man “approved of
God by mighty works and signs and wonders,” give the only
credible representation of the apostolic standpoint. The eye-
witnesses of Christ’s deeds, His daily companions and associates
during the years of His ministry, the men whose sterling
good sense prepared them for the difficult enterprise of found-
ing the Church, and whose intensity of honest conviction fur-
nished them for the painful ordeal of martyrdom, appear as
the responsible vouchers for the gospel miracles. To ask for
1 Hebrews ii. 3, 4.
2 Gal. iii. §; Rom. xv. 18-20; 1 Cor. xii. 28, 29; 2 Cor. xii. 12.
8 Rom, xv. 18.
112 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
more competent testimony would savor at once of caprice
and ingratitude.
As regards the Old Testament miracles, our threefold test
is not so distinctly applicable. Prophecy is undoubtedly a
more convincing credential for the older dispensation than 1s
miracle. Nevertheless, the great events which are reported
to have brought about the deliverance of the Israelites from
Egyptian bondage meet in a fair measure the tests of genuine
miracles. To make Israel a subject of special tuition, a priestly
nation, and so ultimately a medium of blessing to the whole
world, was an end worthy of divine benevolence and wisdom.
The supernatural intervention had also a suitable result. It
was spiritually potent, a vital factor in Israelitish piety through
the ensuing ages. As to the testimony for the miracles which
led up to and accompanied the exodus, the uncertain date of
various portions of the Pentateuch hinders a confident appeal
to eye-witnesses, and the actual power of the alleged wonders
in the national consciousness remains their most authentic cer-
tificate. For the later miracles of the Old Testament some-
what less can be said. To rescue the nation from threatened
apostasy and thus to conserve its high vocation may have been,
indeed, a sufficient occasion for miraculous intervention. Some
of the recorded miracles too have a very worthy setting, as, for
example, the attestation which crowned Elijah’s great contest
with the priests of Baal. But this can scarcely be said for all
of them. In respect of a considerable proportion, also, it is
not clearly apparent that they meet the test of nobility and
permanency of spiritual effect. Instead, therefore, of render-
ing any positive support to biblical authority, they need
rather to be supported by that authority, if they are to hold
an indubitable place in the category of facts.
The concession that some of the miracles recorded in the
Bible are not adapted to render any positive help to a rational
faith in revelation does not of course invalidate the evidence
from miracle. In the gospel miracles, as we have seen, the
REVELATION. 113
highest tests of genuineness are grandly met. They are also
relatively satisfied in the extraordinary events which raised
Israel from an estate of slavery into the position of the Lord’s
elect people. The record of miracles joins therefore with that
of prophecy in attesting the presence of a divine element with-
in the circle of the biblical system.
The objection which may be drawn from the facile multipli-
cation of stories of miracles in the annals of reputed saints is
to be answered by a reference to the tests which have been
laid down. In general, these alleged miracles fail utterly to
meet the first two tests. Many of them are mere eccentrici-
ties and demean the notion of the divine administration.
While they may have fulfilled a certain office for ignorance
and superstition, they can make no claim to true spiritual
potency. The whole mass of them could be blotted out of
religious literature without eclipsing any real light in the
spiritual firmament. Indeed, it would be a clear gain if the
contemplation which is absorbed in them could be carried over
to the loftier and more healthful region of the beautiful and
gracious works of Christ. A heavy burden is thus thrown
upon the testimony in their behalf, and as this is very often
quite unsubstantial, the cases of well attested miracles proper
—as distinguished from striking though natural instances of
healing through the reaction of the mind upon the body — are
far from numerous. In general, it may be said that the eccle-
siastical miracles are an appendix to the apocryphal rather
than: to the canonical Gospels, and, like the former, serve by
contrast to emphasize the sobriety, reasonableness, and simple
majesty of the genuine evangelical narratives.!
1 Compare Charles W. Rishell, The Foundations of the Christian Faith, 1899,
» PP. 259-264,
I14 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
VITI.— Tuer SusjEcTIVE PROOF, OR THE EVIDENCE Fur-
NISHED BY THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS.
With the more objective credentials of the biblical revela-
tion we may join the subjective proof —the ineffaceable im-
pression of truth and authority which the Bible makes in the
Christian consciousness. In the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries this evidence was styled the ¢estémontum Spiritus
Sancti, and was regarded very commonly as the crowning
proof of revelation. A more fitting name for the evidence
might doubtless have been chosen, since the operation of the
Holy Spirit in producing faith in the Bible is not a subject
for direct insight. It is more prudent, therefore, to appeal to
the common facts of the Christian consciousness, or inward
experience, than to the act of an unseen agent which is in-
ferred rather than immediately perceived.
To those who stand outside the circle of an inner appropria-
tion of Christianity the argument from Christian experience
may not be very convincing. It remains nevertheless a great
fact that the claim of the Bible to be the book of salvation is
in such perfect accord with the experience of innumerable
believers, who find along the lines of biblical truth the most
salutary self-discovery, the purest consolation, the deepest
peace, and the most ennobling incentives which come into
their lives. That which is thus fruitful of the highest and
best may reasonably be regarded as peculiarly rich in divine
treasure. Coleridge spoke soberly when he said: “In the
Bible there is more that finds me than I have experienced in
all other books put together ; the words of the Bible find me
at greater depths of my being; and whatever thus finds me
brings with it an irresistible evidence of its having proceeded
from the Holy Spirit.”
This argument, it may be noticed, approves the distinctive
teachings of the Bible as worthy of a divine source, rather
than affords a ground of judging all its parts and items. As
REVELATION. 115
Mead appropriately remarks: “ A Christian man will find in
the Scriptures as a whole a spirit which seems to him to be
of divine origin. His own spirit, illumed by the Divine Spirit,
will discern in the Scriptures the marks of a superhuman in-
fluence that must have been concerned in the production of
them. He will be conscious of a peculiar stimulus and illumi-
nation as coming from the contents of the Bible. But no
religious experience can go to the length of enabling a man
to recognize the divine inspiration and authority of every part
of the biblical books.” }
The objection that, inasmuch as Christian experience or
the facts of Christian consciousness are founded on the Bible,’
the correspondence between the two is accounted for as being
in the line of natural causation, and therefore is not of eviden-
tial force, neglects important features of the case. It is not
merely the truth of some general correspondence that has to
be noted here; the high order of the facts of Christian con-
sciousness and the extent to which they harmonize with funda-
mental teachings of revelation come into consideration. Asa
natural result of interaction something in the way of corres-
pondence between oracles and life may subsist in an ethnic
system ; but this does not prevent the high plane of fact and
correspondence belonging to Christian experience and truth
from being specially significant. A token is legitimately
found here that the Bible fundamentally corresponds to man’s
ethical and religious nature and needs.
IX.— THE EVIDENCE BASED ON A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF
SACRED Books.
Fair-minded and competent scholarship will not deny that
truth of a high order is contained in the written oracles of
Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism,
1 Supernatural Revelation, p. 321.
116 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
and Mohammedanism severally. At the same time, scholar-
ship of this stamp will grant that a distinct primacy among
sacred books belongs to the Christian’s Bible. The detailed
proof of this proposition will not, of course, be expected here.
Only the comprehensive treatise on the subject of religions
can render that proof. A brief statement of three or four
significant points is the most that can appropriately be
admitted.
1. The best that is contained in any body or group of
ethnic scriptures can easily be matched from the content of
the Bible. The earnest spirit in which Zoroastrianism deals
with the antithesis between good and evil, the stress of Con-
fucianism upon filial piety and upon just dealing between man
and man, Lao-tse’s emphasis upon the supreme reason and the
life inwardly conformed thereto, the benevolence, humaneness,
and resignation inculcated by Buddhism, the warm apprecia-
tion of the divine immanence which appears at various points
in Brahmanic or Hindu thinking, the majesty with which the
Koran invests the sovereignty of God, and its strenuous insist-
ence upon the duty of complete surrender — all of these have
their parallel in the Bible to such an extent that it cannot
fairly be charged with a deficit as respects any one of them.
2. In the ethnic scriptures, as a body, the gold of moral
and religious truth is combined with a much greater mass of
comparatively worthless material than is to be found in the
Bible. While the latter, especially in its Old Testament di-
vision, contains sections which are intrinsically of no great
significance, and which acquire import only as it is transferred
to them by the religious mind out of the wealth of its own
ideas and associations, relatively it runs on a high plane, and
is replete with an edifying content.
3. The Bible is distinguished among all sacred books by its
rounded presentation of truth! Herein lies its peculiar pre
1 A partial illustration of this fact has been given in Section IV of this chapter.
REVELATION. 117
eminence. It does not sacrifice any high interest or truth by
exclusive or exaggerated attention to a competing interest or
truth. It respects proportion, and provides for the organic
relation of part with part. While it exalts the obligation
of divine law, it magnifies the depths of divine mercy.
While it opens up an entrancing view of the life beyond,
it does not neglect to enforce the duty of bringing the
kingdom of heaven into this world. It profoundly empha-
sizes the ethical, and also profoundly emphasizes the spe-
cifically religious. The thought of sacrificing the one to
the other lies wholly outside its domain. It is distant by
a whole diameter from the Brahmanic sentiment expressed
in this sentence: “No guilt taints a Brahmana who possesses
learning, practices austerities, and daily mutters sacred texts,
though he may constantly commit sinful acts.’’! Equally re-
mote is it from the pale regard of Confucianism for the thought
of God, and from the ignoring of the divine which was charac-
teristic of original Buddhism. As strenuous on the side of
ethics as is either of these systems at the best, it provides for
the vitalizing of ethical conviction by its powerful inculcation
of the thought of a perfect Being, and of man’s intimate rela-
tion to Him. It at once safeguards religion against ceremoni-
alism and artificiality by its stress upon the ethical, and deepens
ethical life by the inspiration which comes from high religious
points of view. A more perfect or a more important harmony
was never witnessed than that consummated through the union
of the ethical and the religious in the spirit and the teaching
of the New Testament.
4. The Bible has an advantage over all the ethnic scriptures
in the manner in which its system of truth is focused ina lofty
personality. The historical demonstration of spiritual verities,
in and through Jesus Christ, provides a ground of conviction
and hope more substantial and efficacious by far than is offered
1 Sacred Books of the East, American edition, Vol. II, Part II, p. 120.
9
118 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
in any non-Christian system. In the legendary attachments
to Buddhism, it is true, great import is awarded to the person-
ality of Gautama. But it was no part of his own thought that
men should inhere in him as the branch in the vine, and on
the plane of authentic history there is no claim that the spirit-
ual kingdom is focused in the Buddhistic sage after the man-
ner in which the Gospels represent it to be focused in Him
who bore the name of the Son of God as well as that of the
Son of Man.
It is doubtless possible for an objector to insinuate here the
notion that this superiority of the Bible falls short of accredit-
ing it as containing the ultimate system of truth. The plea
may be made that the Bible simply represents, among the
transient phases of the evolution of religion, the one which
has happened to be favored with the best conditions. It will
be time, however, to concede any weight to this plea when the
race, or some part of it, shall appear to have gained a better
level of ethical and religious principles than was character-
istic of the illuminated consciousness of Jesus Christ. What
must strike the clear-sighted student of history is the exceed-
ing difficulty, on the part even of elect souls, to keep up to the
level of gospel truth in the whole circle of their ethical and
religious thinking.
X.—— THE PROPER LIMITS OF THE BIBLE, OR THE TESTS OF
CANONICITY.
A glance at the various evidences that have been adduced
will serve, it is believed, to foster the impression that the proof
for the Bible lies in its contents —that is, in the spiritual
wealth of the factors which it contains, and in their harmoni-
ous relation to each other — rather than in any form of external
attestation. Even the miracle, as has been seen, is most ap-
propriately regarded as a part of the rounded whole of revela-
REVELATION... 119
tion. Whatever it may have been to the contemporary gen-
eration, for us it is adapted to establish conviction in the
biblical system only as it fulfills a function of revelation,
only as it is harmoniously connected with the process of
sacred history, and serves to disclose the character of God or
to illustrate His redemptive purpose. Outside of this re-
lation and office, it does not generate faith in the Bible,
but rather needs an already existing faith to provide for its
acceptance.
From this general point of viewit is not difficult to discover
what ought to be the dominant consideration in settling the
canon. The prime test of the canonical character of any
book must be found in its contents. It may fairly be expected
of an approved book that its contents should be, at least very
largely, in harmonious relation with the system of revelation
contained in the Bible as a whole, and should, moreover, either
directly or indirectly, make some contribution to the complete-
ness of that system, a vain duplication being contrary to the
principle of economy.
A secondary test of the canonical character of a book may
be located in the consensus of opinion, as being for or against
its claims. This must be reckoned subsidiary to the foregoing,
since a consensus of opinion can have real weight only in pro-
portion to the legitimacy of the grounds on which it rests. In
so far as it is determined by arbitrary authority, by the mere
desire for personal or corporate convenience, or by an indolent
assent to custom and tradition, it lacks conclusiveness. Its
reliability is measured by the amount of scholarship and piety
which enter into its basis. Scholarship and piety united, and
continuously rendering a concordant verdict, deserve much
credence. But neither scholarship nor piety can properly be
satisfied with anything artificial. To both it must appear that
the contents of a book which rightfully claims a place in the
Bible are agreeable to the high level and holy purpose of the
biblical revelation as a whole. Thus an analysis of the grounds
120 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
which give real authority to a consensus of opinion takes us
back to our primary test. The fact of a consensus, taken by
itself, is simply a token, not a complete proof, that a book has
the character which entitles it to a place in the canon.
It may be thought that a ground of judgment can be found
in the relation of men of prophetic or apostolic vocation to the
books of the Bible. But this test cannot be satisfactorily
applied to the whole area of revelation. There are important
portions of the Bible which are not known to have emanated
from either prophet or apostle; nor can it be proved that they
were reviewed and distinctly sanctioned by the one or the
other. Two at least of the Gospels, the Book of Acts, the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and considerable portions of the Old
Testament fall under this description.
From these premises it seems to follow that a perfectly
definite standard of canonicity is not within our reach. This
is to be granted. There is no help for a margin of indefinite-
ness, so long as the figment of ecclesiastical infallibility is
repudiated. For, it is quite certain that no specific act of
divine authority can be pointed out as fixing either the Old
or the New Testament canon. The right of some of the con-
stituents of the New Testament to a place in the canon was
an open question in Catholic Christendom for two centuries or
more; and though the limits of the Old Testament were in all
likelihood practically fixed in Jewish thought a century before
the coming of Christ, at least as regards the acceptance of
those books that are now universally received by the Christian
Church, discussion of the subject was not reckoned imperti-
nent for some time longer. In either case there was evidently
an utter lack of consciousness that any unmistakable sign or
decree from God had determined the matter. It is true that
a general guarantee for the Old Testament is contained in the
New. ‘The references of Christ and the apostles show that
they viewed the oracles of the older dispensation as containing
authentic antecedents of the new, but these references can-
REVELATION. I2I
not be regarded as involving a decisive judgment on each and
every subordinate part of the Old Testament.
The books in the accepted Hebrew canon which are most
exposed to doubt are Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of
Solomon, That these books are not quoted in the New Testa-
ment need not be greatly emphazied. The fact is indeed well-
nigh exceptional.! But this may imply nothing more than that
the subject-matter of these books was not such as naturally to
be suggestive to the New Testament writers. It is not neces-
sary, likewise, to take much account of the indications that
these books were anciently subject to a measure of suspicion.
There was some doubt respecting all three of them in Jewish
circles. Among the early Christians, the Book of Esther was
challenged or ignored by several writers. It does not appear
in Melito’s list of Old Testament books, which was composed
about the year170. Athanasius classed it among uncanonical
writings, and other theologians of the fourth century, such as
Gregory Nazianzen and Amphilochius, omitted it from their
lists. The same may be said of Leontius in the fifth century,
Nicephorus in the ninth century included it with books of
doubtful claim.2, This makes an appreciable amount of excep-
tion ; but still it is not necessarily regarded as very formidable.
The greatest difficulty with this, as with the other books in
question, is in the contents. Some of the items in the Book
of Esther border upon the incredible, and the feeling with
which it is charged seems to pass beyond the permissible
measure of patriotic fervor into a fanatical animosity towards
the enemies of the Jews and an intemperate glorification of
the position and importance of the latter within the Persian
1 While it is true that Obadiah, Nahum, Ezra and Nehemiah are not quoted, the
first two are indirectly recognized, since the twelve minor prophets were anciently
reckoned as one book. As for Ezra and Nehemiah they are thought to have
made primarily one book with the Chronicles, and in the apostolic age were
probably so ‘closely associated therewith that the recognition of the last implied
their acceptance.
2 Ryle, The Canon of the Old Testament.
122 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
empire.! Ecclesiastes has a pessimistic trend that is not only
contrary to the tone of the New Testament, but also contrary
to the persistent hopefulness of the Hebrew prophets. Only
on the supposition that it was designed to sketch human life
from a special standpoint, namely, from the standpoint of the
disappointment and weariness naturally induced by a career of
luxury and worldliness, like that of the unfaithful Solomon,
can its tone be justified. The Book of Ecclesiastes, it must
be granted, does not itself thus limit the import of the picture
which it sets forth. However, the interpreter is not forbidden
to take it as representative of a special mood, and in so doing
can find it to some extent a book of edification. As respects
the Song of Solomon, the objection is the lack of any religious
significance in its contents. Such a significance has indeed
been invented for the poem. Through the drapery of its
fervid phrases there has been discovered the love of Jehovah
1 Jt makes an unpleasant impression to observe that “The little ones and
women” of the opponents of the Jews were made lawful objects of destruction in
the decree written apparently according to the wish and under the dictation of
Mordecai. (Esther viii. 7-11.) Scarcely more pleasing is the record that Esther
was not satisfied with one day’s slaughter in Shushan, but requested of the king a
second harvest of human heads. (ix. 12-15.) The candid reader can hardly fail
to yield assent to this verdict: “ If the details are correct, this only goes to enhance
the moral difficulties of the book. The fierce Jewish vindictiveness, which slaughters
thousands of innocent people in so-called self-defense, breaks out into an after-
math of unnecessary carnage.” (R,. F. Horton, Revelation and the Bible, p. 208.)
It has indeed been alleged that the slaughter was necessary to conserve the exis-
tence of the chosen people. But the plea is not convincing. Under all natural
conditions the perpetration of so great a slaughter by a small minority in a great
empire would, by reason of the burning resentment evoked, have been a sure
guarantee of the extermination of that minority. If it be presumed that a super-
natural awe came over the population of the empire to restrain their hand, it must
be answered that an instrumentality of that kind would have had quite as easy a
task to fulfill without the slaughter as with the same.
A judgment on the historical character of the book is given by A. H. Sayce in
the following terms: “Only one conclusion seems possible: the story of Esther is
an example of Jewish Haggadah which has been founded on one of those semi-
historical tales of which the Persian Chronicles seem to be full.” (The Higher
Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments, pp. 474, 475.)
REVELATION. 123
for Israel or the relation of Christ to His Church. But it
contradicts all biblical analogy and stands in the face of all
psychological possibility to suppose that any Israelitish poet
could have consciously used the luxuriant and sensuous imagery
of these love-strains to illustrate divine relations. It is plainly
a poem of human loves. It is beautiful, however, in its kind,
and may not be out of place in the canon, especially if Ewald’s
theory can be sustained, that three characters rather than two
are contemplated by the poem, and that the Shulamite, instead
of responding to the much-wedded Solomon, is viewed as per-
sisting in her attachment to a country lover.
It scarcely needs to be stated that Christian dogmatics
would lose nothing by placing these books on the border of
the canon, if not outside of the same. As the lack of any
quotation from them in the New Testament implies, their sub-
ject-matter has very little significance for Christian doctrine.
But while they are not needed for authority they may still
subserve a useful purpose of a secondary kind, as supplying
various texts which are not objectionable in themselves, and
which have a certain value for religious feeling through the
power of long-continued associations. This much, at any rate,
may be said for Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon.
Objections quite as weighty as those which invite to a
challenge of the proper canonicity of the book of Esther may
be cited against a large part of the Old Testament Apocry-
pha. As respects the test of general acceptance, the latter,
indeed, stand distinctly below the plane of the former. They
never fairly won the acknowledgment of the Jews. In Pales-
tine they were continuously excluded from the canon. In Egypt
the Jews, for an interval, gave them a semi-canonical stand-
ing, and included them with the older books in the Septuagint
version ; but later they seem to have reverted to the position
of their brethren in Palestine. The early Christians, as heirs
1 Riehm, Linleitung, IT. 375.
124 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
to the Septuagint version, naturally took its full list of books,
and drew no definite line of distinction between the Apocry-
pha and the strict Hebrew canon. But investigation ulti-
mately had its effect, and the Greek fathers of the fourth and
fifth centuries generally excluded the entire Apocrypha, ex-
cept the little Book of Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah.
In the Latin Church, the precipitate judgment of Augustine
and some of the Roman bishops started a current in favor of
the Apocryphal books, which finally issued, at the Council
of Trent, in the sixteenth century, in the distinct assertion of
their full canonical worth. In the interim, however, a succes-
sion of scholars had rendered a contrary verdict. Jerome dis-
criminated against the Apocrypha. The. same position was
taken by Bede and Alcuin in the eighth century, by Rabanus
Maurus in the ninth, by Peter of Cluny, Hugo and Richard
of St. Victor, Rupert of Deutz, and John of Salisbury in the
twelfth, by Hugo of St. Caro in the thirteenth, by Nicholas of
Lyra in the fourteenth, by Antonius, Archbishop of Florence,
in the fifteenth, by Cardinal Ximenes, Cardinal Cajetan, Pico
of Mirandola, and others, in the sixteenth.! The judgment of
Protestants was adverse, from the first, to conceding unquali-
fied canonicity to the Apocrypha. A large score of distrust
and rejection thus stands against the apocryphal books of the
Old Testament. And in the case of most of them this is
abundantly justified by their contents. Tobit, though con-
taining an interesting story, pays altogether too much tribute
to superstitious magic,” and to the atoning virtue of almsgiv-
ing.’ It also palliates mendacity by putting falsehoods into
the mouth of the angel, who acts as one of the chief char-
acters.‘ Judith is a romance, which deals fantastically with
history and geography,° and is occupied with the celebra-
1 Riehm, Finleitung, II. 391, 392. 5 Tobit iv. 10, xii. 9.
? Tobit iii. 8, vi. 8, 16 [19], viii. 3, xi. 4, 8. ‘Tobit v. 6 [8], 12 [18].
® Eichhorn, Einleitung in die Apocryphischen Schriften; Bissel, Commen-
tary on the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. Sayce says: ‘‘The decipher-
REVELATION. 125
tion of a deed of treacherous vengeance —a celebration not
wholly unlike some passages in the Book of Judges, but ex-
pressive rather of the crudest ethics of the Old Testament
than of its best standard. The additions to the Book of
Daniel are very poor specimens of historical invention. The
formal prayer and psalm put into the mouths of the Hebrews
in. the fiery furnace are incongruous with their intense situa-
tion. The story of Susanna stands in very artificial relation
to the Book of Daniel, and contains, among other uncritical
items, the assumption that the Jews at Babylon were free, in
the early years of their captivity, to exercise the power of life
and death. The reputed history of Bel and the great dragon
is a crude fable, which caps the climax of superstition and ab-
surdity by picturing the prophet Habakkuk as being lifted up
by the hair of his head, and transported through the air from
Judzea to Babylon, in order that he might be made to present
to the hungry Daniel, in the den of lions, the food which he
was about to take to some reapers in the field. The Book of
Baruch is loose in its historical references, misplacing the era
of the return of the sacred vessels belonging to the temple,
and inconsistently speaking of offerings being still made. in
the ruined temple at Jerusalem. In its general contents the
book is unobjectionable, but, as being little else than a com-
pilation from other Old Testament books, it contributes nothing
of real value to the canon. The Epistle of Jeremiah, which is
given in the Vulgate as the sixth chapter of Baruch, represents
another late attempt to fill out the history relating to the cap-
tivity. Its elaborate cautions against Babylonian idolatry are
artificial and jejune as compared with the authentic words of
Jeremiah. In Ecclesiasticus and the Book of Wisdom we
have writings that come nearer to the level of canonical worth.
ment of the cuneiform inscriptions has finally destroyed all claim on the part of
the Books of Tobit and Judith to be considered as history, and has banished them
to the realm of Haggadah.” (The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the
Monuments.)
126 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
Both of them occasionally pass the limits of sobriety, or in-
dulge in questionable statements,! but in the main they are
not unworthy specimens of the wisdom literature. Were not
that literature so adequately represented in the Old Testament,
apart from them, their admission to the canon, though still of
doubtful propriety, would not be vetoed by the most of their
contents. The First Book of Maccabees is a respectable his-
tory of a great crisis in the fortunes of the Jewish nation.
However, its multiplication of military details, far beyond the
demands of religious edification, is in contrast with the pro-
phetical handling of history. The book has also its quota of
palpable errors, especially in its references to the affairs of out-
side nations.2, The Second Book of Maccabees is noticeably
inferior to the first. The rather pedantic self-consciousness
which is manifested by its author is not in the best taste,® and
his repeated introduction of heavenly combatants to the field
of battle * is a palpable extravagance, even when compared with
the contents of the very fervid narrative in the First Book of
Maccabees. On the whole, it may be said that there are only
three of the apochryphal books that, in virtue of their con-
tents, have any claim to a place in the canon: and these
three, namely, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and the First Book of
Maccabees, can more properly be included in an appendix to
the Old Testament than within its acknowledged limits. In
the New Testament none of these books are directly cited
or used for confirmation of doctrine, though it has been sup-
posed that the Epistle of James shows the influence of Ec-
clesiasticus, and that, in the Epistle to the Hebrews and a few
other books, a rhetorical or illustrative use is made of items
1 Wisdom viii. 20, x. 15, xiv. 27, xvi. 20, xviii, 15-17, 24. Ecclesiasticus iii.
30 [33], vii. 23 [25], 24 [26], viii. 12 [15], xii. 5, 10-12, xxv. 7 [9], xxx. 6, xxxi.
27 [32, 33], xxxii. 6 [7], xlii. 5, xlvii. 3. The numbers in brackets are for the
Douay version. .
2 + Maccabees i. 6, viii. 7, 8, 16.
8 2 Maccabees ii. 26-32, xv. 38 [39], 39 [40].
4 2 Maccabees iii. 24-27, v. 2, 3, xX. 29, 30, xi. 8,
REVELATION. 127
derived from the Apocrypha. The Epistle of Jude, in quoting
the Book of Enoch, furnishes a solitary instance in the New
Testament of a direct reference to an extra-canonical pro-
duction. !
The subject of the New Testament canon affords very little
ground for discussion. Most of the questions of authorship
which have been raised have not been regarded as vitally affect-
ing titles to canonicity. From the first inception of the canon,
soon after the middle of the second century, Catholic Christians
have been substantially agreed upon the books which may be
regarded as constituting the organism of New Testament
truth. For a time, it is true, there was a partial challenge of
the Apocalypse in the East and considerable doubt respect-
ing the Epistle to the Hebrews in the West; but ere long
the Church became united in accepting both of these books,
and no later generation has had any disposition to revise its
verdict. The brevity of a few of the Epistles (Philemon,
2 John, and 3 John) and their relatively indifferent contents
naturally caused very scanty reference to them by early Chris-
tian writers. This lack of external support, however, has not
occasioned any serious objection to them. Among recent
critics a measure of doubt has been expressed as to the apos-
tolic authorship of the Epistle of Jude. In the case of the
Epistle of James, a large proportion of scholars have acknowl-
edged, in the internal marks of genuineness which it exhibits,
a compensation for paucity of external evidences, and Luther’s
impatience with the epistle has found scarcely an echo.
Doubtless Luther’s keen instinct was not at fault in the dis-
1 From our point of view, the discussion of the apocryphal additions to the
Book of Esther is of minor concern. They are subject to criticism, however, as
having every appearance of being additions, and, at that, not fully congruous with
the original contents of the book. First and Second Esdras (otherwise named
Third and Fourth Esdras, as being put in line with Ezra and Nehemiah), and the
Third Book of Maccabees, have little claim to notice in this connection. Even the
Council of Trent left them out of its list.
128 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
covery that the Pauline doctrine of justification could not be
elicited from this epistle. But if note be taken of the fact that
an exposition of the doctrine of justification was not the prin-
cipal intention of James, and that he approached the subject
only to condemn an antinomian abuse of faith, his writing can
be approved as useful and wholesome in its main trend, even
though it does not give a well-rounded view of justification.
The second Epistle of Peter is quite as lacking as that of
James in the line of external evidence and is not favored with
internal marks that are by any means conclusive for its Petrine
origin. It is, therefore, mere exposed to doubt than any other
book in the New Testament canon. Until its claims are more
clearly established, it cannot prudently be treated as an apos-
tolic writing.
XI.— QUESTIONS OF AUTHORSHIP AS RELATED TO BIBLI-
CAL AUTHORITY.
Among the problems of authorship which have attracted
much attention, those which relate to the books of the Old
Testament cannot be regarded as vitally affecting the authority
of the Bible in its general scope. The testimony of the Bible is
not given so unequivocally to specific theories of the origin of
these books that its general truthfulness and reliability depend
upon their verification. Take for instance the much debated
question of the authorship of the Pentateuch. Within the
Pentateuch itself there is no assertion of the traditional theory
that it was written in its entirety by Moses. The great law-
giver is indeed spoken of once and again as writing down vari-
ous matters.!_ But these statements do not necessarily have
reference to anything more than limited portions of the Pen-
tateuch. This is clearly the case with most of the books. A
1 Ex, xvii, 14, xxiv. 4, xxxiv. 27; Num. xxxiii. 2; Deut. xxxi. 9, 24.
REVELATION. 129
long section of Deuteronomy (iv. 44—xxviii.), it is true, is
occupied with what is described as Mosaic legislation. But
it is to be noticed that Moses is said to have delivered orally
to the people the contents of this legislation. As to who wrote
the Book of Deuteronomy and incorporated into it the legis-
lative section, no hint is given. ‘This section, moreover, may
very well be regarded as a rather free rendering of that which
was understood to be included in the laws of Moses. Anyone
who is suitably apprised of the freedom which antique authors
claimed in reporting addresses from their heroes will find very
slight occasion to conclude that the writer of this book meant
it to be understood that he was giving a strict verbal repro-
duction of a Mosaic code. Ina chapter lying beyond the legis-
lative section, Moses, it is true, is said to have written out
his laws (xxxi. 9, 24). But that is no statement that he per-
sonally incorporated them with the writing which we call
Deuteronomy. Neither is it a statement that the writer of
this book made a verbatim copy of those laws.!_ What Deuter-
onomy really presents is a history in which Moses figures as
chief actor and speaker. It makes absolutely no affirmation
respecting the composer of the history.
If we turn to the New Testament, we find nothing more
pronounced on the authorship of the Pentateuch than a simple
compliance with current phraseology.* In the time of Christ
and the apostles it was customary to style one of the main
divisions of the Old Testament the Law, or more specifically
the Law of Moses. This had the force of a stereotyped expres-
1 Account should be taken of the varied range of meaning which Jewish usage
assigned to “the law.” It might denote the extended code, or the brief com-
pendium giving only the more important constituents of the code. ‘ According to
Deut. xxvii. 8, ‘all the words of this law’ are to be written on the plastered stones
of Mount Ebal; and here, as Calvin points out, we can only understand the sum
and substance of the law.” (W. Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the
Jewish Church, p. 332.)
2 Mark xii. 26; Luke xvi. 31, xxiv. 44; Johni. 17, v. 45, 46, vii. 193 Acts iii.
22, xxvi. 22, xxviii, 23; Rom. x. 5; 2 Cor. iii. 15.
130 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
sion, and was as naturally used to designate what we call the
Pentateuch, as the term “Gospels” is now used to point out
the collection of the lives of Christ in the new Testament.
The expression, “the Law of Moses,” may have been too
specific to fit the precise facts of history. But if Moses was
really the organizer of the Israelitish nation and gave the
groundwork of its laws, it had a relative truth. Now is it
reasonable to ask that Christ should have selected a new name
for the first division of the Old Testament, when the one in
actual use had at least a relative justification? Would it
have been a mark of discretion in Him to have rebuked the
current terminology, and to have turned aside the attention of
His hearers from great spiritual verities to a question of author-
ship? Surely in the swift course of His ministry, and in the
face of weightier matters, there was no call for Him to compli-
cate His work, and to forestall the natural course of scholarly
investigation, by descending into the arena either of historicai
criticism or of scientific disputation! Moreover, it is not
altogether clear that the whole sum of historic facts was con-
stantly present to His thought, so as to be able to shape His
words. The constitutional relation of Christ to the divine is
one thing ; the habitual content of that consciousness in Him,
which lay immediately back of His communication with the
world, is another thing. It may be assumed that His unique
relation to the divine enabled Him to know all that was in-
1 “ His life-work belonged to a realm which is immeasurably higher than that
of human science. He saw the inner meaning of the world and of life, with
whose details science is occupied. He penetrated to the heart of Old Testament
truth and was oblivious of such questions as those of time, place, and date. Nature
He looked upon as the revelation of the divine order and beneficence; He spoke
often of her powers and processes, which were for His mind instinct with God;
but He was not at all concerned to extend men’s observation of natural phenomena,
much less to correct the popular impressions concerning them. For him it was
quite enough to teach men to see God in nature, as it was enough to show them
the imperishable religious truths which formed the essential substance of Old
Testament revelation.” (Geo. B. Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament,
p- 78.)
REVELATION. 131
trinsically related to His vocation, without necessarily conclud-
ing that facts beyond that circle came within the range of his
habitual outlook. This point of view, however, does not need
to be insisted upon in the present connection. Christ’s use
of a current expression in referring to a main division of the
Old Testament appears too plainly in the character of a
natural accommodation to be regarded as involving, or design-
ing to involve, a positive determination of a question of histor-
ical criticism.
If the Bible is not committed to a decisive verdict on the
authorship of the Pentateuch, still less is it committed on
the question of the unity of the Book of Isaiah. There is no
testimony within the limits of the Old Testament that the last
twenty-seven chapters were from the hand of the pre-exilian
prophet who wrote the foregoing portion. The fact that the
collector placed the two portions in juxtaposition is the sole
item of responsibility which can be connected with the Old
Testament for the opinion that they came from the same
author. Nor does the New Testament approach any nearer
to the rendering of a decision on the question of authorship.
It simply represents the current mode of quotation. Even in
the present, a full-fledged representative of the “higher criti-
cism,” in giving out a text from any part of the book, would
speak of it as contained in such a chapter of the Prophecy of
Isaiah, unless perchance he should be stocked overmuch with
foolish pedantry. An equal license cannot reasonably be
denied to those who wrote and spoke in the first century. So
far as the value of the Book of Isaiah is concerned, it evidently
matters little whether it came from one or from two great
prophets.
Scarcely more of a critical intent is to be imputed to the
New Testament reference to the prophet Daniel.! Whether
the Book of Daniel in its present form was written by the dis-
ee
1 Matt, xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14.
132 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
tinguished exile at Babylon, or not, it contains vivid forecasts
of the Messianic era ; and it was in virtue of this element that
the one citation which is recorded in the Gospels was made
from it. That the expression cited is referred to the “prophet
Daniel”’ is not necessarily regarded as meaning anything more
than that it stands in the prophetical Book of Daniel, just as
our citation of a gospel item as given by Matthew does not
necessarily imply any intent to make special note of the writer,
but only a purpose to distinguish a particular book from others
of its class. No doubt the supposition that the impress of a
later hand appears upon the Book of Daniel involves a certain
forfeiture. It leaves us with a less distinct assurance that the
narrative contains no traditionary variations from the historical
facts. On the other hand, it must be conceded that it facili-
tates the explanation of the dramatic hue cast over the various
historical scenes which are depicted. Contemporary history
is not so naturally painted in this style as is that which is some-
what remote.
It is not necessary for dogmatic purposes to decide any one
of these questions of authorship. The fact that the Bible is
not so definitely committed to one theory or another that its
authority is put in hazard by a special turn of criticism is the
truth that is to be specially emphasized. As a matter of
simple opinion, however, we venture to say that the indus-
trious effort which has been made to conserve the traditional
theories cannot be regarded as highly successful. A plausible
or semi-plausible answer is indeed made to many of the
objections. But the grounds for doubt are not thereby dissi-
pated. The piecemeal defense does not fully offset the force
of concurring lines of opposing evidence. In the light of
facts which have been brought into view, scholarly judgment
will continue to find serious obstacles to accepting the Mosaic
authorship of the entire Pentateuch, the unity of the Book of
Isaiah, and the preparation of the Book of Daniel in its present
form so far back as the time of the Babylonish captivity.
REVELATION. 133
Even were one to hold the traditional views on these topics, it
would be the reverse of discretion to build upon them as neces-
sary foundations in the edifice of Christian faith.
As regards the New Testament books, the most important
problem of authorship relates to the fourth Gospel. This
Gospel is not, in strictness, anonymous. Neither can it be
allowed that the author impersonates the Apostle John by an
admissible literary device. Impersonation of a distinguished
character was, indeed, no unheard of expedient among ancient
writers. We have an example in the Book of Ecclesiastes,
where the writer speaks in the name of Solomon. This does
not imply, necessarily, any intention to deceive. It was a
rhetorical device which, very likely, the reader was expected
to see through, employed to enliven or to dignify the dis-
course. In the fourth Gospel we have something quite other
than this literary contrivance. The author has employed lan
guage which has the force of an explicit testimony that he was
one of the original disciples, and has given tokens which it is
difficult to believe were not meant to identify that disciple
with John. If he was not John, we are confronted by the
perplexing conclusion that the author of this deeply spiritual
narrative of our Lord’s ministry was guilty of intentional de-
ception. Once assured of the thorough honesty of the writer,
we could count it a matter of minor consequence whether an
original disciple, or one who had enjoyed special intimacy with
an original disciple, was that writer. But an indication of a
breach of honesty on his part would leave us destitute of
1 John i. 14, xix. 35, xxi. 20-24. The words of 1 John i. 1-4 come also into
evidence, since it is the common verdict that the Gospel and the Epistle were from
the same writer. The introductory words of the latter amount to a very explicit
testimony that the writer was an eye-witness of Christ’s ministry. If xxi. 24
be regarded as appended by another than the author of the Gospel, then in-
deed no formal claim of that author to identity with John or with one of the
twelve appears; but his claim to have been an eye-witness remains, and criti-
cism has very little motive to set aside John, in favor of any other eye-witness.
10
134 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
adequate guarantees for any points of history not supported
by other evidence than his word. But happily it remains to
be proved that we are under obligation to despoil ourselves of
any treasure which the fourth Gospel contains by denying to
it the character of a sincere narrative.
The external evidence for the Johannine authorship of this
Gospel is by no means of inferior grade. Irenzeus, according
to his own conviction, was at only one remove from the apostle,
having been in communication with Polycarp, who was a dis-
ciple of John! He testifies explicitly that John published his
Gospel while resident at Ephesus.2,_ The whole body of Chris-
tians, from the days of Irenzeus, with insignificant exceptions
in the ranks of heretics, shared his conviction. Tatian, the
disciple of Justin Martyr, used the fourth Gospel along with
the others, in composing his Diatessaron or gospel harmony.
There are clear indications in the writings of Justin Martyr
that he was conversant with this Gospel. The effect of its
perusal appears not only in the general cast of his Logos
teaching, but also on various specific points.? In the writings
of the Apostolic Fathers a strain of fourth-Gospel phrase-
ology can be detected. This may be noticed in Polycarp,
Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius, as also in the Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles. Indeed, the probable traces of the Gospel
reach back to the earliest writings that were subsequent to
the supposed time of its composition by John, namely, the
last decade of the first century. To bring its existence close
up to this point is obviously to strengthen, if not to prove, the
supposition that it came from the hand of the apostle. The
external evidence is, in truth, as continuous as could reason-
ably be expected. Its force may not be demonstrative, but it
supplies no inferior ground for a historical judgment.
1 Cont. Haer. III. 3. 4; Euseb., Hist. Eccl. V. 20.
2 Cont. Haer. III. 1.
8 See Purves, The Testimony of Justin Martyr to Early Christianity, Lecture V.
4 Weiss, Einleitung, § 5.
REVELATION. 135
A due rating of the internal evidence for the Johannine
authorship of the fourth Gospel needs to be preceded by an
explanation of the manifest contrast between it and the Synop-
tical Gospels. Until this contrast is accounted for, it remains
a historical enigma that may easily excite scepticism as to the
rise of the peculiar version of Christ’s life within the circle of
the primitive disciples. Is the required explanation at hand ?
It is believed that this question can be answered in the affirma-
tive. In the first place, the contrast is measurably explained
by the supplementary position which is held by the fourth
Gospel. It may be incorrect to assume that it was a leading
motive with John to fill out the narrative in those respects in
which it was left incomplete by the other evangelists. The
leading motive was rather an affectionate zeal for the person
of Christ, and the desire to present a worthy view of His glory
as the Son of God made truly incarnate. Still knowledge of
the course and compass of the earlier narratives was naturally
influential. It wrought, we may believe, as a secondary motive,
and so directed the choice of subject-matter as to make the
fourth Gospel, in fact, very largely supplementary to the others,
or distinguished by the introduction of new scenes and dis-
courses. Again, the contrast between this Gospel and the
first three may be explained to some extent by the near relation
of John to the Master. He belonged to the inner group of
the apostles, and was the only one of that group who can be
supposed to have furnished at first hand an extended account
of Christ’s ministry. It is indeed presumed that Peter stood
in close relation to the second Gospel, but there is no pledge
that it has the precise color which it would bear had it come
directly from his thought and recollection. A third and more
important element in the explanation is the personality of
John. From what we know of Paul it is difficult to imagine
that, if he had been in condition to write a life of Christ, and
had undertaken the task, he would have executed it in the
style of the Synoptists. The force of his personality would
136 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
almost of necessity have projected into it a distinct Pauline
tinge. Now the character of John may be supposed to have been
similarly a potent factor in his writing. He is described as
having been in his early manhood of the Boanerges type.!
This gives us a hint that he was an intense personality. This
intensity, softened but not cancelled by advancing years, and
blending with somewhat of a bent to mysticism, would very
naturally emerge into such distinct literary expression as
appears in the fourth Gospel. This is the more credible be-
cause of the distance at which the evangelist stood from the
events which he recorded. _ In proportion as the edge of verbal
recollection had been dulled by the lapse of half a century or
more, the Johannine personality would be the more free to
effect the use of Johannine phraseology in reproducing the
substance of Christ’s discourses. Lastly, the environment of
John in his closing years helps to explain some of the special
characteristics of the fourth Gospel. According to an early
and credible tradition, he dwelt at Ephesus, an important in-
tellectual centre in that age. A weighty responsibility rested
upon him for the administration and guidance of the Church.
New forces began to work within the horizon of Christianity.
Tendencies to adventurous speculation that threatened the
integrity of gospel truth were manifest. The times called
for an authoritative exposition of the person and teaching of
Christ. What wonder that John, writing under these con-
ditions, should blend a larger element of interpretation with
the record of gospel facts than appears in the accounts of the
Synoptists.
The peculiarity of the fourth Gospel being thus explained,
full credit may be given to the internal evidences of its apos-
tolic, or, what is the same thing in this relation, its Johannine
authorship. In the first place it is worthy, in its high spiritual
level, of the creative apostolic era, and stands in broad con-
rrr nn tn
1 Mark iii. 17.
REVELATION. 137
trast: with the post-apostolic literature. Then it exhibits an
exact acquaintance with Jewish rites and institutions, a precise
knowledge of the topography of Palestine, a familiarity with
many subordinate circumstances of gospel events, a confidence
in reporting items of time and place, such as can be accounted
for only in a resident of Palestine and a companion of Christ's
ministry. None but an eye-witness of the things recounted
could be expected to combine such unhesitating confidence,
such mastery of details, and such accuracy on the points of
fact which can be put to the test. Critics of different schools
have been ready to claim that on various passages of Christ’s life
the fourth Gospel acts as a clarifying agent. It is judged,
for example, to be in the right in its assignment of an early
Judaan ministry to Christ and its assumption that the last
supper anticipated the passover feast. !
Among the writings attributed to Paul, the Pastoral Epistles,
especially First Timothy, have been most frequently chal-
lenged. Objection has also been made to the Pauline authorship
of Colossians and Ephesians. Originally the Tiibingen School,
under the leadership of Baur, granted to Paul only Romans,
Galatians, and the two Epistles to the Corinthians. But it
has been found too much of a task to sustain this ultra position.
The evident tendency in the modern critical school is to con-
cede to Paul the Thessalonian Epistles, Philippians, and Phile-
mon. It also renders a large measure of assent to the Pauline
authorship of Colossians, and is less confident than formerly
in taking exception to Ephesians. We conclude, then, that it
involves no rashness to cite as apostolic writings ten of the
epistles bearing the name of Paul. As regards the three
Pastoral Epistles, it has to be granted that the amount of ex-
ception taken to their Pauline authorship abridges somewhat
the practical force of an appeal to them. On the other
hand, it is to be noticed that very eminent representatives of
1So Weiss, Wendt, Wetzel, Sanday, Rhees, and others.
138 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
New Testament criticism suppose an original Pauline base in
these epistles, and affirm that their dogmatic background
is unmistakably Pauline, only with some softening down in the
direction of the early Catholic theology! If we add to this
the fact that reputable scholars are still of opinion that the judg-
ment of the Church in assigning the Pastoral Epistles to Paul
may be defended, it cannot seem to involve an arbitrary use
of data to include these epistles in a general way among the
sources of Pauline dogmatics. At the same time, it is a matter
of prudence not to build very much on the apostolic authority
of items in them which are not given, in substance, in the
other epistles bearing the name of Paul.
XII. — INSPIRATION.
An interior divine agency auxiliary to the grasp and ex-
pression of truth, and therefore serving as a factor in the proc-
ess of revelation, is what is meant by inspiration. Logically
its consideration is subordinate to that of revelation. When
we have been certified by an examination of the contents of
the Bible and by the exhibition of its power over intellect, con-
science, and affection, that it contains a revelation from God,
and have used the general character of this revelation as a stand-
ard for judging the claims of those books which are most ex-
posed to question, we are ready to welcome such an explanation
of the exceptional dignity and worth of the Scriptures as is af-
forded by the ideaof inspiration. It is the established fact of a
revelation—that is, the fact of aworthy and credible manifesta-
tion of divine character, agency, and purpose — which invites
to the supposition of inspiration, rather than the assumption
of inspiration which certifies of the fact of revelation.
1See Adolf Harnack, Die Chronologie der Altchristlichen Litteratur; H. J.
Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der Neutestamentlichen Theologie.
REVELATION. 139
This order of themes brings us naturally to the fit position
for receiving the testimony of the Bible itself on the subject
of inspiration. When the Bible has been approved by its
contents and spiritual efficiency as containing a veritable reve-
lation from God, its witness to the inspiration of its authors
becomes at once a credible witness, at least as respects any
book which appears to belong to the organism of revelation.
Biblical testimony to inspiration may be regarded as given
in four different lines: (1) in the way in which the Old Testa-
ment is quoted or referred to in the New ;! (2) in the promises
of special divine assistance, for the discharge of their office,
which Christ made to the apostles ;* (3) in accounts of the
fulfillment of these promises ;* (4) in the claims of the apostles
themselves.*
In estimating the force of this aggregate of testimonies, it
is proper to take some account of the peculiarities of biblical
phraseology. Anyone who is moderately acquainted with the
Old Testament cannot have failed to notice that Hebrew piety
was swift to refer all extraordinary gifts that subserved a good
end, all talents and powers rising noticeably above the common
level, to a divine source. In its view these things betokened
the operation of the Spirit of God. Now this order of thought
and expression naturally passed over in some measure to the
New Testament writers since, through their training, they
shared in the characteristic Hebrew consciousness. Their
language, where the divine working is concerned, is often to be
construed as the language of vivid, earnest, enthusiastic piety,
rather than that of precise logical discourse. But, even when
taken with this allowance, it leaves no doubt about the intent
1 Matt. xxii. 29; Luke xvi. 17, 29-31, xxii. 37, xxiv. 27,44; John x. 35; Acts iv.
25; 1 Cor. iv. 6; 2 Tim. iil. 15-17.
2 Matt. x. 19, 20; Mark xiii. 11; Luke xii. 11, 12, xxi. 14, 15, xxiv. 49: John
vii. 39, xiv. 16-18, 26, xv. 26, 27, xvi. 12-15, Acts i. 5, 8.
8 Acts ii. 4, iv. 31, xiii. 2-4, xv. 28, xvi, 6, 7.
4 Acts xv, 28; Rom. xv. 18, 19; 1 Cor. ii. 16, vii. 40, xiv. 37; 2 Cor. xiii. 3;
Gal. i. 12; Eph. iii. 3; 1 Thess. ii. 13, iv. 15; 1 Pet. i. 12; 2 Pet. iii. 16,
140 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
of the Bible to recognize a veritable inspiration of those who
served as the chief media for inculcating and transmitting
the truths of revelation. In other words, biblical testimony,
either directly or by the most obvious implications, clearly ac-
centuates the fact of biblical inspiration, the fact that the Holy
Spirit wrought in prophets and apostles in accordance with
the demands of their vocation. The qualifying considerations
which are due to the peculiarities of the religious dialect of
the Bible do not so much compromise its testimony to the fact
of inspiration as leave room for inquiry respecting the mode
and measure. No precise determination of these points can be
elicited from the biblical references to the subject. These
may afford suggestions, but they do not provide complete
data for a theory. To secure a well-grounded theory. of in-
spiration we must pass beyond the biblical references, whether
formal or implicit, and consider what is demanded by rational
considerations in union with the aggregate of biblical facts.
Such a rational datum as the necessary activity of the mind
in the appropriation of truth implies that inspiration does not
suppress the use of the natural faculties in its subject, but
rather carries them up to a higher stage of activity. To
assume the passivity of the subject is to assume an artificial
relation between him and his message ; his function becomes
that of a machine, and his message, when once given, would be
as foreign to his own mind as to that of any other person. A
Paul, for example, after writing an epistle, would need in the
first place to be convinced that he had written it, and then
would need to study it to become aware of its contents, and,
unless its meaning could be readily apprehended by the natural
faculties, he would need to be inspired anew to grasp its real
import. This new inspiration, however, could not put him
into conscious possession of that import if it did not leave
him the constitutional activity of his faculties, such activity
being an indispensable condition of all positive appropriation
of truth. There is no way, accordingly, to an extraordinary
REVELATION. 141
grasp of truth through inspiration, except as inspiration ener-
gizes rather than suppresses its subject. That is, inspiration
must be dynamical rather than mechanical. Its office is to
quicken intellect and emotion, and thus to prepare a subjec-
tive ground properly correspondent to the objective elements
which enter into the process of revelation.
A glance at the Bible tends to confirm what the reason of
the case thus dictates. In Old Testament prophesying, it is
true, an afflatus had place, by which proper self-consciousness
was overborne, and an experience of ecstacy or trance induced.
But this was characteristic of a subordinate stage of prophesy-
ing. The great prophets of the Old Testament, who were the
principal organs of revelation, seem to have had little share in
this order of experience. As for the New Testament, while
it makes reference to visions and ecstacies, it gives no hint, at
least apart from the Apocalypse,! that its writers did not come
to their subject-matter in the open day of proper self-con-
sciousness, and in the active exercise of their faculties. More-
over, there is no natural explanation of the facts of biblical
style, except on the supposition that the personalities of the
sacred writers were present and active in their writing. Why
should there be as many styles as writers, and these styles
reflections of the personal characteristics and circumstances
of the writers respectively, if they were mere passive instru-
ments ? The explanation that the Holy Spirit was pleased to
use the style of the various persons employed as His penmen
is much too forced to stand the test of reflection and criticism.
It pushes accommodation to the point of absurdity, as making
all the rhetorical imperfections, as well as the excellences of
the scriptural writers, the product of the positive choice and
agency of the Holy Spirit.
1 The excepting of the Apocalypse, it is hardly necessary to state, isnot meant
to imply that it bears no tokens of conscious industrious elaboration. The refer-
ence here is directed simply to the fact that the writer presents his subject-matter
in the form of a series of visions,
142 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
In the early part of the chapter it was noticed that the
intellectual and moral limitations of men unfit them to be in-
dividually recipients and expounders of the whole circle of
divine truth, and that, consequently, there was a necessity for
educative expedients and for the use, in long succession, of
different agents of revelation. In the present connection, the
question naturally arises whether these limitations, besides
circumscribing the subject-matter of individual writers, did
not also, in some instances, induce errors either as to feeling
or fact. It is quite conceivable that there might be such
errors or inaccuracies, and still the authority of the Bible
stand secure, because the general harmony of its contents,
and the manner in which one writer supplements another,
leave the reader, in the end, with a complete and self-con-
sistent organism of religious truth. Now, on the theory which
has just been advocated, namely, that inspiration is not to be
regarded as suppressing the personality of the sacred writer, it
would have to be accounted a great marvel if the Bible should
appear to be characterized by complete inerrancy. How su-
premely difficult, for example, in a free, limited and imperfect
man, to unite intensity of feeling with perfect judicial balance !
What less would it have been than a continuous miracle, if the
patriotic intensity of Israel, which was shared by the Old
Testament writers, had never broken over the just bounds in
reprobation of her opponents and spoilers? The palpable
fact is, that it did break over the just bounds. There are
sentences in the Psalms which are manifestly the expression
of hot human passion. To attribute to divine inspiration such
words as are contained in Psalms lviil. 10, cix. 10-12, and
CXXXvil. 9, is to dishonor both God and the Bible for the sake
of affirming the perfect agency of the Psalm-writers. In the
light of the ultimate teaching of the Bible itself, they must be
described as errors of feeling springing from human imper-
fection, And it is equally clear, from a comparison of one
part of Scripture with another, that it contains some errors of
REVELATION. 143
fact. Let the explanation be what it may, whether some re-
sistance within the will of the writers to guidance, or an
absence of complete guidance in comparatively unimportant
matters, the errors are undeniable. Deuteronomy does not
always agree with the preceding books of the Pentateuch.!
The Books of Chronicles disagree in a number of subordinate
items with those of Samuel and Kings,? not to mention how
widely the idea which the Chronicler gives of the career of
Solomon as a whole differs from that which is supplied by the
earlier historian. Again, the account of an event in the his-
torical books does not invariably accord fully with the refer-
ence to the same in the prophetical writings proper. For
instance, the author of 2 Kings represents Jehu as being
commended of the Lord for the unsparing vengeance which
he took upon the house of Ahab,? whereas Hosea speaks of
Jehu’s bloody deed as something to be avenged upon his own
house. Old Testament data indicate, furthermore, an occa-
sional inaccuracy in the New Testament report of historical
facts. Thus the genealogy, recorded in the first chapter of
Matthew, is said to contain fourteen links for each of three
intervals between Abraham and Jesus; but it is not possible,
on the ground of Old Testament history, to assign just this
number of names to every one of the intervals.° In the ac-
count of some of the gospel scenes, also, the report of one
evangelist diverges from that of another. In short, the evi-
1 Compare Deut. x. 1-5 with Ex. xxv. 10-21, xxxvii. I-9.
2 Compare 2 Sam. xxiv. 9 with 1 Chron. xxi. v; 2 Sam. xxiv. 24 with 1 Chron.
xxi. 25; I Kings v. 16 with 2 Chron. ii. 2; 1 Kings xv. 32 with 2 Chron. xiv. 1;
1 Kings xv. 14 with 2 Chron. xiv. 3; 1 Kings vii. 1§ with 2 Chron. iii. 15. More
significant than most of the above is the discrepancy between 2 Sam. xxiv. 1 and
1 Chron, xxi. 1.
8 2 Kings x. * Hosea i. 4.
5 Compare, furthermore, Gen. xlvi. 26, 27 with Acts vii. 14; Numb. xxv. 9,
with 1 Cor. x. 8; 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, with Matt. xxiii. 35.
8 Compare, for example, Matt. xx. 30-34 with Mark x. 46-52; Matt. xxviii.
1~6 with Mark xvi. 1-6, and Luke xxiv. 1-10; also, Matt. xxvii. 5-8 with Acts i.
18, 19.
144 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
dence decisively establishes the conclusion that inspiration did
not so far cancel or control human agency as to secure com-
plete inerrancy. It may, indeed, be suggested that all dis-
crepancies can be accounted for as the mistakes of copyists.
This solution may apply to individual instances, but in many
cases it is entirely inadmissible ; and in general it has too
much the appearance of an arbitrary makeshift to be enter-
tained by any except those who think it necessary to maintain,
at all hazards, a preconceived theory of biblical perfection.
Such should be reminded that there may be an unseemly pet-
tiness in defending the Bible, as well as in searching for flaws
in its contents.
The substantial truth of the biblical history is all that is
needed to support the edifice of revelation, and substantial
truth is not denied by occasional errors in subordinate details.
In general, Bible history bears very well such tests as are avail-
able. While antiquarian research cannot be said to elicit a
favorable verdict in all instances, it does confirm the historical
groundwork of the Bible to a gratifying extent. For its
earliest narratives the tests are of course very scanty. Proper
historic proof is here out of the question. Some have indeed
thought that the ethnic traditions about the beginnings of
human history tend by their resembling features to confirm the
opening chapters of Genesis. But this order of considerations
affords only a moderate ground of confidence. These traditions
may have been largely the product of legendary construction
in the oldest nations, and been passed on by them to other
peoples. The purer and nobler cast of the biblical stories does
not by itself prove them the originals. This superiority would
be accounted for were it supposed that the common traditions
were taken up and interpreted by an Israelitish prophet, and
purged of all that was out of harmony with the religious point
of view to which he had been educated. His training within
the Hebrew theocracy would guarantee that the ground ideas
put into his narratives should agree with the outcome to which
REVELATION. 145
the process of revelation had arrived in his time; but that it
would exclude all legendary materials is a conclusion which it is
not easy to establish. So the field of begimnings lies, for the
most part, beyond the application of historic tests, aside from
the record which has been engraven upon the face of nature.
But for the Christian dogmatist this is of small consequence.
What he needs for his use is the underlying ideas of the first
chapters of Genesis — the imprint of such conceptions as the
absolute supremacy of God, the goodness of the creation,
the high destination of man, the sanctity of marriage, the in-
troduction of moral evil through an abuse of freedom, and the
tendency of apostasy to pass on from bad to worse unless met
by powerful remedial agencies. With these truths under his
hand, he can afford to waive the question whether the inspira-
tion of the historian was such as to enable him to reproduce
from a far distant past the literal truth of the first passages in
the history of the earth and of man. The New Testament, it
may be observed, makes but scanty reference to the details
of the narratives preceding the call of Abraham.
A popular, technical faith is no doubt likely to be shocked
by this admission of the fact of errors. But it is only neces-
sary to recapitulate what has already been said to indicate that
the fact need not be a stumbling-block to intelligent faith.
Three considerations in particular are to be kept in mind:
(1) The great things of the Bible are so very great, and so
harmoniously related to each other, that whoever sees them
in true perspective must feel that they can never be obscured
by this or that error in a subordinate range. (2) So far as
the errors have any moral or religious bearing, the progress
of revelation has provided an adequate corrective. The stan-
dard, as ultimately presented in the spirit and teaching of
Christ, and in the apostolic reflection of the same, is a stan-
dard which rises high before the loftiest thought and striving
of men and is in no danger of being transcended or superseded.
(3) So far as the errors have no real bearing on morals or
146 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
religion, they are to be regarded as too loosely connected with
the essential edifice of biblical truth to interfere at all seriously
with its claims. They take rank among things incidental to
the process of erecting the edifice. As belonging to the scaf-
folding they cannot deny the perfection of the edifice, the
erection of which was the proper task of revelation.
Possibly one may be disposed to ask still, How shall the
reader of a book not guaranteed to be perfectly inerrant dis-
tinguish between truth and error? The answer is quite obvi-
ous, so far as concerns a general principle of procedure. No
intelligent or morally earnest person accepts the Bible as a
whole by a mere caprice or arbitrary act of will. He accepts
it because he finds that it possesses characteristics which make
it credible that it contains a divine revelation. Now, the
characteristics which approve the Bible as a whole manifestly
are fitted to serve as a standard, generally speaking, for judg-
ing a specific portion. If such portion in tone and content is
seen to be contradictory to these characteristics, it is made
questionable whether it has any better source than human
fallibility. Mere position in a complex body of writings can-
not require the truth-seeker to close his eyes to the actual
character of an individual sentiment. Any sentiment which,
if found in a compendium of ethnic scriptures, would elicit a
disparaging estimate from a mind enlightened by the completed
biblical revelation, cannot consistently be ranked as truth
simply on the ground of its being in the commonly recognized
biblical canon. ‘To assume the opposite would involve the
grotesque conclusion that we need each to keep on hand two
minds, one for judging sentiments recorded in the Bible, and
another for judging the same sentiments when found elsewhere.
The above are the main considerations to be noted, namely,
that inspiration was dynamical rather than mechanical, and
that, so far as it was a factor in the process of revelation, it
wrought to secure infallibility, not so much in subordinate par-
ticulars or matters external to the central purpose of the Bible,
REVELATION. 147
as in the trend and outcome of its teaching. A few points of
lesser significance may receive a passing glance, such as the
question of degrees of inspiration, the relation of inspiration
to language, its connection with the act of writing, and its
kinship with the operation of the Holy Spirit in His general
office of enlightenment. |
That there were different degrees of inspiration follows
from the consideration that the personality of the writer was
a real coefficient in the matter of biblical production. The
Jarger and loftier the personality of the writer and the better
his antecedent training, the less, naturally, were the barricrs
which he interposed to divine illumination, and the greater his
competency to receive and to impart the pure truth of God.
The diversity of tasks assigned to the different writers also
suggests different degrees of inspiration. To record plain
matters of fact evidently did not demand such a measure of
illumination as the responsible office of expounding the great
truths of God’s nature and redemptive purpose.
While the theory of verbal inspiration, current in the seven-
teenth century and still defended by an occasional advocate,
must be rejected as involving an untenable mechanical concep-
tion, and as contradicted by undeniable characteristics of the
Scriptures, it may still be granted that inspiration affected the
language of the sacred writers. Whatever influences feeling
and thought naturally also, by reason of intrinsic connection,
influences language. But to influence is not necessarily to
determine outright. The personality of the writer also influ-
enced his language in every instance. Only a partial deter-
mination of the verbal outcome can therefore be imputed to
inspiration. In any given instance the degree of that deter-
mination must be regarded as entirely problematical.
There is no warrant for connecting inspiration exclusively
with the act of writing. The New Testament gives no hint
that the apostles were to be more amply guided in writing
than in speaking. The office of inspiration was to effect
148 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
receptivity for the truth, or to enliven perception of the truth.
Supposing the truth to be already within the mental grasp of
the sacred writer before he set himself to the task of tran-
scription, there would be no further requirement for inspira-
tion except to sustain that holy feeling and spiritual alertness
which are always needed for the right discharge of an impor-
tant duty, and which would be especially appropriate in the
production of a writing destined to fulfill a great providential
office.
A certain kinship may be supposed between the inspiration
of the sacred writers and the enlightening operation of the
Holy Spirit in believers generally. Decisive proof in the
matter is doubtless beyond our reach, but it is not overbold to
assume the probability that the difference in the two cases is
rather as to scope than as to mode. In the believer as a
subject of divine grace an order of convictions respecting
his personal standing is wrought by the Holy Spirit. In the
sacred writer an order of convictions is wrought respecting
the divine kingdom, or some phase of that kingdom. It is
the same Spirit that operates in both cases and the same kind
of subject that is operated upon. It is difficult therefore to
imagine any good reason for denying that the mode of opera-
tion in one instance is akin to that in the other.
No distinct name has been given to the theory which has
been advocated. And in fact it is best described by a sum-
mary of the conceptions which it includes. No one of the
current names is strictly applicable. The term “plenary in-
spiration”’ is too indefinite for any intelligible use. ‘* Verbal
inspiration,’ taken in its ordinary sense, is a name for a palpa-
ble exaggeration. The so-called “intuitional theory” sins by
defect. In so far as it emphasizes the personality of the
sacred writer, it has indeed a close affinity with the view advo-
cated above. But the intuitional theory disparages the notion
of the direct operation of the Holy Spirit, and implies that the
educated faculties of the scriptural writers, by their own virtue,
REVELATION. 149
grasped all the truth which they conveyed. We find no ade-
quate ground for the assumption, and therefore cannot classify
our view of inspiration as the intuitional theory. The follow-
ing statement expresses the substance of our conception : —
The true theory of inspiration includes the main thought of the
intuitional theory, and adds a good margin for the direct agency
of the Holy Spirit, that agency being conceived as operating
dynamically rather than mechanically, and as being akin in its
mode to that which has place in various acts of spiritual en-
lightenment in the subjects, generally, of the gracious visita-
tion of the Spirit.
XIII.— QUESTION OF THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE BIBLICAL
REVELATION, OR OF THE POSSIBILITY OF AUTHORITA-
TIVE SUPPLEMENTS.
Before leaving the subject of the chapter, a few words will
be appropriate on the question whether revelation needs, or
admits of, any authoritative supplements. The response to
this question naturally directs attention to reason, to Christian
consciousness, and to ecclesiastical authority.
The extent to which reason may be made a criterion of an
alleged revelation has already been considered.1 The question
of its competency to supplement the revelation in the Bible
might be entertained in this connection. This question, how-
ever, blends very largely with that of the relation of Chris-
tian consciousness to the biblical revelation. For, what is
“Christian consciousness’ but a name for the cardinal judg-
ments and feelings of Christians, their religious modes both
in the line of thought and emotion? It may be defined in
brief as the educated reason and feeling of Christian believers.
Accordingly, in pronouncing on the competency of Christian
1 Chapter I, Section IX,
If
150 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
consciousness to supplement the Bible we are, at the same
time, pronouncing on the competency of reason in that par-
ticular; at least on the competency of reason in Christian
minds; and to one who accepts the Bible as containing a divine
revelation, unchristian or anti-christian reason cannot appear
more trustworthy than Christian, or entitled to larger pre-
rogative.
From the premises of Christian faith, acknowledging as it
does the authority of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and con-
fessing the fulfillment of His promise to the apostles that they
should be divinely guided in-representing His person and truth,
it follows that a substantial finality pertains to the New Testa-
ment body of teaching. Now this body of teaching is so well
rounded, so ample in content, that it is most reasonably re-
garded as containing in principle all important truth respecting
the relation of men to God or to their fellow-men. Improve-
ment must therefore relate to deductions rather than to any
foundation teachings. It is possible that successive genera-
tions should advance to a better understanding of this or that
truth, to a clearer perception of the proper application of this
or that doctrine, to a holding of different phases of teaching in
a truer proportion, to more normal ways of feeling on this or
that point. And herein is defined the vocation of the Chris-
tian consciousness. In its proper unfoldment it does not so
much reach beyond the deposit of truth in revelation, as im-
prove upon the prior understanding of some portion of that
truth and upon the habitual feeling connected therewith.
That the Christian consciousness must unfold normally is of
course no self-evident truth. There may be lapses and retro-
cessions, perversions of thought and feeling as well as improve-
ments. Christian consciousness will be no better than the
proportion of sound mental engagement, of sincere love of
the truth, of consecrated purpose, of pure affection, and of
living experience of divine grace, which is characteristic of the
Christian community. Still, on any but a pessimistic view of
REVELATION. 151
human nature, it is legitimate to expect that in the long run
genuine advances will be made. One and another unmistak-
able gain has already been achieved. There is no probability,
for example, that the Christian world will ever again think and
feel on the subject of human slavery as vast communities of
Christians have thought and felt in the past. No more is it
probable that Christians will again feel respecting future punish-
ment by literal fire as whole generations have felt upon this
subject. Advance may be slow and interrupted, but the idea
of an advancing Christian consciousness is plainly not a pure
fiction.
If Christian consciousness has no clear prerogative to add
to the foundation teaching of the New Testament, still less
can such a prerogative be conceded to church authority. To
impose as matter of belief what is not demanded by the edu-
cated reason and feeling of the Christian community is a
species of tyranny and usurpation. Legitimate church au-
thority must follow in the wake of Christian consciousness,
and require at least no more than it dictates. Doubtless it
is theoretically conceivable that the good reason and feeling
of the Christian community should be more than matched by
a divine charism in certain standing officials. But who are
these officials, and what credentials are they able to show for
their supernatural gift and consequent authority? As will be
shown in another connection, the actual claimants of such
authority are overwhelmingly convicted of unfounded pre-
tenses by the data of Christian history. There is no warrant,
therefore, for supposing that church authority has any func-
tion in the enforcement of Christian truth outside of or
beyond the demands of the educated reason and feeling of
the Christian community at large.
It will perhaps be suggested that tradition should have been
mentioned, if not in place of church authority, at least in
association therewith. But tradition is little else than a name
for an imaginary entity. At any rate, if tradition be taken in
152 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
the sense of the standard Roman Catholic definition, namely,
as the portion of revelation transmitted orally by the apostles,
credible proof is wanting that any such thing is extant. The
earliest of the fathers, instead of possessing more of the
apostolic teaching than is contained in the New Testament,
apparently were in possession of less than might easily be
derived from that source. Not one of them has made the
least authentic addition to the recorded facts of Christ’s life.
A man in such direct succession as Irenzus could add only
evident misconceptions to the matter of the evangelical narra-
tives! Taken in a body, the early fathers show, either by
their contradictions or by their silence, that they had no cer-
tified teaching of the apostles, outside the canon, that was of
any consequence. It is true that after the beginning of the
third century an occasional reference may be found to a secret
tradition. But the reference, while indicating that motives
to use reserve in teachings placed under the inspection of the
uninitiated had begun to work effectively at that time in some
portions of the church, affords no voucher as to the handing
down of any unrecorded item of genuine apostolic teaching.
The so-called Disciplina Arcana, which was distinctly recog-
nized by the Church in the fourth century, evidently had not
become any part of her policy at the middle of the second
century, since Justin Martyr, in a writing addressed to the
emperor, senate, and Roman people generally, felt perfectly
free to describe that to which this “discipline’’ more especially
applied, namely the rites of baptism and the eucharist. It is
to be noticed also that the Dzsciplina Arcana, like the code
which governed the contemporary pagan “mysteries,” obli-
gated to silence about the Christian ordinances only in respect
to their ritual transactions. The dogmatic significance of
both baptism and the eucharist was matter of open discus-
sion. If the baptismal creed was included among items not
1 Cont. Haer. ii. 22.
REVELATION. 153
to be voiced in public, it was in its character as an item of
ritual and not on account of its dogmatic contents.! Even
the admission that some dogmatic content came under the
prescription of the Disciplina Arcana would not contribute
any element of worth to traditionary authority. Such ques-
tions as the following would need to be asked: What was
that content? How long did it run underground? When
was the bond of secrecy cancelled so as to allow it to emerge
and to pass into written records? What guarantee is there
either that it came from the original spring of apostolic teach-
ing, or that in its underground travel it was not so mixed
with foreign ingredients as to become greatly corrupted ?
Manifestly it is so completely impossible to identify it with
any apostolic datum, that, supposing it ever to have been a
real thing, it can have no significance now. We are not
permitted, therefore, to suppose any trustworthy current of
teachings in the early centuries which did not come to expres-
sion in the writings of the fathers. Their silence and their
divergences alike testify that nothing of importance was trans-
mitted from the apostles which did not obtain a record in the
New Testament writings. It is possible indeed that some
points of administration or ritual may have been derived
through the channel of oral teaching. But no authority can
be claimed on this score even for such matters, since the
evidence that they really had any warrant in the word of the
apostles lies in the mist. Where nearly everything was mani-
festly in process of growth, no adequate means for ascertaining
unrecorded originals are afforded.
In a truthful nomenclature the extra-biblical authority of
the Roman Catholic Church must not be styled tradition, but
ecclesiastical authority. What determines doctrinal issues in
that Church is not any distinct proof of a pertinent content
in the oral teaching of the apostles, but custom, more or less
1Compare Anrich, Das antike Mysterienwesen in seinem Einfluss auf das
Christenthum, Gottingen, 1894.
154 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
old, and of greater or less extent, adopted and made binding
by official fiat. As long ago as the beginning of the seven-
teenth century, the keen-minded Bellarmin seems to have
suspected that this, very largely, was the actual method of de-
termining dogmas in his Church, and so he set about adjusting
the conception of authoritative tradition to this method. He
recognized, indeed, the propriety of historical investigation ;
but, at the same time, he opened a wide door of escape from
the labor and inconvenience of this means of testing dogmas.
He says: “ When the universal church [that is, the Roman
Catholic Church as a whole} embraces anything as a dogma of
the faith, which is not found in the divine Word, it is neces-
sary to say that it is derived from apostolic tradition. The
reason of this is the following: Inasmuch as the universal
Church cannot err, since it is the pillar and foundation of the
truth, certainly what the Church believes to be of the faith is
without doubt of the faith; but nothing is of the faith except
that which God has revealed through apostles or prophets, or
which is evidently derived from those sources.’’! In other
words, the fact that a dogma is held, proves its right to be
held, proves that it is based on apostolic tradition, if no clear
authority for it can be found in the written Word. Now, as
a dogma must be held universally in the Roman Catholic
Church, which has been promulgated by pope and council, or
even by the pope alone, it is obvious that, on this basis, tra-
dition is practically superseded by church authority, or the
prerogative of the ecclesiastical monarch. The pope may be
presumed, by his subjects, to have discovered that history is
on the side of his dogmatic determinations, but he cannot be
required to give any proof that such is the fact. The old
tests of valid tradition set forth by Vincentius — uxzversttas,
antiquitas, and consensio — may be discarded. The decree of
the chief official authorizes theological inference to leap over
1 De Verbo Dei, Lib. iv. cap. 9.
REVELATION. 155
all the intervening centuries, and to claim at once the author-
ity of the apostles. This exposition of Bellarmin has not,
indeed, been formally approved by the Roman Catholic Church.
But convenience has commended it to a considerable number
of theologians,! and it takes small discernment to discover
that it rules in practice. If tradition were more than an
empty name, dogmas which are contradicted by the whole
tenor of the teaching of Christian antiquity, as are those of
the immaculate conception of the Virgin and the infallibility
of the pope, would never have been proclaimed as part and
parcel of divine revelation, and made binding upon all the
faithful
A veritable tradition, in the sense of Vincentius, receives as
scanty recognition in Newman’s description of doctrinal de-
velopment as in Bellarmin’s theory and in Romish practice.
In the famous essay by which he sought to justify to his mind
the Roman Catholic faith, Newman allows the most indetermi-
nate datum to serve as the primary basis of an authoritative
dogma. In contrast with the ordinary assumption of popes
and councils, he grants that some of the most characteristic
features of Romanism started from obscure beginnings, and
attained to their ultimate status of definite and acknowledged
doctrines only by a prolonged growth. The shadowy begin-
nings and long obscurity, he claims, do not contradict the
right or legitimacy of these features, provided the development
is known to have proceeded with sufficient continuity, and by
the assimilation of congenial materials. Among his tests of
normal development he makes no mention of judicious pro-
portion, and in his whole treatise practically discards the no-
tion that corruption or caricature may be induced by excess.
It matters not, for example, at what point respect for the
Virgin began. It may have begun at so low a point that, in
the early liturgies, she was included among the imperfect dead
1 The Jesuit, Perrone, and Malou, Bishop of Bruges, are examples, among oth-
ers. See Friedrich, Geschichte des Vatikanischen Konzils, Band I. cap. xxii.
156 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS.
for whom the prayers of the Church were offered! This is
no obstacle. It was a perfectly normal development, which
added one degree of respect to another, until at length the
Virgin was recognized as the crowned queen of heaven, to pray
for whom would be a species of sacrilege, since nothing is
wanting to her exaltation and blessedness, and all need the
invincible efficacy of her intercessions.
On the score of this method what conceivable degree of
remoteness from the spirit and teaching of primitive Christi-
anity can be a barrier to accepting a tenet or sanctioning a
practice? If from the act-of praying for Mary as a sharer in
the imperfect lot of humanity the Church may legitimately
advance to the act of worshipping her as the Mother of God
and the fountain of grace, surely it is not clear why it may not
also advance from the visitation of ordinary ecclesiastical pen-
alties on refractory Christians to the banishing, the torturing,
the burning alive of heretics. In short, Newman’s tests of
normal development apply to the latter instance much better
than tothe former. To pass from a lighter to a severer order
of penalties involves no such leap as to pass from the practice
of praying for the Virgin to an attitude of mind in which that
practice must be rated as a sacrilege.
The Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, by
Newman, is the one-sided plea of a disquieted spirit bent upon
securing a basis of dogmatic rest, and artificially manipulating
the evidence to that end. All the truth which it contains is
provided for, and at the same time guarded against exaggera-
tion and abuse, in the doctrine which has been outlined respect-
ing the function of the Christian consciousness.
1“ Prayers for the faithful departed may be found in the early liturgies, yet
with an indistinctness which included St. Mary and the martyrs in the same rank
with the imperfect Christian whose sins were as yet unexpiated; and succeeding
times might keep what was exact and supply what was deficient.” (Essay, p. 354.)
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THE DOCTRINE OF GOD AND OF HIS
RELATION TO THE WORLD
AT LARGE.
CHAT ERT
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.
I. — REASONS FOR CONCLUDING THAT THE THEME OF THE
CHAPTER LIES WITHIN THE SPHERE OF POSSIBLE
KNOWLEDGE.
Ir the main contention in each of the preceding chapters
can be regarded as established, the legitimacy of an attempt
to explore the divine attributes follows as a matter of course.
It would be absurd to confess entire ignorance on this subject
after being certified that a personal God exists, and that He
has vouchsafed a specific as well as a general revelation of
Himself. Even the bare affirmation that God exists cannot
consistently be uttered except on the assumption of some
knowledge of God; otherwise we should say just as much if
we should substitute for the word “God” in the affirmation
an algebraic symbol, or some untranslated and untranslatable
hieroglyphic. In the statement sometimes made, “ We know
that God is, but do not know what He is,’’ the second member
cannot stand without emptying the first of all meaning, and
159
160 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
therefore, of all warrant, unless it is warrantable for rational
beings to frame propositions in which unintelligible sounds
take the place of subjects.
Doubtless there is a liability of presuming upon a larger
knowiedge of God than is really attainable under earthly con-
ditions. A vainglorious gnosticism is possible, as well as a
falsely humble — or, perhaps, boastful — agnosticism. If we
confine our attention to the nineteenth century, we must allow
that the former preceded and was largely responsible for the
latter. . The idealistic philosophies of the early part of the cen-
tury scarcely stopped short of the claim of having found out
God to perfection. Schelling and Hegel set forth, as the
proper aim and achievement of philosophy, an all-embracing
metaphysic of the absolute. Naturally as the doubtful ten-
dencies of their speculations became manifest, there was a
revolt in not a few minds against their fundamental assump-
tion. In the reaction some passed to the opposite extreme.
This was notably the case with Dean Mansel. Having defined
God as the absolute and the infinite, and having characterized
the absolute as that which exists in and by itself without neces-
sary relations to any other being, the infinite as that which is
free from all possible limitation, he proceeded to deduce such
conclusions as the following: The absolute and the infinite
cannot, as such, be a cause. For the cause exists only in rela-
tion to the effect. But the conception of the absolute implies
a possible existence out of all relation. If it be said that the
absolute was first alone and afterwards became a cause, this
contradicts the idea of the infinite, as implying that God was
not from the first all that it was possible for Him to be.
Again, the absolute as cause cannot be necessitated, for this
implies relation ; neither can it be voluntary, for this implies
consciousness, which is only conceivable as a relation. From
these considerations it follows necessarily that the ideas of
creation and personality are inconsistent with that of the abso-
lute and infinite. Still, it is our duty to think of God as per-
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 161
sonal, and to believe that He is infinite. This means that we
must renounce a speculative knowledge of God and content
ourselves with “regulative’’ notions which are suitable to our
present training, but cannot be known to be truly descriptive
of the divine nature.’ Sir William Hamilton took essentially
the same position. Herbert Spencer heartily approved the
negative side of Mansel’s reasoning, only qualifying it at one
point and aggravating it at another. He thought it necessary
to allow that our thought of the absolute is not purely negative,
as it was, at least in some connections, assumed to be by
Mansel. We have, he said, a positive, though indefinite con-
sciousness, of the absolute. But, on the other hand, he would
not allow this consciousness to count in the slightest degree
for knowledge, and was more dogmatic than Mansel ventured
to be in declaring the utter unlikeness of our conceptions to
the fundamental reality of the universe. Mansel remarked:
“We cannot say that our conception of the divine nature ex-
actly resembles that nature in its absolute existence; for we
know not what that absolute existence is. But, for the same
reason, we are equally unable to say that it does not resemble
it; for, if we know not the absolute and infinite at all, we can-
not say how far it is, or is not, capable of likeness or unlike-
ness to the relative and finite.” This chance for some partial
appropriateness in our conceptions respecting the absolute
seems to have been repudiated by Spencer; for he spoke of
the obligation to treat every notion of the absolute, which we
may frame, as utterly without resemblance to that for which
it stands.?
Mansel regarded himself as giving to faith what he took
away from knowledge; and even Spencer assumed that his
theory was advantageous to religion, as assigning to it a field
of perfectly inscrutable mystery, where it can suffer no oppo-
1The Limits of Religious Thought. See also Sheldon’s History of Christian
Doctrine, II. 304-306.
2 First Principles, pp. 94, 113.-
162 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
sition from science, it being a maxim of science that no expo-
sition of the nature of the absolute can be given. But faith
can never be advantaged by denying the conceivability of its
supreme object, and religion cannot be made secure by reduc-
ing its subject-matter to pure mystery. Much of mystery
may indeed be included in the objects of religious contempla-
tion ; nevertheless, a religion of sheer mystery is an impossi-
bility. As Pfleiderer has remarked: “It is true enough that
there is always an element of mystery in religion, and that a
God who should be completely and exhaustively known by our
finite intellect would be no God. But it is equally certain
that a religion of nothing but mystery is an absurdity, and
that the absolutely ‘unknowable’ wants simply every quality
necessary for the object of a positive religious relation.” }
Very little qualification needs to be put upon the strong words
of Bowne: “A God who must always remain x for thought
and conscience has no more religious value than a centaur or
a sea-serpent.’’? A vital impulse to seek for a real relation
with a being thus conceived is out of the question. To as-
similate God to an infinite void is, by logical consequence, to
reduce religion toward an absolute blank. Small children may
make play-houses for the sport of tearing them down; but
sane and serious men will not trouble themselves to think
about God, if they must forthwith cancel their thoughts as in
no wise presenting Him in His real nature.
The agnostic doctrine under consideration may be regarded
as the counterpart of the ontological argument for the exis-
tence of God. As that argument affects to prove the divine
existence by definition, so this doctrine goes to work by means
of a definition to remove God practically out of existence, as
shutting out all knowledge of Him. The method is too easy-
going, in the latter case no less than in the former. Let the
gratuitous difficulties be avoided which are involved in a
1 Philosophy of Religion, II. 1g§9. 2 Review of Herbert Spencer, p. 25.
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 163
strained definition of God as absolute and infinite, let “abso-
lute ’’ denote simply the absence of dependent or enforced
relations, and “infinite” signify simply the absence of all
limits not imposed by the divine will or the divine perfections,
and the agnostic argumentation is at once robbed of its for-
midable look. With that use of terms a standing-room will be
provided both for the individual in his contemplation and for
the God contemplated ; and it will not be necessary for ene
to make so grotesque a sacrifice as the exclusion in thought
of himself, of all finite things, and of the highest perfections
of the most perfect one, such as self-consciousness, before he
can conceive of God as absolute and infinite.
Agnostic terminology is not a recent invention. Some of
the fathers and the scholastics laid so strong an emphasis
upon the divine transcendence as seemingly to place knowl.
edge of the real nature of God beyond the reach of human
faculties. An examination of their total representation, how-
ever, will reveal that in most instances their thought was not
unlike that of Bonaventura, who allowed a cogunitio per appre-
henstonem as contrasted with a cognitio per comprehensionem,
that is, an apprehension or partial knowledge of God, as con-
trasted with a comprehension or exhaustive knowledge.!
Besides indulging in an incautious emphasis upon the tran-
scendence of God, some of the patristic and scholastic writers
paid tribute to agnosticism by the unmeasured stress which
they placed upon the simplicity of the divine essence. Indeed,
this intemperate stress became a theological habit which
reached far into the modern era. Augustine afforded a very
positive example of this order of teaching. In his anxiety to
exclude utterly the accidental and the composite from God, he
ruled out all distinctions within the divine essence, and so made
the attributes coincident the one with the other. ‘God is
truly called,” he says, “in manifold ways, great, good, wise,
——
1 Sent. I. 3. 1. 1.
104 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
blessed, true, and whatsoever other things seem to be said of
Him not unworthily; but His greatness is the same as His
wisdom, for He is not great by bulk, but by power: and His
goodness is the same as His wisdom and greatness, and His
truth the same as all those things; and in Him it is not one
thing to be blessed, and another to be great, or wise, or true,
or good, or, in a word, to be Himself.’”’! In more recent times
Schleiermacher has carried out the notion of the divine sim-
plicity with equal rigor. ‘All the attributes,” he says, “which
we attribute to God, designate nothing special in Him, but
only something special in the manner of relating to Him
our feeling of dependence.... The divine thinking is just
the same as the divine willing, and omnipotence one with
omniscience.’”’ 2
Now this line of representation evidently conducts logically
to agnosticism. If there is no real distinction between the
attributes which we ascribe to God, if they express nothing
more than our varied points of view, then, of course, it follows
that we have no authentic exposition of the divine nature, and
are left with the bare notion of essence or being. Such a
notion makes an utterly fruitless field for theological science,
and is also adverse to a practical religious interest. As Dorner
remarks: ‘The acceptance of the objectivity of the divine at-
tributes does not simply concern the interests of apprehension,
but even religion demands just that acceptance, and checks
absolute identification. Evangelical faith does not allow an
identification of righteousness with love or grace, but a dis-
tinction between them without separation. So, undoubtedly,
volition and knowledge are united in God, but to identify the
two would be equivalent to saying that what God knows He
also wills, an inference which is not permissible as regards
evil. The divine knowledge has a wider reach than the divine
will, without imperilling the unity of God. He comprehends
1 De Trin. vi. 7. 2 Der Christliche Glaube, §§ §0, 55.
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 165
evil in His knowledge, although not in His desire, and evil is
therefore not embraced in his creative will.” !
The Neo-Platonic conception of a predicateless ground, or
blank identity, is remote from the legitimate conception of the
Supreme Being. It in no wise provides for self-motion or life.
The thought of the living God does not lie in that direction.
Variety in unity must be characteristic of God, as of every
living spirit.2 The variety does not cancel the unity, and
means only that spirit in its affluence has in itself the fitting
grounds of varied activities and manifestations. The attributes
of the infinite Spirit are indeed through and through essen-
tial, having naught of the accidental, which pertains more or
less to finite and changing being. But to esteem them essen-
tial, it is not necessary to melt them into a common mass, or
to dissipate them into a common void. They are essential, as
being inalienable, unchanging perfections of God — abiding
characteristics of His being, or grounds of His activities and
manifestations in the world.
A qualified agnosticism is involved in the platform of one of
the latest of the prominent leaders of theological thought in
Germany. According to Ritschl, theology attempts a vain
and foreign task when it essays to consider what God is in
Himself or for Himself. It has only to consider what God is
for us, as made known through His Son, and the kingdom of
grace which He established. Its sphere is defined by the
measure of practical value, or by what God is for the individual
and the religious community.
This description, it may be conceded, sets forth the theme
which is of preéminent religious interest. But both the pro-
priety and the practicability of the limitation which it empha-
sizes may be questioned. The fact that God is the highest
object of thought, and the presupposition of all things, makes
1 System of Christian Doctrine, § 15.
2 Compare the still broader statement by Schurman: “Identity in difference is
the characteristic both of being and of thought.” (Belief in God, p. 75.)
12
166 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
the investigation of His nature an object of supreme intel
lectual interest. Nor is this investigation foreign to a religious
interest. Convinced that all in God calls for wonder and rev-
erence, the religious mind is naturally impelled to press as far
as possible into the sanctuary of the divine nature. Nothing
can repress this inquiry, where there is any fullness of intel-
lectual or religious life, except despair of all real understand:
ing of the divine. That the history of speculation enforces
modesty and prudence in philosophizing about God may be
granted ; but that it enjoins despair of reaching valid concep-
tions about what God is ins Himself is not so clear. We sur-
mise that, in spite of the Ritschlian protest, and of every form
of agnosticism, the human spirit will continue its attempt to
explore the essential nature of God, and that this effort, if
joined with the spirit of piety, will serve as a noble means of
development.!
The Scriptures do not ignore the mystery which pertains
to the divine nature ;? but in teaching that man was made in
the divine likeness, that he is a candidate for communion with
God, and may stand before Him in the relation of sonship,?
they present ample grounds for inferring a real knowledge of
God. To deny the possibility of such knowledge, one must
go in the face of the scriptural implications, and assume that
there is no discoverable likeness, no possibility of communion,
no genuine relation of spiritual sonship. The likeness implies
that self-understanding on man’s part must lead to some under-
standing of God, while communion and sonship necessitate the
conclusion that there is that in God which corresponds to
intelligence and love in man.
1 Compare Garvie, The Ritschlian Theology, chap. VI.
2 Job xi. 7-9, xxiii. 8,9; Ps. xcvii. 2, cxxxix. 6, cxlv. 3; Isa. xl. 13, 14, 28;
Rom. xi. 33-36; 1 Cor. ii. 11; Eph. iii. 20; 1 Tim. vi. 16.
* Gen.. i, '26,;27 3. Col.: til, .10.;: John xiv. 23: sii john i 3} \Provotites aes
Isa. Ixiii. 16; Hos. i. 10; Matt. vi.g; Luke xv. 11-32; Acts xvii. 28; Gal. iv. 6;
I John iii. 1; Heb. ii. 10, xii. 7, 8,
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 167
The discussion leads to the conclusion that a real, though
limited, knowledge of God can and must be affirmed. The
limitation of the knowledge doubtless leaves open the door for
amendment at one point and another. But knowledge is not
entirely despoiled of its claim to reality because of the possi-
bility of more or less amendment. Men who lived before the
era of modern geological science, and before the establishment
of the Copernican theory, had some real knowledge of the
world, even though there was a chance for a great enlargement
and perfecting of their views.
Il. — Tue METAPHYSICAL OR NON-ETHICAL ATTRIBUTES.
The divine attributes fall into two groups, those which are
not immediately suggestive of the ethical side of divine per-
sonality, and those which directly describe that side. The
two groups are sometimes distinguished as the metaphysi-
cal and the moral —a phraseology whose intent can hardly
be misunderstood, though its strict propriety may perhaps be
called in question. It is not denied that a full consideration of
one or another of the former group may touch on the ethical
domain. The ethical, however, is not central to their idea.
On the side of the non-ethical attributes we may enumerate
unity, spirituality, immutability, omnipresence, eternity, omni-
science, and omnipotence.
The unity of God signifies His solitariness in the rank
of original and independent being. It denotes that He is no
aggregate or complex of separable units, and that all beside
Him is conditioned upon His will and power, so as to be in no
proper sense coordinate with Him or entitled to share His
name. The term is not a veto upon interior distinctions in
the original and independent Being. As has just been argued,
a blank homogeneity is foreign to the notion of a living God.
Just how far distinctions may reach without compromising
168 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
unity is not a subject for indubitable speculative determina:
tion. It is evident, however, that a perfect unity excludes
the possibility of schism or antagonism within the circle of
the Godhead, and that nothing in God can conceivably be
separated from Him, any more than an essential function of
an organism can be eliminated without cancelling the idea
of the organism. In developing the cosmological argument
for the divine existence notice was taken of the main grounds,
aside from the scriptural teaching,! for assuming the unity
of God.
From the notion of unity to that of spirituality is but a
short step. If matter existed from eternity independent of
God, then, of course, it is forever set over against Him as a
kind of second deity, instead of constituting any part of His
being. If it was freely created by Him, it can hold to Him
no higher rank than that of an instrument or contingent
adjunct. To suppose it to be eternally inherent in God as a
necessary constituent of the divine life is to disparage the
self-sufficiency of spirit, and to import a dualism into God by
placing alongside His will a second source of energy. This
is a gratuitous obscuring of the divine unity which has been
especially characteristic of theosophic speculation. Jacob
Boehme, for example, argued that life and movement cannot
have place in God without multiplicity or contrasts ; that the
proper contrast of spirit is nature; that in God, accordingly,
as the other, or counterpart of spirit, a nature eternally sub-
sists ; that this is made up of an infinite plenitude of powers,
seven of which are fundamental; that the nature thus con-
ceived is at once a condition of vital self-consciousness in
God and the antecedent of the sensible world, the energetic
potency which is the fons originis of matter as known by us.”
1 Deut. iv. 35, vi. 4; Ps. Ixxxvi. 10; Isa. xlv. 22; John xvii. 3; 1 Cor. viii.
5-6; 1 Tim. ii. 5.
2 For a brief summary of the views of Boehme and Baader, see Sheldon’s His-
tory of Christian Doctrine, II. 406-411.
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 169
Franz von Baader held a like view, and contended that it was
adapted to render good service to theistic philosophy, since it
represents God as having in Himself an adequate means of
self-revelation, and leaves, therefore, no occasion to suppose
that He needs the creature, as pantheistic schemes assume,
in order to become revealed to Himself. But a proper con-
ception of the vitality and sufficiency of spirit in itself, and
especially of the infinite Spirit, is the best antidote to pan-
theistic naturalism. In view of the objections which lie
against the theosophic doctrine of an eternal nature, which
serves as an other to spirit, and is the indispensable condition
of real self-consciousness in God, it seems incumbent upon us
to take our Lord’s declaration, ‘‘God is a Spirit,’’! in an un-
qualified sense.”
The divine immutability is definitely asserted in the Scrip-
tures, especially by James when he describes God as ‘the
Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither
shadow that is cast by turning.’’? This is a vivid rhetorical
expression of the steadiness of the divine nature and adminis-
tration as opposed to man’s wavering character and conduct.
It is in no wise to be understood as predicating immobility of
God, a notion with which the Scriptures have not the slightest
sympathy.
The idea of motionless fixity is also foreign to a philosophi-
cal contemplation of the divine immutability. Personal life is
1 John iv. 24.
2 Delitzsch endeavored to overcome the dualism involved in Boehme’s specu-
lation, and at the same time to maintain that something analagous to corporeity
is eternally connected with God. The ‘‘ glory of God” mentioned in the Scrip-
tures denotes, as he conceived, something pertaining to God in his pre-mundane
existence. It is the eternal reflection of the triune God, “the manifestation of
His loving nature creating for itself out of itself a means and an instrument of
revelation.” The process takes place with, not apart from, the will of God. (Bib-
lical Psychology.) This representation provokes a question, not so much re-
specting the possibility of its truth, as respects the warrant for assuming it to be
true.
3 James i. 17. Compare Ps, xxxiii. 11; Mal. tii. 6.
170 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
inconceivable as a standstill, and least of all can God, as the
highest embodiment of personal life, be appropriately repre-
sented as an unmoving expanse of being. Moreover, a fixity
of this sort is excluded by the thought that God is the creator
of the world and holds to it a real relation. The theistic con-
ception of creation as a free act supposes a specific exercise of
divine efficiency, while a real relation to the world points not
only to a constant and immeasurable activity, but also to adap-
tations of that activity to exigencies which must arise in a
system that includes free agents among its constituents. Even
the most thoroughgoing deism, while removing God afar off
from the world-process, does not escape the necessity of affirm-
ing a variation of the divine activity; for in making God to
recede from the created world, it represents Him as parting
from the relation which He must have held and the agency
which He must have exercised in the act of creating. Phil-
osophical thinking may indeed object to the propriety of sub-
ordinating the divine activity to any such law of temporal
succession as rules finite consciousness ; but it has no word to
offer against the most positive conception of the vastness, con-
stancy, variety, and manifold adaptation of that activity.
Immutability implies that God in all His activities must
remain the same, too perfect either to increase or to wane,
either to transcend Himself or to fall below Himself. Ethi-
cally applied His immutability signifies the absolute indefecti-
bility of His goodness and righteousness.
In considering the divine omnipresence we need to revert
to the root idea of substance. This is undoubtedly causality.
That which does, or can do, nothing is simply the void, a mere
nonentity. Being is defined by the modes and the measure
of its activity. As was observed in another connection, great-
ness depends, not on space-filling bulk, but on range of action
possible or actual. Now God is the one agent whose range
of action is unlimited. This is the meaning of His omnipres-
ence. He is present to all things as acting immediately
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 171
upon all things. What makes distance to us is the limitation
of our power of immediate action. For God no such limita-
tion exists. One thing therefore is just as near to Him as
another, or, to say the same thing in different terms, He is
equally present to all things. This point of view was well
expressed by Thomas Aquinas. ‘God is in all things,’ he
says, “not indeed as part of their essence, or as accident, but
as an agent is present to that upon which he acts. . . . God by
the excellence of His nature is above all things, and yet is in
all things, as cause of their being.” }
In the Scriptures heaven is represented as the peculiar
abode of God.?_ But this may be regarded as another way of
describing a special sphere of the manifestation of God, or of
the apprehension of His presence and glory. His transcen-
dence of space limitations is not overlooked in the Bible. On
the contrary, He is described therein as one whom the heaven
of heavens cannot contain, and from whose presence there is
no possible escape in height or depth, in region swept by the
wings of the morning or covered by the darkness of night.®
The eternity of God indicates primarily that His being is
without beginning or end; and secondarily that the experience
of time, which is a necessity in the consciousness of a limited
being, is not a necessity for the divine consciousness. The
ground for including the latter element in the idea of the divine
eternity is the rational consideration, that an experience of
time can have place only where there is a consciousness of suc-
cession, and that this consciousness is unavoidable only where
there is something less than a full and immediate grasp of all
knowable objects. Conceiving of God as perfect, or exempt
in His nature from the law of growth, and as having perfect
knowledge of Himself, we seem forced to admit that experi-
1 Sum. Theol. I. 81.
2 Deut. xxvi. 15; 1 Kings viii. 30; Neh. ix. 27; Job xxii. 12; Ps. xxaiii. 13,
xxx. 14, cxv. 3; Isa. Ixvi. 1; Amos ix. 6: Matt. v. 45, vi. 9.
8 1 Kings viii. 27; Ps. cxiii. 6, cxxxix.; Jer. xxiii, 23, 24.
172 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
ence of time must be foreign to Him, if He be viewed by
Himself, or as to the essential mode of His consciousness. All
reality being known, and perfectly known, no new factor could
come in to effect the impression of succession. In this view
the eternity of God has to be conceived as timelessness.
A complete theory, however, cannot stop with this line of
representation. It must consider the knowledge of God as
determined, not merely by what He is in Himself, but by His
relation to the world. Having created a world in which a tem-
poral order prevails, He cannot be supposed to ignore His own
workmanship, or to be unconscious of its character as chang-
ing and temporal. He must know what the experience of
time is to men, and in the due administration of His kingdom
must accommodate His acts to their consciousness of succession.
To shut out from His view distinctions of before and after
would be to limit His vision to something less than the sum
of reality; for these distinctions, if they are not real in any
other sense, are at least so as matters of the mental experience
of finite beings. It may be difficult to adjust this truth to
the foregoing thought, that the essential mode of the divine
consciousness does not imply succession. Still, it is not ap-
parent that the two views are contradictory. God by Him-
self and God with the world are different objects of contem-
plation, and it is only reasonable to suppose that the con-
templation should correspond to the diversity of the objects,
that an addition of the temporal to the eternal should modify
in some sort the divine cognition. This is not saying that in
its mode the divine cognition is assimilated to the human, but
only that real account is made in the divine contemplation of
the element of temporality in finite experience. A conclusion
of this sort does not impeach the divine absoluteness, for the
world has being only through the will and power of God.
By virtue of His foreknowledge, God may indeed be con-
ceived as grasping at once the successive events of the world
process. But His relation to this process is not merely specu-
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 173
lative or ideal. It is practical as well. God is the living,
working God, and not simply a mirror so adjusted that all
events are reflected therein simultaneously. He orders the
times and the seasons. His efficiency blends with the stream
of events and shapes its course. This efficiency is exercised
with constant respect to the time limitations of men, and could
not otherwise attain its end. The foreknowledge of God,
therefore, cannot be regarded as so relating Him to the chang-
ing realities of the world that He gives no sort of recognition
to succession,
The eternity of God, as contrasted with the evanescent
things of the world, is a subject for contemplation at once
comforting and awe-inspiring. In the Scriptures it is very
strikingly presented in both of these aspects.!
The notion of infinitude or perfection, when applied to that
of knowledge, involves the conclusion that God’s knowledge
comprehends all the knowable, — all the actual in Himself and
in the world, and all the possible that is founded in His will.
Genuine theists are commonly agreed in giving the divine
omniscience this compass. That on which they differ is the
question concerning the relation of God’s knowledge to the free
acts of creatures, the question whether such acts are knowable
before they occur, and if so, on what grounds. Those who
deny freedom out and out evidently find no problem here.
Leaving aside this party we have three opinions to notice.
The first theory may be called the Arminian by way of in-
telligible antithesis to the second. It would not be much of
a misnomer, however, to call it the catholic theory, since it
was the current theory in the pre-Reformation Church from
the apostolic age onwards, has been generally held among
Lutherans and Anglicans, and is still dominant in the Greek
and Roman Catholic communions. This theory emphasizes
the power of contrary choice as a constituent of human free-
1 Deut. xxxiii, 27; Ps, xc. 1-4, cii. 26-28; Isa. lvii. 15; 1 Tim. vi. 16; Rev. i. 8.
174 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
dom, and hence affirms that foreknowledge of free acts, so
called, is a foreknowledge of acts properly contingent, or such
as might not have been wrought on the occasion of their occur-
rence. Its advocates hold that God’s knowledge is intuitive,
having as immediate grasp of the remotest member in a suc-
cession as of the nearest, and not dependent on a process of in-
ference from cause to effect. The possibility of His knowledge
being thus intuitive and all-embracing they either confess to
be an unqualified mystery, or attempt to explain by the assump-
tion that the temporal sequence of events pertains entirely to
our subjective view, that, intrinsically, or as presented to the
divine intellect, events do not fall under time distinctions, and
so may all be grasped in an undivided view. This is the most of
an explanation that can be offered; but to many it will seem
to contain a mystery scarcely less than the one which it under-
takes to resolve. To objectors from this point of view it is at
least pertinent to urge that any theory of time, to which resort
may be made, will be found to tax the mind’s power of rational
construction when all its implications are taken into the ac-
count. It may be noticed also that the verdict of philosophy,
to a very considerable extent, has been given in favor of the
idealistic interpretation in question.!
A supplement to the Arminian theory has sometimes been
1 See Part I, Chap. I, Sect. V. From recent philosophical testimonies we
cite the following: “In the sight of the eternal One, time vanishes altogether.
He sees the past and future as one; at every moment he sees all causes and all
effects. ... The true succession is lost in the inner relation, in the conditional
order, to use Lotze’s terms, according to which the most remote and the most
immediate are combined in His consciousness.” (Paulsen, Introduction to Phil-
osophy, p. 368.) “The temporal form [of the cosmic process] as little requires
temporal succession in the realizing activity as the spatial form requires spatial
extension in the realizing activity. In both cases we come upon an unpicturable
ground of the order, but we are not permitted to carry the factors of the phe-
nomenal order into its ontological ground. Unless we are to lose ourselves in
the infinite regress, all change must at last be referred to the changeless, the
unchangeable source of change. ... We conclude that the activity whereby the
temporal order is realized has no temporality in itself.” (Bowne, Metaphysics,
second edit., pp. 190, 191.)
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 175
proffered in the notion that God knows not only what will
occur, but also what would occur on this or that supposable con-
dition — the so-called sczentia media. But this is a question-
able appendix in so far as the acts of free agents are included
among the occurrences that belong with the imaginary con-
ditions. The scriptural warrant for it is very slight, not being
found in any controlling point of view, but only in isolated
sentences which can be taken without violence as meaning
something less than belongs to the notion in question. Thus
a statement like that of Matthew xi. 21-23 may be regarded
as a rhetorical way of emphasizing the hardness of heart which
was manifested by the unbelieving Jews, and as expressing a
consummate probability rather than a matter of direct and ab-
solute insight. No sober-minded exegete will infer that Christ
designed to say that each and every inhabitant of the non-
Israelitish cities named would have repented if His mighty
works had been wrought in them. What He meant to affirm
was, doubtless, that the people of those cities would have been
distinctively more receptive for a message accredited like His
than were the contemporary Jews in Bethsaida and Caper-
naum ; and this inference could be drawn without any excess
of boldness by one who held in clear light the conditions of the
two contrasted instances. In consideration of the purely illus-
trative purpose of the comparison, an inference grounded in a
supreme probability was adequate warrant for the terms em-
ployed.’ While thus insufficiently founded in revelation the
1 The statements contained in Luke xvi. 31 and Acts xxii, 18 do not neces-
sarily imply an infallible foresight of what an individual would do under purely
hypothetical conditions, but only such a general certainty as may result from an
adequate knowledge of principles and facts. 1 Sam. xxiii. 12 may be explained
on the ground that in a practical matter a decided probability was all that was
needed to dictate a choice. One who was fully cognizant of the existing facts,
and therefore cognizant of the well-nigh inevitable outcome, could properly direct
the conviction of the inquirer to the safe alternative. No one of course supposes
that God made answer in this case in audible words, but only that the conviction
of the inquirer was directed to one alternative as against another.
176 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
doctrine that God knows infallibly what free agents would do
under purely hypothetical conditions is totally void of philo-
sophical explanation ; since the ideality of time can be appealed
to only in behalf of a possible foreknowledge (or knowledge)
of those contingent events that actually take place, at one
point or another, and so become part of the sphere of reality.
The second opinion is the Calvinian, which makes the divine
decrees the ground of the certain occurrence of all events, the
voluntary actions of men included, and assumes that foreknowl-
edge depends on the certainty thus established by the decrees
of God. “He foresees future events,” says Calvin, “only in
consequence of His decree that they should happen.” Many
subsequent writers of the Calvinian school have indulged in
equivalent statements. The objection to this theory is that
it can escape a metaphysical difficulty only at the expense of
an immense moral difficulty, and in any event involves a moral
difficulty that cannot properly be regarded as of slight conse-
quence. If the divine decrees, in making certain all the evil
choices and acts of men, necessitate those choices and acts,
then God is the cause of evil, and human responsibility is a
fiction. On the other hand, if it be assumed that the divine
decrees make certain, without necessitating, a metaphysical
mystery, quite as formidable as that involved in the Arminian
theory, is introduced. To make certain without necessitating —
that is, objectively certain in the sense of the Calvinist —is to
determine events to a particular course without employing any
real causes of determination. Unless the decrees posit causes
of human determinations, it is absolutely inscrutable how they
can exclude their contingency. All that is accomplished, then,
by the Calvinistic postulate, if a place is secured for moral and
responsible action, is to shift mystery from one point to an-
other. Instead of the puzzle as to how intellect can forecast
the contingent, we have the puzzle as to how will can over-
1 Inst. Bk. III. Chap. 23.
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 177
come contingency, or make certain, without providing un-
equivocal causes of determination. In fact, some of the more
recent Calvinistic writers have as much as confessed that in
point of escaping metaphysical difficulty their own theory has
no advantage over the repudiated Arminian theory. ‘“ Within
the moral sphere,” says Shedd, ‘the divine decree makes cer-
tain without necessitating. ... The question how God does
this cannot be answered by man, because the mode of the
divine agency is a mystery to him.” }
To complete the criticism against the Calvinian view, it
must be noticed that any sacrifice of metaphysical explanation
which may be coupled with it does not serve to clear it of grave
moral implications. Suppose it be assumed, as is done by
Shedd, that necessity is not imposed upon the acts of men by
the divine decrees, it still remains true that the all-embracing
decrees express the will of God, even if they do not indicate
the mode of its execution. Accordingly they advertise that
evil deeds, no less than good, are matter of His choice and
purpose.
The third opinion, conceding the proper contingency of the
free acts of men, maintains that in the nature of things they
cannot be foreknown, being as much excluded from the sphere
of omniscience as contradictions are from the sphere of omnipo-
tence. This was the theory of Socinus. More recently it
has been favored by Rothe and Martensen, and advocated with
great earnestness by L. D. McCabe. The one advantage of
the theory is its avoidance of the speculative difficulty which
is involved in the thought of intuitive foreknowledge, or imme-
diate grasp of all coming events, on the part of God. The
practical advantages which it is supposed to have over the
Arminian theory are drawn mostly, not to say entirely, from
illusory conceptions. The latter theory, for example, is charged
with clouding over the divine benevolence and justice. “God
’
1 Dogmatic Theology, I. 404.
178 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
cannot be infinitely benevolent,” it is said, “if He creates in-
dividual beings whom He foresees will be eternally miserable.
...If from all eternity God foresaw that you were to be
eternally miserable, and still, with all these terrible realities
before Him, He allowed you to come into existence, it is the
baldest mockery for Him to ask you to obey and worship Him,
and to seek His favor and presence.”’ Before penning these
lines, the writer should have asked himself, What kind of a
concrete or specifically distinguished entity is that to which
God can be introduced, or to which He can introduce Himself,
and then subsequently decide whether that very entity shall
be an entity, or come into existence? The supposed case
presumes upon a too facile interchange between being and
nothing. That which is a logical prius of foreknowledge can.
not consistently be regarded as subject to choice after fore-
knowledge. But foreknowledge of an individual as possessed
of a distinctive self-developed character has for logical prius
the creation of the individual, his implication in a system of
reality, and the use, in a determinate way, of the moral oppor-
tunities of a personal career. It is, therefore, contrary to the
intrinsic conditions of foreknowledge to suppose any one of
these particulars, the first no less than the others, to be still
hinged on a divine choice, and capable of exclusion after
(whether in a logical or temporal sense) the foresight of that
which follows from the particulars. If Judas, the betrayer,
was not actually to be, and to be precisely Judas the betrayer,
God could not have foreknown him as such. To suppose
God, therefore, to have refused to create him on account of
his foreseen character, is to suppose God to have acted on the
score of a reason which the supposition of non-creation makes
it inconceivable that He should have been cognizant of. And
so of any other concrete individual. God may be imagined to
consider whether He shall create a being, or an order of
beings, after some ideal pattern, but not an individual impli-
cated in a given system of reality, and having a specific self-
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 179
won character ; 22 that character, the individual can be intro
duced to His contemplation only on condition that he is to be.
Equally wide of the mark with the passage cited is the follow-
ing: “No ruler ought to be angry with a subject before he
has violated his law. But prescience makes God sit in judg-
ment on me, sentence me, adjust my punishment, arrange for
my endless abode in perdition with Satan, long before I com-
mitted the least offense against His law.’’ To this the ob-
vious reply is, that foreknowledge no more discards temporal
intervals and the varying merits of the person who lives through
those intervals than does post-knowledge. If the infallible
memory of God does not prevent Him from viewing a man
according to His changing character through the past, no
more does His infallible prescience hinder Him from viewing
a man according to the scale of his character in each suc-
cessive interval of the time covered by the forecast. Wrath
and judgment fall only where they are deserved no less in His
foresight than in the regress of His thought. The passage in
question makes a gratuitous and unwarrantable assumption
that God must view as an indivisible unit things so widely
distinguished as innocent personality, guilty personality with
still existing capacities for good, and incorrigibly wicked
personality.
Two objections hold against the doctrine of the divine
nescience. In the first place, it presents God as dwelling
largely in the dark, learning by the common empirical method,
and incapable of forecasting the outcome of the schemes
which He has initiated. It is true that the opposing theory
cannot altogether evade the thought of a divine venture. If,
on the one hand, God cannot know altogether what he will do
except as He foresees the acts of creatures, on the other
hand, the knowledge of what He will do, so far as His acts
are conditions of the existence and acts of creatures, must be
logically antecedent to the knowledge of creatures and their
doings. It seems necessary, therefore, to assume a sovereign
180 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
choice of certain fixed elements, which condition free agency
in the world, as the logical prius of the divine foreknowledge
of contingent events. But this admission does not cancel all
advantage on the side of the postulate of foreknowledge. The
logical priority involves no temporal succession. From this
point of view we are allowed to think of the whole sphere of
reality as luminous to God from eternity —a conception which
must be regarded as in itself more acceptable than the assump-
tion that the future is like a dark hemisphere to Him whom
we call the Omniscient. The main emphasis, however, be-
longs to the second objection, namely, the incompatibility of
the doctrine of nescience with the contents of revelation. The
Bible teaches foresight of events that must be regarded as
conditioned through and through upon the free agency of
men. As has been shown, elements of distinct prediction are
found in both Testaments. While an occasional assimilation
of the divine to the human mode and measure of knowledge
may appear, the Scriptures in their higher ranges represent
God as having a reach of vision and certainty of plan which
are irreconcilable with the notion that the future is largely
veiled to His sight.2 The prophetical consciousness stands
distinctly on the side of the assumption of complete fore-
knowledge. Christ gave unequivocal expression to that con-
sciousness when he intimated that the day of judgment is
known to the Father. That is as much as saying that no
order of events is hidden from His view. For, in proportion
as the notion must be repudiated that He has fixed the time
of the great judicial crisis arbitrarily, or without regard to the
highest interests of the kingdom, it is necessary to conclude
that His foresight embraces a vast complex of events whose
course is thoroughly conditioned by the free agency of men.
The omnipotence of God signifies that His power has no
—
1 Part I, Chap. ITI, Sect. VI.
3 Ps, cxxxix. 2; Isa. xlvi. 10, xlviii. 3; Job xiv, 5; John vi. 64; Acts xv. 18;
Rom, viii. 29; Heb. iv. 13; 1 Pet. i. 20.
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 181
other limits than those which are imposed by rational and
ethical perfection of nature and consistency of action. Within
these limits, which really describe rather than restrict, we may
take unqualifiedly the words of the gospel, ‘With God all
things are possible.’’! For the vital sense and majestic ex-
pression of God's unlimited might, the Old Testament writers
stand unequaled in all literature.*
The objection, as old as the days of Origen, that infinite
power in God would involve imperfect self-knowledge, since it is
the nature of knowledge to bound or to circumscribe, is based
on a one-sided view of the infinite. The infinite in God is not
an indefinite expanse, which cannot become definite except by
being marked off and thereby losing its infinitude: it is rather
the positive and definite by virtue of its essential character, or
its intrinsic contrast with everything imperfect. The divine
infinitude properly conceived, to repeat a previous statement,
must be seen to involve perfect self-grasp as well as every other
perfection.
In pantheistic schemes, at least in those of the Spinozistic
type, the denial of all free choice involves the limitation of
the power of God to the sum of beings actually existent.
The universe, as necessarily evolved, expresses perpetually all
the ability to produce which belongs to God. Omnipotence
from this point of view can be only another name for the
causality back of the world. Thus it was understood by
Schleiermacher.? But genuine theism, asserting as it does the
transcendence as well as the immanence of God, must hold that
the actual is not the full measure of the possible. Supposing
God to be true person, it is perfectly conceivable, so far as
mere power is concerned, that He could increase the sum of
created being. Nor is it obvious that wisdom so conditions
1 Matt. xix. 26.
2 Job xxvi., xxxviii.; Ps. xxxiii.; Isa. xl.; Jer. xxxii. 17, 27. Compare Eph.
iii. 20.
8 Der Christliche Glaube, § 54.
13
182 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
the use of power as to leave no proper discretion or choice be-
tween alternatives. In the realm of the non-ethical, especially,
different schemes may stand so fully on a parity that nothing
in God shall bar out the choice of any one among several. At
any rate, before concluding positively that God was of neces-
sity shut up to the existing world-plan, one needs to be assured
that an equivalent for anything actual is speculatively incon-
ceivable.
Every species of dualism, quite as obviously as the panthe-
istic point of view, circumscribes the power of God. A recent
example has been afforded in the teaching of John Stuart Mill.
The amount of evil in the world, he contended, makes it im-
possible to admit both the benevolence of God and His om-
nipotence, and it best suits the religious understanding to
sacrifice the latter. Mill has doubtless directed to the alterna-
tive which is practically most eligible, supposing the irrecon-
cilable opposition which he predicates actually to exist. As to
the fact of the opposition, it may be confessed that it is not
easy to demonstrate that all things in the world harmonize at
once with the thought of omnipotence and of perfect benevo-
lence in the world’s Author. Still, the lesser difficulty does
not lie on the side of Mill’s conclusion. His inference is
counter to the philosophical demand for unity, is uncongenial
to a living religious faith, and in the Christian outlook 1s
opposed or obviated by the great facts of revelation.!
1 Jt may be well to notice an objection against the propriety of the enumeration
which has been given of the non-ethical attributes. It is alleged that spirituality is
not properly mentioned as an attribute since God is in essence a spirit; also that
unity, immutability, eternity, and omnipresence are not so much attributes as neces-
sary inductions from the divine attributes or perfections. As regards the first point,
the obvious response is that deing is a broader term than sfzrz¢, and that conse-
quently there can be no logical impropriety in describing God as belonging to the
spiritual order of being, in other words as having the quality or attribute of pure
spirituality. The notion of spirituality, like that of materiality, may be composite;
but the term actually describes to our minds the kind of being which God is, and
so has a genuine attributive significance. As for unity, immutability, eternity and
omnipresence, they each express that which is distinctive of God. Let it be granted
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 183
III.— Tuer MoraL ATTRIBUTES.
It was noticed among the arguments for the divine exis-
tence! that the ethical in man presupposes an ethical person
back of the world. Not only does the former require the
latter for its explanation; it is immediately connected there-
with by a practical bond. The sense of obligation and the
feeling of merit or demerit impel to a recognition of a righteous
will, an impersonation of moral order, which is above the indi-
vidual and holds him accountable.
The lesson which is taught by the moral experience of the
individual is enforced by that of society at large. Moral bonds
underlie the community life of men and are indispensable to
its perpetuity. It is true that earthly success is often won in
the way of unrighteousness, and that might seems repeatedly
to have the victory over right. In view of the frequent dis-
proportion between lot and conduct, it must be admitted that
faith has a practical occasion to picture a throne of judgment
lying beyond the earthly scene. Still, history abundantly illus-
trates that the stability of society is dependent on morality,
and that destruction approaches when moral bonds begin to
be relaxed. It is as if the authority which said to the sea,
«“ Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further,” had marked out
the bounds of tolerance for states and empires, and opened a
pit for all such as rush on heedlessly in the course of violence
and iniquity. Taking events at a short range, and endeavor-
ing to deal with details, interpretation easily becomes baffled.
But history in its general outlines can be seen to enforce the
thought that a righteous sovereignty is over the world.
Healthy minds will ever sympathize with the prophetical
that they do not stand for strictly independent aspects, or that they are seen to follow
necessarily from other attributes or perfections; still, as being descriptive of divine
peculiarities which are not immediately suggested by other terms, they are appropri-
ately mentioned in the list of divine attributes.
4 Part I, Chap, II, Sect. X.
184 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
delineation of a majestic and righteous providence in the earth,
as opposed to any pessimistic creed with its picture of a worth-
less round of events.
For the Christian consciousness the ethical character of
God is of course as the sun in the heavens. He who possesses
this consciousness would as soon think of blotting out all light
and hope, and invoking self-annihilation, as of renouncing his
faith that God is supremely ethical.
To ascribe an ethical nature to God means something more
than according to Him a recognition of moral distinctions and
an administration which respects those distinctions. It means
that moral feeling in God is codrdinate with His perfect knowl-
edge and His unlimited power; that the leading phases of
pure sentiment in men have their counterpart in Him; that
He has positive delight in moral worth in accordance with His
perception of its value, and a corresponding abhorrence of the
morally vile. If this description be charged with anthropomor-
phism, we have only to repeat what has been said before, that
we dignify the idea of God far more by giving to it the best
content which the analogy of our own spirits supplies, than by
treating it ina nihilistic manner. Moreover, to rule out sensi-
bility is to exclude the capacity for blessedness. God is and
can be infinitely blessed only as there is in Him a plenitude
of the most pure and lofty feelings. What places Him in
contrast with men is the fact that feeling in Him is never out
of reason or out of proportion, and so never becomes perturba-
tion of mind. The deepest calm and the highest intensity are
united and reconciled in Him ; for He is never out of harmony
with Himself or disconcerted about His designs, and yet is so
absolutely devoted to righteousness that He cannot be in the
shghtest degree indifferent to moral conduct.
A compendious expression for the ethical nature of God is
given in the phrase Aoly Jove. With nearly equal propriety
it might be defined as a loving righteousness. The meaning
is not that holiness is strictly subsumed under love, or love
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 185
under righteousness, but rather that the terms of either coup-
let stand for closely related and perfectly harmonious perfec-
tions.
With holiness and righteousness a third term has a natural
association, namely, justice. These are not so much names
of clearly distinguished attributes as designations of the same
fundamental aspect of the divine nature from somewhat dif-
ferent points of view. The holiness of God expresses His
stainless purity and absolute separation from all moral corrup-
tion. It points to the truth that no impure person can stand
before Him, and behold Him in any wise as He is, without
being put to confusion and feeling that he is confronted by an
infinite protest against his sin. The righteousness of God
signifies that in His nature is the perfect standard of right,
and that His will is always in absolute accord with that stan-
dard. The attribute of justice involves the same conception
with a more distinct emphasis upon the executive function of
God’s righteous will in apportioning to moral agents the awards
suitable to their conduct and character. The scriptural testi-
mony to these aspects of the divine nature runs through the
whole texture of the sacred books, and is also embodied in
many distinct declarations.!
Justice in the sense defined, as being an immanent charac-
teristic of God, evidently cannot be denied or overruled. The
only point which stands in doubt is the extent of its demands.
Does it require as a condition of forgiveness that any sin should
be offset by an equivalent rendered as a tribute to righteous-
ness? Does it thus debar a culprit from the hope of securing
reconciliation by any means of his own, inasmuch as he is
under obligation to render a perfect service always, and can-
AE xvi, xx. 5; exxivs 3730 Ley. xi 44545, xiee2, xx. 7, 26,,xxiig23. Dent.
xxxii. 4; Job iv. 17, 18, xv. 15, xxv. 4-6, xxxiv. 12, 23; Ps. v. 4, xi. 7, xlviii. 10,
Ixxi. 19, lxxxix. 14, cxlv. 17; Isa. vi; Ivii. 15; Ezek. xxxvi. 20-23, xxxix. 7; Hab.
i. 13; Rom. ii. 2; 2 Cor. v. 10; Heb. xii. 14, 29; Jamesi. 13; I Pet. i. 15, 16;
Rev. xvi. 7.
186 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
not make good any deficit which may have been incurred ?
Would the atoning work of a redeemer have been as needful,
in view of the claims of divine justice, for the salvation of one
sinner as for that of the race? Questions like these have
often been answered with a decided affirmative. This has the
advantage of seeming precision. But it is possible to construct
too rigid a scheme in the name of divine justice. Points like
the following need to be kept in mind: 1. In the recovery of
a lapsed soul, grace must take the initiative. A full atonement
cannot be made by the culprit, as being always obligated to
render his best service. Atonement by another than the cul-
prit cannot take the place of grace since the atonement must
be provided or accepted by an exercise of free grace. 2. It
follows then that, if lapsed souls are recovered, free grace is in
fact exercised, and hence is not in itself incompatible with
justice. 3. What justice requires is that grace should not be
administered in a way that shall disparage the claims or en-
danger the interests of righteousness. 4. There is nothing
arbitrary in the supposition that a scheme of such vast conse-
quence as the proclamation of universal amnesty to a race of
sinners must appear in the sight of omniscience as disparaging
to the claims of righteousness and perilous to its interests,
unless these claims and interests should be emphasized by the
very method in which the amnesty is published and made effec-
tive, that is, by the method of atonement. 5. As atonement
does not exclude grace, but rather concerns the method and
conditions of its administration, it is conceivable that in connec-
tion with some lesser exigency than the one supposed, for ex-
ample, the recovery of a single lapsed soul, the grace might be
applied apart from a special objective atonement, applied simply
as illuminating and subduing influence, working penitence,
faith, and love. The sense of ill-desert in such a recovered
soul and its loathing for the sins abandoned would be a per-
petual tribute to divine justice. Taking that one soul in its
relations to God, we have no adequate warrant for saying that
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 187
divine justice must insist upon any other tribute. It is said
indeed that God must feel the same about pardoning one soul
as about publishing pardon to a race of sinners, and could net
make any different conditions for the one case than for the
other. But this is hasty assumption. God’s feeling respect-
ing a method is determined preéminently by the ethical and
spiritual outcome which it is fitted to produce. A method
which might answer in dealing with a single soul under special
conditions might appear to the divine insight as inefficient and
perilous to the ends of righteousness, when applied to the vast
and complex theatre of a moral world. We conclude, then,
that a normal conception of divine justice leaves room for ad-
mitting the need of atonement in connection with a general
scheme of pardon and restoration ; but, at the same time, we
have little sympathy with the dogmatic assertion that in any
conceivable case justice must exclude forgiveness apart from
an atonement, such as is associated with the earthly vocation
of Christ.
A distinct relation is obviously to be asserted between
divine justice and the punishment of sin. Supposing the
subject of the infliction not to have reached the stage of in-
corrigible wickedness, his punishment is not to be regarded as
either exclusively retributive or exclusively corrective. It is
rather both retributive and corrective, designed to manifest
the divine displeasure against sin, and to discipline the sinner
into a better life.
The terms in which God’s ethical nature was defined above
imply that it is wide of the mark to suppose any real oppo-
sition between holiness, righteousness, or justice, on the one
hand, and love on the other. In a being of limited vision and
of imperfect intellectual and emotional balance an opposition
of this kind may arise. But in God justice never denies love,
and love is never contrary to justice. The punishment which
justice asks for defeats no true interest of benevolence, and
188 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
the grace which love bestows is not against, but for, the pro-
motion of righteousness. Justice in its perfection cannot be
indifferent toward any capacity for good, and love in its per-
fection can have no complacency in aught that makes for
moral evil and consequent injury. Thus divine justice and
love are perfectly harmonious. The disjunction which has
been pictured between them in many a homiletical strain must
be repudiated in a philosophical view.
The love of God takes on different aspects, and is described
under different names, according to the relation in which it
is presented. Viewed in relation to creatures generally it is
goodness, good-will, or benevolence. Viewed in relation to the
sinful and rebellious, it is mercy and long-suffering. Viewed
in relation to those who are so in affinity with God as properly
to be called His children, it is love in the sense of complacency
and of spiritual union and communion.
According to its ruling conception, love is a principle or
disposition of self-impartation. The loving personality doubt-
less always covets reciprocity, and in that sense desires pos-
session. But this is in no wise incompatible with the benevo-
lent impulse to self-impartation, since the attitude of responsive
love on the part of the object of a holy affection offers the
widest channel to the blessing and fruition which the loving
personality is ready to contribute, and delights to contribute.
With this consideration in view, we may approve the following
definition: ‘Love is God’s desire to impart Himself and all
good to other beings, and to possess them for His own in
spiritual fellowship.” !
God’s love for sinners is a marvel, but not a contradiction.
It is marvelous as having the unfathomable depth which per-
tains to everything in God; it is consistent, however, inasmuch
as it regards the possibilities of good in its subjects, the ideals
that are in them potentially, the lineaments of the divine
1 William N. Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 88.
a i ee
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 189
workmanship, visible through all the defacements of sin.
Speaking of this ground of God’s love to sinners, Augustine
has remarked: “ In a wonderful and divine manner, even when
He hated us, He loved us ; for he hated us in as far as we were
not what He Himself had made ; and because our own iniquity
had not in every part consumed His work, He knew at once
both how, in each of us, to hate what we had done, and to
love what He had done.” !
In nature and ordinary experience there are innumerable
things which publish the good will of God toward His crea-
tures. But nature and experience include also much that is
dark and enigmatica]. They are like a landscape over which
many clouds pass. In general, there is a suggestion of light,
but sometimes the shadows gather thickly, and threaten to
banish all traces of brightness. Some better ground of con-
fidence in the divine goodness than this changeful mirror is
needed by the weak and short-sighted children of men. It
is, moreover, a rational office of love to make itself known,
for in disclosing itself it opens the richest source of blessing
for those to whom it is directed. God’s love, therefore, was
but true to itself, in coming to a full and unmistakable mani-
festation. Above the plane of changeful circumstances the
gospel story sets a mirror into which one may look and be
secure of an ever-fresh and victorious assurance that “God is
love.”’
The Old Testament contains abundant references to the
goodness and tenderness of God.2 Scarcely anything more
charming could be imagined than some of its delineations of
the relation between Jehovah and Israel. But, in the general
picture which it presents, justice and judgment share the fore-
ground with mercy and compassion. In the New Testament,
ee
1 Tract. in Joan. cx. 6.
2 Ex, xxxiv. 6,7; Deut. iv. 29; Jobv. 17-19; Ps. xxiil., xxv. 6, xxxvi. 5, 7,
Ixxxvi. 5, ciii. 8, 13, 17, cviii. 4, cxxi., cxxxvi. 1, cxlv. 8,9; Isa. lxiii, 9, 16; Lam.
iii, 22, 23; Hosea xi. 8; Joelii. 13; Micah vii. 18; Dan, ix. 9.
I9gO GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
on the other hand, the scene of retribution is placed in the
background, and the foreground is mostly occupied by the
deed of love consummated in Jesus Christ.}
IV.— RELATION OF WILL IN Gop To His NATURE, AND
ALSO TO THE STANDARD OF TRUTH AND RIGHT.
It belongs to the absoluteness of God that He should be
indefectible in His moral nature. A holiness that might con-
ceivably fail would be something less than absolute. It would
also involve an infinite contradiction to the perfect knowledge
of God to admit in Him any liability to the foolishness and
lying vanity of sin.
This thought les near to the problem of the relation of
will to nature in God. How is that relation to be conceived ?
Evidently all thought of temporal antecedence should be ex-
cluded. Nature and will are both eternal. But, in the logical
order, nature stands first. While there is nothing like me-
chanical determination, the will finds its perfect standard in
the intellectual and ethical nature of God. It is the require-
ment of harmony and self-consistency that the will should
always follow this standard. Indeed, the will would forsake
its own absolute choice, should it swerve in the least from that
standard, since, undoubtedly, it has elected the same to be
eternally its rule of conduct.
As in the personal life of men there is a union of necessity
and freedom, so also in God. The ground of our rational and
moral being is given us. Nevertheless we are not actually
rational and moral persons apart from will or self-determina-
tion in rational and moral lines. The same is true of God.
« At every point the absolute will must be present to give
1 Matt. i. 21, xxvi. 28; Luke ii. 10, 11, xv.; John i. 12, iii, 16, xii. 32; Rom.
v. 8; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Eph. i. 7, ii. 4-8, iii. 19; Phil. ii, 6-8; 1 Pet. i. g-12, 18, 19;
1 John iv. 9, 10, 16,
DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. Ig!
meaning to the otherwise powerless necessities of the Divine
Being.” !
Since the will of God never decrees aught but truth and
right, there can never be any practical occasion for His crea-
tures to seek any other standard. But, speculatively, the
divine will must be regarded as executive, rather than creative,
of truth and right. This does not mean that they are beyond
God ; for beyond Him there is absolutely nothing, and conse-
quently neither truth nor error, neither right nor wrong. It
means, rather, that truth and right express the rational and
ethical nature of God. As implications of that nature they
must appear, according to the tenor of the preceding discus-
sion, logically prior to the determinations of the divine will.
It does not lie within the province of that will to make or to
unmake them. In this relation, the conclusion of Thomas
Aquinas is much to be preferred to that of Duns Scotus and
Descartes.
A thought supplementary to the matter of the foregoing sections
may fitly be added. ‘The divine interest may be regarded as being
extended in full measure to the zsthetical domain. God is foun-
tain and patron of the beautiful as well as of the right. Poetic
sensibility and artistic gift have in Him their unfailing source.
‘Bowne, Philosophy of Theism, p. 170.
192 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION,
CHAPTER II.
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS IN THE GODHEAD.
I.— Tue HIstroricAL DATA FOR THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST.
THE discussion of the divine attributes has emphasized the
necessity of affirming distinctions in God. Sound philosophy
has no objection to the scriptural implication that a certain
manifoldness, along with unity, is characteristic of the Divine
Being ; indeed it concludes that He must be thus conceived in
a consistent representation of Him as living and self-conscious
Spirit. Whether philosophy, in its explication of the general
idea of God, can draw out precisely that theory of necessary
distinctions which is expressed in the Christian doctrine o1
the Trinity, is not so clear. At any rate, the doctrine of the
Trinity has an historical basis, and is best approached from
that side. Whatever word philosophy may have to offer on the
subject is properly postponed till a review has been made of
the historical data.
The chief compendium of historical evidence in this relation
is, of course, the New Testament. But it will not be imperti-
nent to glance somewhat beyond the New Testament era, since
the order of teaching which followed, if it appears relatively
continuous and dominant, may be regarded as testifying to the
dogmatic impulse which was received from the apostles and
their colaborers. In the first place, we have to note the chain
of testimony as it relates to the divinity of Christ. This we
will follow in the regress order from the fourth century.
As is well known, the specific task of the first ecumenical
EE
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. i193
council was the solemn declaration of the divinity of Christ.
The creed which was subscribed at Niczea in 325 was designed
to put the ban upon the Arian doctrine — which assigned
Christ an intermediate rank between God and man, defining
Him as the first and most exalted of creatures — and to bind
the whole Church to the acknowledgment of the consubstan-
tiality of the Son with the Father. If the necessity of promul-
gating the creed proves that there was doubt respecting the
divinity of the Son, the composition of the council shows that
the doubt was far from representing the central current in the
theology of the age. Out of the three hundred and eighteen
bishops only seventeen were Arians,! and all but two of these
seventeen were prevailed upon to sign the creed. It is true
that in the contentions which followed the dissolution of the
council it became apparent that a considerable fraction of
the Eastern bishops favored what has been termed the Semi-
Arian scheme. In estimating the significance of the Semi-
Arian party, however, several facts should be borne in mind:
namely, that it had very few cordial or voluntary adherents in
the Latin Church; that the divergence of some of its members
from the Nicene platform was rather technical than real, their
dissatisfaction with the creed being due to what they regarded
as its Sabellian implications ; and that the party as a whole
commonly repudiated in its councils the Arian doctrine of the
creaturely rank of the Son. In fact, the position of the Semi-
Arian party was not so much a testimony against faith in the
possession by the Son of an essentially divine rank and of
divine predicates, as a testimony in favor of conjoining a dis-
tinct recognition of the subordination of the Son with the idea
of His divinity. As for the Arian party, the seeming promi-
nence which it attained, especially in the reign of Valens, was
due largely to imperial force and patronage; and the speedy
collapse of the party, after the withdrawal of this artificial
1 Sozomen, Hist. Eccl, i. 20.
194 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
basis, illustrates clearly the alien character of its creed. In
general, if we eliminate the effect of extraneous causes, we
must conclude that the broad central current of the theology
of the fourth century was in the direction of acknowledging in
Christ an essentially divine rank and nature. Notwithstand-
ing the great commotion which it raised, Arianism was nothing
more than a dogmatic eccentricity.
In the third century the theoretical construction of some of
the fathers may not have been fully on a level with the Nicene
creed ; but all through the century the mind of the Church in
general was evidently pervaded with the conviction that truly
divine predicates belong to Christ. There is no evidence that
the humanitarian theory represented by Paul of Samosata and
some less conspicuous predecessors, according to which Christ
was only a man peculiarly replenished with the grace and
power of the Holy Spirit, had any large following. It was a
local and limited form of monarchian or antitrinitarian teaching.
Moreover, the fact that a contrasted form of monarchianism,
known as the Sabellian — which acknowledged only a Trinity of
manifestations, and conceived of Christ as the unipersonal God
incarnate — appeared at the same time, suggests that both
got their incentive, not from the antecedent standpoint of the
Church, but from a speculative ambition to evade the diffi-
culties of a trinitarian hypothesis. In any event, as these
dogmatic eccentricities were contrary to one another, the
former making the centre of personality in Christ purely
human, and the latter regarding it as the sole Divine Being,
the one offsets the other so far as faith in Christ’s divinity is
concerned. We are thus left free to regard the party which
vanquished both the Samosatian and the Sabeillian schemes as
representing, with but moderate abatement, the theological
thinking of the third century.!
1 Expressions from the writings of Tertullian and Origen have sometimes been
thought to testify to a wide diffusion of the Sabellian (or Patripassian) way of
os eee
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 195
Examining the writings of leading representatives of this
party we find that if they did not uniformly limit the subordi-
nation of the Son as consistently as did the Nicene fathers,
they were no less resolute in assigning to Him a truly divine
nature and rank. This appears in the letter addressed by
Hymenzus of Jerusalem and his five colleagues to Paul of
Samosata. They affirmed that in conformity with the faith
handed down and preserved in the Catholic Church to their
day, they confessed Jesus Christ to be the only begotten Son
of God, the image of the invisible God, “being before all
worlds, not God according to foreknowledge, but in substance
and in person (otetg xat tixoordae) God, Son of God.” !
Origen also witnessed to faith in the possession of truly
divine predicates by the Son. While he conceived that Christ
was below the Father as having a divinity derived from Him,
he yet assumed that true divinity in its cardinal aspects was
possessed by the Son. Among his descriptions we find such
sentences as these: ‘‘ He whom we regard and believe to have
been from the beginning God and the Son of God, is the very
Logos, and the very Wisdom and the very Truth.”? “Our
Saviour does not partake of righteousness, but being Himself
righteousness, He is partaken of by the righteous.”? « All
things belonging to God are in Him. Christ is the wisdom of
God, He Himself is the power of God, He Himself the right-
uncritical exaggerating expressions to which he was not wholly a stranger. In
speaking of Praxeas as the first to teach the Patripassian doctrine at Rome, and as
a pretender of yesterday, he has himself indicated that his broad statement about
the simple-minded being stumbled over trinitarian terminology, is not to be taken
as a proper measure of the attitude of contemporary Christians toward the trinitarian
idea. As for Origen, he simply made the indefinite remark, that many were dis-
posed to deny either the personal distinction or the divinity of the Son. (In Joan,
Tom. II. 2.) This does not necessarily imply anything more than that there was
an appreciable number who took one or the other alternative. Such a style of
remark could have been employed even were it understood that the number of
those entertaining the trinitarian faith was many times that of their opponents,
1 Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae, Vol. III. pp. 289-299.
2 Cont, Cel. iii, a1. 8 Jbid, vi, 64.
:96 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
eousness of God.”"!_ He is omnipresent, so that His coming
to men involved no abandonment of the seat previously occu-
pied.2_ He is also omniscient. The secrets of men’s hearts
are open to Him. “Thou, O Son of God, who knowest all
things, knowest what is in man.”’3
In the same century Novatian very distinctly imputed to
Christ a truly divine nature, as appears from such sentences
as the following: ‘Scripture as much announces Christ as
also God, as it announces God Himself as man. ... Because
He is with us He is called Emmanuel, that is, God with us... .
If, whereas, it is the property of none but God to know the
secrets of the heart, Christ beholds the secrets of the heart ;
and if, whereas, it belongs to none but God to remit sins, the
same Christ remits sins, reasonably Christ is God.’’* Hippol-
ytus taught that the “ Logos is God, being substance of God.”
He also spoke of Christ, the incarnate Logos, as “the God
above all,” as “God the Word who came down from heaven,”’
and as “the impassible Word of God,’ who needed to assume
flesh in order to become subject to suffering.® Tertullian
contended that Christ is at once truly God and truly man;
that like the Father He is omnipotent and omnipresent ; that,
as the stream is of the same substance as the fountain, He is
of the same substance as the Father. “He proceeds forth
from God, and in that procession He is generated, so that He
is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance
with God.” ® The testimony in fact is ample, and there is
very little occasion for doubt as to the direction of the current
in the third century.’
1 In Jer. Hom. viii. 2. 4 De Trin. xi-xiii.
2 Cont. Cel. iv. 5, v. 12. 5 Philos. x. 29, 30; Adv. Noet. xv., xvii.
8 In Joan. Tom. x. 30. 6 Adv. Prax. ii., xvii. 23, xxiii.; Apol. xxi.
7 « By the end of the third century there can no longer have been any consider-
able number of outlying communities where the doctrines of the preéxistence of
Christ and the identity of this preéxistent One with the Divine Logos, were not
recognized as the orthodox belief.” (Harnack, History of Dogma, Eng. edit.,
IT. 38.)
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 197
As in the third century we note the two contrasted schemes,
the Samosatian and the Sabellian, outside the central current,
so also in the second century we have the two opposing modes
of thought, Ebionism and Gnosticism. The former subordi-
nated the new of Christianity to the old of Judaism ; the latter
cumbered Christian tenets with materials drawn from Gentile
philosophies and religions. As respects extent of influence,
Ebionism was undoubtedly a very scanty factor in the latter
part of the century ; nor can much scope be imputed to it in
the earlier portion of the century, except by resort to an arbi-
trary shifting of the New Testament writings from their prob-
able date, and an equally arbitrary ignoring of the tenor of the
post-apostolic literature. It is certainly no Ebionite Church
which is mirrored in the mass of the New Testament writings,
or in the literature of either half of the century. Gnosticism
was a more important factor than Ebionism. But, since it was
characterized in general by intemperate speculation and dog-
matic eccentricity, its doctrine of Christ’s person can neither
be regarded as representative of its own age nor as largely
significant of the foregoing standpoint of the Church. As re-
lated to the Ebionite christology, the Gnostic was not so dis-
tinctly and uniformly an offset as the Sabellian theory was to
the Samosatian. Still it was in general strongly contrasted
therewith. If many of the Ebionites conceived of Christ as
simply a man specially endowed by the Holy Ghost for an ex-
traordinary mission, the more noted founders of Gnostic sects
regarded Him as distinctly of a superhuman order, an emana-
tion from the Supreme Being, a specialization in the first rank
of the divine essence.
Over against the small and wavering Ebionite sect and the
shifting schools of the Gnostics, there was a dominant theo-
jogical tendency in the second century which was manifested
in a steadfast representation of Christ as the unique Son of
God and the possessor of divine attributes. Ample witness
of this tendency is found in Clement of Alexandria and in
14
198 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
Irenzus at the end of the second century, in Justin Martyr and
his co-apologists in the middle portion of the century, and in the
apostolic fathers who wrote in the first decades of the century.
We may admit that some of these writers, like some of those
in the third century, did not so carefully and consistently limit
the subordination of the Son as did the Nicene fathers. But
this signifies little else than the fact that the speculative elab-
oration of a trinitarian theory had not yet wrought out the
most suitable formulas ; it does not deny the warrant for con-
cluding that the image of Christ which was in the minds and
hearts of the writers of this era was that of a being possessing
divine rank and attributes.
Clement of Alexandria described Christ as being “both
God and man,” “the living God who suffered and is adored,”
“the Divine Word, He that is truly most manifest Deity, He
that is made equal to the Lord of the universe,” “God in the
form of man,” “The Commander-in-chief of the universe.” He
said also of the Son, “He is wisdom, and knowledge, and
truth.” “For Him to make any addition to His knowledge
is absurd, since He is God.” Heis likewise above the limita-
tions of space. ‘From His own point of view the Son of God
is never displaced; not being divided, not severed, not pass-
ing from place to place; being always everywhere and con-
tained nowhere ; seeing all things, hearing all things, knowing
all things.’’! In the writings of Irenzus we find an equiva-
lent strain. Christ is characterized by him as the Founder,
and Framer, and Maker of all things ; as the Saviour of all, and
the Ruler of heaven and earth; as the measure of the im-
measurable Father ; as having been always with the Father,
and having glorified Him before all creation; as both God and
man, since He forgave as God and suffered as man.? In the
“rule of faith,’ which he represents as held by the Church
1 Cohort. i. x.; Paed. i. 2, 6, 8; Strom. iv. 25, vii. 2.
= Cont. Haer. i. 15:5, lle 9,. 3,; UL. 11. 2, 1Vs4- 25 1Vs 14. Ty AV, 200 aye eee
v. 17. 3.
ne
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 199
dispersed throughout the world, Christ is spoken of as “ our
Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King.” !
Justin Martyr, opposing Jewish scepticism, contended that
the Old Testament exhibits Christ as “one, who is both Angel,
and God, and Lord, and man,”’ and in repeated instances ap-
plied to Him the Divine name. Athenagoras evidently placed
the Son within the circle of the Godhead proper, for he de-
scribed the Christians as those “Who speak of God the Father,
and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare
both their power in union and their distinction in order.” ®
Theophilus of Antioch represented Christ as the Word who
was always present with the Father, as begotten before all
creatures, as the agent by whom all things were made, as the
Divine Person who walked in Paradise, as God from God.!
Since the writings of the apostolic fathers are mainly prac-
tical treatises, we should expect in them references to Christ’s
office and work rather than precise and formal definitions of
His nature. Nevertheless, they are not without tributes to
His divine dignity. They assume in common His preéxistence,
and, in not a few instances, assign to Him a rank which greatly
transcends the creaturely plane. The Epistle to Diognetus
teaches that the invisible God did not send a servant or an
angel to men, “but the very Creator and Fashioner of all
things. ... As a king sends his son, who is also a king, so
sent He Him; as God, os Oeov, He sent Him.’® The Epistle
of Barnabas speaks of Christ as “ Lord of all the world,’’ and
says there was good reason why He manifested Himself under
the veil of the flesh; otherwise, men could not have endured
to behold Him, their eyes being blinded even by the natural
sun, which is the work of His hands.® In the Pastor of Her-
mas the Son is described as older than all creatures, and a
“fellow-councillor with the Father in the work of creation.”
1Cont Haer. i. 10. 1.
2 Dial. cum. Tryph. lix. Compare xxxiv., xlviii., Ix., xi, cxxvi., cxxvili.
3 Legat. x. 4 Ad Autol. ii. 10, 22. 6 Chap. vii. 8 Chap. v.
200 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
His name, it is also said, “is great and cannot be contained,
and supports the whole world.” ! The Epistle of Polycarp
represents Christ as joint source with the Father of every
spiritual grace, and as enthroned over the universe. “To Him
all things in heaven and earth are subject.’’? Ignatius, the
martyr Bishop of Antioch, gives this exalted description of
Christ: ‘“‘ There is one Physician who is possessed of both
flesh and spirit ; both made and not made; God existing in
flesh ; true life in death ; both of Mary and of God; first pas-
sible and then impassible, —even Jesus Christ our Lord.” ®
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles apparently refers to
Christ as the God of David, and applies to Him words from
the Old Testament which in their original relation were spoken
of Jehovah.4 Clement of Rome says of Christ: “By Him
are the eyes of our hearts opened. By Him our foolish and
darkened understanding blossoms up anew towards His mar-
vellous light. By Him the Lord has willed that we should
taste of immortal knowledge, ‘who, being the brightness of
His majesty, is by so much greater than the angels, as He
hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than
they.’’’® Clement uses, moreover, language having such
trinitarian suggestions as the following: “For as God liveth,
and the Lord Jesus Christ liveth, and the Holy Spirit, who
are the faith and the hope of the elect, so surely shall he.
who with lowliness of mind hath performed the ordinances
and commandments that are given by God, be enrolled and
have a name among the number of them that are saved through
Jesus Christ, through whom is the glory unto Him for ever
and ever, Amen.’’®
Thus the chain of testimony reaches back from the fourth
century to the very verge of the apostolic era. Even if it is
not uniformly indicative of precisely the same conception of
1 Simil. ix. 12, 14, 2 Chapters ii., xii.
8 Ad Eph. vii. Compare Ad Mag. viii., Ad Tral. vii., Ad Rom. iii.
# x. 6, xvi. 7. § 1 Epist. Ad Cor. xxxvi. © 1 Epist. Ad Cor. lviii
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 201
the relation of the Son to the Father as was championed by
Athanasius and embodied in the Nicene creed, it must still
be regarded as indicative of faith in the Son as possessed of
divine rank and attributes.!
We have now to look into the New Testament to determine
how far the presumption that this line of testimony to Christ’s
divinity was based on apostolic teaching finds a suitable cor-
roboration. In scanning the New Testament books it will be
proper to continue the regress order which has been pursued.
The historical succession of these books, it is true, is not alto-
gether ascertained, but we may group them with a fair degree
of assurance. As the latest writings we have the fourth
Gospel and the Epistles of John; next to these we may
place the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews ;
very nearly contemporary with these two, though based in
part on earlier written memorials, we have the Synoptical
Gospels, to which the Book of Acts may be added; the later
Pauline Epistles, together with those of Peter and James,
may take the next place; and finally we reach the earlier
Epistles of Paul.
By way of preface to this graduated review, it may be noted
that the application to Christ of terms belonging to the human
or creaturely scale does not necessarily imply a purely humani-
tarian theory of His person. This is evident from the con-
sideration that the very writers, who are most clear and
emphatic in assigning to Christ a dignity immeasurably tran-
scending the human scale, apply to Him in some connections
the order of terms in question. They could not well avoid it
altogether without hiding from their view that life in which
1 Harnack was cited above on the belief dominant at the end of the third cen-
tury. This is what he says for the primitive era of dogmatic development; “The
earliest tradition not only spoke of Jesus as Ktpio¢, owrnp, and didaoxadoc, but as
0 vids rod Geod, and this name was firmly adhered to in the Gentile Christian com-
munities. It followed immediately from this that Jesus belongs to the sphere of
God, and that, as is said in the earliest preaching known to us, one must think of
Him o¢ epi Geov.”” (History of Dogma, I. 186.)
202 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
the Son of God, though He was before all things, appeared as
a man among men.
The opening verses of John’s Gospel contain a positive
assertion of Christ’s divinity. The declaration that the “Word
became flesh” identifies the subject of the foregoing descrip-
tion beyond all shadow of reasonable doubt with Jesus Christ.
It is, therefore, declared of Him that in His higher nature
He was in the beginning; that He was with God; that He
was God; that all things were made by Him; that He had
life in Himself, which life was the light of men; that being
thus the maker of the world and the source of universal
illumination, He came into.the world, and gave power to as
many as received Him to become the sons of God. Certainly,
if the author had meant to affirm preéxistence reaching back
into eternity, divinity, and personality, he would have needed
no more emphatic terms than those which he employed.}
According to some interpreters, John has given in his First
Epistle an equally clear assertion of Christ’s divinity in the
following words: ‘‘ We know that the Son of God is come,
and hath given us an understanding ; that we know Him that
is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus
Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” 2 Grammati-
cally, it is admissible to connect the concluding statement with
the Son, and thus to see in it an unequivocal assertion of His
divinity. But it is also possible to connect the clause with the
pronoun referring to the Father. The uncertainty of the refer-
ence makes the passage much less available than the prologue
to the Gospel.
Scarcely secondary to the positive assertion of Christ’s
divine rank is the evidence which is supplied by His conscious-
ness of a peculiar relation to the Father. In that conscious-
1 A speculation as to the source — Philonic, Hellenic, or Biblical — whence
John derived the term Lagos, has little pertinence. His adaptation of it to express
a Christian tenet is the important matter, and this is not ambiguous.
2 1 John v. 20.
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 203
ness, it is true, whether through the blending of the human
with the divine, or as a necessary result of sonship even in a
divine range, there was a certain recognition of subordination.
The formal expression of this appears in the words, “The
Father is greater than I.”! But, with this sense of subordina-
tion, there is evinced, on the other hand, a lofty consciousness
of complete copartnership with the Father. Even in declaring
Himself less than the Father, Christ makes a comparison
which could not be dictated by an ordinary human conscious-
ness. How far He was above the plane of such a consciousness
is revealed in sentences like these: “The Father loveth the
Son, and hath given all things into His hand. ... My Father
worketh even until now, and I work. ... Asthe Father raiseth
the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son also quicken-
eth whom He will. For neither doth the Father judge any
man, but He hath given all judgment unto the Son: that all
may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father... . I and
the Father are one. ... He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father. ... All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine.” ?
A third evidence is contained in the ascription to Christ of
functions or attributes which reach intoadivine plane. In His
own words, as reported by John, a hint is given of His tran-
scendence of the limitations of space and time. “No man
hath ascended into heaven, but He that descended out of
heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven,”? « Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.’’* His
ability to penetrate the secrets of men’s hearts, and to forecast
the future, is affirmed in these positive terms: “ Jesus did not
trust Himself unto them, for that He knew all men, and Ue-
1 John xiv. 28.
2 John iii. 35, v. 17, 21-23, x. 30, xiv. 9, xvi. 15. Compare I John ii. 23, iv.
1b, v0 20.
8 John iii. 13.
* John viii. 58. For an answer to attempts to explain away the Johannine
thought of the personal pre-existence of the Son, see George B, Stevens, Theology
ct the New Testament, pp. 205-211.
204 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
cause He needed not that any one should bear witness con-
cerning man; for He Himself knew what was in man.” !
« Jesus knew, from the beginning, who they were that believed
not, and who it was that should betray Him.” ? With equal
emphasis is declared His mastery over the conditions of life and
blessing. “Jesus said unto her: I am the resurrection and
the life: he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he
live.’ 3 «*Whatsoever ye shall ask, in My name, that will I
do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall
ask Me anything in My name, that will I do.” * A preémi-
nent dignity is also indicated in the relation which the coming
and the work of the Holy Spirit sustain to Christ. ‘ When
the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the
Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the
Father, He shall bear witness of Me.’’® The words, “whom
IT will send unto you,’ bespeak the divinity of Christ by all the
strength of argument which revelation supplies for the divinity
of the Holy Spirit.
A fourth evidence in this group of Johannine writings is
supplied by the very emphatic terms in which the spiritual
dependence of men upon Christ is affirmed. Where the worth
of divinity is predicated, congruity of thinking calls for the fact
of divinity. But certainly the worth of divinity is assigned to
the person of Christ in such sentences as these: “He that
believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that obeyeth
not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth
on him. ... Iam the light of the world; he that followeth me
shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life... .
If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed... . I
am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the
Father, but by me....I am the vine, ye are the branches.
He that abideth in me, and I in Him, the same beareth
much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing. If a man
1 John ii. 24, 25. 3 John xi. 25. 5 John xv. 26.
2 John vi. 64. # John xiv. 13, 14.
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 205
abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered. . . .
The witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and
this life is in His Son; he that hath the Son hath life; he
that hath not the Son hath not life. ... Grace, mercy, and
peace shall be with us from God the Father, and from Jesus
Christ the Son of the Father in truth and love.” !
Once more it is to be noticed of these writings that they
record no check upon a worshipful attitude toward Christ.
The blind man, whose sight was restored, was not rebuked for
worshipping Christ, nor was Thomas required to amend his
words when he exclaimed, “ My Lord, and my God.” 2
Passing to the second group of New Testament writings we
find here also ample tribute to the divine rank of Christ. In
the Apocalypse He is represented as saying to the awe-stricken
seer: “I am the first and the last, and the living one,’ ®
words parallel to those applied to the Most High a little be-
fore. He is described as the one “that hath the Seven Spirits
of God,” ° a representation equivalent to the declaration that
the sources of spiritual life are with Him, or that the Holy
Spirit acts as His messenger. He bears the name, “ King of
kings and Lord of lords.”® Together with the Father He is
the temple and the light of heaven ;‘ and He is also joint
object with Him of the lofty doxology which is rendered by
the universe of creatures.” §
The opening chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews vies
with the prologue to John’s Gospel in its ascriptions to the
Son. He is portrayed as the heir of all things; the one
through whom the worlds were made; the effulgence of God’s
glory and the very image of His substance; the upholder of
all things by the word of His power; an object of worship
to all the angels; the bearer of the divine name.’ In fine, in
1 John iii. 36, viii. 12, 36, xiv. 6, xv. 5,6; 1 John v. 11, 12; 2 John 3.
9 John ix. 38, xx. 28. © Rev. iii. 1. 8 Rev. v. I1-14, vii. 9, 10.
8 Rev. i. 17. 6 Rev. xvii. 14, xix. 16. * See also Heb. xii. 2, xiii. 8.
4 Rey. i. 8. 7 Rev. xxi. 22, 23.
206 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews the tribute to
Christ is found to be on essentially the same plane as in the
later Johannine writings.
The Synoptical Gospels, being little else than simple narra-
tives of the words and deeds of Christ, afford for the most part
grounds for inference rather than formal statements on the
nature of Christ. A historical aim also dominates the Acts.
The grounds of inference, however, which these writings afford
are not meagre. (1) As has already been illustrated at some
length,! the union and reconciliation of contrasted attributes
in Christ make for Him a rounded character and give Him an
appearance of extraordinary personal completeness. This
unique character is not indeed a direct proof of divinity proper,
but it serves asa ground of such proof in that it bespeaks con-
fidence in the sobriety of Christ’s own conceptions of His
rank and significance. (2) The titles which Christ bears
in these writings are indicative of a divine rank. The
voice from heaven pronounces Him the well-beloved Son, and
He gives to Himself the title of Son. It is true that He in-
structs His disciples also to look up to God as the Father
in heaven; but never in respect of sonship does He place
Himself, on a parity with men. The reference is always to
the Father or my Father, and never to our Father when His
own relation is mentioned. Of similar significance is the use
of the term Lord. That it was applicable to Christ, in a sense
higher than that which designates any interrelation of men,
was intimated by Christ when He reminded the Jews that the
Messiah was David’s Lord as well as his son. It is to be
noticed also that the dying Stephen addressed Jesus as Lord
in a relation where we should expect an appeal to no other
than a Divine Being. In another passage of the Acts it is
declared of Christ that He is Lord of all; and in a still further
instance, if the accepted text may be followed, the connection
1 Part I. Chap. III. Sect. V.
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 207
of the clauses imports that the divine name is assigned to Him.!
(3) The mien of authority assumed by Christ is harmonious
with the supposition of his divine dignity. Whether address-
ing men or commanding the forces of nature, He proceeded as
one possessed of conscious mastery.” (4) In many instances a
positive assertion is recorded of a lordship which transcends
the human measure. In the eschatology, generally, of the
Synoptical Gospels Christ is portrayed as enthroned in majesty
over the world to come, and as determining the lot of men ac-
cording to their relation to Himself.* (5) Very high powers
are ascribed to Christ as one who is to baptize with the Holy
Spirit, and to work in the disciples with supernatural effi-
ciency.* (6) Christ asserts for Himself a wholly exceptional
position, an essentially divine relation, in this declaration: “All
things have been delivered unto me of my Father ; and no one
knoweth the Son save the Father; neither doth any know
the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son
willeth to reveal Him.”*® (7) A divine function is imputed to
Christ in that He is said to know the thoughts of men. To
be sure it is not assertea formally that He had this knowledge
by direct insight; but a comparison of the language of the
Synoptists with the more explicit statement of John makes it
probable that such was their thought. (8) Christ is repre-
sented as claiming the divine prerogative to forgive sins, and
as defending the claim in face of the charge of usurpation
and blasphemy.’ (9) Christ promises to be present with His
1See Matt. i. 23, iii. 17, vii. 21, 22, xiv. 33, xxii. 42-45, xxiii. 10, xxvi. 63, 64;
Mark ix. 7, xiv. 61, 62; Luke i. 32, ii. 11, ix. 35, xx. 41-44, xxil. 70; Acts iil.
Ia, 15, Vil. 50, ix. II, -17, x. 36, Xx. 28, xxii. 14.
2 Matt. vii. 29; Mark i. 22, 27, ii. 11, 12; Luke iv. 32, vi. 10, viii. 24, 25.
5 Matt. x. 32, 33, xvi. 27, xxv. 31-46, xxvi. 63, 64, xxviii. 18; Mark li, 28;
Luke vi 5, xxi. 27, xxii. 69.
4 Matt. iii. rr; Mark i, 8: Luke xxi, 15, xxiv. 49.
5 Matt. xi. 27; Luke x. 22.
6 Matt. ix. 4, xii. 25; Luke ix. 47.
7 Matt. ix. 2-6; Mark ii. 5-11; Luke v. 20-24.
208 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
disciples in terms indicative of a consciousness that it belonged
to Him to transcend the circle of finite knowledge and spatial
limitations! (10) He receives worship, and rates Himself
above temple, Sabbath, men, and angels.’
As the list of specifications shows, much the same frame-
work of conceptions runs through the Synoptical Gospels as
is found in that of John, the principal difference being that
the latter connects more of the element of interpretation, or
of explicit theological statement, with its report of Christ’s
words and deeds.
In the later Pauline Epistles there are several lines of
reference to Christ which are indicative of His divine rank.
(1.) A universal lordship is ascribed to Him. Paul’s favorite
name for his Master is “our Lord Jesus Christ.’’ In his
thought, the divine kingdom and the kingdom of the Son are
apparently identical terms.? He also describes the Son as
enthroned far above all creatures, as being to all a proper ob-
ject of worship, and as the judge of the living and the dead.*
(2.) Christ 1s represented as the supreme object of pursuit.
Hope and desire are made to centre in Him in a measure
which argues that he who reaches Christ reaches the divine.®
(3.) A divine function is ascribed to Christ in the dispensation
of grace. Either grace is referred to Him unqualifiedly, or
He is coordinated with the Father as its source.® (4.) Christ
is designated the mystery of God, in whom are all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge hidden.’ (5.) He is described as
the creator, upholder, and fashioner of all things. “In Him
1 Matt. xviii. 20, xxviii. 20.
2 Matt. xiv. 33; Luke xxiv. 52; Matt. xii. 6, 8, xxiv. 36.
§ Ephav, ,§5i-Gob kei 13; tl 245
* Eph. i. 21, 22; Phil. ii. 10, 11; Col. ii. 10; 2 Tim. iv. 1. Compare James ii. 1;
1 Peter ili. 22.
5 Phil. i. 21-23, iii. 8,9; Col. i. 27, iii. 4.
6 Eph. vi. 23; Phil. i. 2, iv. 233: Col. iii. 43 1 Tim, i. 1, 2; 2 Tim. i. 23) Titus
i. 4; Philemon 3, 25.
ECO hy 2.4:
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 209
were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth,
things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or domin-
ions or principalities or powers ; all things have been created
through Him, and unto Him; and He is before all things,
and in Him all things consist.’’! This is obviously a descrip-
tion which reaches beyond the creaturely rank. In the same
connection, it is true, Christ is spoken of as the first-born of
the creation. But, taken with the context, this epithet must
be regarded as rather designed to express Christ’s rightful
headship and preéminence over creation than to specify His
inclusion under the category of created things. In other
words, it specifies not essence but relation—a relation of
rightful, native lordship. (6.) The divine form is spoken of
as appropriate to Christ; all the fullness of the Godhead is
said to dwell in Him ; and, according to an accepted reading,
the divine name is applied to Him?
The earlier Epistles of Paul — including Romans, First and
Second Corinthians, Galatians, and the two Epistles to the
Thessalonians — afford a line of evidence very nearly equiva-
lent to that contained in the later group. Christ is portrayed
in these writings, which were written in the third decade from
His death, as the “ Lord of glory,” “through whom are all
things.” ® He is represented as the judge of the race;* as
the supreme object of aspiration ;° and as the one foundation
of the spiritual edifice.© His heavenly preéxistent being is
taken for granted.’ Repeatedly he is spoken of as the source
of grace or as joint source with the Father... The indwelling
of Christ is described in terms which import that it means
nothing less than the habitation and operation of the divine in
1 Col. i. 16, 17, Phil. iii. 20, 21. 2 Phil. ii. 6; Col. ii. 9; Titus ii. 13.
8 1 Cor. ii. 8, viii. 6. Compare 1 Cor. i. 8, iv. 4; 2 Cor. iv. 5; Rom. xv. 30.
# 2 Cor. v. 10. 5 2 Thess. ii. 14. 8 y Cor. iii. 11.
7 Rom. i. 3, ix. §; 2Cor. viii.g; Gal. iv. 4.
SP Aon 3. °3,5245°%, Ay zVi gs 2 Cor, v, 19, xii 14 3 Gal. 1253" 4,0u.' 20, vi.
18; 1 Thess. v.28; 2 Thess, i. 2; ii, 16, 17, iii, 18; Rom, i. 7, xv. 29, xvi. 20,
210 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
man! Finally, it is only the contrast of the expression with
Paul’s ordinary terminology which stands in the way of assum-
ing that in one instance he styles Christ “God over all,
blessed forever.’’? The order of the clauses is rather favor-
able, than otherwise, to connecting the high ascription with
Christ.
The intrinsic relation which, in the total representation of
Paul, is predicated of Christ to the world and the whole king-
dom of spirits, necessitates the conclusion that 1 Cor. xv.
24~—28 describes the cessation of a prominent aspect of official
eminence, rather than of lordship itself. These verses are to
be taken as meaning that, when the work of reconciliation has
been fully accomplished, dependence upon Christ in His me-
diatorial character will recede in favor of a sense of imme-
diate relation with the Father. The Son, zz this aspect, must
fall into a secondary or subject position, as compared with that
held in the sight of the subjects of redemption while the work
of mediation was in progress. At any rate, if this is not the
whole of Paul’s meaning, in this connection, he must be re-
garded as having made here a statement which is out of har-
mony with other representations of his respecting Christ’s
standing. In declaring that all things were created through
Him, and unto Him, and consist in Him,’ and in making
Christ the object of supreme desire,* he ascribes to Him a
divine eminence or lordship which cannot rationally be sup-
posed subject to any real abatement.
Such is the field of historic evidence on the subject of
Christ’s divinity. It is seen that, while there may have been
some advance as respects formal construction, there was no
revolution in the Church as respects the fundamental view of
Christ’s person. Substantially the same framework of con-
ceptions is found in each of the early centuries, and in every
1 Gal. iv. 6; Rom. viii. 9, 10, 15, 16. See also Gal. ii. 20; 2 Cor. xii. 9;
Rom. xv. 18, 19,
2 Rom. ix. 5. # Col. in 16,87, 4 Phil. iii. 8, 9; Col. iii. 3, 4.
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS, 211
stadium of the apostolic literature. From one end of the line
to the other, Christ is set forth as above the human and
creaturely plane, in rank, in functions, and in attributes.
A. brief reference to the Old Testament might properly
have been included in the review of the historical evidence.
Many of the fathers saw in the Angel of Jehovah, who is
made the bearer of the divine name in several instances,! a
reference to the Son of God. Paul, in 1 Cor, x. 4, affords an
indirect support to their view by the manner in which he con-
nects Christ with the divine ministry to Israel under the
earlier dispensation. But, whatever may be made out of the
1 Gen. xvi. 10, 13, xxii. 11, 12, xxxi. 11, 13, xxxii, 30; Hosea xii. 3~5 ; Ex. iti.
2-15; Mal. iii. 1.
2 That the Angel of Jehovah was in a measure suited to typify the New Testa-
ment mediator need not be disputed. It is not at all clear, however, that Old
Testament thought, even ifit made the Angel more than a creaturely form or agent,
regarded him as personally distinct from Jehovah. As examples of the more recent
exegesis, we add the following: ‘* As God is thought to appear in varied forms, for
example, in the phenomena of the thunderstorm, in the pillar of cloud and of fire,
in a glorious effulgence over the tabernacle and the temple, so can He also make
men acquainted with His being, and aware of His presence, in the supernatural
personal being called angel, without thereby identifying Himself with this personal
being. Rather the highest truth which shimmers through this form of representa-
tion is that God, though in Himself invisible, still can become mediately visible
and apprehensible to men, in individual manifestations, forms, beings; and among
these forms and beings an angel is one of the most acceptable and eligible.” (Dill-
mann, Handbuch der altestamentlichen Theologie, p. 327.) ‘The Angel of Je-
hovah is not to be interpreted as an uncreated person in angelic form, a person
like to God in essence, though personally distinguished from Him (the Logos) ;
nor, according to a more common conception, as an angelic messenger sent forth
by God. In essence he belongs undoubtedly to the class of angels, and accordingly
distinguishes himself not seidom from Jehovah, and, indeed, in such a way that
the disparity between him as a creature and Jehovah, to whom alone divine honor
is awarded, is distinctly brought to light. On the other side, however, he is so far
the organ of the personal self-revelation of Jehovah, that in general his own angel-
personality retreats behind the person of Jehovah, and his appearance is construed
only as a visible’ representation of Jehovah Himself.” (Riehm, Alttestamentliche
Theologie, p. 160.) “ While the various sides of the divine will find expression
through angels, the Angel of God is he in whom God makes known to man, for
special ends, His whole being and will. The form of manifestation here also is a
personal being, who is not God. But what this being is, is of absolutely no con-
212 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
peculiar references to the Angel of Jehovah, such a passage
as Isa. ix. 6, 7 certainly reads like a presentiment of the com-
ing of one who, in dignity and rank, should greatly transcend
human measures. In general, however, the New Testament
is so much more specific than the Old on the subject of
Christ’s person, that there is very slight occasion, in pursuance
of a purely dogmatic aim, to go back of its record.
II. — HistroricaAL DATA FOR THE DIVINITY AND PERSON-
ALITY OF-sTHE Hoty SPIRIT.
The patristic testimony to faith in the divinity and person-
ality of the Holy Spirit was undoubtedly less in volume than
that recorded in behalf of the divinity of the Son. It must
be conceded, also, that in individual instances a lower view was
taken of the Spirit than of the Son. The significance, how-
ever, of the first of these points is much qualified by the fact,
that the doctrine of the Spirit was in the logical order of de-
velopment secondary to that of the Son, and so, naturally, was
less a subject of direct treatment until the latter had been
thoroughly canvassed. As to the second point, the instances
of an emphatic subordination of the Spirit are not so numer-
ous as to imply that the trend of Catholic teaching was not
decidedly in favor of His divine rank and essence.
The personality of the Spirit was almost universally ac-
knowledged, or assumed, in the early centuries. It is true
that Gregory Nazianzen, in the fourth century, spoke of some
who regarded the Spirit as a mere activity or energy. But
manifestly they had no weight. All the prominent parties of
sequence. Whether he has a special personal consciousness and will, or whether
he has a definite rank or a special name, are matters of no importance to those
who receive the revelation. For them he is merely a form of divine revelation;
his words are God’s words; to look on him is to look on God.” (Schultz, Old
Testament Theology, II. 223.)
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 213
the era, Nicene, Semi-Arian, and Arian, accepted in common
the personality of the Holy Spirit. The representative writers
of the ante-Nicene period likewise used language which im-
plies that they conceived of the Holy Spirit as personal.!
The acknowledgment of the divinity of the Holy Spirit was
nearly parallel with that of His personality, Eusebius of
Czesarea may have taught a subordination of the Spirit that
ill agrees with the proper notion of divinity, and one or two
sentences of Origen may make questionable his consistency in
placing the Holy Spirit within the circle of the Godhead. But
it is certain that the foremost champions of the Nicene doctrine
of the Son taught also the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit
with the Father.?- The nature of the Spirit is treated in the
so-called creed of Constantinople less definitely than in their
writings ; but it requires no strained interpretation to discover
in the following language an ascription of divinity: ‘ We be-
lieve in the Holy Ghost who is Lord and Giver of Life, who
proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the
Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the
prophets.”
The view which found expression in these terms was no in-
novation. The “rule of faith” testifies that in the conscious-
ness of the ante-Nicene Church a divine rank was accorded
to the Holy Spirit. In Origen’s version of the rule we read :
«The apostles related that the Holy Spirit was associated in
honor and dignity with the Father and the Son.”® An exal-
tation of the Spirit to the same plane of divine honor appears
1 Origen, In Ioan. Tom. ii. 6; Novatian, De Trin. xvi., xxix.; Hippolytus, Adv.,
Noet. viii., xii.; Tertullian, Adv. Prax. i., viii., ix., xii.; Clement of Alexandria,
Paed. i. 6, Strom. v. 14; Irenzeus, Cont. Haer. iv. 20; Athenagoras, Legat. x.;
Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. vi., xiii; Ignatius, Ad. Magnes. xiii.; Clement of Rome,
First Epist. ad Cor. viii.
2 Athanasius, Epistolae ad Serapion; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. vi. 6, viii. 5,
xvi. 3, 4, 22; Basil, Adv. Eunom. iii. 1; Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. xxxi. 9;
Gregory of Nyssa, De Communibus Nominibus; Ambrose, De Spir. Sanct. i. 2,
5> 7» 12, iii. 16. 8 De Prin. Praef.
15
214 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION.
in the references of leading writers. ‘A man,” says Hippol-
ytus, “even though he will it not, is compelled to acknowl-
edge God the Father Almighty, and Christ Jesus, the Son of
God, who being God became man, to whom also the Father
made all things subject, Himself excepted, and the Holy Spirit
[excepted]... . We see the Word incarnate, and we know the
Father by Him, and we believe in the Son, and we worship
the Holy Spirit.”! Tertullian, contending that Father, Son,
and Spirit are distinct and inseparable, writes: “Everything
which proceeds from something else must needs be second to
that from which it proceeds, without being on that account
separated. Where, however, there is a second, there must be
two; and where there is a third there must be three. Now
the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son, just as the
fruit of the tree is third from the root... . Although I must
everywhere hold one only substance in three coherent and in-
separable [Persons], yet I am bound to acknowledge from the
necessity of the case, that He who issues a command is differ-
ent from Him who executes it.’’* Irenzeus says: “ With Him
[God the Father] were always present the Word and Wisdom,
the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom, freely and
spontaneously, He made all things, to whom also He speaks,
saying, ‘Let us make man after our image and likeness.’”’®
The words of Clement of Rome, ‘as God liveth, and the Lord
Jesus Christ liveth, and the Holy Spirit, who are the faith and
hope of the elect,” * indicate that a divine rank was assigned
to the Spirit.
The trend of early patristic teaching cannot, therefore, be
regarded as doubtful. But were that trend less clearly defined
than it is, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit would not lack the
needful data, at least as regards the main points. The New
Testament in an abundant list of passages plainly refers to
the Holy Spirit works of intelligence, and such works of in-
1 Adv. Noet. viii., xii. 3 Cont. Haer. iv. 20.
2 4y\'. Prax. viii, xi. 4 First Epist. ad Cor. lvii.
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 215
telligence as manifestly belong to a divine rather than to a
creaturely range! In many of these passages, it is true, the
personal agent who is back of the works is not so fully dis-
tinguished but that “the Holy Spirit” might be regarded as
standing for God acting in a special way, or within a special
sphere; in other words, as denoting God in a particular order
of manifestations, rather than a distinct person in the Godhead.
But there are a number of passages which cannot be construed
in the former sense with any appearance of propriety. Not
only in John’s discourse about the Comforter, but also in the
baptismal formula,’ and in various sentences of the Epistles,‘
the Spirit is codrdinated with the Father and the Son in a
manner which implies distinct personality.
The verbal affiliation of 2 Cor. iii. 17 with the view that
the Spirit may be identified with Christ in His pneumatic
nature cannot properly be quoted against a trinitarian con-
ception. The expression 64 kvp.os 76 rvedpd éoriy is to be under-
stood with reference to the contrast to Moses which the
apostle is portraying. As Moses can be called the ypduuea in
so far as that which was mediated by him is a writing now
inclosed in the letter — Moses, says the apostle, is read — so
is the Lord the Spirit in so far as He is the source of the con-
stant life-movement which is the distinctive character of the
Church.°
The fact that the Holy Spirit is sometimes referred to as a
gift is no insuperable bar to the supposition of personality.
The Son is also spoken of as a gift. The term “outpouring”
in relation to the Spirit is parallel to that of “sending’”’ in re-
lation to the Son. Nothing but the crassest literalism will
1 Matt. x. 20; Mark xiii. 11; Luke xii. 11, 12; John xiv. 16, 17, 26, xvi. 7-13;
Acts i. 16, ii. 4, v. 32. x. 19, xiii. 2, xvi. 6, xx. 23; Rom. vill, 14-16, 26, 27; 1 Cor.
ii. 10, 11, xii, 3-11, 1 John v. 7, 8.
2 John xiv. 16, 17, 26, xvi. 7-13.
8 Matt. xxviii. 19.
4 Eph. ii. 18, 22, iv. 4-6; 1 Cor. xii. q—6; 2 Cor. xiii. 14; 1 Pet. i. 2.
5 Frank, System der Christlichen Wahrheit, I. 211.
216 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION,
see in either anything more than a description of a vocation
fulfilled in accordance with the will of the Father.
The ascription to the Holy Spirit of works of divine intelli-
gence and the grievousness of the sin against Him! give
adequate proof of His divinity. The evidence from Christian
consciousness is also unequivocal. 1} ver
ae ee
‘st Pe
oe
mm?
Part LXX,
~
THE SUBJECTS OF GOD’S MORAL
GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER I.
ANGELS.
I.— THE Point oF VIEW FROM WHICH TEE BIBLE DEALS
WITH ANGELOLOGY.
In treating of physical nature the Bible proceeds from the
geocentric point of view. The heavens are not indeed ignored.
The scriptural poets, like all men of poetic sensibility, had
hearts deeply responsive to the scene of harmony and glory
presented by the heavenly bodies. In voicing the language
of worship and faith, to which that scene inspires, no writers
have excelled the psalmists and prophets of Israel. Still, in
the biblical view of physical nature, the earth is the great
central theatre, and the heavenly bodies are regarded as tribu-
tary in their office to its requirements.
The same may be said of the biblical view of the rational
creation. As a practical book, addressed to men, the Bible
places man at the centre. Not ignoring, but rather clearly
intimating, the existence of another order of rational beings,
it treats of them only as they are tributary to the divine
257
258 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
economy in relation to men. In other words, it reveals no
independent interest, or next to none, in angelology.!
The comparison suggests an inquiry as to the proportion
of the rational creation which is embraced in men. May it
not be that a Bible written from another than the human
standpoint would open up to us such views about the extent
of the rational creation as modern astronomy gives us about
the physical universe in its unspeakable transcendence of
earthly dimensions? It would be over-dogmatic to reply with
a decided yes, or a decided zo, to this question. The most
that can be said is, that analogy favors the conclusion that the
range of intelligent beings above and beyond men is of vast
extent. In the subject of angelology revelation opens the
door upon a region of indefinite bounds. We see the shining
ranks in the foreground, but have no means of discovering how
far back the celestial army extends.
II.—- Main Facts RESPECTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF
BiBpLicAL ANGELOLOGY.
The theme of angelology being one that is rather enticing
to the imagination, it might be expected that popular thought
would outrun the data of revelation. That this was the case
in Judaism is entirely certain. The Old Testament Apocrypha
and later Jewish writings show the facility with which the re-
ligious fancy enlarged upon this subject.
While the canonical writers exhibit reticence and sobriety
in comparison with those who came after them, it is antece-
dently probable that on a theme like this, holding an incidental
1 A due consideration of the anthropocentric point of view, characteristic of the
Bible, will help to provide an answer to such an objection as Beyschlag brings
against the supposition that angels are personal beings, namely, the purely instru-
mental place assigned to them in the Scriptures. A book which limits its survey
by constant reference to man and his destiny could not be expected to treat angels
as ends in themselves,
ANGELS. 259
place in their discourse, they drew somewhat from the products
of religious fancy and popular conception. No one certainly,
who has passed beyond the simplicity of childhood, would
dream that the ascription of wings to cherubim and seraphim by
Ezekiel and Isaiah involves the fact that angelic beings have
these appendages. With scarcely more reason is it to be sup-
posed that we are in the region of literal fact when we read
Daniel's representation of the connection of specific angels
with specific nations.’ Items of this sort belong rather to the
drapery of the subject than to its dogmatic substance. The
latter, as will be illustrated presently, does not contain many
particulars.
Three or four periods may be distinguished in the progress
of biblical angelology. In the period prior to the great pro-
phetical era, or from Abraham to Amos, visitations of angels
are recorded at intervals. Aside from the Jehovah-angel, who,
in virtue of intimate association with a divine personality had
an exceptional character, these messengers appear in common
as agents of the Lord, temporarily commissioned, and distin-
guished by no special titles or ranks.2~ Among the pre-exilian
prophets there is no token of an advance upon this conception.
These prophets seem, moreover, not to have given very much
attention to the functions of angels. Mediation between God
and Israel is represented as effected through the prophets
without the intervention of heavenly beings. On the other
hand, in the later group of prophets® angels are made con-
spicuous as bearers of the divine message to the prophets them-
selves, distinctions of rank are noticed, and in general there is
an appearance of a more developed angelology. Contact with
Persian thinking has been mentioned as affording an explana-
tion of the difference. Some impulse may have been derived
from that source, though it is entirely conceivable that by an
interior development Jewish angelology might have been
RR
SPAN, ah 3520, eT, Ts 8 See especially Daniel and Zechariah.
2 Joshua v. 13-15 is perhaps an exception.
260 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
carried forward to the later phase.! The New Testament, if
it does not multiply accounts of the visible appearances of
angels, lays a foundation for an enlarged conception of their
invisible agency.
III.— Matrers More or Less CLEARLY REVEALED
RESPECTING ANGELS.
The points on which the Bible approaches in some measure
to positive representations on the subject of angels may be
specified as follows: — _
(1) In idea, and very largely in fact, they are holy and
obedient servants of God.2_ (2) They have been on probation,
as is evinced by the fall of some of them.’ It may be noticed
that the distinct declaration, that some of the angels kept not
their original condition and habitation, occurs only in 2 Peter
and Jude, writings which belong to a secondary rank as
regards the warrant for their canonical character. But as
their statement is in line with the natural inference from a com-
bination of scriptural and rational grounds, there is little rea-
son to emphasize its singularity. (3) Angels are numerous.®
(4) They are not possessed of gross bodies, if they have
1 «The Jews,” says Stave, “did not, as respects their angelology, simply borrow
outright the teachings of the Persians; they only allowed the development of their
own teachings to be influenced from that source.” (Ueber den Einfluss des
Parsismus auf das Judenthum, 1898, pp. 217, 218.) On the side of diabology,
the same author credits to the Persian system a nearer approach to a direct con-
tribution of content to Jewish teaching.
2 Matt. xiii. 39, 41, xviii. 10, xxiv. 36, xxv. 31; Mark viii. 38; Luke ix. 26, xii.
8, 9. xv. 103 I Tim. v. 21.
8 2 Pet. ii. 4; Jude 6. See also 1 Tim. iii. 6; Rev. xii. 4.
* It is possible that the figurative passage in Revelation (xii. 4) which describes
the dragon as sweeping a third part of the stars from heaven may have been
designed to denote a fall of angels. However, a comparison with Dan. viii. 10
cannot be regarded as favoring so large a significance.
§ Matt. xxvi. 53; Heb. xii, 22.
ANGELS. 261
any bodies at all, and do not enter into connubial relations.
(5) They exhibit distinctions of rank.? It is to be observed,
however, that these distinctions are not given with much defin-
iteness. Paul varies in his enumeration of the angelic ranks,
and seems to have mentioned them only for the purpose of em-
phasizing the truth that nothing is exempt from the headship
of Christ. (6) They are not of a dignity which makes it in any
wise warrantable to worship them, though in some points of
view they are above men.’ Paul’s interrogatory, “Know ye
not that ye shall judge angels ?’’* implies indeed a certain pre-
eminence of the saints over angels, if it be concluded that his
reference is to the holy, and not to the fallen class. Some
eminent commentators adopt the former interpretation ; but
certainly the way in which the evangelic narrative associ-
ates good angels with the closing up of the dispensation is far
from suggesting that in any real sense they are amenable to
human judgment. The ministry of angels to men is of course,
from the gospel standpoint, no valid evidence of their inferi-
ority in station. (7) The antithesis which in general is set
forth in the Scriptures between angels and men favors the
conclusion that the two belong to different orders.® That
the angel in the Apocalypse styles himself a fellow-servant
with the evangelist and the prophets (xix. 10) in no wise con-
tradicts this conclusion, the obvious intent of the declaration
being to show that there is no such disparity between an
angelic and a human witness to Christ as to make it proper
that the former should be worshipped. The Swedenborgian
view that angels are but deceased men lacks scriptural grounds.
(8) Angels are engaged in contemplating the counsels of God,
in adoration, and in accomplishing the behests of divine judg-
1 Heb. i. 14; Mark xii. 25.
21 Thess. iv. 16; Eph. i. 21, iii. 10; Col. 7. 16, ii. 10.
8 Col. ii. 18; Rev. xix. 10; Heb. ii. 7; 2 Pet. ii. 11.
4 1 Cor. vi. 3.
5 Mark xii. 25; Luke xx. 36; Heb. ii. 7, 16.
18
262 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
ment and mercy among men.! It has sometimes been inferred,
especially from Matt. xviii. 10 and Acts xii. 15, that a guardian
angel is appointed to each human individual. But the former
passage does not state that a special angel is made the guardian
of each little child, and the latter records only a popular notion.
The Scriptures afford no positive warrant for the assumption
of so definite and detailed a scheme of guardianship. (9)
Angels are under the headship of Christ, and through Him
are united to redeemed men in a harmonious fellowship.”
IV.— Points Open To SPECULATION.
Among the points left open for speculation is the time when
angels were created. Revelation affords no certain ground of
inference here. The representation in the Book of Job, that
the “sons of God”’ were already on hand when the foundations
of the earth were laid,® may be literal truth ; but the statement
occurs in a high strain of poetry, and is properly described
as dramatic rather than dogmatic. It is, however, entirely
credible. Supposing that other parts of the universe pre-
sented a scene of divine glory before the earth was fitted up
for man’s abode, it is reasonable to believe that sons of God
were present to rejoice in that scene.
Another speculative question is whether angels have any
sort of bodies. This question was diversely answered in the
patristic period. The majority of the scholastics decided that
angels are pure spirits, and Roman Catholic theology has fol-
lowed this verdict. But the basis for the verdict is exceedingly
tenuous. If it be noted that the Scriptures speak of angels as
spirits,* it may also be observed that they speak of a spiritual
body,® and affirm, moreover, that the risen saints are to be as
117 Pet.i. 12; Rev. v. 11, vii. 113 Ps. xci. 11, 12; Matt. xviii. 10; Luke xv.
10, xvi. 22; Acts vii. 53; Heb. i. 14; Matt. xiii. 41, 42.
21 Pet. iii. 22; Col.i.20. 8 Job xxxviii. 7. ‘* Heb.i.t4. 51 Cor. xv. 44.
ANGELS. 263
angels in heaven.’ The language of Scripture would need to
be more definite to assure us that angels are absolutely devoid
of corporeity. If philosophy has any assurance to offer on the
subject, it has not yet fallen under our notice.
Whether angels have bodies or not, they are to be regarded
as subject to both space and time relations. The opposite has
indeed been assumed. Thus Martensen affirms that angels
are equally exempt from the conditions of space and time. ”
But how can a finite being be exempt from the one or the
other? Complete exemption from the limitations of space
implies ability to act equally and at once upon every part of
reality. Anything less than this must give rise to a distinc-
tion of near and remote, or an experience of space limitation.
Similarly complete exemption from time limitations implies
capacity for an indivisible grasp of all reality. Without this
there will be mental succession which is an experience of
time limitations. Proper superiority to space and time rela-
tions can be characteristic of nothing less than the Infinite
Being. It is to be concluded, therefore, that freedom from
space and time restrictions can be asserted of angels only in
a qualified sense. They may, perchance, pass with incalcu-
lable swiftness from one object to another, and are exempt
from time in the sense that immortal youth is not subject to
the marks of age which overtake mortals.
V.— BIBLICAL TEACHING RESPECTING SATAN AND
Evi, ANGELS.
As among men there are reprobates, as well as the elect
of God, so evil angels or devils are set over against good
angels. The existence of the moral antithesis in the latter
case is no more incredible than in the former. If any
1 Mark xii. 25. 2 Dogmatik, § 68.
264 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
peculiar difficulty attaches to the subject of evil angels, it
belongs to their agency, and not to the fact of their exis-
tence. It is appropriate to observe also that it is not easy,
on the score of exegetical consistency, to rule out the exis-
tence of evil angels, without at the same time bringing into
question the reality and ministry of the order which bright-
ens the field of religious vision.
While the Old Testament introduces the theme of Satan
and his working, it gives it a very scanty development. His
name first appears in the Book of Job, and it cannot be said
that the idea of his personality was sketched in any earlier
canonical writings. A few vague references to uncanny
creatures or sprites, reflecting popular fancies, may have
been written previously ;1 but these were not adapted to
prefigure the personality of Satan.
In later thought the narrative of the temptation in Eden
has been interpreted as referring to Satan; but the narrative
itself conveys no definite hint that the writer supposed Satan
to have figured in that scene, though it may be admitted that
it is a little difficult to imagine that he should have construed
the serpent in a baldly literal way. The connection of the
arch enemy with the defection of Adam is not referred to in
the canonical books of the Old Testament, and is not directly
affirmed in the New Testament. The Book of Revelation,
it is true, speaks of Satan as the ‘old serpent” ;? and in
this there is a probable reference to the primal temptation,
though it still stands in question whether the Revelator
thought of the tempting serpent as Satan in disguise, and not
simply as an apt symbol of the arch deceiver. In the apocry-
phal Book of Wisdom we first meet the inference that the
serpent was the instrument of Satan, it being said therein
that man fell by the envy of the devil.®
1 Isa, xiii. 21, xxxiv. 14; Lev. xvii. 7.
2 Rev. xii. 9, xx. 2. See also John viii, 44; 2 Cor. xi. 3; Rom. xv. 20.
$ Wisdom ii, 23-25.
ANGELS. 265
According to the common opinion of the early fathers an
account of fallen angels is contained in Gen. vi. 2, 4, and
Jewish interpreters of the same era seem to have found the
like meaning in these verses.' Recent exegesis tends to
confirm the primitive view, that the “sons of God” in the
passage were intended to denote angels.* It is not clear,
however, whether the biblical writer conceived of their mar-
riage with the daughters of men as involving irretrievable
apostasy and downfall.
The Old Testament stands in contrast with the New in
that it does not represent Satan as so sharply and distinctly
the antagonist of God. In the Book of Job he appears as the
insinuator against the righteous fidelity of God’s servant,
the slanderous accuser. In the prophecy of Zechariah (iii. 1)
he stands as the adversary of the cause of the Jewish theocracy
impersonated in the high priest; and in 1 Chron. xxi. 1 he
figures in a similar réle. These representations, of course,
imply an unfriendly relation to divine purposes, but they do
not picture the remorseless enemy of God who comes to view
in the New Testament. Howis the contrast to be explained?
Dorner supposes a deepening progress of Satan himself into
the malignity and darkness of moral evil, and that the acme
1 Book of Enoch vi., vii.; Book of Jubilees v.; Apocalypse of Baruch lvi.
2 As specimens of the use of the phrase see Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxxviii. 7; Ps. xxix. 1.
Ixxxix. 6; Dan. iii. 25. The later interpretation, which identifies the “sons of God”
with the Sethites is justly criticised by Dillmann as follows: ‘‘ There is nothing in
our text about a contrast between Sethite men and Cainite women. It is not
hinted, either in chapter iv. or chapter v., that down to this time the Sethite list
embraced only pious men, or that between the Sethites and the Cainites there was
any barrier, the breaking down of which must draw after it a special judgment of
God. The expression ‘sons of God” for pious men is as yet unusual in the Old
Testament. Although starting from the idea of the divine sonship of Israel, the
members of God’s people, especially the really pious among them, received the
title in writing of an exalted character, it was not used of the pious generally,
least of all in prose writing. It is impossible that in the apodosis, verse 2, BINM
can mean anything else than in the protasis in verse 1. It is inconceivable how
Nephalim should have sprung from connections between Sethite men and Cainite
women.” (Genesis, 1, 234.)
266 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
— the falling like lightning from heaven, as it is figuratively
described ! — was precipitated by his antipathy to the mission
of Christ.2 But while growth in wickedness may have been
a fact, the progressive representation in Scripture on this sub-
ject may be explained on the same principle which accounts
for the like feature in relation to other themes. Whether
Satan was full grown or not when the Book of Job was com-
posed, biblical writers had then a narrower apprehension of
the kingdom of evil than was gained later.
New Testament language is indicative of a chieftainship in
Satan over the kingdom of evil. Other evil angels are men-
tioned as demons of whom he is prince,® or as his angels.*
He is further described as the prince of this world,® and is
even called the god of this world.6 Such statements are
naturally suggestive of a certain preéminence of. Satan over
the ranks of evil. But there is very slight demand for apply-
ing to them the measuring rod of literal interpretation. How
far spirits sold to evil are capable of an abiding unity and or-
ganization properly stands in question. Moreover, the Scrip-
tures may be regarded as using the word Satan, or devil, very
largely in a collective or representative sense. That is at-
tributed to him which is within the ability of the whole king-
dom or aggregate of evil spirits to effect. His power and
presence are those of a finite limited agent. As well attribute
omnipresence to any angelic or human spirit as to suppose that
Satan can act in person in all parts of the world at once.
The definition of Satan as only a personification of the evil
at work in men is not fully reconcilable with the tenor of the
New Testament. Personification, doubtless, was quite con-
genial to the religious custom of the age. The use of the
word Mammon and, to some extent, also, that of Antichrist
are examples. Still New Testament teaching relative to an
1 Luke x. 18. 4 Matt. xxv. 41; Rev. xii. 7-9.
2 System of Christian Doctrine, § 86. 5 John xii. 31, xiv. 30, xvi. II.
8 Matt. xii. 24-29. Compare Acts x. 38. 8 2 Cor. iv. 4.
ANGELS. 267
evil personality seems in various connections to reach beyond
mere personification. It is difficult, for example, to interpret
in that sense the reported words of Christ, which declare that
the devil is the enemy who sowed tares in the field,! and
that he stood not in the truth, being a liar and the father
of lies.?
Still less is there adequate ground for qualifying the per-
sonality of Satan by assuming that he is a cosmic principle,
which rises into consciousness only in free and intelligent
beings who yield themselves to be its organs. A moral agent
must always and everywhere be regarded as going before moral
evil. It is wholly generated in such an agent. To place its
root outside in an impersonal principle denies the goodness of
the world as it came from the hand of God, and confuses the
nature of moral evil by giving it something else than a proper
ethical source. Very little, if anything, is effected by this
theory to make the fact of moral evil less somber, and it rather
enlarges than reduces the responsibility of the Creator in
relation to its origin.
The element in the working of Satan and evil spirits which
is most perplexing to the modern reader is that which is cur-
rently described as demoniacal possession. Had the Gospels
spoken simply of temptations, or evil suggestions, as coming
from this source, no very serious difficulty would have been
involved, since, for aught we know, the like things are still
included among actual occurrences. But we have numerous
instances in which demons are said to inhabit men, and to be
in them the source of mental and physical disorders. The
reality of this inhabitation has been challenged on the ground
that among civilized people in modern times, no like instances
are presented ; and also on the ground that the symptoms of
the demoniacs were in general those of lunatics. The former
objection is qualified by the fact that no authentic diagnosis
1 Matt. xiii. 39. 2 John viii. 44.
268 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
of all cases of distempered persons tn civilized communities of
modern times is within reach so as to assure us that no in-
stances of possession have occurred within those limits. Some
allowance may also be made to the thought that a special crisis
in the spiritual kingdom may have evoked special manifestations.
There belonged to that era, in the gift of tongues, a transient
order of manifestations of the presence of the Divine Spirit. So
analogously there may have been an extraordinary manifesta-
tion of spiritual agency of the evil sort. The second objection
is qualified by the considerations, that an overmastering diabolic
influence might conceivably be the cause of acute mental and
physical disorders, and that some things attributed to the
demoniacs are not altogether explained by lunacy. How
should crazed persons, above all other men, have been con-
scious of the supernatural dignity of Christ ?
While an answer may thus be rendered to these objections,
a complete survey of New Testament facts still suggests the
inquiry whether it is necessary to construe the stories of
demon possession with strict literalness. Here two considera-
tions in particular come into account. The first of these is
found in the peculiarity of the Jewish religious dialect. As in
its impassioned phrase God was often named as agent where
we should not think of attributing the event to Him, so like-
wise a freer reference was made to Satanic agency than suits
our mode of speaking. A readiness to attribute physical evils
to a supernatural source was part of the religious fashion of
the country and the age. Evenamanof Paul’s mental vision
could speak of a special bodily affliction as a messenger of
Satan to buffet him. Naturally where the evils were of a
strange and baffling nature there was a relatively strong incen-
tive to predicate an evil supernaturalism as their source. The
popular mind, it is conceivable, was led to express under the
representation of possession its vivid sense of the working of
a Satanic power in the subjects of peculiar and grievous ail-
ments. As for the more thoughtful, while making a general
ANGELS. 269
connection of such events with a diabolic agent, and falling in
with the current phraseology, they are not necessarily pre-
sumed to have been tenacious of the specific notion of posses-
sion. The other consideration supplements the foregoing,
being found in the fact that a large part of the New Testa-
ment makes no real account of demoniacal possession. All
the recorded instances of the inhabitation of demons are in the
Synoptical Gospels and the Book of Acts. In John’s Gospel
there is no reference to facts of this order except in the mouth
of Christ’s opponents. Satan is indeed said to have entered
into Judas ; but this description is not to be taken in the sense
of demoniacal possession, which acted as a disturbing cause in
the sphere of self-consciousness, and besides seems more often
to have been the misfortune of its subject that a penalty for
special sinfulness. In the Johannine writings generally, in
the Pauline Epistles, in fact in the whole body of New Testa-
ment Epistles, there is no representation that gives any posi-
tive support to the idea of possession proper. These writings
stop with the general notion that evil spirits are agents of
seduction and sources of harmful influence. There is thus a
noticeable lack in the apostolic literature of any dogmatic in-
terest in the specific conception of demoniacal possession.
A combination of these two considerations — namely, the
peculiarity of the religious dialect of the Jews, and the absence
of all reference to possession proper in the more constructive
portions of the New Testament —lends considerable color to
the contention that it was beyond the design of Christ to pro-
nounce definitely on the precise facts in the condition of the
so-called demoniacs, that He dealt with the cases which He
encountered like a practical physician, and accommodated
Himself largely to the religious dialect of His age and country.
A measure of accommodation in the matter is certainly not to
be tabooed as incredible. It would be over-finical, for example,
to say that Christ could not, following the demands of ordin-
ary and simple language, have spoken as if the demon dwelt
270 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
in the afflicted subject, though the indwelling were only by
power or influence, analogous to that which a hypnotizer exer-
cises over the hypnotized. On the other hand, it involves a
very considerable assumption of knowledge to exclude posi-
tively the notion of an evil spiritual agency, and to reduce to
sheer accommodation Christ’s references to the matter. The
confident assertion of this point of view we prefer to leave to
those who have a measure of insight into facts and possibilities
such as we are not yet conscious of possessing.
In the New Testament picture the fate of Satan and his
angels is not left doubtful. It is declared that everlasting fire
is appointed to them, and that they are to be cast into the lake
of fire and brimstone to be tormented for ever and ever.! No
glimmer of restoration shines through these strong figures.
Intrinsically, sinning angels may not be beyond recovery.
There is no warrant for assuming that a redemptive economy
nas no place in relation to them, All that is known to us is
that Satan and the evil angels leagued with him appear in the
New Testament at a stage where grace in their behalf is not
contemplated.
VI. — Tut Reason wuoy Gop TOLERATES THE AGENCY OF
SATAN AND Evit ANGELS.
The question which the Indian addressed to Eliot, “ Why
does not God kill the devil?” solicits attention from other than
untutored minds. The inquiry comes, why this age-long tol-
eration of the adversary, the enemy, the mischief-maker? A
complete answer is not easily discovered, as indeed it is not
easy to find a complete answer to the question, why providence
tolerates year after year the ruthless human being who makes
a trade of overthrowing the weak and corrupting the innocent.
Seed
1 Matt, xxv. 41; Rev. xx. 10.
ANGELS. 271
But a partial answer may be found in the preéminence of
moral methods in the divine estimate. To bind and over-
master Satan by sheer force would not be the greatest victory.
To carry weak mortals through the assaults of evil, to establish
in them a righteous will which spurns the solicitations of the
tempter, to lift them up to the estate of sons of God, and mar-
shall them into a loyal army whose devotion shall for ever
shame the apostate host, is the way to the incomparable
triumph over Satan and his angels. Their manceuvrings are
thus foiled. Out of this world, which they struggle to rule,
rises the immortal kingdom which emphasizes their defeat.
If any are made a prey to their wiles, it is because of their
rejection of the sufficient grace.! Improvement of the open
opportunity of divine fellowship, as it defends against moral
harm from evil human agents, provides security against the
adverse power of any agents that may have access to the sphere
of man’s life.
Of the general theme of the evil kingdom it may be said,
that it belongs rather to the outer circle of religious theory
and imagination than to the inner circle of practical interests.
The sources out of which unholy impulses arise are quite be-
yond the range of our perception. To explore, in this relation,
what lies below or beyond consciousness is no part of the task
of practical piety. The religious man fulfills his obligation
when he endeavors to measure rightly the force of intruding
evil, and strives to the best of his ability to encounter and de-
feat it at the threshold of consciousness. Travelling earnestly
in a Godward direction he is privileged to let the shadow ot
the evil kingdom recede toward a far-off horizon.
41 Cor. x. 13; James iv. 7.
272 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER, IT.
MEN.
I.— Factors IN MAn’s BEING.
Tue Bible contains doubtless much more of an anthropology
than of an angelology. Nevertheless it treats of man from
special points of view, and enters into an analysis of his nature
only so far as is required by those points of view. It con-
templates him as a subject of divine rule, and a candidate for
a holy and blessed life, both in this world and in that which
is to come. Revelation finds its province within these limits,
and cannot be regarded as decisively controlling what is
merely incidental thereto. In other words, the Bible by
authority gives a certain core of anthropology, certain leading
conceptions which are never lost sight of ; but admits, also,
many representations which can be regarded as mere matters
of national speech or personal thinking.
A. different view has indeed been advocated by individual
theologians. Detailed schemes of biblical psychology have
been drawn out, as if the Bible afforded, and was meant to af-
ford, a comprehensive and authoritative chart of human nature.
Such schemes are interesting as specimens of industrious re-
search. But they are not well adapted to secure confidence.
They can be charged with an insufficient consideration of the
variety which characterizes the biblical statements, and which
is so much testimony that its psychological terms are not to
be construed too rigorously.
Take, for example, the Old Testament names for the higher
component, or components, in man’s being, namely, soul, spirit,
MEN. 273
heart — nephesh, ruach, lebh. It is true that these terms are
not exactly co-extensive in meaning. The first alone is used
as a substitute for person ;? and the third has a more distinct
association with moral character than the other two, and, singu-
larly enough, is more often represented as the seat of thought
or meditation. Still, to a very large extent the terms are em-
ployed in equivalent senses, being used to denote any part of
man’s supersensuous nature, emotional, intellectual, volitional,
or moral.? A comparison of all the passages in which one or
more of these words is used enforces this conclusion of
Piepenbring: “We must admit that on this subject the
authors of the Old Testament used popular language and not
that of the schools ; that they spoke of the human soul, spirit
and heart as we ourselves often speak of them, that is, includ-
ing under each of these terms our entire spiritual being with
all its faculties.” 4
In the New Testament we find the corresponding Greek
terms — Yryy, rvedpa, and xapdia-— used with much the same
latitude and flexibility.° A principal distinction is that in the
Pauline Epistles a certain primacy is given to the sprit. It
is used prevailingly in preference to the term “soul,” in refer-
ences to man’s higher nature. Ina prayer for the complete
sanctification of disciples, body, soul, and spirit are mentioned
as if they formed an ascending series. Moreover, the adjec-
1 WE) M7 3 2 As in Gen. xii. 5, xvii. 14; Ezek. xviii. 4.
* See, among other passages, Gen. xxvi. 35, xli. 8; Deut. ii. 30, iv. 29, vi. 5, xiii.
3, xxvili, 65; Josh. ii. 11, xxiii. 14; Job xxvii. 2, xxxii. 8; Ps. vi. 3, xiii. 2, xxxii. 2,
xxxiv. 18, xlii. 6, li. 10, 17, Ixxvii. 6, xcv. 10. ci. 5, Cxxxi. 2, cxlili. 4; Prov. xii. 25,
xiv. IO, xx. 27, xxi. 4, xxviii. 25; Isa. xxvi. 8, 9, xxix. 24, lvii. 15, lxi. 10, Ixv. 143
Jer. xv. 16; Ezek. xi. 19, xviii. 31, xxi. 7, xxxvi, 26.
* Theology of the Old Testament, p. 165.
S Matt. x. 28, xxii. 37, xxvi. 38; Luke ii. 35; Acts iv. 32; 1 Thess. v. 23;
Heb. x. 38, 39; 1 Pet. i. 22, ii. 11; Mark viii. 12; Luke viii. 35; Acts xvii.
16; Rom. viii. 4; 1 Cor. ii. 11, vii. 343; 2 Cor. ix. 7; Heb. iv. 12; Matt. v. 8,
xi. 29, xii. 34, xv. 19, xviii. 35; Mark ii. 8, xvi. 14; Luke ii, 19, ix. 47, xxiv. 25,
32; Rom. vi. 17, x. 10; 1 Cor. ii. 9; 1 John iii, 19-21.
*; Thess. v. 23.
274 THE SUB,£CTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
tive terms corresponding to soul and spirit are used antitheti-
cally, to the disparagement of the former.! These facts give
some plausibility to the supposition that Paul regarded soul and
spirit as substantially distinguished, and thus represented tri-
chotomy as opposed to dichotomy. But, on the other hand, it
is to be noticed that the apostle did not always use the term
soul in the restricted or disparaging sense,” and that in any case
it cannot be maintained that he dogmatically inculcated tri-
chotomy. If his language in a few instances seems to imply
it, all that can be said is, that we have incidentally a glimpse
of his personal philosophy. As for the New Testament at
large, it renders no definite tribute to trichotomy. On the
contrary, it uses the word soul in various connections as if it
was understood to embrace the entire supersensuous nature
of man.? In short, if it were to be contended that the Scrip-
tures prescribe any theory, more could probably be said in
favor of their teaching dichotomy than for the notion that
they inculcate trichotomy. But the better conclusion is
that they authoritatively teach neither the one nor the other.
While the antithesis between the sensuous and the super-
sensuous nature in man, between that which connects him
with the physical world and that which connects him with God,
is woven into its very texture, the Bible leaves open the
question whether man is dual or triple in his essence. This
question must be determined on rational grounds.
Viewing the subject from this standpoint, we have no hesi-
tation in pronouncing for dichotomy, as being commended by
its greater simplicity and intelligibility. The contrast between
matter and spirit is sharp and decisive. The terms which
describe the one have no imaginable application to the other.
1 Cor. xv. 44-46.
2 Rom. ii. 9, xiii. 1; 2 Cor. i. 233 Eph. vi. 6; Col. iii, 23; Phil. i. 27. (See
Greek text.)
* 8 Matt. x, 28; Luke xii, 19, 20; Acts ii..27; Heb. x. 39; 1 Pet. i, 9, 22, ii.
11; Rev. vi. 9, xx. 4. On the other hand, Heb. iv. 12 and Jude 19 can be
quoted as apparently distinguishing between soul and spirit.
MEN. 275
It is impossible for us to figure any mean between them. It
the soul, therefore, is made substantially distinct from the
spirit, we can construe it only as a kind of subordinate spirit
functionally intermediate between the body and the higher
spirit. But what need of two grades of spirit in one person?
How reconcile this duality with personal unity? The body
does not compromise that unity, inasmuch as its place is
purely instrumental. Shall it be said that the intermediate
spirit or soul is purely instrumental to the higher? This
seems to be necessary if personal unity is to be conserved.
Two independent centres or springs of action imply a dual
rather than a single consciousness. But what need of two
instruments? If we cannot see how the spirit can make prac
tical connection with the body, no more can we see how the
soul, which must be viewed as equally immaterial, can make
that connection. Whatever functions, then, are associated
with the soul might just as well be associated with the spirit,
or the latter be regarded as operative in them at first hand
instead of at second hand. The intermediate substance is thus
discredited as an apparent superfluity.
If it be assumed that man is not sufficiently distinguished
from the animal kingdom unless he is credited with an extra
essence, a spirit in addition to a soul, the reply is that man
does not need to be distinguished by a greater number of
components, but by the higher grade of those which he does
possess, At one end ef the scale the endowments of the
same immaterial essence in man may be on a line with animal
life, while at the other end they rise into the sphere of divine
associations.
It is worthy of note that while the Bible broadly distin-
guishes between body and soul, or body and spirit, it indulges
in no essential disparagement of the former. The ascetic
theory, which assumes an intrinsic evil in the body, is alien
from the scriptural standpoint. If the whole course of its
teaching be taken into account, the Bible must be regarded
276 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
as including in its ideal of man the union and reconciliation
of nature and spirit. On no other supposition can a rational
explanation be given of its doctrine of the resurrection. This
doctrine is a seal upon the verdict in the creation narrative.
It shows at least that, with regard to man’s body, God has not
withdrawn the sentence of approbation which he is said to
have pronounced upon His works.
Something of an antithesis is indeed presented in the Old
Testament between the body or flesh of man and divine reality.
But it is the antithesis between feebleness and transitoriness,
on the one hand, and might and stability on the other.! The
Old Testament never employs the term “flesh” as antithetic
to moral good.
In the New Testament, it must be allowed, there is a verbal
contrast between the flesh and moral good. This occurs
mainly in the writings of Paul. All instances, outside of his
epistles, of an apparent disparagement of the flesh are very
easily explained. But Paul’s usage seems to afford some pre-
text for an ascetic theory. He employs such strong expres-
sions as these: “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh
(odpé), dwelleth no good thing.’ ? “I delight in the law of
God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my
members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing
me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my mem-
bers.”® «The mind of the flesh is enmity against God ; for
it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.” 4
“The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the
flesh ; for these are contrary the one to the other.’”’® What
did Paul mean by these sentences? That he did not mean to
condemn man’s sensuous nature as in itself sinful is abundantly
apparent. It appears from the fact that he thought of the
Christ, who knew no sin, as truly assuming human flesh.° It
1 Job xxxiv. 15; Ps. lvi. 4; Ixxviii. 39; Isa. xl. 6; Jer. xvii. 5.
2 Rom. vii. 18. 3 Rom. vii. 22, 23. 4 Rom. viii. 7. 6 Gal Way,
® Gal, iv. 4; Rom. i. 3, v. 15; 1 Cor. xv. 21.
MEN. 277
appears from his belief in the resurrection, or the continuance
of the embodied life. It appears unmistakably in his repre-
sentations that the body is properly a temple of the Holy
Spirit, an acceptable offering to God through consecrated
service, an instrument of righteousness.! It appears finally
in the description of those who have experienced the emanci-
pating power of divine grace through Christ as being no longer
in the flesh? — a description which demonstrates that by the
“flesh,” when used in antithesis to moral goodness, Paul did
not mean the sensuous nature fev se, since, in that event, one
could be out of the flesh only by being out of the body.
The conclusion necessarily follows, that in the Pauline doc-
trine of sin capé has a larger meaning than the ordinary sense
of the term. It epitomizes the whole earthward and sinful
tendency which is characteristic of man in his fallen condition,
and which finds in the bodily members the means at once of
gratification and manifestation. It is not that the flesh is
in itself sinful, but that it provides channels through which
worldly appetencies and intemperate desires assert themselves,
thus serving as an ever-ready ally of the soul on the side of
its thirst for pleasure and selfish gratification, and in this way
hindering the rule of moral judgment and righteous purpose.
As the instrument and ally of the soul on that side of its
tendencies, it stands in antithesis to the Divine Spirit in
its alliance with the soul on the side of holy endeavor ; and
also in antithesis with the human spirit, in so far as it is viewed
as immediately connected with the Divine Spirit and receptive
of His renewing energy. Thus Paul’s teaching cannot be re-
garded as breaking through the view of the body which 1s in
general characteristic of the Bible. That he had small appre-
ciation for any monastic scheme is clearly indicated by his
‘nstruction to the Colossians.®
tr Cor. vi. 13, 15, 19; Rom. vi. 13, 19, xii. I.
2 Rom. vii. 5, 6, viii. 4, 9.
3 Col. ii. 20-23.
19
278 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
II. — QuESTION OF EXEMPTION FROM BopiLy DEATH.
In respect of his body man must be pronounced naturally
mortal. The possibility of death was given in his original
constitution. Made, like the countless generations of animals
which preceded him, of material that is subject to corruption
and dissolution, he had in his corporeal frame no security
against mortality. On the plane of nature the fact that he
was made of dust was a bond for his return to the dust.
It is true that the Scriptures represent man’s death as the
penalty or consequence of sin. It is also true that in scrip-
tural phraseology death is made inclusive of physical dissolu-
tion. This sense is indeed transcended in various connections.
By a figure of speech grievous damage to the soul is described
as death. But in this extension of the meaning of the term
there is no denial of the view that physical death falls under
the category of penalty or consequence of sin. Paul evidently
gave it this association.2, As for the author of the narrative
in the first part of Genesis, it is altogether probable that he
had no distinct thought of anything else than physical decay
and dissolution when he wrote of the death affixed to the
eating of the forbidden fruit.
To reconcile the truth of the natural mortality of the body
with the scriptural conception of death as a penalty, it is
necessary to suppose that the divine plan for man included
some counteracting agency which should effectively offset all
death-working influences. Human philosophy, if it cannot
assert the fact of such a provision, cannot deny it. Surely we
are not under rational compulsion to believe that God could
not bring his children to their proper goal except through the
gateway of corruption and death. If the embodied life be;
longs to the ideal of man, the painful severance of soul and
body seems strangely off the road to that ideal, unless intro-
1 Gen. ii. 17; Rom. v. 12-14, vi. 23; 1 Cor. xv. 22.
9 Cor. xv. 20-22.
MEN. 279
duced as a stern means of discipline for a sinful subject.
Accordingly, from any other standpoint than that of sheer
naturalism, it is not incredible that some divine provision would
have saved man, in the event of his holy obedience, from the
ordeal of death, or at least excluded that ordeal from the cate-
gory of an inevitable experience, In the primitive thought of
Israel this expedient took the form of a tree of life accessible
to the unfallen Adam. ‘Translated from the language of con-
crete, poetic description into that of philosophy, this beautiful
image may stand for the divine efficiency which would have
been mediated to the human spirit, in its continued com-
munion with God, and, through the human spirit thus vitalized,
would have raised man’s sensuous nature, without the experi-
ence of any painful disruption, to the state of the glorified life.
No dogmatic authority is of course claimed for this description
of what God’s method would have been; it is simply an ad-
missible supposition respecting what lies hid in the divine
counsels.
III. — QuEsTION OF THE Sout’s IMMORTALITY.
If we pass from the consideration of the body to that of the
soul, we are not so obviously in the presence of mortality, but
we still have occasion to inquire for our authority to affirm
man’s natural immortality. Rational considerations can, it is
true, be urged in behalf of the conviction that the soul was
designed for endless existence. Not a few have supposed
that this conviction can properly be sustained by a reference
to the simplicity of the soul’s essence. Since it is not com-
pounded, the argument runs, it cannot be subject to dissolution,
and consequently there is no occasion to imagine the cessation
of its being. The trouble with this argument is the implicit
deism which lies at its basis. There is a tacit assumption that
the circle of created things, having once been constituted, is
280 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
left to take its own course everlastingly. On this assumption,
the soul, as meeting no cause that is competent to cancel its be-
ing, must of course be everlasting. But deny this assumption,
declare the constant dependence of all created things upon the
will and power of God, and the argument from the simple es-
sence of the soul is shorn of its value. It imports very little
to be assured that there is nothing in all nature which can put
a stop to the soul’s being, when we see that the title to con-
tinued existence rests wholly in the God who can be thought
of as annihilating as well as creating, of ceasing to conserve
as well as continuing to conserve.
A rational ground much more worthy to be alleged for faith
in the soul’s immortality is obtained in reviewing the range of
its power and capacities. This subtle intellect which makes
its pathway among the stars, this sense of righteousness which
is capable of rising to such lofty heights, this royalty of a will-
power which can defy all pressure that is brought to bear, this
immeasurable capability of sympathy and affection — does it
not show that man’s soul has connections with the infinite,
that it was formed for an immortal career? The argument is
legitimate, and must have force with one who does not live
habitually in a vile pessimistic mood. However, its limitations
are not to be overlooked. It is a good argument for the im-
mortality of some souls, namely of all who are in a way to
realize their better possibilities. But suppose the contrary,
souls with extinguished possibilities for good, a blot and a
nuisance upon the face of the universe. Evidently in relation
to such souls it is vain to appeal to man’s noble capacities as
a guarantee of endless existence. Unceasing opportunity for
growth in goodness is something worthy of the Divine Sov-
ereign to bestow. That He should deem it fitting to grant
unceasing Opportunity for growth or confirmation in badness
is not capable of proof on rational grounds.
Much the same limitation applies to the argument from the
religious consciousness. A settled and luminous sense of a
MEN. 281
filial relation to God is indeed the most vital of all grounds of
a subjective assurance of immortality. Out of this ground the
inference rises spontaneously, that He who has infinite fullness
of life in Himself will not consign to corruption and nothing-
ness those whom He owns in the tender relation of children.
If children, then hetrs — heirs of an incorruptible inheritance
—jisaform of argument which only expresses a clear demand
of the religious sentiment. But it evidently provides no certi-
fication respecting those who have forsaken the path of
spiritual sonship and gravitated into incorrigible rebellion
against God.
As the matter depends upon the plan of the divine adminis-
tration, and there is no rational demonstration that in that
administration all souls receive the dower of an inalienable
existence, we can be asssured by nothing else than a divine
revelation that immortality is the lot of all men indiscrimin-
ately. The question whether revelation has pronounced de-
cisively on this point is best considered in connection with the
theme of future retribution. But it may be noticed here that
the Bible practically treats of man as a candidate for a limitless
future. In the Old Testament, it is true, this point is not
brought to the front. Only an occasional glimpse is given of
a vital existence beyond the grave,! as opposed to the shade-
like existence in Sheo/ which was commonly recognized in
popular thought from the age of the patriarchs. Doubtless,
in some of the fundamental conceptions of the Old Testa-
ment, relative to God and man, an excellent ground was pro-
vided for an inculcation of the thought of an immortal life.?
1 As more or less indicative of the better hope the following texts may be
noted: Deut. xxxii. 39; 1 Sam. ii. 6; Job xiv. 13-15, xix. 25-27; Hos. vi. 2;
Ps, xvi. 10, xlix. 15, xxiii. 24-26; Isa. xxv. 8, xxvi. 19, lili, 9, 10; Dan. xii. 2.
2 “The earnest of a living hope was contained in the belief in a living God.
The potency of a personal immortality was deposited in the faith in a personal
God. The promise of a moral future lay in the recognition of the moral action of
a righteous God in the present.” Kindred potentialities lay in the Old Testament
doctrine of man, “ the way in which and the end for which he was created. The
282 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
In fact, however, it was only in the rarest instances that the
development reached the level of a distinct declaration of belief,
as distinguished from the language of simple premonition, the
utterance of a hope projected beyond the ordinary creed by
the motive-power of deep experiences. Reasons for this re-
serve may be found in the national and preliminary character
of the Jewish religion. So far as that religion had to do with
the training and mission of a nation it gave little occasion to
speak of the future life ; for nations belong only to the earthly
theatre. Being antecedent to the coming of the Messiah, its
forecast of the future naturally was associated very largely
with the setting up of His kingdom. It would have involved
a disjunction of religion from its true historic ground to have
dwelt much upon the region of immortality before the advent
and resurrection of Christ. The risen Lord must first be
presented to the faith of men before the picture of the in-
corruptible life, in all the breadth and reach of its inspiring
significance, could consistently be sketched. The apostles
enjoyed a plane of vision such as had been vouchsafed to no
preceding oracles of revelation. It was but natural, therefore,
that in their writings the horizon should be set aglow, as never
before, by the vivid hope and expectation with which the im-
mortal life was grasped.
Immortality, whether viewed as conditional or unconditional,
is evidently an item of vast significance in estimating the
dignity of the human soul. It makes all the difference be-
God, receiving his existence by God’s free and immediate act, made like Him, and
so constituted a free, personal being, distinct in origin and end from the beasts
that perish. ... It was the operation of these two great doctrines of revelation, as
they were applied to the consciousness of Israel, as they came in contact with the
popular, inherited notions of the future, as they were fortified by the personal ex-
periences of pious men, and as they were confirmed in course of time by the posi-
tive teachings of the prophets, that enlarged and illumined the Old Testament view
of an after-life. In this way the truth that was latent was brought to view, and
was carried forward from stage to stage, until it became a permanent contribution
to man’s hope.” (Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, pp. 216, 221.)
MEN. 283
tween vanity and priceless value whether its life is to run its
course in a few days, or whether it is to go on for ever in an
ascending pathway.
IV. — THEORIES AS TO THE ORIGIN oF SOULS.
It has sometimes been thought that human souls have a
history prior to their embodied life in this world, as well
as subsequent thereto. Origen, borrowing from Platonism,
adopted this notion. But it has had a very scanty following
among Christian writers. Not the slightest warrant for assum-
ing the preéxistence of souls can be found in the Scriptures.
No doubt in later Judaism the notion of preéxistence had
considerable currency. It is found in the Book of Wisdom,!
in the writings of Philo,? and in the Talmud.* Language that
looks like an out-cropping of the same notion appears in a
single instance in the New Testament, namely, in the question
propounded to Christ, whether, in case of the man born blind,
his own sin or that of his parents was the ground of the ap-
parent judgment against him.‘ But this incidental manifesta-
tion of what may have been in the minds of the questioners
lends, of course, no proper sanction to the doctrine of preéxis-
tence. That no scriptural sentence can be cited for it is
acknowledged by the most notable of recent theological advo-
cates of preéxistence. Speaking of the doctrine in question
Julius Miiller says: “ Any unprejudiced examination of Holy
Scripture must satisfy us that it says nothing about it, and
that no allegorizing expositions of Scripture, or rather impo-
sitions, can afford a clue to it.”® He accepts it because he
regards it as a necessary datum in explaining the facts of in-
born sinfulness. In our view Miiller exaggerates the facts,
1 Wisdom viii. 19, 20. 4 John ix. 1.
2 Confusion of Languages, xvii. § Christian Doctrine of Sin, II. 360.
8 Weber, Jiidische Theologie, p. 212. .
284 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
and, therefore, magnifies overmuch the demand for an explana-
tion. But supposing the facts to be in serious need of ex-
planation, it is rather questionable to assume a preéxistence of
souls about which revelation is utterly silent, and conscious-
ness knows nothing, and critical investigation cannot discover
anything. If souls had such a decisive moral development in
a previous state as the theory implies, it is reasonable to
assume that they had also an appreciable intellectual develop-
ment. Why then is no sign of that development to be found
in the embodied subject? Why is the infant so utterly destitute
of every trace of intellectual maturity, and obliged to gain
every item of knowledge by the hard road of tuition and trial ?
The fact that the soul develops intellectually as if it first had
its being along with its embodiment certainly does not favor
the theory of preéxistence. In fine there is very little to
recommend it, and probably the great majority of Christian
writers will continue to repudiate it as a fanciful speculation.
Rejecting preéxistence, we are left with two rival theories
as respects the origin of human souls in general, namely,
traducianism and creationism, or the theory of derivation
from parents and that of divine creation in each instance.
The references of the Scriptures cannot be regarded as
amounting to a certain choice of the one or the other. The
description of God as the Father of the spirits of all men, in
contrast with earthly parents as the fathers of their flesh,!
seems indeed to imply creationism. Nothing equally favorable
to traducianism can be cited. Still a traducianist can urge
that the term “father’’ is used with much latitude in Scrip-
ture, and in this relation may denote, not so much that God is
directly the author of human spirits, as that in the realization
of His affectionate relation to men He operates through
spiritual rather than through corporeal means, and is appre-
hended by the spirit rather than by the bodily senses. The
1 Heb. xii. 9. Compare Zech. xii. 1; Isa. xlii. 5; Job xxxiii. 4; Eccl. xii. 7.
MEN. 285
sentence in John’s Gospel (ili. 6), which is sometimes quoted
in favor of traducianism, determines nothing, one way or the
other. It simply puts in contrast the state of man under the
rule of fleshly appetites, which are matter of common inheri-
tance through natural birth, and his state as supernaturally
renewed by the Holy Spirit.
In the line of rational evidences each of the two theories
has its deficit. The trying task for creationism is the explana-
tion of heredity. The great stumbling-block for traducianism
is its affinity with materialism, since it cannot be apprehended
how the soul can come from the parents unless it is of sepa-
rable divisible substance, whereas its spiritual nature requires
it to be thought of as an indivisible unity, to which the idea
of partition is utterly foreign. This is so serious an objection
that the preference must be given to creationism if any
tolerable explanation can be offered on its basis for heredity.
As a matter of fact, a partial, if not a complete explanation,
is afforded. The bodily organization of the child takes an
impress from that of the parents through natural connection.
In the early stages of the soul’s development, before the era
of reflection and self-control, this organization determines
almost wholly the content of psychical experience. Parental
characteristics have also an opportunity to transmit them-
selves through the intimate connection of the mother with
the child during the embryonic period. The emotional tides
which send their vibrations through her organism penetrate
the sensitive being of the embryo. Not infrequently some
marked bent or disposition of the offspring may be referred
to a powerful emotional crisis in the mother. Thus physical
connections with the parents, though they be not competent
to determine directly the characteristics of the soul, do power-
fully condition its experiences in its most plastic period, and
these experiences are elements in shaping the personality,
morally and intellectually, toward the type which it reaches.
This explanation may not be entirely adequate, but it goes no
286 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
little way toward covering the facts which need to be accounted
for, and so helps to legitimate the preference for creationism.
To some minds this theory is objectionable as supposing
direct and specific operations of divine efficiency within the
world. But the objection has no weight from the standpoint
of Christian supernaturalism, or of a stanch theory of the
divine immanence. If it is in the plan of God to regenerate
souls under certain spiritual conditions, it is entirely conceiv-
able that it may be in His plan to create them under certain
physical conditions. This does not imply that He demeans
Himself to wait on human appetencies. It signifies simply
that He has adopted and continues to execute the world-
scheme, or race scheme, which is, on the whole, most eligible
in the sight of His wisdom.
Somewhat of a tendency has been manifested among recent
theologians to combine creationism and traducianism, the sup-
position being that in the origination of souls God's creative
energy works together with the parental agency, and makes of
the latter something more than a mere occasion of its own
operation. This would be an effective method of meeting
all the requirements of the problem, if only the combination
could be satisfactorily construed. But that is by no means
certain. To create a free rational person seems to be among
the highest acts of omnipotence. What real contribution a
limited agent like man can make to such an act, aside from
providing the mere occasion, is not easily conceived. Never-
theless, if traducianism is to be held at all, there is an intelli
gible motive for taking it in a modified sense. Modern phil-
osophical thinking tends to a strong emphasis upon the divine
immanence. To a considerable extent, it inclines to the iden-
tification of matter with a divine energizing. Now if materia)
atoms are to be thought of as subsisting only by the direct
agency of God, it seems a strange piece of philosophical pro-
cedure to exclude the direct agency of God from the origina
tion of souls. Clearly, the advocate of an exclusive traducian
MEN. 287
theory needs to consider well whether he is rendering a just
tribute to the demands of a stanch conception of divine im-
manence and creaturely dependence.
The Scriptures assume that on the side of physical consti-
tution mankind has proceeded from a single human pair. It is
essentially one the world over.! Science in its most recent
phases has no objection to offer to this conception. From the
standpoint of evolution diversities of race are obviously no
objection to unity of origin. If nature is capable of such vast
mutations as are implied in the doctrine that all the higher
forms of life may be traced back to preceding lower forms,
it could involve no strain upon her resources to produce such
variations as are exemplified in the different races of men.
Moreover, the chasm between man and his supposed animal
antecedents is so vast that discreet scientists, naturally, are not
disposed to imagine that the leap across it could have been
made except under the most select conditions. But, whether
the utmost that evolutionary science claims be credited or not,
there is scientifically no objection to the theory of the common
origin of men. In view of the diversities which have been
wrought by artificial selection in different species of animals,
within a narrow space of time, it is not at all difficult to be-
lieve that the operation of special causes through long ages
has given rise to all existing race peculiarities.
The question of the antiquity of the human race is one upon
which Christian dogmatics has very little occasion to render a
verdict. The conclusion being once reached that the Old
Testament does not afford a basis for an exact chronology,
either as admitting breaks into its genealogical lists, or as in-
corporating conjectural or legendary elements into its account
of the primitive era, there is absolutely no motive for retrench-
ing the period of human history to a particular figure. It
would be saying too much, perhaps, to affirm that this con-
1 Gen. i., ti.; Acts xvii. 26; Rom. v. 12, 18,
288 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
clusion has been commonly accepted by biblical scholars and
historians ; but it is true that it has commanded increasing
assent among careful students during the-last few decades.
Keasons for pushing back the traditionary date are found, in
the first place, in the discoveries of archeology. Eminent
investigators conclude that the beginnings of civilized com-
munities in Babylonia cannot be dated later than 4,000 B.C.,
and that an equal antiquity must be claimed for the commence-
ment of Egyptian civilization! In the second place, the re-
sults of geological research suggest a necessary extension of
the term of human history. Corroboration has, indeed, been
lacking for the enormous period assumed by Lyell and some
others ; but it is still true that experts in geology are inclined
to regard ten thousand years as a very moderate period for
man’s past sojourn upon the earth, and to a considerable extent
prefer to lengthen the time to twenty-five, fifty, or even one
hundred thousand years.”
7
©
—
1 Says Morris Jastrow: “Our present knowledge of Babylonian history reaches
back to the period of about 4,000 B.C. At that time we find the Euphrates valley
divided into a series of states or principalities parcelling north and south Baby-
lonia between them.” (The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 1898, p. 35.
Compare Fritz Hommel, Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, 1895, pp. 166,
167, 282, 283; Francois Lenormant, The Beginnings of History, translated from
the second French edition, 1883, pp. 250, 251; A. H. Sayce, The Ancient Em-
pires of the East, 1884, pp. 14, 116; W. M. F. Petrie, History of Egypt from the
Earliest Times to the XVI Dynasty, 1899, pp. 27-31, 252, 253; Heinrich Brugsch,
Die gyptologie, 1891, p. 473; Mariette cited by Lenormant, Histoire Ancienne
del’Orient, IT. 33-35 ; R. W. Rogers, Hist. of Babylonia and Assyria, I. 336, 349ft.
2 The weight of authority seems to be in favor of man’s appearance in Glacial
or Interglacial time. The estimate by years is confessedly uncertain. Joseph Le
Conte says; ‘We may say that we have as yet no certain knowledge of man’s time
on the earth, unless we adopt Croll’s theory of the Glacial climate. It may be
one hundred thousand years, or it may be only ten thousand years.” (Elements of
Geology, 1891, p.619.) Joseph Prestwich, after premising that the Glacial epoch,
or the period of extreme cold, may have lasted no longer than from fifteen thou-
sand to twenty-five thousand years, and that the Post-glacial period, or the time
occupied in the melting of the ice, may have covered from eight thousand to ten
thousand years, adds: “ This might give to palzolithic man, if we can be allowed
to form a rough approximate limit, on data yet insufficient and subject to correc-
MEN. 289
V. — CONSCIENCE.
The principal constituents which belong to man as a moral
personality were necessarily touched upon in the first themes
to which we gave our attention. On account of their eviden-
tial or philosophical value, they could not be ignored in an ex-
amination of the grounds of rational certainty or of theistic
belief. But, as some additional points of view are pertinent
to the present connection, it will not be a needless repetition
to glance at man’s furnishing on the side of the moral sense,
or conscience, of freedom, and of religious disposition.
Conscience, if the term be taken in its broader meaning, is
inclusive of three different elements: a perception of moral
distinctions, a sense of obligation to the right, as opposed to
the wrong, and a feeling of self-approbation or self-condemna-
tion according as the act corresponds to the judgment of right
and wrong. The first is undoubtedly subject to limitations.
A man is not born an infallible moralist any more than he is
born an infallible mathematician. But as he is implicitly a
mathematician at birth, being endowed with a mental consti-
tution which is intrinsically suited to recognize the relations
of numbers, so he is implicitly a moralist at birth, being pos-
sessed of a moral constitution suited to recognize moral rela-
tion, no greater antiquity than perhaps about twenty thousand to thirty thousand
years; while, should he be restricted to the so-called Post-glacial period, his an-
tiquity need not go further back than ten thousand to fifteen thousand years before
the time of neolithic man.” As to neolithic man, Prestwich says: ‘“ In Europe we
are unable to carry back his presence beyond a period of from two thousand to
three thousand years B.C. But already in Egypt and parts of Asia it is proved
that civilized communities and large states flourished before 4,000 B.C. Civilized
man must, therefore, have had a far higher antiquity in those countries, and probably
in southern Asia, than those four thousand to five thousand years.” (Geology,
Chemical, Physical, and Stratiographical, 1888, II. 534, 535.) Professor William
North Rice, after noting the large element of uncertainty which belongs to any
numerical estimate of man’s antiquity that may be made in the present, says: “I
should say that the date of the origin of man was probably considerably more than
ten thousand years ago, but either less than, or not much more than one hundred
thousand years ago.” (Letter to the author, March 22, 1899.)
290 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
tions. The facts of his moral experience cannot be construed
rationally on the supposition that he starts as a ¢abula rasa in
respect of his moral being, any more than his intellectual ex-
perience can be construed without a reference to positive
mental constituents. Grant that perversities of moral judg-
ment often occur, and that education manifestly has a function
to perform in relation to the moral sense, an original dower in
the direction of true moral perception is not thereby denied.
Were there no such dower there would be no adequate basis
for a consensus of moral judgments. But there evidently is
such a basis. Men cannot develop normally, or come into
largeness and fullness of ethical life, without realizing an
essential community of ethical principles through no incon-
siderable range. Indeed there can be no development or even
existence of moral personality without the presence, explicit
or virtual, of a certain order of moral judgments. He who
could not see that the good will, as opposed to the evil
or malicious will, is obligatory, or that kindness ought to be
repaid by gratitude rather than by hatred, would be described
by common consent as utterly out of the plane of normal
manhood. Still further, he who should deny the obligation
to govern his own conduct by such rules as he deems fitting
for men generally, or binding upon them, would be accounted
as lacking an essential of a proper human nature. Now, a
moral perception that inevitably appears with the moral per-
sonality, or inevitably is realized in the course of its normal
development, has just one adequate explanation. It is founded
in man’s moral constitution. To derive it from any order of
external circumstances is to impute the greater to the less.
It is not the product of social relations, but founds society.
Without a certain community of moral perceptions society
would lack all true cohesion, and would rest upon a meagre
artificial basis. Society has no other authority than that of
an aggregate of individual wills. If these wills are individually
destitute of the guidance of certain moral perceptions, their
MEN. 291
aggregation gives no trustworthy law of conduct. The addi-
tion of nothing to nothing, however far it may be carried,
results in nothing. Society, as a moral community, can be
constituted only out of units that have a common moral con-
stituent. That it does not make the morality of the individual,
but has its moral character in its members, is clearly enough
seen in the fact that, occasionally, a small company of earnest
men, or even a single individual of exceptional character and
gifts, will successfully challenge society on some special point
and start the public current toward an improved moral per-
ception.
Doubtless it is easy to exaggerate the compass of the original
dower of which we are speaking. Moral vision is not wide at
the beginning of the moral life. Experience and training have
an important function in expanding and clarifying perceptions
of duty. But these facts are in perfect harmony with the
supposition of an original moral constitution which provides
for certain standard moral judgments, in such sense that they
are certain to be realized in any life that would not commonly
be pronounced abnormal and monstrous.
The second element in conscience has a still clearer title
to be regarded as founded in man’s moral constitution. A per-
son may hesitate in his judgments of right and wrong, and
may make mistakes in these judgments. But he is ever
certain of the fact that there is a right and a wrong, and of
his obligation to follow the one to the rejection of the other;
and he cannot put aside this conviction without ceasing to be
human. The conviction too is s#z generis. Any attempt to
translate it into something else is sure to disfigure rather
than to interpret. It is not, for example, another name for
desire and aversion founded on contrasted experiences of the
pleasurable and the painful. Doubtless there is an under-
lying faith in every healthy spirit that righteousness cannot be
permanently divorced from blessédness, and an opposite con-
viction would tend to confusion and lassitude. But that by
292 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
no means involves the conclusion that a man’s personal bear-
ing toward right and wrong is simply his bearing toward that
which is esteemed pleasurable or painful. It implies only
that one outlook is more inspiring than another, more compe-
tent to beget a hearty appreciation of the constituted order of
the universe, and so better suited to sustain a high sense of
duty.! That men can put considerations of pleasure and pain
very distinctly into the background, in abeyance to the sense
of obligation, is too well attested by facts to yield to any eccen-
tric theory of morals. To regard anticipated pleasure as the
sole spring of action savors of intolerable cynicism in the face
of the ample record of self-sacrifice, of deliberate choice of the
harder among honorable ways of life for the sake of rendering
a greater service, and of persevering devotement to the good
of those affording little or no return of thankfulness and ap-
preciation. The common judgment of men repudiates such
cynicism, and human speech has embodied this judgment in
the whole list of words which put righteous conviction and
generous devotion in contrast with self-seeking. Both the
facts of conduct and the facts of language emphasize the con-
clusion that a distinctive character belongs to the sense of
obligation, and that it is armed with a mighty and sacred
power.
The third element in conscience falls below neither of the
others in its attestation of man’s moral vocation. Whence
comes this swift sentence which breaks through all sophistical
excuses, and reveals a man to himself as condemned, as often
1 «Tt is not happiness in any banal sense that the ethical consciousness claims
as the wages of well-doing. It sets up no demand that all its acts of self-restraint or
self-sacrifice shall be recompensed by doles of happiness, — as if, says Spinoza, men
expected to be decorated by God with high rewards for their virtue and their best
actions, as for having endured the direst slavery. What the ethical consciousness
does demand is rather to feel the universe behind it, to know that we are living in
a moral cosmos, where our efforts avail somewhat, and where virtue may have the
wages of going on and not to die.” (Andrew Seth, Two Lectures on Theism,
pp. 28, 29.)
MEN. #* 293
as he does despite to any ethical principle which he recognizes
when in a dispassionate frame of mind? It is the offspring of
a nature that is intrinsically moral. It expresses the reaction
of that nature against whatever does violence to its require-
ments. It is the constitutional in the individual opposing the
element of personal caprice. And the length to which this
reaction and opposition are often carried is of striking signifi-
cance. Offense after offense is rebuked by a bitter sense of
ill-desert. The moral nature thus interposes by virtue of its
constitution a barrier against abuse. But as the body gradu-
ally loses its vitality and power of reaction against repeated
abuse, so the moral constitution cannot be perpetually defied
and ill-treated without incurring a fatal loss of vigor. The
perverse habit of will and the corresponding desires and
emotions grow dominant with continued indulgence, and leave
little scope for the healthy emotions which spring up spon-
taneously in the unperverted nature.
In the light of the foregoing exposition we may determine
in what sense the conscience can be called the voice of God.
Clearly it is not such in a baldly literal sense. The elements
of contingency which enter into it make this evident. Still
it is no mistake to regard it as being in an important sense the
bearer of a divine message. It profoundly emphasizes the truth
that man is the subject of a moral order, and that this order,
is too basal to rest in aught but the supreme reality —in God.
In its normal development it brings man more and more toward
the plane of the divine thought and feeling in respect of moral
distinctions. From the standpoint of the Christian doctrine
of grace, it may be regarded as touched and vitalized in all its
elements by the Divine Spirit.
In the Scriptures the most explicit teaching on the general
subject of the conscience is contained in Paul's Epistle to the
Romans.!_ The apostle evidently conceived that the data of a
1 Rom. i. 18-23, ti. 14-15.
20
294 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
true moral code are contained in the nature of man, and only
need to be interpreted without passion and perversity to direct
him Godward.
VI. — FREEDOM.
In proportion as the facts of conscience exhibit man as a
responsible moral agent they attest his freedom. For freedom
is an indispensable condition of responsible agency. And by
freedom in this connection is understood preéminently a faculty
of alternativity, a capability of varied choices or varied acts of
self-determination under given conditions. To use the ordi-
nary theological phrase, the power of contrary choice is a
necessary endowment of man as a free responsible being.
Something else may belong to the complete notion of freedom ;
but this much comes inevitably to the front, as often as man
is viewed in his responsibility, or as a subject of merit and
demerit.
The proofs are very simple and intelligible. In the first
place, it is the spontaneous impression of men that they have
a veritable power of self-direction. Any man unembarrassed
by the entanglements of speculation no more doubts his ability
to vary his conduct in numerous details than he disbelieves
in his own existence. ‘Tell him that in all the different acts of
his daily life he was invincibly determined, or could not have
done differently under the given conditions, and out of the full-
ness of his honest conviction he will respond that he knows
better.
In the second place it is the dictate of logic and common
sense that a man cannot be counted responsible for a result
when he has no power to vary his act. Responsibility be-
longs to an agent and not to an instrument. No one ever
thinks of passing sentence on a knife or revolver as an accom-
plice in a homicide. Nor could he do so with any reason if
the knife er revolver were supposed to be conscious, so long
MEN. 295
as it should be regarded as devoid of all power of self-motion.
Consciousness would be no more of an element in its responsi-
bility than the quality of its metal, if in the crime it was simply
and only an instrument. Now aman who is completely deter-
mined in his acts is an instrument, and not an agent proper.
It makes no difference whether the efficient source of the de-
termination is exterior or interior, so long as it is not freely
posited by the person in question. If the nature bestowed
upon him determines him to a particular act, excluding every
alternative, then he is not the agent inthat act. Heisamere
instrument, the real agent being the bestower of his nature.
To charge responsibility upon the person thus determined
would involve precisely the same absurdity as to make the
knife or revolver a guilty accomplice in a homicide, or to con-
demn a clock for striking at a point where its dynamics exclude
every other alternative.
In the third place, the facts of deliberation speak for the
reality of freedom as defined. To defer the decision on a
special point for the sake of further reflection is to make a pre-
liminary decision. Just so long as the case is purposely kept
open there is a choice against precipitating the ultimate choice.
Now what is to be said of these intermediate choices, this
balancing of reasons, this suspending of a decision of the main
question? On the necessitarian theory, every step is strictly
determined, and the whole process of deliberation becomes an
illusion. It is not a name for self-directed reflection, but for
certain determined motions viewed as antecedent to another
and more conspicuous determined motion, The automaton
indulges in some whirring and rattling before it executes its
proper feat.
Once more, freedom in the sense of alternativity is a needed
postulate in justifying the distinction between truth and error.
It was noticed, in criticism of materialism and pantheism,}
1 Part I. Chap. IT. Sect. V., VI.
296 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.
that the thoroughgoing determinism, which pertains to either
of these systems, undermines the idea that there is any valid
standard of truth. A like result can be charged against any
comprehensive scheme of determinism. Unless there is real
contingency in the universe, one set of judgments or opinions
is just as much the outcome of the nature of things as another.
Nothing being properly referable to the personal autonomy of
the creature — to his caprice, his unethical haste, his self-
induced blindness — all his errors must be regarded as founded
in the will or character of the First Great Cause. But to im-
pute contradictions in thought to the same source is to cancel
the ground of intellectual confidence in that source.
The most that determinism has to say against the concep-
tion which these arguments sustain may be embraced in two
or three specifications. It is alleged, in the first place, that
freedom, in the sense of a power of contrary choice, is contra-
dictory to the principle of causality. If in the presence of two
or more alternatives the human agent can select one as well as
another, then there is no cause for his choice; an event tran-
spires when he chooses, which is without a cause. The
trouble with this argument is that it ignores the distinction
between an agent and an intermediate or instrumental cause,
and so rules out the idea of creation in favor of an all-embrac-
ing, necessitated evolution. If the principle of causality ex-
cludes veritable option between alternatives, then God never
exercised any option, creation proper cannot be imputed to
Him, and a perfectly inexorable law of necessary evolution
governs every divine purpose and every putting forth of divine
energy. On the other hand, if there is option with God, if
the making of the world was not simply a necessitated evolu-
tion of His power, then the principle of causality does not, as
a matter of fact, exclude the power of contrary choice. Exist-
ing in the Supreme Being, the like power may conceivably
exist in other beings. Man may share with his Maker the
prerogative of creating out of nothing, originating, not indeed
MEN. 297
objective beings, but subjective determinations. As Ulrici
says: ‘‘ Every pure self-movement is at bottom a creating out
of nothing.” ! This representation does not invalidate the
principle of causality, but limits it as it must be limited in view
of the intrinsic prerogatives of free personality. Heb. ix. 27, 28. 41 Pet. ii, 24.
5 Rev. vii. 9, 13, 14. See also Matt. xxvi. 28; Rom. iv. 25; Gal. ii. 20; Heb.
li. 9, 14, 153 1 Pet. iii, 18; Rev. i. 5, 6; Isa. liii. 4-6, 10-12.
8 John i, 29. 1 Heb. ii. 17.
THE WORK OF CHRIST. 377
“ Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even
as ye are unleavened. For our passover also hath been sac-
rificed, even Christ.” }
«Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave Him-
self up for us, an offering and a sacrifice, to God for an odor
of a sweet smell.”’?
“Having therefore, brethen, boldness to enter into the holy
place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which He dedicated
for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say,
His flesh ; and having a great priest over the house of God;
let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith.’’?
« According to the law, I may almost say, all things are
cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there
is no remission. It was necessary, therefore, that the copies
of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these ;
but the heavenly things with better sacrifices than these. For
Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in
pattern to the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear be-
fore the face of God for us: nor yet that He should offer
Himself often ; as the high priest entereth into the holy place
year by year with blood not his own ; else must He often have
suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once at
the end of the ages hath He been manifested to put away sin
by the sacrifice of Himself.’ 4
4. The sacrificial work of Christ which was consummated
in His death is set forth as a ground of forgiveness or recon-
ciliation.
“This is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many
unto remission of sins,” ®
“ Be it known unto you that through this man is proclaimed
unto you remission of sins; and by Him everyone that be-
Mi Corey. 7. 2 Eph. v. 2. 8 Heb. x. 19-22
* Heb. ix. 22-26. See also Eph. v. 25; Heb. iv. 14, vii. 26, x. 12-14, xili. 12;
Rev. vii. 13, 14.
5 Matt. xxvi. 28
378 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION.
lieveth is justified from all things, from which ye could no_ be
justified by the law of Moses.” ! :
“Tf, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God
through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled,
shall we be saved by His life; and not only so, but we also
rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom
we have received the reconciliation.” *
«So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto
all men to condemnation: even so through one act of right-
eousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life.
For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were
made sinners; even so through the obedience of the one shall
the many be made righteous.” ®
“In whom we have our redemption through His blood, the
forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His
grace, (5 |
“‘ Now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made
nigh in the blood of Christ.” ®
«And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your
mind in your evil works, yet now hath He reconciled in the
body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and with-
out blemish and irreproachable before Him.” ®
5. Christ is represented as being given or offered as a means
of redemption.
“Take heed unto yourself to feed the Church of God, which
He purchased with His own blood.” ?
“Ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price.
... Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having be-
come a curse for us; for it is written, cursed is every one that
hangeth on a tree.’ 8
——
1 Acts xiii. 38, 39. 8 Rom. v. 18, 19.
2 Rom. v. 10, II. i) BEDE 7,
5 Eph. ii. 13.
6 Col. i. 21, 22. See also John iii. 14-18; Acts x. 43; 1 Thess. v. 9, 10.
7 Acts xx. 28, © : Cor. vi. 19; Gal. iii. 13.
THE WORK OF CHRIST. 379
“Giving thanks unto the Father... who delivered us out
of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom
of the Son of His love; in whom we have our redemption,
the forgiveness of our sins.”’!
“ There is one God, one mediator also between God and
men, Himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom
for all.” ?
‘Looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory
of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ ; who gave Him-
self for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity.” 3
«Christ having come a high priest of the good things to
come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not
made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet
through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own
blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having ob-
tained eternal redemption.” +
“Knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible
things, with silver and gold, from your vain manner of life
handed down from your fathers; but with precious blood, as of
a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of
Renviats’*
«And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy art thou to
take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast
slain, and didst purchase unto God with thy blood men of every
tribe, and people, and nation, and madest them to be unto our
God a kingdom and priests.” ©
6. Christ is described as being, through His shed blood, a
propitiation for sins.
“ Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitia-
tion, through faith, by His blood, to shew His righteousness,
ee
1 Col. i. 13, 14. 8 Titus ii. 13, 14.
21 Tim. ii. 5, 6. 4 Heb. ix. 11, 12,
5: Pet. i. 18, 19.
6 Rev. v.9, 10. See also Matt. xx. 28; Eph. i. 6, 7; Rom. iii. 23-24.
380 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION.
because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the
forbearance of God; for the shewing, I say, of His righteous-
ness at this present season: that He might Himself be just,
and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.” !
“If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for
our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole
world.” ?
7. Christ’s mediation is represented as necessary to sal-
vation.
‘Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” ?
‘In none other is there salvation ; for neither is there any
other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein
we must be saved.’ 4
“ Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid,
which is Jesus Christ.” ®
8. Christ’s mediation is represented as the procuring cause
of all positive spiritual benefits, such as the gracious aid of the
Holy Spirit, sonship toward God, and eternal life.
“The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father
will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring
to your remembrance all that I have said unto you.” ®
‘This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses.
Being, therefore, by the right hand of God exalted, and having
received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He
hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear.” 7
«As many as received Him, to them gave He power to be-
come the children of God, even to them that believe on His
names?
“ He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he
1 Rom. iii. 24-26. 5 Cor. iii.11. See also 1 Tim:ii. 5.
2 1 John ii. 1, 2. See also Heb, ii. 17. & John xiv. 26.
3 John xiv. 6. 7 Acts ii. 32, 33.
# Acts iv. 12. 8 John i. 12.
THE WORK OF CHRIST. 381
that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of
God abideth on him.” !
«The wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ?
«The witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life,
and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the
life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.’
“Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us
wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and
redemption.” 4
«Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrec-
tion of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ
shall all be made alive.” ®
“We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for
good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in
them.” &
“ Having been made perfect, He became unto all them that
obey Him the author of eternal salvation.” 7
g. Christ’s mediatorial work is represented as strongly at-
testing God’s love.
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but
have eternal life.” 8
“Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God
hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we
might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the pro-
pitiation for our sins,” %
1 John iii. 36. * 1 Cor. i. 30.
2 Rom. vi. 23. ¥it Gore xv. 21; 22;
81 John v. II, 12. 6 Eph. ii, 10.
7 Heb. v. 9. See also John vi. 40, 51, xvi. 7, xvii. 2; Rom, v. 20, 21, x. 43
Eph. i. 3-5, v. 25-27.
8 John iii, 16.
¥ 1 John iv. 9, 10. See also Rom. vy. 6-8, viii. 32, 38, 39.
382 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION.
A glance at the foregoing analysis will reveal that an essen-
tial community of thought on the work of Christ is characteris-
tic of the great majority of New Testament books. One aspect
may be more prominent in the references of one writer than
in those of another; but most points of view are illustrated
in the different writings or groups of writings.
A second thing which is made clearly manifest is, that there
is no warrant for drawing a contrast between the Father and
the Son, as though the one, rather than the other, stood on
the side of grace. It is an unbiblical imagination which iden-
tifies the Father with law and justice, and the Son with the
pitying love which tones down the demands of law and justice.
No such notion appears with the sacred writers. On the con-
trary, it is their repeated representation that the whole redemp-
tive mission of Christ was founded in and illustrative of the
compassion and love of God. If it is said that the Son suffered
and died for men, it is said also that the Father spared not
His own Son, but gave Him up in behalf of men. Not to
spare His Son was not to spare Himself. The bond of love
between them makes real disjunction as respects self-sacrifice
inconceivable.
An inappropriate antithesis between the Father and the
Son is sometimes introduced by an exaggerating interpretation
of the anguished exclamation of Christ upon the cross, “ My
God, why hast thou forsaken me!”’ A shadow of mystery,
it must be conceded, hangs over these words. While they
serve to heighten the aspect of tragedy, and in that sense were
congruous with the scene of the crucifixion, they are not just
the words that we should expect to hear from the lips of the
innocent sufferer. But between two difficulties it behoves us
to chose the lesser; and it certainly involves less difficulty
to suppose that something of hyperbole was put into a brief
exclamation of the dying Christ, than to suppose that the
Father assumed an artificial attitude toward the Son of His
love. If God darkened His face toward the Son upon the
THE WORK OF CHRIST. 383
cross, He put on an appearance counter to the reality ; for,
beyond all question, the Son was never more perfectly an ob-
ject of His complacent love than at this climax of self-devote-
ment. The Son on His part, if still in the actual exercise
of His unique knowledge of the Father, must be supposed
to have seen through any mere mask, or appearance, to the
reality. Should it be said that His great agony clouded over
for the moment His vision of the reality, it may be replied:
Very true; but on this supposition the exclamation of the
crucified one is sufficiently explained apart from any change
of attitude, any retreat or appearance of indifference, on the
side of the Father. This we believe to be by far the prefer-
able interpretation, namely, that which refers the temporary
shadow, not to the Father’s choice and action, but rather to
the anguished soul and deeply wounded sensibility of the Son.
The alternative interpretation goes quite too far in represent-
ing the Father as acting a theatrical part. AQ little before He
had sent an angel to strengthen the Son, and was known to
be ready to send legions of angels if they should be called for.
Just afterwards, in the conception of the Son Himself, He
stood ready to receive His spirit with fatherly tenderness. Is
it to be imagined that He shifted His attitude back and forth
thus suddenly? Far better to suppose that the words of the
ancient psalm (xxii. 1) came spontaneously into the mind of
Christ as the maximum expression of anguish afforded by
human speech, and were thus appropriated to sigh forth His
own deep distress —a distress which at its acme quenched
the comforting sense of the Father’s presence rather than in
strictness the conviction of His continued favor. The bor-
rowed exclamation may be construed as meaning, O my God,
behold how this flood of darkness and distress submerges my
soul, even to the quenching of the cheering sense of thy
presence !
Another thing which is apparent from a glance at the scrip-
tural passages is, that the sacred writers were much more con-
384 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION.
cerned to emphasize the truth that Christ has been constituted
the medium or channel of saving benefits, than to set forth
the precise way in which those benefits were conditioned upon
His work, or the necessary connection between the two. The
former can be read by one who runs. It shines with noon-day
brightness from the pages of the Gospels and Epistles. A
well-grounded confidence respecting the latter needs to be pre-
ceded by a very careful examination and induction. Indeed,
scholars of no mean insight have concluded that the funda-
mental grounds and relations of Christ’s work are best left in
the field of acknowledged mysteries. But, while we confess
that there is danger of presumption, we are not convinced that
the intimations of Scripture are too scanty to justify an at-
tempt to frame a theory of atonement.
On one important point only a moderate amount of scrip-
tural testimony can be regarded as demanded. It is so much
the dictate of reason that suffering by itself cannot be an end
with God or have any worth in His sight, that we do not need
the warrant of repeated declarations to justify the conclusion
that the value of Christ’s sufferings lay rather in the ethical
will which they manifested than in the quantum of pain which
they comprised. Accordingly, in the absence of anything of
a contrary tenor, we may take in their full breadth Paul’s
representations that the death upon the cross was the culmi-
nation of Christ’s holy obedience, and that this costly obedi-
ence is to be viewed as the chief element in atoning virtue.!
This point of view gives an ethical worth to suffering, as test-
ing and manifesting a sacred devotion to righteousness, and
apprises us that the peculiar stress upon the death of Christ
does not isolate its meaning from that of His life. We are at
liberty to regard the holy, obedient will of Christ, whether
viewed as paying tribute to righteousness or working out the
dictates of love, as the central factor in the worth of His
1 Phil. ii. 8; Rom. v. 18, 19.
THE WORK OF CHRIST. 385
earthly ministry, and as running through the whole of that
ministry, though in brief rhetorical references, like those of
the New Testament writers, it is natural to put the stress
upon the culminating phase.
In relation to a second important point it is proper to ask
for a somewhat larger basis in revelation. We refer to the
question, whether or not an objective bearing is to be attrib-
uted to Christ’s work. Theories which suppose that the one
demand which needed to be met by the work of Christ was
that of an effective appeal to men, an appeal suited to move
them to repentance, faith, and love, are called purely sub-
jective theories, since a transformation of man’s inner atti-
tude is the one end that claims consideration from their point
nf view. On the other hand, in so far as the work of Christ
js brought into relation to God, and is assumed to have met
some great demand in His nature and government, to have
been with Him a condition of a universal economy of grace
and of its publication to the world, it is said to contain an
objective phase or element.
In our view the best discretion will admit a carefully
guarded objective element. The full statement of the evi-
dences for this conclusion will be given later. We notice
here simply that it is not to be excluded by any such easy
expedient as an appeal to the parable of the prodigal son.
This parable proclaims, doubtless, in most unmistakable terms
the fact that a seeking, welcoming love is characteristic of
God. The certainty of this glorious fact, however, is far
from implying that fitness of method is a matter of indif-
ference in the bestowment of grace. In a wise and holy
being love cannot be expected to deny either wisdom or
holiness. These can properly be viewed, not, indeed, as
limiting the measure of love, but as conditioning its method
in the great task of recovering a fallen race. In the order of
be ee ars Se er eS ER RD eM Ce MER FE ae aE PEPIN T Foo Er Na We Pay
1 “The self-oblation which was consummated on the cross was begun at the incare
nation.” (J. S. Lidgett, The Spiritual Principle of the Atonement, p. 290.)
386 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION.
passages referred to, Christ was picturing the ample measure
of the Father’s love. That He had no intention of denying
that this love is conditioned in its method, or operates within
a prearranged economy of grace, is clearly enough intimated
by the terms which He employed to describe His own sacri-
ficial and redemptive vocation. But to suppose God’s love
to be truly conditioned in its method of restoring sinners is
just equivalent to providing a place for an objective phase
in the work of atonement.
IV.—THEORIES WuHicH Must BE PRONOUNCED INADE-
QUATE IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURAL TEACHING.
Some of the theories which fall under this description con-
tain very significant points of view, and on this account room
for a brief sketch may appropriately be awarded them,
though they fail to measure up to the full import of the
scriptural data. Here belong the Socinian theory, that of
Schleiermacher, that of Horace Bushnell, and that of Al-
brecht Ritschl.
In the original Socinian scheme the whole work of Christ
is summed up under two main points of view. On the one
hand, He appears upon earth as the inspired teacher; on the
other, He appears in heaven as the exalted king of men, and
the dispenser, by divine appointment, of all spiritual blessings.
His death is to be regarded as subordinate to one or the other
of these points of view. It proclaimed His sincerity as a
teacher, afforded a unique example of suffering patience, and
was a necessary antecedent to His resurrection, whereby the
truth of His divine mission was attested, and a most salutary
hope of future blessedness was given to men. Viewed as an
example of unswerving fidelity, Christ’s death inspires to for-
titude; while taken as the necessary antecedent to the resur-
rection and glorification, it was subservient to a display of
God’s benevolent intent toward the race in spite of its ill
desert.
THE WORK OF CHRIST. 387
As Schleiermacher made the distinctive feature in Christ’s
person to be His perfect God-consciousness, so also he con-
ceived that the same was at the foundation of the work of
redemption and reconciliation. Drawn by the bond of His
high-priestly sympathy, Christ shares the lot of men, and
exposes Himself to the pains, inward and outward, which come
from contact with human sin. The closeness of the relation
. thus established with humanity becomes the means of an
effective interchange. In proportion as the faith of men is
elicited toward Him, they are drawn into the circle of His
God-consciousness, are made to share in His sense of sonship.
Imbued with this new and life-giving sense of sonship, and
convinced that the Redeemer, with whom they feel that they
are vitally connected, is an object of God’s perfect com-
placency, they are able to apprehend that in and through Him
they are reconciled to God, so that the sufferings to which
they are still exposed are relieved of the aspect of wrath.
Also God, on His part, sees those who are thus united to His
Son, not as they would be by themselves, but as they are in
virtue of this effective relation. They may still be imperfect
in heart and life; but God views them as having, through
their union with Christ, the pledge and potency of ultimate
perfection, so that the good pleasure which He has in His
Son reaches also to them.'
According to Bushnell, the virtue of Christ’s work lay in
its authentic manifestation of God, through the most effective
means of manifestation, namely, vicarious sacrifice. Nothing
else was required, since the barrier to reconciliation was wholly
in man, and not at all in God. Love, which is the very prin-
iple of vicarious sacrifice, sent the Son of God into the field
of inevitable exposure and suffering. His ministry of self-
denial, flowing thus out of the heart of God and revealing
God’s heart to men, is intrinsically adapted to be the source
of unequalled moral influence. It is this in all the fuller
1 Christliche Glaube, 2? 100-104,
388 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION.
measure because it not merely emphasizes the love of God,
but gives an unique disclosure of all His moral perfections.
While there was no need on God’s part that the law should
be honored as a preliminary to man’s forgiveness, Christ’s
sacrifice does, in fact, confer unmeasured honor upon the law.
“‘I’verything that we see,’’ says Bushnell, “in the incarnate
life and suffering death, is God magnifying the honor of His
law by the stress of His own stupendous sacrifice.”"! Again
he remarks, ‘It is obvious enough that, in such a way of
obedience, Christ makes a contribution of honor to the law
He obeys that will do more to enthrone it in our reverence
than all the desecrations of sin have done to pluck it down—
more than all conceivable punishments to make it felt and
keep it in respect. The glory of His incarnate mission is
precisely—and in this is the gain of it—that He unbosoms,
in time, what love and obedience to law were hid in God’s
unseen majesty, or but dimly and feebly shown before.’’? A
full-orbed disclosure like this, Bushnell contends, is, above
all things, adapted to rebuke and heal man’s sinful disposi-
tion, and thus to accomplish all that is required for complete
reconciliation.
The moral influence theory, as set forth in his book on
“The Vicarious Sacrifice,’ failed permanently to satisfy the
mind of Bushnell. He came to the conclusion that it needed
to be rounded out by a complementary truth. In a later
treatise he assumed that the term ‘‘reconciliation”’ is not
solely descriptive of what transpires in men, but has a certain
application to the divine attitude toward men. As we, by
making cost to ourselves for an enemy, overcome our inward
reluctance to forgive, so God, by entering into sacrifice for
sinners, becomes in His own feeling fully at peace with Him-
self in extending grace to them.:
Ritschl’s teaching is substantially at one with the first form
1 The Vicarious Sacrifice, p. 302.
‘Tbid, pp. 314, 319.
* Forgiveness and Law.
THE WORK OF CHRIST. 389
of Bushnell’s theory in repudiating an objective bearing of
Christ’s work. All judicial and governmental terms, he con-
tends, misconstrue the relation of God to the redemptive
process. They divert attention from the real trend of bib-
lical teaching. The characteristic idea of God in the New
Testament is that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and the relation in which He stands to Christ shapes the
conception of His relation to men. It is in the character
of father that He approaches them and forgives their sins.
“The ground of justification or the forgiveness of sins is the
benevolent, gracious, compassionate determination of the will
of God to grant to sinners access to Himself.’”’ The whole
design of Christ’s work upon earth was to reveal and give
practical effect to the benevolent intent of God. No vicarious
satisfaction was either required or offered. Christ did not
and could not bear the penalty which properly attaches to
sinners, since the essential characteristic of that penalty is
the feeling of guilt and consequent separation from divine com-
munion. The worth of His sufferings lay in their revealing
the moral worth of His person, or the extent of His righteous
obedience in the fulfillment of His calling. In the discharge
of His calling He gave effect to God’s gracious purpose and
brought salvation to men. That calling was the founding of
a spiritual kingdom, a universal religious communion, in which
a common sense of sonship and brotherhood serves as a bond
of union. To be brought truly within the communion thus
instituted is to be made a recipient of justification. The love
of God toward the obedient head of the communion is fit-
tingly extended to the members.'
Among the theories under consideration the Socinian seems
to run with shallowest current. All of its positive content
is true enough, but the heart of the gospel truth does not
appear to be reached. In setting forth Christ as the mere
delegate of God it does not do justice to the intimacy of His
Bah a he la ep ee EN gah Mam be coe. baleen oD ah
1 Die Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Verséhnung.
390 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION.
relation with the Father. In like manner it fails to do justice
to the intimacy of His relation with men. He stands by them
too exclusively in the character of the teacher. The New
Testament conception of His saviourhood is not reproduced
in its proper potency.
The theories of Schleiermacher and Ritschl include points
of such value that we shall be glad to emphasize them in the
more constructive portion of our discussion. But in the
teaching of both of these distinguished men it is not difficult
to discern a source of acertain one-sidedness. The very pale
character which Schleiermacher gave to the divine attributes,
combined with his optimistic determinism, afforded a very
poor basis for stressing the claims of divine righteousness.
Equally those claims are disregarded by Ritschl’s assump-
tion that the whole ethical nature of God is absorbed in His
loving will. Neither the Bible nor a sound theism permit us
to make so little account of the righteousness side of the
divine nature. But if we amend the teaching of Schleier-
macher and Ritschl on this point we naturally find occasion
to correct their doctrine of atonement in the direction of
recognizing the objective element which they ignored in the
trend of their teaching.t To emphasize the demands of
divine righteousness is to make credible the conclusion that
the economy of grace was conditioned on the divine side.
Bushnell gave worthy expression to a great truth in his
exposition of the efficacy of divine self-sacrifice as a source
of saving influence upon the minds and hearts of men. But
still it was in obedience to the dictates of a just impression
of a deficit that he was led to look for a complement to his
primary theory. Unfortunately his choice of a complement
was not made with the highest discretion. The objective
1It may be noticed that both Schleiermacher and Ritschl, in granting that Christ’s
standing has a certain efficacy as respects the relation of believers to God, might seem
to affiliate with the idea of an objective value in His reconciling work. Judged by their
tenor, however, the teachings of both theologians are quite distinctly in line with the
purely subjective theories.
THE WORK OF CHRIST, 391
element which he introduced was conceived in a too anthro-
pomorphic fashion. A better complement to his original
subjective theory might have been found in a due weighing
of the import of that unequalled display of the divine right-
eousness which he himself associated with the life, suffering,
and death of Christ.
V.—THEORIES WHICH EXAGGERATE SOME PHASE OF
CuRIsT’s WORK OF ATONEMENT.
Along with theories whose fault is the neglect of important
aspects rather than an overdrawing of those which are recog-
nized as valid, we have others which are exposed to criticism
as exaggerating some phase pertaining to the subject of atone-
ment. Here belong the Swedenborgian theory, the so-called
mystical, the judicial, and the strict governmental. The
third may be described otherwise as the theory of penal
satisfaction.
In accordance with his conception that the peace and wel-
fare of the universe depend upon the conservation of a proper
balance between interacting components, Swedenborg con-
ceived that a principal end of Christ’s coming was the repress-
ing of infernal spirits, the confining of them to such limits
as might be consistent with a right equilibrium between the
heavens and the hells. The latter, he says, had grown up to
such a height as to crowd upon the domain of the former. In
order to fight against and repress the hells, the Lord was
necessarily incarnated, for otherwise He would have lacked
the means of an effective communication with them, just as
one soul cannot communicate with another except through
the medium of a body.1
The strangeness of this theory codrdinates it with the most
grotesque of the patristic representations respecting the rela-
1True Christian Religion, n. 114-125.
392 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION.
tion of the redemptive work to Satan.' It is justly subject to
criticism as giving an exaggerated and fanciful interpretation
of the agency of the Redeemer in destroying the works of the
devil, as slighting the close connection which the New Testa-
ment assumes between the work of Christ and the remission
of sins, and as allowing the physical to encroach upon the
domain of the ethical. No one whose religious thinking has
not come to be dominated by the physical analogies which
Swedenborg imported into the spiritual world will be inclined
to picture, as the central fact of Christ’s mission, a conflict
with infernal spirits through the medium of a corporeal in-
vestment.
The mystical theory, somewhat vague in itself, is the more
difficult to define because it has not been held as an exclusive
theory, and has been differently colored by the differing ad-
juncts with which it has been associated. It may be said,
however, that its emphatic point of view is the unity of the
Son of God with the race, which unity was established, or
at least brought to manifestation, through the incarnation.
Human nature in Christ, it is conceived, is not an isolated
private thing, but something central and fundamental to the
organism of humanity, so intimately related to the general
body of mankind that it is the medium of renewing life
thereto, and the standing which it acquires in the way of
obedience, suffering, and glorification accrues without any arbi-
trary imputation to the benefit of the general body. The
tenor of the theory is mirrored in the following extracts from
Thomas Erskine: “Christ came into Adam’s place. This is
1 The reference to the fathers here is not to be understood as giving any countenance
to the gross and amazingly persistent slander, that for a thousand years the Church knew
no other theory of the redemptive work than that which teaches the payment of a ransom
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THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION, OR THE
PRACTICAL REALIZATION OF THE
REDEMPTIVE PURPOSE.
CHAPTER I.
THE APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION BY THE INDI-
VIDUAL.
].— UNIVERSALITY OF THE OPPORTUNITY TO APPROPRIATE
THE SALVATION PROVIDED IN CHRIST.
Amonc the grounds for rejecting the judicial theory of the
atonement, mention was made of the fact that it rests on the
assumption of a limited scope in the purpose of grace and
an unconditional predestination of a portion of mankind to
eternal life. This assumption — which necessitates the con-
clusion that the non-elect never come within the possibility of
salvation — was described as thoroughly objectionable. What
we have to do in the present connection is to justify that
description. Our contention is for the universality of the
opportunity of salvation, as against an exclusive and uncon-
ditional choice of individuals to eternal life. The argument
will involve a reference to scriptural, historical, and rational
considerations.
It is not to be denied that the idea of election or predesti-
417
418 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
nation is awarded considerable prominence in the Scriptures.
It could not have been otherwise, if their pages were to reflect
the vast sweep of the divine agency necessarily operative in
founding and consummating the kingdom of righteousness.
As the working out of this supreme enterprise is immeasur-
ably above creaturely abilities, it would be a glaring incon-
gruity not to represent the far-reaching foresight and powerful
direction of God as fundamental to it all. In any reasonable
view His sovereignty, considered not indeed as arbitrariness,
but as wise authority, must be regarded as determining very
much according to its own behests. The existence of the
economy of grace is altogether by the choice of God, not of
men. The stages of that economy, from the first overtures
to sinners to their investment with the glory of a supernatural
destiny, are properly characterized as His choice. In the
adjustment of nations and individuals to the economy, His
agency is of vast consequence. Free will in man does not
annul the necessity of providential ordering in this matter.
To get His gracious purpose effectively before the contem-
plation of men, God must have bearers and interpreters of the
same. The fittest interpreters for a given time and place
need to be selected, and fitness for this vocation is not in-
dependent of foregoing discipline. Israel could never have
fulfilled its mission in bringing the divine testimony to the
nations without special training. Apart from the light shed
by suitable antecedents, the world would not have known
what to make of the gospel message as it fell from the lips of
Christ and the apostles. The likelihood of a right response
to that message on the part of a given individual is vastly
greater under one set of conditions than under another, since
different conditions afford very different degrees of motive
power, and motives must be admitted to be influential even if
it be denied that they are absolutely determining. The same
truth which finds one man receptive encounters a deaf ear in
another. The one believes readily ; the other cannot believe
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 419
at once, in the sense that he cannot instantly transport him-
self into the atmosphere of loving trust, his free will per-
chance only availing to take some initial step in the direction
of such trust, and needing special aids of divine grace and
providential ordering to lead it forward to the proper goal.
Thus the divine procedure has of necessity the appearance of
selection or predestination, and is such very largely in fact.
The conjunction of the prepared subject with the message of
grace, whatever else may contribute thereto, falls preéminently
under the category of divine ordering. But how is the divine
superintendence managed? Is it so managed as to secure
the fittest instruments for the greatest advance of the king-
dom of grace and salvation that is practicable in a world of
free agents? or is the sole care to bring into the divine house-
hold a certain number, unconditionally chosen, to the ever-
lasting neglect or exclusion of all others? The fault of the
Augustinian or Calvinistic predestinarian is, that he fastens
upon this ultra sense of predestination, and reads it into the
Scriptures. Not content with the majestic office which is
open to divine sovereignty in ordering the progress of the
dispensation toward the grandest attainable result, he will
have it that the absolute choice of God fixes the eternal des-
tiny of all souls.
If predestination in this sense is a scriptural idea we should
expect to find it first of all in Paul’s Epistles, the writings of
the New Testament which lay the maximum stress upon the
doctrine that salvation is God’s gift rather than man’s acquisi-
tion. Among Pauline sentences none exalt the sovereignty of
God in matters of grace more than those in the passage which
begins in the ninth and runs into the eleventh chapter of the
Epistle to the Romans. A divine choice is there portrayed
which is based upon no consideration of foregoing works ; a
sovereignty which makes of one, like the hardened Pharaoh,
a vessel of wrath, and of another a vessel of mercy ; a preroga-
tive in dealing with men which is even likened to that of the
420 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
potter over the clay. But it is to be noticed in the first place
that the apostle’s discourse was sharpened and intensified by
the character of the opponent whom he had in mind. He was
arguing against a party whose proud claim to exclusive privi-
lege needed to be beaten down into the dust. Hence, in his
vehement strain, he leaves aside for the moment all qualifying
considerations, and marshals into line the most striking in-
stances that he can select of an apparently unconditional choice
on the part of God. As is remarked by Bruce: ‘“ Had St.
Paul been in the mood to pursue an apologetic line of thought,
with a view to reconciling divine sovereignty with divine love
on the one hand, and with human responsibility on the other,
he could easily have found materials for the purpose even in
the history of God’s dealing with the king of Egypt. For
what was the natural tendency of the signs and wonders
wrought in the land of Ham? Surely to soften Pharaoh’s
heart, to the effect of letting Israel go. God hardened
Pharaoh’s heart by means fitted and intended to have the op-
posite effect. And the fact is so in all cases. The means of
hardening are ever means naturally fitted to soften and win.
The apostle knew this as well as we, but he was not in the
mood to indulge in such a strain of explanatory, conciliatory
remark. He was dealing with proud men who thought the
election of their fathers gave them a prescriptive right to divine
favor. Therefore, instead of softening down hard statements,
he goes on to make harder statements still ; representing God
as a potter and men as clay, out of which God can make such
vessels as He pleases, one to be a vessel of mercy, another to
be a vessel of destruction, to be dashed to pieces at the maker’s
will. As against human arrogance it is a legitimate represen-
tation, but as an exact complete statement of the relation be-
tween God and man it cannot of course be regarded. So
viewed, it would be simple fatalism.”’ }
1 St. Paul’s Conception of Christianity, pp. 313-315.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 421
In the second place, it is to be noticed that the divine choice
which Paul was portraying was not conceived as a choice of
individuals to eternal destinies, but rather as a choice of nations
and individuals to ministries and blessings, more or less honor-
able and extensive, in connection with the advancing kingdom
of truth and salvation. His discourse had no direct bearing
upon the technical traditional theory of election and reproba-
tion. The historical position of Israel as the chosen people
supplied him with his dominant point of view, and he wished
to show that the same God who had graciously called Israel
ought to be regarded as perfectly free to call the Gentiles also.
The divine prerogative for which he contended was far from
being that of selecting men unconditionally for the endless
pains of hell or the endless joys of heaven ; it was simply that
of adjusting diversely their relation to His unfolding dispensa-
tion upon earth.
In the third place it is to be noticed that, notwithstanding
the unqualified stress which the apostle placed upon God’s sov-
ereignty in the heat of his discourse, he nevertheless gave a
clear hint that a qualification must be supposed. Of that very
portion of Israel which he represents as hardened, cast off,
sundered from the source of spiritual blessing as a branch is
broken off from the parent stock —of this outcast and repro-
bate portion of Israel he says: “They also, if they continue
not in their unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to
graft them in again.’’! What is this but a clear intimation
that the apostle after all acknowledged that man’s free agency
counts for something in shaping the outcome?
Finally, it is to be noticed that the apostle, so far from
representing that God has an exclusive interest in the salva-
tion of certain selected individuals, gives place to the optimistic
expectation that even the rejection of unbelieving Israel will
be overruled for the widest possible extension of salvation
1 Rom. xi. 23.
28
422 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
both among Gentiles and Jews. “If the casting away of them
is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of
them be but life from the dead?...I would not, brethren,
have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own
conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until
the fullness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall
be saved.” ! Thus the picture of divine election with which
the apostle closes his most stalwart passage on divine sov-
ereignty is not that of a fast, hard, and perpetual division of men
into two classes, but rather of an election that is subordinated
to the greatest ultimate extension of the kingdom of grace that
is possible. To discard this picture, and to place the whole
stress upon an impassioned and rhetorical outburst, in which
Paul seeks to rebuke the inflated claim of those who thought
they had a special lien on God's favor because of ancestral con-
nections, is to do manifest injustice to the apostle’s thought ;
and this injustice is aggravated when his hard sayings are taken
out of their connection and made to refer to the eternal des-
tinies of men.
Two other passages of Paul are favorites with Calvinistic
predestinarians, namely, Romans viii. 28-30, and Eph. 1. 4-7.
Neither of these, however, is necessarily interpreted in the
interest of their special tenet. The former, designed to con-
sole and inspire suffering saints, is an elevated description of
how the purpose, grace, and might of God are engaged to
bear on the recipient of the divine calling from one stage to
another, until at length the state of glorification and perfect
conformity to the image of His Son has been reached. It
emphasizes the greatness and perfection of God’s agency in
the process of salvation, and apprises us that the heavenly
height is attainable, not because men have the ability to scale
that height, but because God has a complete scheme of gra-
cious workings for bringing them thereto. The aim of the
1 Rom. xi. 15, 25.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 423
apostle is to beget a comforting reliance upon the perfection
of that scheme. It is as if he had said: As surely as one
standing upon the earth is certain to be borne by its revolu-
tion from sunset to sunrise, so surely will one who stands
within the scheme of God’s gracious workings be borne
through the whole scale of spiritual progress from calling
to glorification. Here lies the whole stress of the represen-
tation. Paul does not say that any one is thrust into this
divine scheme, and kept there by an irresistible decree. Quite
as little does he say that any one is kept out by such a
decree. In other connections, as will be shown later, he
indicates that it is the unfeigned will of God that every one
should so respond to the gospel message as to gain a footing
within the scheme of salvation. His statement that those are
predestinated who are foreknown leaves room for the suppo-
sition that man’s agency, though utterly incompetent by itself
to reach the lofty result in prospect, is nevertheless a condi-
tioning factor in the attainment of the result. The placing
of foreknowledge before predestination is an Arminian collo-
cation of words; and there is no reason why an Arminian
should not view this passage with entire complacency. Even
if it be concluded that to “foreknow”’ means here to foreknow
in the favoring sense, nothing compels to the conclusion that
the favor must be regarded as arbitrarily fastening upon se-
lected individuals. A similar line of remark applies to Eph.
i. 4-7. If we emphasize at its worth the fact that the scheme
of man’s recovery in all its stages is the sovereign device of
God, that the grace contained therein is His free gift, and
that the preparation of individuals for a suitable response at a
given time to the gospel message is very largely the product
of providential ordering rather than of personal choice, we
give an adequate range to the foreordination which is men-
tioned in this passage. Nothing in the language employed
requires us to suppose that the apostle was thinking of an
absolutely unconditional foreordination to an eternal destiny.
424 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
The next group of passages which naturally comes under
review in connection with this theme is that contained in the
writings of John. In the sixth chapter of his Gospel the
statement is made several times that coming unto the Son is
by the gift and drawing of the Father. Doubtless a theolog-
ical imagination of a special type can discover in this repre-
sentation a token of unconditional election and _ irresistible
grace. But a sufficient meaning can be found short of such
an interpretation. As has been stated, free will, though a
real factor in determining the final result, is not to be regarded
as independent of a demand for a process ; and accordingly a
large scope can be given to a providential ordering and disci-
pline in preparing its subject for the right response to divine
overtures. Unless one be drawn on by this antecedent prepa-
ration, and be rendered plastic and receptive thereby, the
word of grace, though uttered by one speaking as never man
spoke, may have little chance of genuine acceptance. In this
sense the drawing of the Father must precede the coming to
the Son, and the coming to the Son is a token that the draw-
ing of the Father has been fully consummated. That men are
brought to final judgment without having been made the sub-
jects of such a drawing as might avail, and in the divine pur-
pose is meant to avail, for a saving union with the Son, is not
intimated in the Johannine writings. On the contrary, as
will be shown presently, these writings contain expressions
which distinctly imply that God’s seeking love goes out after
all men.
Several Johannine sentences emphasize strongly the affec-
tionate relation between Christ and his faithful followers ; but
there is small occasion to read into them the technical doctrine
of election. This applies to the parable of the good shepherd,
wherein a striking picture is given of the fidelity with which
Christ guards His own.! His declaration that His sheep shall
1 John x, 27-29.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 425
never be allowed to perish, if taken unqualifiedly, would indeed
render support to the doctrine of perseverance. Whether
this is the proper sense of the declaration, or not, need not be
determined here. The pertinent question is whether men are
brougat by an unconditional decree into the relation of true
discipleship, or that spiritual rapport with Christ wherein they
will obediently hear His voice. It is needless to say that the
passage gives no hint of such a decree. No more does it
hint that the safety of those outside the circle of believing
disciples is of no real concern to Christ. The predestinarian
who finds such a meaning here, or in the special prayer which
Christ offered for His disciples on the eve of His betrayal,!
must have forgotten the scene of His weeping over rebellious
Jerusalem, as well as the import of many sayings which be-
speak His world-embracing sympathy. It is in truth a shock-
ing perversion to take the words of lavish affection which He
spoke concerning His disciples as an index of an exclusive
love for a selected portion of the race. The nature which had
such a wealth of love as the words indicate could not be in-
different toward winning any man to loving fellowship. The
reason of the case corresponds with a record like that, fcr
example, in the fifteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel.
The few passages outside of the Pauline and the Johannine
writings that can be quoted for the predestinarian dogma with
any show of propriety” do not need for the most part to be
considered in detail, since they add nothing to the passages
already cited, and are explained on the same general principles.
The purpose of the parabolic veiling of truth, as set forth par-
ticularly in the strong language of Mark iv. 11, 12, need not
be thought to mean, at the most, anything more than Paul
saw in the temporary rejection of Israel. The words may be
considered as expressing the immediate, not the ultimate, aim ;
1 John xvii. 9. The same prayer, in xvii. 21, reaches out to the world.
2 Matt. xiii, 13-15, xxii. 14, xxiv. 22, 24; Mark iv. 11,12; Luke vill. 10; Acts
ail. 45; 1 Pets i. 1, 2.
426 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
the present withholding being indeed in a sense retributive,
but yet so far from involving a final sentence against the dull
hearers that the disciples were doubtless being trained to bear
to them a further message. A less strong significance may
of course be attached to this item, if the report in Mat-
thew (xiii. 12, 13) be taken as the standard, for in that, in
place of a word expressive of purpose (iva), we have a phrase
indicative of ground or occasion (da rotro érv). The verbal affilia-
tion of Acts xiii. 48 with predestinarianism is very incomplete
evidence for the technical Augustinian or Calvinistic tenet.
The language indicates, very likely, that the writer conceived
that the divine ordering was the preéminent factor in bring-
ing about the faith and salvation of the Gentiles who, in that
instance, believed. He was not ready to explain their salu-
tary conduct on purely human grounds. But does that import
that he did not make human self-determination any real factor
in the case? The proof is wanting that he had an absolute
decree in mind, or that he meant to say that those who did not
then and there believe were forever excluded from salvation.
It is simply incredible that he designed to affirm as much as
that. “We have beheld and bear
1 2 Cor. v. 15, 19. 8 Titus ii. 11. § ; John ii. 1, 2.
2 Tim. ii. 4-6. # John iii. 16, 17.
428 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour
of the world.”! “The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And
he that is athirst, let him come: he that will, let him take of
the water of life freely.” ? )
In the Epistle to the Hebrews Christ is represented ar
“tasting death for every man”’ ;® and through the New Tes-
tament there runs the general assumption that the gospel is to
be preached to all, and that every man is under positive obli-
gation believingly to accept for himself the. overtures of salva-
tion contained therein. Predestinarians do not deny the fact
that it is a part of the divine procedure to summon all men to
the exercise of that faith with which is connected the promise
of salvation. They are obliged, therefore, to admit that God
authorizes a universal offer and imposes a universal obligation
of acceptance, while yet He has made only a limited provision,
and has no wish or intention that all men should avail them-
selves of the gracious overtures. How do they explain and
justify this incongruity ? They cannot explain it, except by a
denial of their own premises. No human subtlety is adequate
to justify a picture of God which represents Him as holding a
universal offer in an outstretched hand, and keeping all the
time in the hand behind His back a sentence of nullification
against its universality. The self-contradiction in which
Hodge becomes entangled may be taken as an index of the
insuperable difficulty with which the predestinarian wrestles
at this point. On the one hand he says: “This general call
of the gospel is not inconsistent with the doctrine of predesti-
nation. All the call contains is true. The plan of salvation
is designed for all men. It is adapted to the condition of all.
It makes abundant provision for the salvation of all. The
promise of acceptance on the condition of faith is made to all.
And the motives and reasons which should constrain obedience
are brought to bear on every mind to which the call is sent.’’ 4
1 1 John iv, 14. 2 Rev. xxii. 17. 3 Heb. ii.
4 Systematic Theology, Pt. III. Chap. XIV. § 2.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 429
But on the other hand, he teaches explicitly that Christ died
for only a part of the race, that God designs to apply effectual
grace to only an elect portion, that this effectual grace works
regeneration in the mode of an omnipotent power, and that the
common grace which is given to men generally is not sufficient
to raise the spiritually dead, that is, to accomplish regenera-
tion.! Now, from this line of representation, it follows inevi-
tably that if all men are solicited to appropriate the benefits
of Christ’s death some must be solicited to take what has no
existence for them; and if all are exhorted to become truly
the children of God through conversion and regeneration, then
some must be urged to that for which there are no available
resources in the universe. In the face of such implications,
what truth or propriety is there in saying that the plan of sal-
vation is adapted to the condition of all? It has neither adap-
tation nor existence for a part of the race. If the positions
which are defended by Hodge through elaborate chapters are
true, the eternal plan of God as regards the non-elect is simply
a plan of non-salvation, not to say of damnation.
An artificial verbal advantage in scriptural interpretation
may be secured by those predestinarians who say that Christ
died for all, though God has no intention of applying the
benefits of His death to others than the subjects of His un-
conditional choice. But, as has been noticed already, such a
representation is self-cancelling. A purpose that Christ should
die for all, followed by such total indifference to some that
they are consigned to eternal perdition, although they could
be saved without any violence to their moral nature, as the
advocates of the theory are compelled by their own premises
to admit, is a palpable contradiction. A purpose that permits
such an outcome cannot be considered expressive of a divine
principle or disposition, and is utterly empty of reality.
XV. § 3.
430 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
that it lacks the sense of perspective. As the ultra sacerdo-
tal theory discards the warp and woof of the Bible in favor of
the most extreme meaning that can be put into a few rhetori-
cal sentences, so the dogma of unconditional election rests upon
an extreme interpretation of a few passages. The Bible asa
whole most certainly contemplates men as candidates for a real
history, and not simply as parts of a necessitated evolution.
If we consider the circumstances under which predestin-
arianism was born, we shall find considerable ground for a sus-
picion of onesidedness. It was foreign to the thought of the
first four centuries. Not a single Catholic writer of those
centuries was its advocate. It arose out of controversial heat,
and represented the reaction of an intense mind against an ex-
aggerated theory of human ability. Augustine, who was the
first to give it a place in patristic literature, did not hold it in
the earlier part of his theological career, as he has himself con-
fessed. He was led to its advocacy in the course of his impas-
sioned struggle against Pelagianism. It represents the revolt
of his mind from that superficial creed. It was the opposite
swing of the pendulum. Some approaches to it may indeed
have been made in the thinking of Augustine before the con-
test with Pelagianism: but it was the pressure of that contest
which urged him on to a distinct and uncompromising advo-
cacy of it.
A like ground of suspicion of onesidedness is afforded by
the circumstances under which the predestinarian dogma
gained a place in Protestant theology. The Reformers were
confronted by a stupendous scheme of legality, an overgrown
mechanism of ecclesiastical appliances, a complex system for
measuring, weighing, and portioning out merits. The most
ready expedient for sweeping aside all this trumpery, as it
seemed to them, was to recur to the Augustinian principle ;
that is, to disparage human merit, to rule it out of the cate-
gory of possible attainment before the divine tribunal, and to
rest all upon the sovereign determination of God. The bale-
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 431
ful extreme against which they were contending drove them,
in the first instance, to an extreme standpoint on the other
side. At least, a review of the conditions favors the opinion
that this may have been the case. And the after history
is rather confirmatory than otherwise of this opinion. The
Lutherans soon modified their original position. In the Re-
formed Church, on account of the masterful influence of
Calvin, rectification came more slowly. But at length a fruit-
ful reaction was inaugurated by the Arminians in Holland,
and each generation witnesses a relative loss of real faith in
Calvinistic predestinarianism. Such is the tenor of the his-
torical argument. It does not amount to proof; but it does
give a measure of credibility to the conclusion that the tech-
nical doctrine of predestination represents a one-sided develop-
ment.
Rational objections to this doctrine may be summed up in
its contrariety to both the justice and the love of God. It is
contrary to divine justice ; for, if men are born, as is assumed,
with a bent to sin, if regenerating grace is necessary to over-
come this evil bent, if this grace is denied to a certain portion
of the race, and if Christ did not die to bring it or any other
essential of eternal life to that portion, then to condemn them
for lack of repentance, of faith, or of any other requisite of
salvation, is an act that is wanting in all righteous consistency,
an exercise of sheer despotism. That which, to the individual,
is absolutely unavoidable cannot in justice be charged to his
account. An inability which comes by birth is just the same
to him as though it came by immediate creation, and can no
more be made a ground of responsibility in the former case
than in the latter. As well condemn Adam for the meanness
of the clay out of which his body was fashioned as to condemn
anyone for that which is purely a matter of inheritance from
Adam.! Accordingly, when the predestinarian says that in
i See the discussion of original sin, Part III. Chap. II. Sect. IX.
A432 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
the sight of God Adam’s sin involved all men in condemnation,
and that God was pleased to leave some in that condemnation,
while He graciously delivered others, he simply enlarges the
circuit through which the divine arbitrariness is supposed to
run. He does not make the arbitrariness one whit less than
it would appear in the declaration that God creates men with
a moral deficit, and then condemns them to eternal punish-
ment because of the deficit.
The modified Calvinism, which assumes a xaturad ability in
men, as distinguished from a mora/, to turn to holy choices,
in other words, to regenerate themselves, cannot be regarded
as satisfactorily evading the objection under consideration.
Not to mention the very poor warrant for the idea of self-
regeneration, and the suspicious character of an ability that is
never once exercised, this type of predestinarianism rather
secures the formal notion of justice in one particular, than
renders to justice its whole due as a divine disposition. If it
does not picture God as condemning men for the absolutely
impossible, it does represent Him as arbitrarily discriminat-
ing against some, in that He withholds from them influences
which He knows would certainly be effective for their salva-
tion, since He is able beyond all shadow of contingency to
save those whom He elects.
Nothing is more grievous in the predestinarian theory than
the way in which it shadows the love of God. Between love
as nature or disposition, and an arbitrary choice of its bene-
ficiaries, there is an irreconcilable antithesis. To assign to
love its direction by fiat is to displace the very notion of love,
and to put caprice in its stead. Suppose a father standing
upon the deck of a ship should see his children struggling in
the sea, in imminent peril of drowning. In the worth or
worthiness of the children there is no ground of discrimina-
tion. The father has ample means to save all, for a plenty of
life-preservers is immediately at hand. But instead of saving
all he casts means of rescue to only two out of four, thus leav-
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 433
ing half of his children to sink into the depths. Who would
ascribe parental love to such a father? His unnatural con-
duct denies the very conception, and leaves in view only mad
caprice and appalling eccentricity. It is not the nature of a
holy love to be subject to arbitrariness any more than it is
the nature of sunlight to fill only selected portions of an open
expanse.
Predestinarians are wont to descant on the special love of
God, as though a love which is entirely independent of the
relative worthiness of its objects, and passes by some to fasten
exclusively upon others, constitutes a pleasing mystery. How-
ever, a love of this kind belongs to a pathological condition.
It is quite possible to limited beings in whom feeling and
reason are not necessarily in true coérdination. But to im-
pute it to God, whose feeling never outruns His all-perfect
intelligence, is without any rational warrant. The differing
measures of His love must be supposed to correspond to the
differing realities of its objects. He is not liable to untruth
in His feeling any more than He is liable to error in His in-
tellectual perceptions.
It may be thought that the analogy of nature is rather in
line than otherwise with the predestinarian hypothesis, since
only a few out of many germs are favored with the proper con-
ditions of growth and maturity. But beings who are said to
have been created in the image of God, and who are capable
of being exalted to the plane of true spiritual sonship, are not
proper subjects for such an economy as belongs to the lower
forms of life. An analogy far more binding upon our thought
lies close at hand. As the earthly parent is not entitled to
think lightly of the welfare of any of his children, so it may
be concluded that He who is represented as the Father in
heaven does not indifferently or arbitrarily leave a part of the
race outside the possibility of salvation.
We conclude then that the evidence is decidedly on the side
of the universality of God’s gracious purpose, or that it belongs
434 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
to His plan to grant to all men a real opportunity to appropri-
ate the salvation provided in Christ.
IJ. — THe HumMaAn ConpDITIONS OF APPROPRIATION.
Among the conditions of the appropriation of salvation
there can be no doubt that faith holds the primacy in the New
Testament representation. It stands at the front in Paul's
discourses, being powerfully commended as the source of eman-
cipation from legal bondage, the means of vital connection with
the Redeemer, the instrument for laying hold upon all the
priceless gifts which God offers to men through His Son.} In
the writings of John, if not commended at equal length, it is
described in no less emphatic terms as a fundamental con-
dition of salvation? It is assigned, implicitly or explicitly, the
same fundamental position in numerous passages of other New
Testament books. The teaching of the Old Testament on
this subject lacks the definiteness and incisiveness of the New,
but, nevertheless, does not fail to emphasize strongly the office
of faith in relation to the attainment of divine blessings.*
While the primacy is given to faith among the conditions of
salvation, it is not to be overlooked that repentance receives
not a little stress ;° and also that obedience is very closely
associated with the appropriation of the benefits which are set
ees
1 Rom. i. 16, 17, iii. 21-31, iv., v. I, 2, ix. 30-32, x. 3-II, xi. 20, 23; Gal. ii. 16,
20, iii., v. 4-6; 1 Cor. i. 21; Eph. ii. 8, iii. 12, 17; Phil. iii. 9.
2 John i. 12, iii. 15, 18, 36, vi. 29, 47, vii. 39, xx. 29; 1 John iii. 23, v. 4, 5, 10.
8 Matt. xviii. 3-6, xxi. 22, 32; Mark i. 15, x. 15, xi. 24; Luke viii. 11, 12; Acts
xith. 39, XV.'9, vl, 315 Fleb, iv. 2,3, x30 xt,.6; 1. Pet./1.'5,'6.
* Gen, xv..6;. Num. xx. 123) Dewt.'1.; 32-36% Ps... xiii.’ 5, ixxit.4;) 65 eee
XXXVll. 3-7, xl. 4, lv. 22, Ixxviii. 22, Ixxxiv. 12; Prov. iii. 5, xvi. 3; Jer. xvii. 5-8;
Isa. vil. 9, X. 20, xii. 2, XXxVi. 3, 4, Xxvili. 16, xxx. 15, 18, xl. 31, xliii. 10, xlv. 24,
25, tla Fei, Ae Se
§ Matt. iv. 17; Mark i. 15; Luke v. 32, av. 7, 10, 18-21, xviii. 13, 14, 17, xxiv.
47; Acts ii. 38, iii. 19. Compare Ps. xxxiv. v8; Isa. lv. 7, lvii. 15.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 435
before men in the gospel. Somewhat of the same association
is given to confession ;* but there is little occasion to award
it a distinct place, since it falls under repentance, when used
to denote a heartfelt acknowledgement of sins before God, and
under obedience, or the practical fulfillment of the gospel code,
when used to signify an open and loyal declaration of faith in
Christ and of adherence tc Him in the bonds of discipleship.
As for the special injunction in the Epistle of James (v. 16),
it implies that a mutual confession of faults among brethren
may be helpful, as affording a ground of mutual sympathy and
of earnest prayer in each other’s behalf. It points accordingly
rather to a desirable means of joint edification and brotherly
ministering than to a necessary condition of the individual’s
acceptance before God. Still less is it needful to assign a dis-
tinct place to hope,’ since hope is but an aspect of faith, the
animated and trustful glance of the soul toward some promised
good. In one sense love may be regarded as the maximum
condition of salvation, since it names the highest obligation
that is imposed upon the human spirit. But love is the
highest good as well as the highest obligation, and so is in a
large sense identical with salvation. All exercise of love in the
form of complacency is pure blessedness. On account of this re-
lation of love to the consummating stage of personal attainment
and fruition, a motive is supplied, in enumerating the conditions
of salvation, to place the maximum stress upon those activ-
ities which prepare the ground for the upspringing of love. Still,
it cannot be completely shut out from the character of a condi-
tion, since every spiritual value grows by use, and one measure
of love provides for a larger, evenas Christ declared, “Whosoever
hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance.” #
1 Matt. vii. 21-27, x. 38, 39, xvi. 24, 25, xxv. 14-46; Mark viii. 34, 35, x. 21;
Luke ix. 23, 24, xiv. 27; John viii. 31, 32, 51, xiv. 23, 24, xv. 10; 1 John ii. 3-6;
James i. 21, 27, ii. 14-26.
21 Johni. 9; Matt. x. 32; Luke xii. 8; Rom. x. 9, 10; 1 John iv. 15.
8 Rom. viii. 24. # Matt. xiii. 12.
436 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
We emphasize then repentance and obedience as the second-
ary conditions of salvation. That both are secondary to faith
is sufficiently evident. Repentance, as including sorrow for
the imperfection of past conduct and character and a purpose
of amendment, presupposes and is grounded in faith. The
feeling of sorrow over the soiled and imperfect implies the
apprehension of a pure and obligatory ideal, and the purpose
to turn from the former implies some measure of inward assent
to the latter. But to speak of the apprehension of an obliga-
tory ideal, joined with a measure of inward assent thereto, is to
speak of faith. Thus it appears that faith is the more funda-
mental, the logical antecedent of repentance. It is true that
a different view might be suggested by this saying of Christ :
« John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye be-
lieved him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed
him ; and ye, when ye saw it, did not even repent yourselves
afterward that ye might believe him.’’! These words, how-
ever, though they may imply a close connection between a
penitent self-abasement and faith of an effective sort, cannot
be regarded as teaching a logical antecedence of repentance in
general to faith, The meaning is that the Pharisees needed
to come down to the plane of a genuine and penitent humility
before they could reach the goal of a true faith, not that an
incipient faith could be dispensed with in bringing them down
to that plane. The position of faith is basal; but since all
spiritual activities are closely interwoven, or mutually con-
ditioning, faith cannot be largely operative in a subject of
redemption apart from the disposition which is denoted by
repentance. The man who closes his eyes to the demerits
of his sins is not in condition to look with lively faith to Him
who came to take away his sins. [If it is true that the contem.
plation of the atoning Saviour is needed to produce a prope
consciousness of sin, a vital sense of personal unworthiness,
Matt. xxi. 32.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 437
it is also true that a penitent recognition of sin is an incentive
to an earnest contemplation.
A like order of considerations applies to obedience, viewed
as a practical fulfillment of evangelical precepts. Faith is the
logical antecedent of obedience. It is itself a kind of funda:
mental inward obedience, as being the act and the attitude
of self-surrender to a superior object of trust and obligation.
As such it prepares the way for the fulfillment in detail of
divine precepts. But, while arising from faith, obedience re-
acts upon its source. Just as energy ox will needs for its
development, besides the general choice of an end, a pursuit
of that end through all the difficulties and obstacles which
are met in close contact with men and nature, so faith needs
to go out into the details of righteous conduct to reach the
proper measure of strength and robustness.
Good works may be regarded as but another name for obedi-
ence, as the term is here employed. From what has been said
it follows that they cannot be considered codrdinate with faith
in the ground of salvation. Important vehicles they are for
the expression of faith and for its development through a con-
genial exercise ; but as specific acts can never be placed in the
moral scale on a parity with the inner disposition which is their
vital source, so works can never be codrdinate with faith in the
ground of divine acceptance. The all-penetrating glance of
God sees the faith, which is the motive power and guarantee
of right works, the moment it arises. God has the right man,
the man right at heart, in that moment. To assume, then,
that He cannot accept him till after the performance of a defi-
nite quantum of works, is to assume that God is not content
with the right man, and holds him off from favor until a pre-
scribed appendage has been added —a notion that can pass
only with those who have lost the sense for reality, and have
transformed God into.a narrow and technical being. The
man who has the right inner disposition is already a son
of God. He may need development in the character which
29
438 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
belongs to this sacred relation; but he is within the circle of
sonship. On the other hand, the man who is destitute of
this disposition does not get into that circle by any amount
of performances which fall short of ethical self-surrender.
His performances may indeed become an obstacle to his ad-
mission, in so far as they minister to a conceit of self-right-
eousness. Works that are good and wholesome in themselves,
not to mention the eccentric expedients of an ambitious asceti-
cism, may have this result through the perverting influence
of a false confidence in them.
Since faith takes the initiative and repentance and evangeli-
cal obedience stand in a dependent relation thereto, it is evi-
dently permissible in general references to the subject to
speak of faith as the condition of salvation. It is the sole con-
dition in the sense that nothing else is coordinate with itself.
But since repentance and evangelical obedience are closely
connected with faith, and react upon it for its perfecting, if
we look beyond the mere beginning, the initial act of union
with God, these two may fitly be mentioned as secondary con-
ditions of salvation. They must be interwoven with faith in
the truly progressive spiritual life, and only such a life is secure
against reversion into spiritual barrenness.
The nature of faith has been intimated in the foregoing
discussion of its primacy among the conditions of salvation.
In its religious use the term denotes not merely intellectual
assent, but also self-committal or trust. It signifies an act, or
better, an attitude, of trustful self-committal to an object with
which, to a greater or less degree, a superior or ideal character
is associated. The proper ideal, which constitutes the ulti-
mate object of faith, is a Divine Person. It is not any collec-
tion of sayings or instructions. These may direct thought to
a Divine Person and assist reason and imagination to frame a
mental picture of Him. But in the nature of the case they
can be only a secondary object of faith. When a living faith
has arisen in a Divine Person, then, by necessary consequence,
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 439
there follows reliance upon that which has rational warrant
for being regarded as representative of His thought or good-
pleasure. Faith in the Bible can be, in advance of trust in
the God who is back of the Bible, only superficial and conven-
tional. The greater here includes the less. Hearty reliance
upon God first prepares for genuine repose upon His oracles.
Through trustful self-surrender to a personal will we are made
ready to rely upon everything which is approved to us as an
authentic manifestation of that will.
In its general theistic sense, faith is an ethical bearing
toward the Supreme Being, an attitude toward Him of trust-
ful self-committal or self-surrender. In its specifically Chris-
tian sense it is an attitude of trust and self-surrender toward
God as revealed in Jesus Christ. Viewed as to its essential
character, faith is the same in the one relation as in the other.
But since the revelation in Christ brings God peculiarly near,
and gives the consummate expression of His grace and love,
it naturally solicits to the largest, deepest, and most tender
reliance upon God. In spiritual potency, therefore, the specif-
ically Christian faith must be regarded as outranking all
other.
Is faith in this sense necessary to salvation? Not strictly,
since otherwise the Old Testament saints must have fallen
short of being saved. The specifically Christian faith is
doubtless incumbent upon those who have the opportunity
to exercise it, and is universally a requisite for saved men, in
the sense that sooner or later everyone of them must confess
the mediatorial position and lordship of Jesus Christ. Buta
trustful self-surrender to the highest ideal that is known is not
a bad pledge of the same kind of a surrender to the highest
ideal in fact, when that shall become known. The one who
makes the former surrender is on the right path, and, if he
does not turn back, will undoubtedly emerge into the full light
and liberty of the children of God. The theory which shuts
out the heathen ex masse from the possibility of salvation,
440 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
because of their lack of faith in its specifically Christian chas-
acter, reflects too seriously on the equity and mercy of God
to be tolerated for a moment.
In defining faith as an ethical bearing, or an attitude of
trustful self-surrender, in relation to a Divine Person, we have
not used the terms employed in the one formal definition which
is given in the Scriptures. . The difference, however, is not in
the line of contrariety but only of compass. The definition
in Heb. xi. 1 is restricted to a particular aspect of faith,
namely, the grasp which it has upon a promised good, or a
reality which is testified to rather than seen. [rom this point
of view it may be described as “a firm confidence in regard to
that which is hoped for, a being convinced of things which are
invisible.” Evidently back of this confidence in promise or
testimony must be the confiding attitude toward the Divine
Person who promises or testifies.
From the nature of faith it follows that it stands in a
friendly relation with knowledge, rather than in sharp con-
trast. Some degree of knowledge is necessary to the exis-
tence of faith, and increase of knowledge furnishes a favorable
ground for an increase of faith, since God is an ideal that will
stand investigation, and increasing knowledge of Him tends to
intensify the spirit of trustful self-surrender. On the other
hand, faith is a medium of inward experience, and so of re-
ligious knowledge: Thus the two work together for mutual
advancement. Accordingly an eminent representative of
Roman Catholic theology must be regarded as greatly distort-
ing the true notion of faith, when he says that it is simply
assent of mind to whatever God proposes to us as an object
of belief, whether it is understood by us or not, and is better
defined by ignorance than by knowledge.! This is little short
of caricature. The truth is, faith denotes a fundamental bear-
ing of the moral personality toward God, a trustful self-sur-
1 Bellarmin, De Justif., Lib. i. Chap. 5, 7-
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 441
render of a human to a Divine Person, rather than an assent to
enigmas, and is in intimate association with knowledge.
III. — SALVATION IN ITS OBJECTIVE ASPECT, OR JUSTIFI-
CATION WITH Its ACCOMPANIMENT OF ADOPTION AND
HEIRSHIP.
From a consideration of the instrumentality of faith we
naturally pass at once to an analysis of the idea of salvation,
or the benefit which faith appropriates. In an analysis of this
kind the distinction which first comes to view is that between
an objective and a subjective aspect. The former is expressed
preéminently by the term justification, with which may also
be associated adoption and heirship.
In the New Testament the Pauline writings are more largely
and directly occupied with the theme of justification than are
any others. It is fitting, then, to begin with Paul’s conception
of justification, and later to note how far other New Testa-
ment references are in line with that conception.
It was the verdict of early Protestant theology that Paul
used the word justification (8txatwors, dixacodv) in the objective
or judicial sense, denoting thereby not the inner quality of its
subject but his standing with God as being freed from condem-
nation. That this verdict was the true one is very largely the
conclusion of free scholarship in the present, that is, of scholar-
ship which is not under the constraint of an inflexible ecclesi-
astical authority. It may be accepted as representing the
actual usage of the apostle, provided the intimate association
between the objective and subjective phase of salvation which
subsisted in his thought is not overlooked. This interpreta-
tion rests upon no technical etymological ground, but is in-
volved in the texture of the Pauline argument.
In the first place, the objective sense is implied by the
Pauline sentences respecting the impossibility of justification
442 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
by the works of the law, sentences which, taken in the aggre-
gate, indicate that justification in this way is impossible simply
because the law will always condemn men on the score of an
imperfect fulfillment of its precepts. The failure of the legal
method to bring justification is thus identified with the con-
demnation or curse of the law.!_ But if lack of justification is
made to signify condemnation, it is quite clear that justification
is designed to signify an approving sentence on the part of God,
or a standing in His favor.
In the second place, evidence that Paul attached an objective
sense to the term is found_in sentences which place justifica-
tion in direct antithesis with condemnation. ‘ Being, therefore
justified by faith let us have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ.’ “ Not as through one that sinned, so also is
the free gift : for the judgment came of one unto condemnation,
but the free gift came of many trespasses unto justification.” 8
“Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is
God that justifieth ; who is he that shall condemn ? It is Christ
Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead,
who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession
for us.” 4
In the third place, Paul’s use of the term “reckon” or
“impute ’’ (Aoyiozac) in connections where justification was the
theme of discussion implies that he attached to justification
the judicial or objective meaning. Here belong passages of
such unequivocal sense as these: “ What saith the Scripture ?
And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him
for righteousness. Now to him that worketh, the reward is
not reckoned as of grace, but as of debt. But to him that
worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is reckoned for righteousness. Even as David also
pronounceth blessing upon the man, unto whom God reckoneth
1 Compare Rom. iii. 20 and Gal ii. 16 with Gal. iii. 10, 11.
2 Rom. v. I. 3 Rom. v. 16. 4 Rom. viii. 33, 34.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 443
righteousness apart from works, saying, Blessed are they
whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin.” !
“Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was
reckoned unto him; but for our sake also, unto whom it shall
be reckoned, who believe on Him that raised Jesus our Lord
from the dead.” ? ‘Even as Abraham believed God and it
was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Know then that
they which be of faith, the same are the sons of Abraham.’’?
Coinciding with the evidence for the objective sense which
is furnished in the tenor of Paul’s representations is the fact
that preceding and contemporary Jewish usage was accommo-
dated to that sense. In the Septuagint, dixatv is employed
generally, not to say exclusively, in the objective significance.
It has this significance also in the pseudepigraphic writings,
such as the Psalms of Solomon, Fourth Ezra, and the Apoc-
alypse of Baruch.*
A natural association with justification belongs to Paul’s ex-
pression, “the righteousness of God,” in so far as it is used
by him to indicate a righteousness antithetical to that of the
law and graciously bestowed upon man.°® In its fundamental
idea this righteousness seems to denote an approved standing
with God. It is God’s righteousness in the sense that He is
its author, the source whence comes the sentence which takes
a man out from a state of condemnation and consequent
spiritual deprivation. It is made man’s righteousness in the
sense that by his faith he is set in the relation of an approved
child of God, and given a title to all the benefits which belong
with that relation.®
As respects the attainment of justification, Paul leaves no
1 Rom. iv. 3-8. 8 Gal. iii. 6, 7.
2 Rom. iv. 23, 24. 4 Sanday, Comm. on Romans, p. 31.
5 See Rom. i. 17, iii. 21, 22; x. 3; 2 Cor. v. 21; Phil. iii. 9.
6 Compare Pfleiderer, Das Urchristenthum, pp. 251, 252; Holtzmann, Neutest.
Theol. II. 126-130; Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament, pp. 420, 425.
A44 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
doubt as to the preéminent, we may say exclusive, instrumen-
tality of faith. The passages already referred to furnish com-
plete proof that he allowed nothing to be codrdinate with faith
in this matter. As for works, they are excluded from the
ground of justification by the whole tenor of his argument, as
well as by such sentences as these: ‘“‘ Now apart from the law
a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed
by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God
through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe. ...
We reckon, therefore, that a man is justified by faith apart
from the works of the law.’’! By the law in such connections
Paul evidently understood the whole content of the ethical code
as well as of the ceremonial. His declarations, therefore,
amount to an absolute denial of the possibility of justification
by works on the part of man as he is actually conditioned.
Excluding works in this decisive fashion from the ground
of justification, Paul evidently did not think of faith as a kind
of inner work of such peculiar value as to merit justification.
On the contrary, he conceived of justification by faith as dis-
tinctly antithetical to justification on the score of merits. He
viewed it as the method of grace, the way in which God’s free
gift was imparted, and so describes it when he speaks of “ be-
ing justified freely by His grace through the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus.’’* In his thought faith was not so much
the meritorious or procuring cause of justification as a con-
dition, clemently and graciously appointed by God, of receiv-
ing the pardon and sonship which are made available unto men
through the redemptive economy.
Still it 1s not necessary to assume that Paul ignored or
lightly rated the religious worth of faith. He could conceive
with perfect consistency both that faith holds a high place in
the scale of religious dispositions, and that no disposition of
which a sinful man is capable can earn the priceless treasure
1 Rom. iii. 21, 22, 28. Compare Gal. ii. 16. 2 Rom. iii. 24.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION, 445
of acceptance with God and heirship to eternal life. In fact,
faith in the sense of the apostle is a very vital thing, a poten-
tiality of righteousness, if not in its own virtue, at least in
virtue of its intrinsic connections. It is viewed as uniting its
subject so intimately with the atoning Saviour that the experi-
ence of the latter in suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection be-
comes in a measure the experience of the former. It brings
into a relation where the old life of sin is an utter anomaly.
«We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein ?” }
While apparently ignoring the pathway of legal requirement,
and turning from it to repose on the free grace of God, faith
after all enthrones the law by planting a new principle of obedi-
ence in the heart. “Do we then make the law of none effect
through faith? God forbid; nay, we establish the law.” ?
Though strongly emphasizing the free grace of God in justi-
fication, Paul was not so grudging of compliment to faith but
that he could speak of it as being imputed for righteousness,
that is, in God’s generous and compassionate economy. Herein
he stands in contrast with the Westminster divines, who, prob-
ably with the view of censuring an Arminian representation,
went in the face of Paul’s phraseology by asserting that faith
is not imputed as righteousness to those who believe in Christ.®
In their view the true statement is that the righteousness of
Christ is imputed. But Paul never speaks of this kind of im-
putation, and it is doubtful if he affords a proper ground for
inferring it. “The representation,’ says Weiss, “that God
imputes to man the righteousness of Christ is not Pauline.” *
Enough is conceded to the notion of imputation when it is
granted that, within the economy of grace founded through
the atoning work of Christ, faith, as self-surrendering trust in
the Redeemer, is compassionately allowed to introduce to the
1 Rom. vi. 2. 2 Rom. iii. 31. 8 Confession, Chap. XI.
4 Bib. Theol. des Neuen Testaments, § 82, b. Note 3. Compare Bruce, St.
Paul’s Conception of Christianity, pp. 117-153.
446 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
benefits of that economy, that is, to full pardon and to filial
communion with God.
The above exposition of Paul’s theory amounts to a criticism
of the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification. Besides in-
cluding under the term justification the sanctification which
in the usage characteristic of Paul holds simply the place of
an inseparable accompaniment, the Roman Catholic theory is
un-Pauline in the following particulars: (1) It exalts the effi-
cacy and necessity of the sacraments, and especially of the
sacrament of baptism in the attainment of justification. The
apostle makes no reference to baptism in his whole discussion
of the subject, except for an illustrative purpose, or in the
same way that he alludes to the crucifixion, using the one as
well as the other to symbolize the great transition through
which one passes when he is united in faith to Christ. On
the contrary, Bellarmin says: “The Catholic faith does not
allow the grace of justification to be immediately apprehended
by faith alone and applied to men, but wills that the sacraments
also be necessarily required to this end, so that if faith exists
in any one, though it be in the highest degree, it will not
nevertheless justify unless the sacrament is received in fact
or in desire.”’! In this Bellarmin but states a necessary
inference from the authoritative decisions of the Council of
Trent. (2) The Roman Catholic theory stands in contrast
with the Pauline, not only in the prominence which it gives
to the sacraments in the justifying process, but also in gen-
eral declarations of the inadequacy of faith for justification.
While Paul pictures faith as the open door to justification,
the Tridentine doctors declare that the door of faith is not
wide enough by itself to admit anyone, thus showing that
either their conception of faith or their notion of its office
was un-Pauline. (3) In the Roman Catholic theory good
works are described as means of an increase of justification,
} De Sacramentis, Lib. i. Cap. 22.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 447
and declared to merit, when performed by one in a state of
grace, the highest benefits, not excepting eternal life. Paul
knows nothing of this piecemeal progressive justification on
the basis of works. The progress which he contemplates is
that of one who has entered by faith into the consciousness
of sonship, and who, instead of laboring to earn justification,
lives out the effective spiritual impulses which have come to
him in justification. (4) The Roman Catholic theory excludes
the notion of a full pardon, and assumes that satisfaction must
be rendered, either in this life or in purgatory, for every
mortal sin committed after baptism, unless perchance an in-
dulgence, the offspring of papal discretion, comes in to cancel
the satisfaction due. It is not too much to say that this at-
tachment of a clog to a forgiven and reconciled child of God
isin glaring contrast to the tone of Paul’s teaching, and could
have been viewed by him only with disgust.
It may be granted that the wide contrast between the
Roman Catholic theory and the Pauline is due in part to
the different meaning and compass which they assign re-
spectively to the term justification. But, after all due allow-
ance has been made on this score, it must be admitted that
the Roman Catholic theory brings in much of the legalism
against which Paul urged his vehement polemic. Taken in
the sum total of its specifications, it is to be described as
sacerdotal and legal rather than evangelical; and its ten-
dency is rather to create a consciousness of connection with a
mechanism of divine-human appliances than that joyful con-
sciousness of sonship which Paul conceived to spring directly
out of justifying faith.
The scope and meaning assigned by Paul to faith imply
that justification ensues as the result of a personal transaction
with God. There is indeed a universal phase in the scheme
of reconciliation. By the fact that the economy of grace is
provided and published God is exhibited as reconciled to men
in the sense that He has purposes of mercy rather than of
448 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
wrath toward them. But while the existence of the economy
presents God in this general attitude, it does not banish the
consideration that the economy may rather increase the con-
demnation of the individual than secure his actual reconcilia-
tion unless he fulfills the conditions which it contemplates.
The fulfillment of these conditions is as distinctly individual
and personal as any act can be. So Paul assumes it to be
again and again. Ritschl’s theory that justification is the prop-
erty of the religious brotherhood or communion, as the recip-
ient of the revelation of God in Christ, and that the individual
partakes of justification in virtue of his inclusion in the
communion, finds no support in the apostle’s language. He
assumes that Abraham was justified as an individual when he
believed, and that his experience may be taken as a pattern
in essential particulars of the way that each may hope to be
justified! He says, “Christ is the end of the law unto right-
eousness to every one that believeth ;” and he follows up the
declaration with this description of a thoroughly personal trans-
action, “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness ;
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” He
makes justification synchronous with an inner renovation, as
though the same faith which procures the sentence of forgive-
ness must by its very nature bring into transforming relation
with Christ, and thus indicates that in his thought justification
was distinctly identified with the experience of believers in
their individual capacity.?
Paul makes the objective ground of justification the atoning
work of Christ which came to its culminating expression in
His death. A very clear statement of this position is con-
tained in Rom. ili. 24, 25; and it may be said to be woven
into the texture of the Pauline Epistles.t It appears therefore
1 Rom. v.; Gal. iii. 6, 7. 2 Rom. x. 4, Io.
3 Rom. viii. 1, 2; 1 Cor. vi. 11; Gal. ii. 15-20.
4 Rom. v. 6-8, 18, 109, viii. 3; 1 Cor. xv. 3; 2 Cor. v. 14,15, 21; Gal. iii.
13; Eph. 1. 7, v.; Col. i. 13,14; 1 Thess. v. 9, 10; 1 Tim. ii: 5, 6,
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 449
aside from the general current of the apostle’s thought when
he specifies a distinct connection between the resurrection of
Christ and justification.’ Perhaps his meaning in this repre-
sentation was that the resurrection conditioned justification as
affording a necessary ground of faith in the atoning work
of Christ as a whole. So many commentators infer. Says
Meyer: “The resurrection of the sacrificed One was required
to produce in man the faith through which alone the objective
fact of the atoning offering of Jesus could have the effect of
justification subjectively, because Christ is the ‘ propitiation
through faith.’ Without His resurrection therefore the aton-
ing work of His death would have remained without subjective
appropriation.” Whatever may have been the precise thought
of Paul in this connection, it savors of arbitrariness to take
an infrequent representation, instead of one that enters into
the very framework of his exposition of the Christian system,
as supplying adequate data for determining his doctrine of
justification.
If we pass from the Pauline writings to other portions of
the New Testament, we discover no such distinct elaboration
of the doctrine of justification as that which the apostle to the
Gentiles has furnished; nevertheless the main elements of his
theory are not sought in vain. James, it must be confessed,
in his recorded views falls short of Paul’s teaching. His main
contention that a faith is dead which does not issue into works
of righteousness is Pauline enough: but he is not at pains to
closely define the function of works, and as a matter of fact
leaves one free to assume that they are codrdinate with faith
in the ground or condition of justification — an assumption
which Paul’s theory does not tolerate. By supposing a differ-
ent use of terms on the part of the two writers much can be
done to modify the apparent contrast between their respective
teachings; a deduction, however, of the characteristic doctrine
1 Rom, iv. 25, x. 9.
*s
450 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
of Paul from the language of James is quite out of the ques-
tion. At least, it is not to be deduced from that paragraph
in which the latter treats directly of justification! A nearer
approach to the Pauline platform appears in those sentences
of his which emphasize the liberality of God, the descent of
every good and perfect gift from Him, and the necessity of
faith in effectively asking for these gifts.”
In the spirit and tenor of Christ’s teachings, as recorded in
the Gospels, there are very distinct anticipations of Paul’s doc-
trine. The core of that doctrine is contained in the parable
of the Pharisee and the publican, only the parable puts the
truth in a more popular form and with the coloring belonging
toa Jewish rather than toa specifically Christian environment.
Before the truth could be set forth in its distinctively Christian
form, it was necessary that the full significance of Christ’s
mediatorial work should be in view. Naturally enough, then,
Paul’s terminology is wanting ; his idea, however, that justifi-
cation is God’s gift to man’s lowliness and faith, rather than
wages granted in return for his performances, is clearly mani-
fest in the parable. In the same line are declarations that
whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little
child shall not enter therein.* A Pauline view is also antici-
pated in sentences which represent the life in union with
Christ as rather a life of freedom and sonship than of servi-
tude.® More directly in terms, though scarcely more truly in
fact, Paul’s doctrine is anticipated in passages which represent
faith upon the Son as the medium of eternal life, or make un-
belief the ground of condemnation, This point of view is more
or less clearly discernible in various Epistles, as well as in the
recorded discourses of Christ.®
1 James ii. 14-26. 2 James i. 5, 6, 17. 3 Luke xviii. 9-17.
4 Matt. xviii. 3, 4; Mark x. 15; Luke xviii. 17.
5 John viii. 36, 37, xv. 15.
6 John iii. 15, 18, 36, vi. 29, 47; 1 John v. 10; 1 Pet. i. 8,9; Heb. iv. 2, 3,
230,
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 451!
If Paul’s theory is to be described as agreeable in its essence
to New Testament thought, it must also be characterized as
consistent with sound philosophy. It is certainly not open
to the charge of being artificial or arbitrary. Supposing an
economy of grace, self-surrendering faith or trust in the Divine
Person who represents the economy is the rational requirement
for approval. A faith of this kind is intrinsically a pledge and
potency of a new life, such as it is worthy of God’s wisdom
and generosity to accept, and to crown with the bestowal of a
consciousness of acceptance; since true development in the
life of divine love and communion must proceed on the basis
of a filial and not of a servile consciousness.
It may be admitted that, if Paul had had less occasion to
clarify the condition of entering into the life of justification,
and had been able to devote more specific attention to growth
in that life, he might have given somewhat greater prominence
to the secondary conditions of salvation, namely, repentance
and evangelical obedience. But, on the other hand, it must
be granted that these secondary conditions can be healthfully
fulfilled only as the great Pauline principle of faith is dominant.
Divorced from that principle they lead inevitably toa round of
ascetic and Pharisaic observances, a legality incompatible with
largeness and depth of spiritual life. Doubtless the doctrine
of justification by faith needs to be guarded against being
made a cover for a light estimate of practical activity. But
in its proper character, as has been well said, “It is the charter
of Christian liberty for all time; of emancipation from legalism
with its treadmill service, and fear and gloom and uncertainty ;
from laborious self-salvation, whether by religious ceremonial or
by orthodox opinions, or by the magic power of sacraments.” }
As has been stated, adoption belongs with justification in
the objective phase of salvation. It has indeed an intimate
association with regeneration, since being born of the Spirit is
1 Bruce, St. Paul’s Conception of Christianity, p. 148.
452 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
the needful interior ground of spiritual sonship.1 But sonship
may be regarded as denoting anew relation as well asa new
character, and the former aspect is expressed by adoption.
The term is significant of an inseparable accompaniment of jus-
tification. Perhaps it would be better to say that it describes
justification itself from a particular point of view. Nothing
but sin alienates from the true filial relation with God. It
follows, then, that when sin is pardoned there is immediate
instatement in that relation, and that the awakening of the
filial consciousness becomes at once appropriate. Paul was
but illustrating the intrinsic connections of the subject, when
his discourse on justification ran into a fervid inculcation of
the idea of adoption, or sonship, and its inward attestation.”
It is no doubt a biblical conception that men universally
are in a sense children of God. This conception is implicit
in the thought of the divine fatherhood which encompasses,
like a warm and radiant firmament, the discourses of Jesus.
A passing reference to the same is contained in Paul’s address
on Mars’ hill. Adoption, therefore, is not significant of a
transition from mere creaturehood to sonship. It signifies
rather a transition from a standing, in which the high privi-
leges of sonship are put in abeyance by interruption of
communion with God, to a standing in which they are appro-
priately made available for actual enjoyment. It is God’s
recognition of the privilege of one, who is no longer an alien
in spirit, to be treated as a son.
An element in the practical value of the doctrine of sonship
toward God is the basis which it supplies for a high concep-
tion of human brotherhood. ‘This was not overlooked by the
New Testament writers. John argued that he who is begotten
of the God of love must love his brother.4- And Paul conceived
that all artificial distinctions and barriers between men dis-
A Jonna. 12713: 2 Rom. viii. 1-17; Gal. iii. 26-29, iv. I-7.
3 Acts xvii. 28, 29. 41 John iv. 7~12.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 453
appear before the common and lofty privilege of sonship.
«Ye are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ... .
There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither
bond or free, there can be no male and female: for ye are all
one in Christ Jesus.” }
That the children of God are heirs of an incorruptible in-
heritance is everywhere assumed in the New Testament. The
reason of the case admits of nothing less. Heirship must go
with sonship, and heirship to something commensurate with
the divine riches. The description of the inheritance, though
compassed in brief lines by the sacred writers, leaves nothing
out which hope or aspiration could wish to have included.?
Next to the character and the atoning work of Christ, there
is nothing so well adapted as this description to mirror the
meanness and frivolity of sin.
IV.— SALVATION IN ITS SUBJECTIVE ASPECT, OR AWAKEN-
ING, REGENERATION, AND SANCTIFICATION.
The contrast which is drawn in the Scriptures between the
love of God and the sinfulness of men implies that God's
seeking must precede that of men, or that the primary impulse
to spiritual renovation must come from Him. Man is indeed
expected to ask, to seek, and to knock at the door ; but logi-
cally prior to all this is the divine knocking at the door of
man’s heart, and the coming of the’divine messenger to seek
and to save the lost.2 The impulse to turn toward communion
with God depends on the impact of divine agency upon the
human spirit. This initial agency may be described by the
term awakening, which thus denotes a pressure from the divine
1 Gal. iii. 26, 28.
2 Matt. xxv. 34; Luke x. 20; Rom. viii. 17, 21; Gal. iv. 7; 1 Pet. i. 3-5;
1 John iii. 2; Rev. xxi. 7.
8 Rev. iii. 20; Luke xix. tro.
30
454 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
side which is unsought by men, but whose intent they can
cither follow out or resist.
Awakening is not so much regeneration as a preparation
for the same. It is true that some theologians, especially
of the strict Calvinistic school, have preferred to understand
by regeneration the primary act of God in man’s spiritual
recovery, in which almighty power operates upon a purely
passive subject, and creates therein a new spiritual sensi-
bility. But this view, as will be shown a little further on,
is not in harmony with the scriptural representation, which
assumes a conditioning agency in man, or a consenting rather
than a purely passive subject of regeneration. The office of
awakening is to produce the sense of need and the measure
of aspiration and desire which are requisite to make one a
willing subject in the consummation of his spiritual sonship.
Regeneration is so thoroughly a biblical idea that even in
the Old Testament it comes well-nigh to a full-orbed expres-
sion. The great prophets of Israel, sorrowing over the practi-
cal apostasy of the nation, and convinced that nothing but a
fundamental change of disposition could induce a true keeping
of the covenant, were saved from despair by their faith in the
power of God’s Spirit to work this great change. Penetrating
to the inmost that is in man, the Divine Spirit, as they con-
ceived, is able to form a new heart and a new spirit, a temper
reverent, tender, and obedient, in place of former hardness and
perversity.
In the New Testament the doctrine of regeneration is pre-
sented in a variety of forms. The Synoptical Gospels, while
they do not treat of it formally, inculcate it very emphatically
by insisting that a right heart is the necessary antecedent of
right conduct, that the tree must be made good before the
fruit can be good, and that all who would enter the kingdom
1 Ezek. xi. 19, xviii. 31, xxxvi. 25-27, xxxvii. 23, 24; Jer. iv. 4, ix. 23-26:
Isa. i. 18-20; Ps. li. 10, 11; Deut. xxx. 6.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 455
of heaven must be converted and become as little children,!
In John’s writings, terms are used which are in close affinity
with the etymological sense of regeneration. The subject of
spiritual renovation is said to be born from above, to be born
of the Spirit, to be born or begotten of God.? The first of
these phrases is also rendered “born anew”; but so far asa
warrant for the term regeneration is concerned, it is not, of
course, at all necessary to insist upon this rendering, since
a spiritual birth, represented as subsequent to natural birth,
is, in idea, a re-birth. Paul has various figures for expressing
the thought of regeneration, all of them indicative of his lively
conviction of the profound change effected when one passes
from the life of sinful license, or mere legal striving, into a
true appropriation of the grace of God in Christ. He is free
to describe the change as a dying to sin and a rising in new-
ness of life ;? as a newcreation ;* as a putting off the old man
and a putting on of the new man. In language quite diverse
from these symbolical phrases, but no less expressive of pro-
found transformation, Paul teaches also that the implanting of
love must be regarded as central to the work of renewing and
glorifying the nature of man; at least, he teaches this by im-
plication, inasmuch as he represents love to be the preéminent
gift of the Holy Spirit, the crown of the virtues, the possession
which has unfading significance and value.®
It accords with the character of the Bible, as a book of
practical edification, that it should in general describe regenera-
tion by figurative terms which are striking to the imagination,
and thus far more impressive than any abstract terms could
1 Matt. xv. 18-20, vii. 17, 18, vi. 22-24, xviii. 3; Mark vii. 20-23, x. 15, 16
Luke xviii. 17.
2 John iii. 3-8, i. 12; 1 John iii. 9, iv. 7, v. 1, 4.
8 Rom. vi. 2-6, 11, 14, vii. 5, 6, viii. 2, 10; Gal. ii. 20; Col. ti 13.
* Gal. vi. 15; 2 Cor. v. 17; Eph. ii. 10.
5 Eph. iv. 22-24; Col. iii. to.
© 1 Cor. xii. 31 to xiii.
456 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
be. Moreover, the subject is so hidden that literal descrip-
tion may be regarded as impossible. If we attempt to trans-
late the biblical figures into more exact terms, we encounter a
double danger: on the one hand, the danger of making so
much of regeneration as to compromise the continuous identity
of its subject ; on the other, the danger of making too little of
it to do credit to the energy of the supernatural power with
which it is scripturally and rationally associated. It is an ex-
aggeration to suppose that it imports any new faculty into a
man ; it falls short of the truth to represent that it is signifi-
cant only of a new activity or direction of some one faculty.
Doubtless the greater stress falls upon the new direction which
regeneration gives to the will, but its effect must be regarded
as reaching to other factors of man’s being. Following the
order of emphasis we may say, in the will regeneration
initiates or consummates a supreme choice of God and His
kingdom of righteousness; in the sensibilities it enlivens the
nobler order of feelings; in the intellect it supplies at least
the data of a new inward experience, and thus, in some measure,
clarifies and enlarges the perception of spiritual things, though
by no means forestalling the opportunity and demand for a pro.
gressive increase of spiritual knowledge.
The deep-reaching and supernatural character of regenera-
tion does not necessarily imply that it always makes within
the sphere of consciousness a specially distinct and marked
crisis. The intensity of the apprehension of change depends
naturally upon the amount of resistance to be overcome. One
who has nurtured intemperate impulses, which urge with great
momentum toward the life of earthliness and sin, is not likely
to have the current of his life reversed without a vivid sense
of inward revolution. On the other hand, one who has felt
from early childhood the attraction of heavenly things may
yield as quietly to the divine solicitation as the flower opens
itself to the sunlight, and thus be conscious of no sharp division
between two stages in his life. Great as is the seeming con-
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 457
trast between the supposed cases, it is purely circumstantial.
Christian character in the second instance is as remote from
the plane of mere nature, and rests as truly on the ground of
spiritual re-birth, as in the first instance.
While regeneration is God’s act of renewing man, it is also
man’s act of turning unto God; at least, this turning is in-
separably associated with the divine act of renewal. Consid-
ered from this point of view the transformation is fitly termed
conversion. Man’s agency may be very small as compared
with that of God. But, although man is a humble agent, it
must still be contended that he is an agent, and not a mere
thing. Even in the matter of regeneration God respects his
agency, and makes it a part of His plan to introduce him into
spiritual sonship only on condition of an initial turning or atti-
tude of consent on his part. This is sufficiently indicated by
those scriptural sentences which speak of grieving or resisting
the Holy Spirit, and especially by those which assume that
this resistance may be carried to an intensity of antagonism
which is destructive of further spiritual opportunity.2 To
assume the possibility of such a resistance is inconsistent with
the notion of complete passivity in relation to regeneration.
If a man can so far resist the Spirit, and does not, he wills in
effect not to resist, or to let God’s will be accomplished. As
John presents the subject, it is the one who accepts the over-
tures of sonship that becomes a child of God. “As many as
received Him, to them gave He the right to become the chil-
dren of God, even to them that believed on His name.” ?
An impartial survey of all the facts that can be gathered
favors the conclusion that in regeneration there is a union of
persuasion and power. The former element is recognized in
those verses of Scripture which speak of the instrumentality
of truth in the work of spiritual renovation.* In not a few in-
1 Acts vii. 51; Eph. iv. 30.
2 Matt. xii. 32; Mark iii. 29; Luke xii. 10; 1 John v. 16.
8 John i. 12. 4 John xvii. 17; James i. 18; 1 Pet i. 23; 2 Pet.i. 4.
458 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
stances it has been assumed that these verses are fundamen-
tally descriptive of the method of regeneration, or that the
Spirit works therein solely by the instrumentality of truth. But
this seems to us to be putting that part of a subject which is
open to construction for the whole. It is more in harmony
with the sum total of scriptural data to admit a background of
mystery in the moral renewal of a man, a form of immediate
divine working which is beyond the scope of our analysis and
description. The words of Christ to Nicodemus, as well as
some of the strong expressions of the apostolic writers, invite
to this admission. The scriptural and rational view of the
divine immanence also suggests that God may come nearer
to souls in their moral life than is implied in the use simply
of mental images or representations — the only form in which
truth can be conceived to operate. There is likewise a difficulty
in the way of making truth the sole instrumentality in regen-
eration, inasmuch as a good measure of spiritual sensibility
seems to be a prerequisite to deep effect by spiritual teaching.
Providential discipline may indeed serve as an ally of truth,
and greatly add to its efficiency in a given case; but there is
abundant room for still another factor in the great task of
reversing the current of a soul that is being swept on by sinful
tendencies. On the other hand, however, it has to be granted
that an inferior range of truth seems to afford a limited oppor-
tunity for the working of the Holy Spirit, since otherwise the
ground would be wanting for the New Testament assumption
that the revelation of truth in Christ prepares the way for the
special ministry of the Spirit. To meet all the requirements
of the subject, we are led to the theory of which a well-guarded
statement has been given in the following words of a New
England theologian: “In regenerating men, God in some re-
spects acts directly and immediately on the soul, and in some
respects He acts in connection with and by means of the truth.
He does not regenerate them by the truth alone, and He does
not regenerate them without the truth. His mediate and His
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 459
immediate influences cannot be distinguished by conscious-
ness, nor can their respective spheres be accurately deter-
mined by reason.” !
It has been concluded that regeneration so affects the will,
the affections, and the intelligence, as to establish in its sub-
ject a preponderant tendency toward God and His kingdom of
righteousness. But a right tendency is not necessarily one
of perfect and indefectible strength. The complex life of the
human soul makes it possible that the heavenly attraction
should prevail over it, while yet it feels the drawing of the
things of sense, and is in more or less danger of conceding
too much to that inferior drawing. Thus, as a rule, the re-
born man needs training and perfecting. From the good be-
ginning that has been made in regeneration he needs to ad-
vance to the goal of complete sanctification.
To define accurately the scope of entire sanctification is not
altogether easy. Evidently the term cannot exclude every
limitation induced by sin, else it will be made the name of
an impossible experience, since no recovered sinner ts likely
ever to reach quite the same spiritual stature which he would
have gained through perfect obedience to God. On the other
hand, it evidently falls short of the natural significance of the
term to make it cover a less domain than comes under the
category of responsible character. All abnormal proclivities
in the emotive nature, which have been caused by personal
misconduct, have a cast of sinfulness as being blameworthy
tendencies to sin. Evidently entire sanctification should ex-
tend to the cure of personal sinfulness, and so must correct
these tendencies. This is the least that can be claimed; and
it seems not inappropriate to include under the term the heal-
ing of all tendencies to evil that inhere in the soul and are
not due simply to the pressure of an unfriendly environment.
1 Daniel Fiske in Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1865.
460 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
Theoretically it is doubtless conceivable that in regenera-
tion all abnormal tendencies that partake of a moral character
should be eliminated, so that further solicitations to sin would
be limited to external sources. But the common experience of
men teaches that, if there is such an event as regeneration,
it prepares in general for an earnest and measurably victo-
rious struggle with wrong tendencies rather than effects their
complete extinction. Sin is indeed contrary to the relation
into which one is brought by spiritual re-birth. It is alien
to the filial character and standing. John even describes it
as an impossible event,’ and Paul speaks of it as something
to which the believer is to reckon himself entirely dead.’
The meaning is not that there is no liability to sin remaining,
but that sin is radically contrary to the character and relation
of the reborn man. In statements like these the New Testa-
ment magnifies the office of regeneration. But alongside of
them we may place a great body of instructions and exhorta-
tions which imply that those who have believed to the saving
of their souls need to watch with all diligence against falling,
and to press on to further strength and sanctification.?
The principal means which must be employed on the side
of the individual in carrying forward his sanctification have
already been noted in what was said of the human conditions
of appropriating salvation. The fundamental means is faith,
viewed especially as self-surrendering trust, a disposition or
bearing that is born at once of God’s Spirit and man’s spirit,
and which represents the union of grace and freedom. Second-
ary means are repentance and evangelical obedience.
It is quite customary to associate repentance rather with
the preliminaries of positive Christian experience than to give
it a place among the conditions of progressive sanctification.
But it undoubtedly belongs among these conditions. There
is indeed a much larger scope for repentance after regenera-
tion than before. It is a distinguishing characteristic of the
1; John iii.9. 2 Rom. vi. 2. 3 Heb. xii. 1-17 is a notable specimen.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 461
regenerate person that he has within a ground of decisive re-
action against sin. He may yield to temptation, but he can
have no continued complacency in any forbidden indulgence.
His deeply rooted conviction of the necessity of God’s favor
and of the sanctity of the relation held to Him rebukes his
trespass and puts him to shame. Next to the vitality of spirit
which keeps out the trespass altogether is that which leads to
instant and thorough repentance of the same.
Now, no one is in the way of sanctification who does not
preserve intact this ground of reaction against sin. No one
can press toward the goal who does not take care of his re-
pentance. And by taking care of repentance is not meant
any scheme of external procedure with its liability to end ina
mere shallow legality. The undertaking of a certain quantum
of self-chosen inflictions, or the submission to certain kinds
of ecclesiastical penances, may be little else than evading an
obligation by making payment in bogus coin. Genuine repen-
tance, to whatever outward amend it may inspire, is essentially
an amend within the spirit itself. It springs from spiritual
sensibility, from the frank recognition of personal ill-desert,
from courageous and unflinching observation of the cleft be-
tween the actual and the ideal in conduct and character. The
first of these cannot be directly commanded; but the frank
recognition of ill-desert and the intent gaze upon the stainless
ideal which is set before us in Jesus Christ come very largely
within the sphere of personal choice and endeavor. He who
fulfills the part of duty and spiritual wisdom in relation to them
may hope that the Divine Spirit will so fulfill His part that
the ground of reaction against sin, implanted in regeneration,
shall not only be kept intact but be strengthened and inten-
sified.
As respects evangelical obedience, it is worthy of notice
that a thoroughly healthful result depends upon a union of
the subjective with the more objective phases. There are
gospel precepts which relate to interior acts, such as prayer,
462 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
worship, spiritual contemplation and watchful care over mo-
tives and dispositions. It will not do to neglect this order of
precepts. The activity which slights them is likely to lack
steadfastness, and is quite certain to be wanting in depth of
spiritual animus. On the other hand, there are precepts which
concern one’s relation to the kingdom of righteousness, or to
the aggregate of men viewed as possible citizens of that king-
dom. To slight these is to shut out the spiritual faculties
from the great field of appropriate exercise. Growth in holi-
ness is growth in unselfishness. Sacrifice for men helps to
beget interest in men. Thus the heart is enlarged in its
sympathies, and thought for others is on the way to becom-
ing spontaneous and habitual. Neither engrossment in the
demands of self-salvation nor mere bustling activity makes the
path of true spiritual advancement. That path is found rather
in the constant union of the interior with the exterior, of the
exercises of piety toward God with those of self-expenditure
toward men. As in the thought of Jesus, so in that of His
disciple, the relation with God is to be treated as inseparable
from the relation with the spiritual commonwealth.
It seems to be an obvious truth that progress in sanctifica-
tion means progress in the sense of direct personal relationship
to the Lord and Redeemer of men, and that anything which
dims this sense is an obstacle to that progress. Yet history
shows that the truth in question has been far from claiming
constant recognition. Instead of seeking salvation in com-
panionship with a Divine Person, men have been made to
depend upon ecclesiastical mechanism. The impersonal ex-
pression “ grace” has taken the place of the personal expres-
sion ‘Christ,’ or has been used apart from the thoroughly
personal association in which it ought to stand. A reservoir
of grace to which priestly custodians have the more direct
access, and which may be made to yield supplies by various.
expedients, has been with multitudes the dominant conception.
This is the obstacle which overgrown sacerdotalism and ritual-
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 463
ism put in the way of a vivid apprehension of direct personal
relationship with the supreme object of faith. Evangelical re-
ligion casts aside this obstacle; but its votaries need to be on
guard against interposing one of their own. It is possible
to fall out of the plane of reality by occupying the thought
too much with abstract conceptions. Theology very properly
analyzes the process of man’s spiritual recovery and points
out the different factors which have place therein. But the
problem of personal sanctification cannot be successfully
wrought out by dwelling at length upon these factors. It is
not a problem in a kind of spiritual alchemy, in which success
is to be sought by an exact and skillful juxtaposition of ingre-
dients, so much faith, consecration, and repentance being ap-
portioned to one stage, and so much to another. Personal
sanctification comes in and through personal communion with
the ultimate objects of faith, love, and devotion. He who, in
his measure, keeps the image of the Heavenly Father before
his mind as it was before the mind of Christ, or the image of
Christ before his mind as it was before the minds of Paul and
John, and who thus brings the Personal Divine into his daily
thought and activity, and lives and breathes in the atmosphere
of divine love and righteousness, needs no subtle advice on
the subject of sanctification; he is giving the Holy Spirit
His coveted opportunity to make increasingly real and
glorious to his apprehension the verities of the divine king-
dom; he is travelling in the open way to the goal. Pro-
ceeding onward earnestly and obediently in that path, he
' will surely find the sky overhead brightening, some day,
with an unknown radiance.
This is as much as saying that progressive sanctification is
the same as progress in spiritual sonship, and that its con-
ditions are essentially the same as the conditions of entrance
into that sonship. In fact one is doing the best for his sanc.
tification that is ever done, or can be done, when he continues
with full earnestness and unswerving fidelity in the spiritual
464 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
activities which entitled him, under the economy of grace, te
be enrolled among God’s regenerate children.
As the first decisive stage of sanctification is identical with
regeneration, or the initiation of sonship, so complete sanctifi-
cation signifies perfected sonship —_the state of one so truly a
child of God as to have naught of the unfilial remaining in him-
self. The goal of sanctification may also be fitly described by
the terms which express the moral nature of God, namely,
holy love. An equivalent description is conformity to Christ.
In Johannine phrase it is sketched as the perfect love which
casts out fear.
Can this goal be reached in the present life? In other words,
can a man advance here to a state which may be described
negatively as free from sin, and positively as under the com-
plete dominion of love —a state in which the moral disposition
is pure and normal through and through, and conduct fails to
be ideal in all respects only through unavoidable creaturely
limitations? It must be granted that observation teaches us
that the period of earthly discipline is in general all too short
to consummate in this sense the work of sanctification. But,
on the other hand, where is the warrant for assuming that
such a consummation is strictly impossible? Philosophy cer-
tainly does not afford it, that is,a philosophy that is consonant
with Christian principles. It cannot be said that the body is
an insuperable obstacle to entire sanctification, for Christian
truth does not allow that there is any essential evil in matter.
If there is, then, any insuperable obstacle, it must be in the
spirit. The human spirit is indeed finite, fallible, and infirm;
but not one of these qualites stands in necessary opposition
to holiness. As for the sinful bias with which it is affected,
who can say on grounds of reason that it is beyond remedy
within the limits of earthly life? Great moral transforma-
tions are wrought in very brief intervals of time. Who then
is authorized to affirm that it is beyond the competency of
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 465
God’s remedial agency to completely sanctify a soul before
death ?
A rational warrant for denying the possibility of entire sanc-
tification in this life being thus wanting, the ground of denial
must be found, if discovered at all, in revelation. It must be
proved that the Scriptures teach that it is outside of the divine
ability or the divine purpose to consummate the sanctification
of any subject of grace before the article of death. Calvinists
are hindered of course by their postulates from assuming that
it is beyond the divine ability to do this; and non-Calvinists
must needs despair of sustaining this assumption from the
Scriptures, in the face of such words as those of Paul, which
describe God as “able to do exceeding abundantly above all
that we ask or think.”’! It remains then to deduce from the
Scriptures that it is outside of the divine purpose, or no part
of the divine economy, to bring any one to the point of entire
sanctification in this life. But who has ever made a deduc-
tion of this sort which has even the appearance of legitimacy ?
Various passages show indeed that every man has unmistak-
able occasion to include himself in the ranks of sinners when
his life is taken as a whole. Not one of these, however, gives
the faintest indication that its author meant to teach that in no
case can sin be entirely put away before the separation of soul
and body. Take, for example, this declaration of John, “ If
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth
is not in us.’’2 What an eccentricity of exegesis to suppose
that this teaches a necessary continuance in sin, when the
next verse reads, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and
righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness’; and when further on it is said, «« Whosoever
is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in
him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God.’’?
Evidently what John meant to affirm in the first of these
ne oe
1 Eph. iii. 20. 21 John i. 8. * 1 John iii. 9.
466 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
verses was simply the fact that the man who denies in general
his need of God’s pardoning grace is guilty of untruth, and not
that the grace of God is certain to leave in him some remains
of sin so long as he is in the body. Again, take the clause in the
Lord’s prayer which asks for the forgiveness of trespasses. This
prayer, it is said, was designed for universal use, and therefore
every man upon earth must, in point of character or conduct,
or both, be in constant need of forgiveness. Some advocates
of the possibility of entire sanctification have answered this
objection by urging that, although a man may be completely
healed of sin, so far as moral contamination is concerned, he
still bears its effects in infirmities, or in lack of the spiritual
and intellectual stature which continuous exercise in holiness
would have given, and so has need to beseech forgiveness.
But this is a very doubtful line of argument. Carried out
rigorously it would involve the conclusion that the prayer for
forgiveness will need to be repeated by every redeemed being
to all eternity. So far as mere infirmities are concerned, such
as liability to mistaken judgments, they never need to be for-
given, except so far as they have been induced by personal
transgression ; and, as a matter of fact, when the transgres-
sion is forgiven they are no longer imputed. To say that
such things need in themselves to be atoned for or forgiven is
as much as to say that a man needs to apologize before God
for the very creaturehood which God Himself has instituted in
him. For aught we know, the glorified saints in heaven will
make blunders; indeed, the essential limitations of creature-
hood make it entirely probable that they will. No such resort
as the plea under consideration is in the slightest degree neces-
sary. While the Lord’s prayer is eminently appropriate to
the state of men in general, no one can demonstrate that every
clause in it was designed absolutely to fit every possible con-
dition of every man in the world. Moreover, the fact of entire
sanctification would not exclude the proper use of the prayer,
unless that fact was indubitably certified to the consciousness
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 467
of the sanctified person. Once more, the Lord’s prayer is, in
form, a joint petition, and as such in every conceivable earthly
relation can fitly be used, since it is intercession for others as
well as supplication for personal needs. Other scriptural
passages which are quoted on the side of denial need no de-
tailed consideration. They are nothing more than general,
and for the most part rhetorical, expressions of the unchal-
lenged fact of the great proneness of men to sin.!
On the other hand, the possibility of entire sanctification
or perfect love is indicated by numerous passages: (1) by
commands or exhortations in which all that it can properly
be regarded as including is laid upon men as a matter of obli-
gation ;* (2) by descriptions of Christian privilege or duty ;°
(3) by prayers for Christian attainments. One or two quali-
fying views, it is true, may be brought into conjunction with
this aggregate of evidence. It has to be granted that the
ultimate and unblemished ideal would probably have been
held up to men, and progress toward it urged upon them,
even though it were known to the mind of God that the rate
of progress anywhere attainable in the world could not bring
any one fully up to the ideal. To place the standard lower
than the height to which man’s best intuition of moral obliga-
tion can rise would be to present something less than the
most effective spur to righteous endeavor. The publication
of the perfect standard is justifiable, whether immediate attain-
ment thereto is possible or not, since striving toward the stan-
dard is immediately and always obligatory until it is reached.
It has also to be granted that the Scriptures do not explicitly
ascribe entire sanctification to any individual. Such terms as
“perfect,” “righteous,” and “holy,” in their application to the
11 Kings viii. 46; Eccl. vii. 20; James iii. 2.
2 Matt. v. 48, xxii. 37; Mark xii. 30; Luke x. 27; 2 Cor. vil. 1; 1 Pet.i. 15, 16.
8 Rom. vi. 6, 22; 1 Thess. iii. 13; Eph. iv. 13; 2 Pet.i. 4; 1 John i. 7, 9,
ii. 5, iii. 3, iv. 18.
4 Matt. vi. 10; Eph. iii. 14-21; 1 Thess. v. 23; Heb. xiii. 20, 21.
468 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
men of the Bible may be supposed to be employed in a rela-
tive sense, and to denote nothing more than eminent piety or
a high degree of spiritual advancement. [Paul's representa-
tion of his own experience, in Gal. i1. 20, is perhaps the nearest
approach toa claim for the complete sanctification of a particu-
lar individual that is to be found in the Bible; but there is
small reason to suppose that Paul had any idea that he was
making a claim for so high and precise an attainment as is de-
noted by the current theological phrase. It is but fair to place
these qualifying views alongside the scriptural evidence for
entire sanctification. Nevertheless, it must be held that the
force of that evidence is not fully cancelled by them. The
New Testament gives no ground for supposing that there is
such an absolute contrast between the conditions of the heav-
enly life and those of Christian life in this world that sin
must be entirely alien to the one and inevitable in the other.
In the absence of sucha contrast, the commands, instructions,
and prayers which look to entire sanctification or perfect love
carry a certain presumption that the state which these terms
define is of possible attainment in this life. It must be con-
fessed, however, that it stands forth as an exceedingly high
ideal. Any one who understands all that it implies will de-
spair of its possibility, save as his heart is quickened by a large
and intense faith in the marvellous power of divine grace.
V.—- THE RELATION BETWEEN THE OBJECTIVE AND THE
SUBJECTIVE ASPECT.
What has been said may serve to show that the distinction
between the objective and the subjective phase of salvation is
not only well founded in the nature of the case, but has also
the implicit sanction of the Scriptures. It would be a great
mistake, however, to push this distinction into anything like a
disjunction. As in the general provision of salvation we saw
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 469
the objective and subjective united in perfect harmony, the
economy of grace being so shaped as at once to pay tribute
to divine righteousness and to influence men most effectively,
so also in the individual application or appropriation of salva-
tion we find the objective and the subjective intrinsically con-
nected. The conditions of the one are the same as those of
the other. The faith which brings justification opens the
heart to the ministry of the regenerating Spirit, so that where
objectively there is the standing of sonship there is subjec-
tively more or less of the disposition of sonship. The same
trustful and obedient life which is necessary to perfect the
standing of sonship, or to bring men up from the plane of
accepted sons to that of well-beloved sons, where they are
fully the objects of the divine complacency, is likewise neces-
sary to consummate the work of progressive sanctification.
Thus the objective and the subjective, though distinguishable
enough in thought, are inseparable in fact. So they were evi-
dently viewed by the scriptural writers. As has already been
observed, when Paul thought of a man’s being justified by faith
he thought of one who by the same faith came into newness
of life, and was made partaker of the Spirit which sheds abroad
the love of God withinthe heart. And John was so far from
conceiving a possible disjunction between the standing of son-
ship before God and a sanctified life that he declares : “ Who-
soever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him.” !
The antinomian theory is as unscriptural as it is unethical.
VI. — THE CONSCIOUSNESS OR ASSURANCE OF SALVATION.
The intrinsic connection between the subjective and the ob-
jective phase of salvation involves the conclusion that personal
appropriation is a matter of consciousness. There may be in-
1 5 John iii. 6.
470 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
deed no consciousness of a decisive spiritual crisis, as there
may be in fact no such crisis. Nevertheless, since it is in
God’s plan to regenerate the one whom He justifies, in other
words, to make him a partaker of the character of a son when
he introduces him into the filial standing, the one who is actu-
ally saved has in the normal course of things a consciousness
of salvation, a sense of spiritual affinity with God correspond-
ing to his condition as a subject of spiritual rebirth. Various
disturbing causes may affect this consciousness, so that it shall
have very different degrees of clearness at different times ; but,
so certainly as it is the vocation of the regenerated person to
act as a son of God, it is only the normal fulfillment of his
privilege to feel as a son, or to know that his heart goes
out to God as to a reconciled Father. Reconciliation on its
subjective side means the overcoming of the alien spirit in
man. In proportion, therefore, as God seeks to reconcile
men to Himself, He must seek in consistency to awaken in
them the spirit of filial trust and confidence; it must be a
leading aim with Him to bring them into a fellowship of in-
dubitable mutual love. Assurance, in the sense of an inward
conviction or subjective certainty of being graciously accepted
of God and embraced in His love, is part and parcel of the
New Testament conception of vital religion. To take it out
would be to mutilate the fundamental notion of sonship, or
rather to replace it with the counterfeit representation of a
servile relation to God.
Assurance may not be so of the essence of justifying faith
that the absence of the one is proof positive of the lack of the
other. Room must be allowed for eccentricities in feeling as
well as in thinking. An abnormal direction of the latter may
give more or less of wrong bias tothe former. Physical states
may also tend to deflect the emotional experience from its
proper plane. But to deny that the normal Christian conscious-
ness contains the element of assurance, as defined above, is to
go in the face of the most explicit teachings of the New Testa-
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 471
ment. The ultra-sacerdotal notion that God keeps His children
off at arm’s length, and leaves them for the most part toa human
confidence in the validity of sacramental performances, which
confidence, in the nature of the case, is something less than
indubitable, finds no echo in the apostolic teaching. ‘“ Be-
cause ye are sons,” says Paul, “God sent forth the Spirit of
His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.’”’! “Ye re-
ceived not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye
received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we
are the children of God.”’? “In whom having believed, ye
were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an
earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of God’s own
possession.” ® ‘On whom,” says Peter, «though now ye see
Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeak-
able and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even
the salvation of your souls.”* Equally suggestive of a posi-
tive realization of divine relationships are the words of Christ
spoken in connection with His promise of the Comforter :
“He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will
love him, and will manifest myself unto him. . . . [If aman love
me he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and
we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” ®
Some of the words just cited imply that at the basis of
assurance there is a witnessing both of the Divine Spirit and
man’s spirit. As much might also be concluded from the
approved maxim of Christian philosophy respecting the union
of the divine and the human generally in spiritual processes.
The questions open to discussion concern the province of each
factor and the relation of the one to the other.
According to John Wesley’s interpretation, the witness of
the Holy Spirit is immediate, — a conviction, wrought in some
1 Gal. iv. 6. & Eph. i. 13, 14. 5 John xiv. 21, 23.
2 Rom. viii. 16, 17 £1 Pet. i. 8, 9.
472 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
inexplicable way, of the specific fact of acceptance with God.
The witness of the human spirit, on the other hand, is the
inward conviction or judgment that one possesses the fruits
of the Spirit. ‘It is nearly, if not exactly, the same with the
testimony of a good conscience towards God; and is the
result of reason or reflection on what we feel in our own
souls. Strictly speaking, it is a conclusion drawn partly from
the Word of God and partly from our own experience.” + In
the logical order, Wesley contends, the witness of the Holy
Spirit stands first, since a knowledge of the love of God to
us personally is a condition of that love in us which must
characterize all holy emotions and acts.
That there is truth in this analysis will not be disputed ;
but a doubt may legitimately arise about its containing the
whole truth. As respects the witness of the human spirit,
Wesley seems to credit too much to a reflective process, and
too little to the spontaneous conviction which issues, without
any consciousness of argumentative procedure, from living
spiritual affections. A man’s judgment, on reviewing himself,
that he has the fruits of the Spirit, is indeed a witness of his
own spirit that he is a child of God. But there is a swifter
and intenser witness than this. The mother whose heart is
actually bound up in her child does not need, in order to con-
vince herself that she has parental love, to reflect upon an
approved catalogue of the fruits of parental love. The out-
going of her heart to her offspring is an immediate experience
of parental love, an original knowledge which reflection may
ratify, but to whose vivacity and certainty it can add little or
1Serm. X., XI. We give the view of Wesley expressed in these sermons as
being most representative of his way of thinking. It may be noticed, however,
that he has made a passing reference to a conception of the method of assurance
which is emphasized in our exposition of the subject. In his “Christian Per-
fection” (p. 119), he wrote as follows : —
Q. But does not sanctification shine by its own light?
A. And does not the new birth too ? Sometimes it does ; and so does sancti-
fication; at others it does not.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 473
nothing. So spiritual motions and affections in the heart,
—. the feeling of trust, the blended reverence and confidence,
the joyful complacency which accompanies the thought of
God, the thirst for divine fellowship, and the sense of that
fellowship, — irradiate one’s relation to God before time is
taken for any formal induction.
The giving of due credit to this spontaneous element in
the witnessing of man’s spirit is the more important as it
helps us to construe the mode of the Holy Spirit in His
contribution to assurance. Wesley’s description of the Holy
Spirit’s agency, as consisting in the immediate production of
a specific conviction, applies far better to a possible crisis or
exceptional exigency in Christian experience than to assur-
ance as a standing fact in a normal Christian life. It has
become well-nigh a commonplace in theological thinking that
in inspiration the Holy Spirit acts dynamically, carrying up
the human powers to a higher plane of action instead of dis-
carding or repressing them. But if this is the method of
producing conviction or insight respecting the truths of the
divine kingdom, analogy favors the conclusion that it is also
the method of producing conviction as to the personal stand-
ing of a believer before God. All that is needed for assurance
ordinarily is the existence of vital spiritual affections. These
shine with their own light. A truly filial disposition, by virtue
of its nature, invokes God as Father. In stimulating, there-
fore, to love and trust, the Holy Spirit contributes to assur-
ance. By forming the character of a son, He puts the cry of
a son into the heart. The argument that a knowledge of
God’s love to the individual is the needed ground of his love
to God must be taken with a qualification. A positive doubt
of God’s love would indeed be a serious obstacle to loving
Him. But a safeguard against such doubt is provided in the
objective revelation through Christ, which solicits to self-
surrendering faith. Any one who is on the verge of exer-
cising that faith is already on the verge of a vital apprehension
474 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
of God’s love to himself. Indeed, self-surrendering faith im-
plies a measure of confidence in God's love; and an upspring-
ing love toward God naturally evokes in its subject a spon-
taneous inference as to God’s love to himself. For the Holy
Spirit, then, to enkindle love, especially in one who is con-
fronted by the objective revelation of God’s love in Christ, is to
work effectively toward an inward persuasion of the love of God.
It is to be noticed also that one cannot make much progress in
the spiritual life before the provocative to love is found quite as
much in the contemplation of God’s infinite loveliness — the
unspeakable beauty and excellence of the holy love which
constitutes his nature —- as in the mere thought of gracious
acceptance with Him.
While then we do not deny that, in accommodation to some
special demand of the religious experience, the Holy Spirit may
operate immediately for producing the conviction of accept-
ance with God, we are persuaded that assurance as a stand-
ing fact in the normal Christian life rests principally on the
mediate agency of the Spirit—on His efficiency in forming
the filial character and feeling, To sum up all in a sentence,
assurance is in and through the filial consciousness, which con-
sciousness is at once an activity of man’s spirit and a product
of the Holy Spirit’s agency.
A conviction of sonship toward God, however luminous it
may be, does not of course involve complete self-knowledge.
Since consciousness is not fully commensurate with being in
man, the testimony of consciousness cannot render a pertectly
complete account of a man’s spiritual condition. It may assure
him that he is a child of God, but not that he is a perfected
child. Only by revelation from an omniscient source can he
know that there is no remnant of sinful tendency beneath
consciousness, The fact of entire sanctification can be duly
certified by nothing except this special revelation. No flow of
spiritual affections, though reaching to ecstasy, can be taken
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 475
as an undubitable evidence. To the known fact that the cur-
rent of the religious life is strong there would need still to be
added the proof that it is all-controlling, or bears on the whole
moral personality.
Is it a part of the divine economy to grant this special
revelation? The Scriptures have not informed us that it is.
While they teach that the Holy Spirit testifies to sonship,
they do not teach that He testifies to perfection in sonship.
Paul indeed speaks of an inner illumination which enables us
to know the things which are freely given us of God.! But
in the connection he is not discussing the possibility of perfect
self-knowledge, but simply contrasting the sight, which the
spiritual man has of the great treasures prepared by God, with
the blindness of the natural man. It is giving an unwarrant-
able exactness to his words to suppose that he had in mind a
specific revelation by which a man’s spiritual state is disclosed
to himself down to the last item of his personality. Such a
means of an infallible judgment on himself Paul has indicated
that he had no thought of claiming.”
A scriptural warrant being thus wanting for the fact of the
revelation in question, it must be approved, if at all, by the testi-
mony of Christians. Doubtless some persons have supposed
themselves to have received such a revelation; but it has to
be acknowledged that the number is small compared to the
total number of those who have made an impression of special
saintliness in their lives; and also that very few of this small
number have been persons of such carefulness and sobriety
of judgment as to be above suspicion of having unconsciously
inserted by interpretation an element that was not actually
in their experience. We touch here, it is true, upon ground
that is beyond the reach of decisive investigation. We will
not dogmatize; but such means of judgment as are accessible
to us incline us to think that any Christian who examines his
Cor, ayi8: 952. Corvivs 4; 4.
476 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
case with close discrimination will not wish to testify to his
religious condition in any stronger terms than the following,
used by one of the most edifying expositors of Christian per-
fection on the anniversary of a remarkable experience: “A
year ago I said that I did not know what was below the gaze
of my consciousness. I still say the same, adding the testi-
mony that the varied changes and perplexities through which
I have since passed have failed to reveal any proof that Jesus
is not king over the domain of my unconscious, as He is over
my conscious, self.” ! This, it will be observed, is a testimony
to a conscience void of offense toward God, but is not a claim
to distinct assurance of entire sanctification.
It might not be easy to prove that the actual possessor of
entire sanctification would be damaged by the consciousness
of its possession. Yet, on the other hand, something may be
conceded to the widespread conviction that the most genuine
saint is wont to be unaware of his sainthood.
VII. — Tue Possisitity oF A Loss or SALVATION.
One more inference remains to be drawn from the intimate
relation which subsists between the objective and the subjec-
tive phase of salvation. The regenerate character, it has been
observed, while not excluding the possibility of sinning, is a
ground of reaction against sin, insuring prompt repentance of
transgression and a filial turning unto God. Now this fact
must claim the divine recognition, and therefore affect the
standing that is accorded in a given instance. The sin which
does not push into indifference and hardness, which, in other
words, does not cancel the filial character, in like manner does
not obliterate the filial standing. It needs indeed to be for-
given ; but in virtue of the filial character still remaining it is
1 Daniel Steele, Love Enthroned, p. 292.
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION, 477
certain to be sincerely repented of and to obtain forgiveness.
The grace needed and extended is that of indulgence toward
an offending and penitent son, not that of instatement in son-
ship. So far then as justification is significant of entrance
into a new filial relation toward God, it cannot be regarded as
being done away by every sin, but only by sin which passes
into the character, so that virtually there is the standing pur-
pose of sin as well as the unpremeditated act, and the ground
of repentance established in regeneration is annulled or made
inoperative,
As respects the possibility of a complete loss of the regener-
ate character, or lapse into decisive apostasy, something may
doubtless be said in favor of the negative. One who has known
the joy of salvation and the dignity of divine relationships is in
a manner disqualified for permanent satisfaction in the life of
sin with its emptiness and meanness. He is likely therefore
to experience an incentive to return from his prodigality. But,
on the other hand, the range of possible caprice is very great,
and the infatuation of sin is of incalculable force. Prolonged
consent to the downward gravitation works toward an impos-
sibility of a return to God, since it tends to paralysis of the
spiritual powers. On the whole, rational considerations may
be said to weigh rather for than against the possibility of
final apostasy.
The same is to be said of the scriptural evidence. Some
sentences, it is true, in the parable of the good shepherd, not
to dwell upon passages less capable of supporting the same in-
ference,! may seem to imply an invincible safeguard against
the ultimate lapse of any true disciple of Christ. But, it is
an approved canon of interpretation that in parabolic teaching
representations subsidiary to the main point are not to be over-
1 Here belong Rom. viii. 38, 39, xi. 29; Phil. i. 6; 1 Pet. i. 5. Such general
expressions of the persistency and fidelity with which God on His part works
towards the final salvation of His children do not rule out the conditioning
agency on man’s part which is so generally assumed in the Scriptures.
478° THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
pressed. In the parable in question the disposition of the good
shepherd, or his absolute fidelity to his own, is the main point.
This is enforced by strong terms. One or another of these
terms, taken by itself, may be construed as meaning that no
member of Christ's flock shall be allowed to perish. But that
is not the truth which it is the purpose of the parable to com-
mend. Such statements are all subsidiary to the illustration
of the perfect fidelity of the shepherd, which pledges that he
will guard his sheep to the utmost. They may reasonably
be taken as meaning that nothing shall be allowed to wrest a
disciple from the hand of.Christ which divine vigilance and
power can avert while duly respecting human freedom; not
that personal caprice may not effect a fatal lapse. In the in-
tense rhetorical representation a qualification is omitted which
in a more prosaic rendering of the truth has to be supplied.
For there are other passages in the New Testament which
clearly enough indicate the possibility of falling away from
the plane of discipleship and sonship. It is certainly very
troublesome to draw any other inference from this language :
« As touching those who were once enlightened and tasted of
the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to
come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again
unto repentance ; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of
God afresh and put Him to an open shame.”’! Almost as un-
equivocal in its intimation of the possibility of apostasy is this
sentence of Paul: “I therefore so run, as not uncertainly : so
fight I as not beating the air: but I buffet my body, and
bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after that I have
preached to others, I myself should be rejected.” ?
1 Heb, vi. 4-6. Compare Heb. iii. 12, x. 26, 27; 2 Pet. ii. 20, 21; John xv. 6.
21 Cor. ix. 26, 27.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 479
CHAPTER II.
CHRISTIAN LIFE IN ITS ASSOCIATED CHARACTER, OR
THE CHURCH AND HER ORDINANCES.
I. — THe NATURE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
In treating of the part which the individual has in the
appropriation of salvation before taking up the subject of the
Church, we have followed the logical order. As men are the
presupposition of the State, so Christians are the presupposi-
tion of the Church. What the State is, or can be, is depen-
dent upon the social and moral nature of the individual men
by whose union it is constituted. Once established, the State
may be a potent instrument in developing the social and moral
nature, and in shaping its manifestations. That nature, how-
ever, is never its gift, but rather the basis and guarantee of its
own existence. Similarly the Church has its proper ground
in the Christian character of men, that character which belongs
to them as partakers of spiritual sonship through union with
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Church may be an effective in-
strumentality in nurturing this character; but it has no sov-
ereign prerogative in its production. It may educate and
persuade; it cannot choose or believe for the individual.
Only through his own personal response to divine grace can
he possess the regenerate character and filial consciousness ;
and only through the association of persons having such a char-
acter can anything better than a counterfeit Church come into
existence. Practically there is interdependence; but logically
the person with his prerogative of self-determination stands
480 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
tirst. Not until the Church has unconditional means of
making men Christians in spirit and in truth can the religious
personality become secondary to the organism in the order of
thought. The individual may conceivably be united to Christ
and alive in Him without any visible connection with the or-
ganism. The organism, on the other hand, supposing it to have
a formal existence, must remain perpetually abortive without
a suitable direction of the will of the individual.
This is a New Testament order of thought, being clearly
reflected both in the Gospels and the Epistles. In the Gospels
spiritual society is described as “ the Kingdom,” this term being
used one hundred and twelve times, while the word “Church”
is used in but two instances. In the Epistles a reverse usage
prevails, “the Church” being mentioned one hundred and
twelve times, and “the Kingdom”’ twenty-nine times. The
two terms are not precisely equivalent. In the main a more
concrete sense is associated with the later term than belongs
with the primitive ; but when an ideal significance is given to the
Church, as is the case in various New Testament passages, it
becomes substantially identical with the kingdom. The latter
describes the new humanity, that was to arise out of obedience
to the gospel call, viewed especially in relation to its Divine
Head. The former has more respect to the inter-relations of
the members of this new humanity as constituting a spiritual
brotherhood. In connection with the use of either term — and
this is the pertinent consideration — it is to be noticed that
the maximum stress is laid upon the personal character and
activity of those contemplated. Christ has much to say about
the spirit and conduct which must distinguish his disciples, the
citizens of the new kingdom. By beatitude, parable, and pre-
cept He shows abundantly how one can enter the kingdom,
serve its interests, and reap its honors. But what about the
institutions of the kingdom and its official administration? A
few sentences sum up all of Christ’s recorded words on this
subject, and these give general outlines rather than exact
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 481
details, He seems to have been concerned chiefly to secure
homage to spiritual maxims, to get the right spirit into the
subjects of the kingdom, and to have assumed that this spirit
would work itself out into suitable forms of administration.
A similar ratio appears in the ministry of the apostles. An
immense preponderance is given in their Epistles to the
truths which directly concern personal salvation and its fruits
in personal conduct. Matters of ecclesiastical régime are
noticed very sparingly. Something is said of the religious
disposition appropriate to different ranks of officers, but very
little in formal description of their jurisdiction. As regards
ceremonial, it can truthfully be affirmed that there is less of
distinct prescription in the entire New Testament than in
single chapters of the Old. In fact the individual stands forth
as the unit of value. Far from being treated as the passive
subject of an ecclesiastical mechanism, he is everywhere con-
templated as a candidate for free acceptance of Christ, and
for free association with those who bear His name.
It is true, nevertheless, that the New Testament attaches a
high importance to the Church. As descriptive of the religion
of love it could not do otherwise. Love is intrinsically a
social bond, a cement of brotherhood. The ideal toward
which it works by virtue of its nature is that intimate union
of men in which each is at once servant of all and served by
all. In this sphere of mutual service the individual grows
both by what he contributes and by what he receives. While
the Church has no magical power to capture the throne of his
moral personality, and to institute the Christian character in
him, it does furnish him most valuable aids alike for the initia-
tion and the nurture of Christian character. As a Christian
he cannot prosper in the path of self-chosen isolation. Concen-
tration on self wars against the love which is of the essence of
Christian character. Union with Christ means union with
the brethren of Christ. The perfection of this union was
one of the things most earnestly besought by the burdened
482 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
soul of Christ on the eve of His crucifixion ; and in the apos-
tolic instructions it is strikingly emphasized by representing
Christians as parts severally of a well-compacted building, or
members of one living organism, to which the idea of disjunc-
tion is thoroughly alien.!
If we look beyond the needs of the individual, and consider
the vocation of Christianity as a world-conquering power, we
cannot stop short of a very high estimate of the importance
and necessity of the Church. In the great task of bringing
in the practical reign of Christ joint witness for the truth and
joint effort against untruth and ungodliness are manifestly in-
dispensable. y
In its ideal character the Church may be described either
as the body of Christ, or as the family of God. It is the body
of Christ as confessing His headship, obeying His sovereignty,
receiving and being animated by the Holy Spirit in fulfillment
of His promise and gracious will. It is the family of God as
being composed of those who by spiritual rebirth have been
made children of God and joint-heirs with Christ.
Since the ideal and the actual do not often coincide in this
world, and their identity is quite out of question where an ag-
eregate of earthly individuals is concerned, there is an obvious
occasion to distinguish two aspects of the Church. Many who
have been made recipients of ecclesiastical ordinances are no
true subjects of Christ’s headship, no part of the Church asa
Christ-filled body or as the spiritual household of God. On the
other hand, some who have not received ecclesiastical ordin-
ances are in the affinities of their spirits subjects of Christ
and children of God. The former, though included in the
visible organism, do not belong to the Church in its ideal char-
acter; the latter, though outside of the visible organism, are
included in the Church in its ideal character, and are certain
to be disclosed ultimately as true members.
1 John xvii. 20-24; Eph. ii. 19-22; 1 Pet. ii. §; Rom. xii. 4, §; 1 Cor. xii.
12;. Eph. i, 22, 23, iv. 3-6; Col. i. 24.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 483
It was in expression of these indubitable facts that the old
Protestant distinction was asserted between the visible and
the invisible Church. These terms are only a convenient
means of expressing the truth that the actual and the ideal —
the ecclesiastical area as it appears to the eyes of men, and
the Church as it exists for God’s thought — are not commen-
surate. Their use does not involve an assumption of two dis-
tinct churches, but only of different boundaries of the Church
according as it is seen from the human or the divine point of
view, under the character of an outward organism, or under
that of a genuinely spiritual society, a communion of God’s
believing and regenerate children. Taken in this meaning,
the terms find abundant justification in a common-sense view
of the facts. They point, moreover, to a distinction which
is by no means foreign to New Testament thought. When
Christ speaks of the tares growing with the wheat till the
time of harvest, and of many coming from the east and the
west and sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the
kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom are cast
out, He gives clear expression to the idea which is embodied
in the contrast between the visible and the invisible Church.!
The same contrast is also implicit in Paul’s declaration that
“they are not all Israel which are of Israel,’’? and likewise in
John’s remark, “‘ They went out from us, but they were not
of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued
with us.’’?
The conception of the invisible Church directs to the notion
of the unity of the Church in its higher meaning. Those who
are truly united to Christ, and possessed of the spirit of adop-
tion, have the essential bond of union and communion with
each other. They may not be actually in sympathetic fellow-
ship on account of misunderstandings. But these belong to
the surface of their relations. With the advance of light, such
~
1 Matt. xiii. 24-30, viii. 10-12. 2 Rom. ix. 6. $1 John ii. 19.
434 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
barriers will fall away, and the deep underlying bond of a
common union with Christ will assert itself. Whether this
unity in spirit shall be accompanied by outward ecclesiastical
unity is of subordinate concern. Ecclesiastical unity is no
guarantee of true spiritual unity. Christendom may conceiv-
ably be more disunited under one ecclesiastical dominion than
under a score. If it be claimed that outward divisions are
more or less abnormal, it must be said on the other side that
history teaches most impressive lessons about the danger of
undivided power in human hands. Excess of dominion is
likely to breed pride of rule and tyranny in the ecclesiastical
as well as in the civil sphere. With all its divisions, Christen-
dom is none too respectful of the rights of non-Christian
nations. Ecclesiastically consolidated, it might be tempted
to use such unspiritual means of religious conquest as have
darkened past history. Doubtless its ecclesiastical divisions
ought to be greatly reduced. But they are not to be deplored
as an unmixed evil. In some part they ought to be conserved
so long as any communion arrogates to itself sole ecclesias-
tical validity or identity with the Church of God upon earth.
A general surrender to this Pharisaic pretense would rob
Christianity of its greatness as a spiritual kingdom, and sub-
ject it to human measures of the more contracted sort. A
claim to sole ecclesiastical legitimacy, in the face of such a
record as lies back of the present, is the essence of sectarian-
ism, and a sure token of apostasy from a spiritual conception
of Christianity.
This stress upon the inner bond of unity, as opposed to the
necessary inclusion of all within a common outward organism,
is quite in accord with the fact that there is no authoritative
prescription in the New Testament of a particular form of
church government. This fact is, indeed, denied, but it rests
upon adequate grounds. The apostles evidently were not in-
trusted with any ready-made scheme, for polity was a matter
of growth under their administration, new features being sup-
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES, 485
plied as occasion arose. At an early date the office of deacon
was instituted, at least in germ. At a later and unknown
point elders were constituted a governing board in each local
church. As the apostles did not receive a ready-made scheme,
so they did not deliver a fixed polity to the Church. At least,
no word in the New Testament can be cited in proof that
they did; and post-apostolic history shows that features which
are unmentioned in the New Testament, such as the episco-
pate proper, began to acquire currency in some quarters in
the early part of the second century. Now, a progressive
polity like that cannot be taken as an authoritative model. If
one seizes it at a particular point and says, Up to this stage it
is authoritative, he can at once be met with the inquiry, How
do you know that it is not left to the practical wisdom of the
Church to bring in new adjustments and modifications to
meet new conditions? Apostolic discretion accommodated
itself to new exigencies. Who knows that the exigencies
coming properly into consideration were all met by Christian
society in the Graeco-Roman world within the narrow limits
of the apostolic era? Nobody not favored with supernatural
insight can know any such thing, and thus obtain a shadow of
warrant for saying that Christians are bound for all time to
find in the unfolding polity of the primitive Church at this or
that point an authoritative model. Add to this the obvious
truth, that no church organization on earth to-day corresponds
to the apostolic pattern. So conspicuous a feature as the
apostolate is nowhere reproduced. A few little adventurous
sects have indeed brought out their parody; but so general
has been the conviction of Christians that the apostolate was
a unique provision for the foundation era of the Church, that
no attempt has been made by the vast majority to conserve
anything like a copy of the original college of apostles. Thus
every communion which proclaims the exclusive validity of
the apostolic polity assails in greater or less measure its own
ecclesiastical legitimacy.
32
486 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
While no precise scheme of polity is enforced by apostolic
precedent, it by no means follows that important lessons, valid
for all time, are not furnished by the spirit and tenor of the
apostolic administration. Variation in governmental appliances
does not necessarily imply variation in the spirit of govern-
ment or in the underlying conception of citizenship. On the
proper spirit of ecclesiastical government and the nature of
Christian citizenship, the apostles certainly teach lessons which
ought never to be discarded. Their exceptional position makes
these lessons all the more binding. If the men who were in-
trusted with the founding of the Church, and who delivered
to it its written oracles, respected the will of the congregation,
saw in special offices means of special service rather than of
lordship, and addressed the whole company of believers as if
they stood on essentially the same plane of Christian citizen-
ship, then it is evident enough that the aristocratic and sacer-
dotal scheme, with its broad distinction between a governing
rank and passive subjects, is in the line of usurpation. No
followers of the apostles can possibly be entitled to an auto-
cratic rule which they neither allowed nor exercised. Now, as
a matter of fact, the apostles honored the will of the congre-
gation, and intruded no broad chasm between the official and
non-official portion of the Church. The congregation took
part even in such a matter as the filling of a vacancy in the
apostolic college! The appointment of the original board of
deacons was by the free choice of the assembly.?__ In relation
to the first council of which we have record, mention is made
of “the whole Church as being associated with the apostles and
elders,” ? and the decree of the council was addressed simply
to the “brethren which are of the Gentiles.’ Liberty to par-
ticipate in the worship and teaching seems to have been
limited only by the gifts of individual members and the
demands of good order.* Matters of discipline were not
1 Acts i. 15-26, =? Acts vi. 1-6. 8 Acts xv. 22. 41 Cor. xiv, 23-33.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 487
counted foreign to the congregation ; at least, we find Paul in
relation to a special case addressing the whole Corinthian
church rather than a select body of officers.! Practices like
these have all the force of precepts on the proper spirit of
Christian administration. And precepts, too, are not wanting.
Thus Peter instructs the elders that they are not to lord it
over their charge, but make themselves ensamples to the flock.”
The same apostle gives a phrase which may be regarded as the
condensed charter of Christian liberty, when he addresses
Christians generally as a “holy priesthood,” ordained “to
offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ’? To make all Christians priests is equivalent to
abrogating the notion of a proper sacerdotal rank, or a neces-
sary official medium between God and the mass of worshippers.
No such rank is recognized in the New Testament account of
Christian society. Not a solitary instance occurs in which a
Christian minister is styled a priest (iepe’s) in his official
capacity. As Fairbairn remarks, “ The studious avoidance of
the name by men who were steeped in the associations of sacer-
dotal worship is most significant.” 4
A supplementary view needs to go with that just presented.
The universal priesthood of believers, or their inherent citizen-
ship in relation to the Christian republic, does not remove the
obligation to respect and to obey constituted authority, where-
ever obedience is consistent with a good conscience toward
God. If the apostolic model binds officials not to lord it over
the flock, it binds the flock to treat respectfully those who are
over them in the Lord, “and to esteem them exceeding highly
in love for their work’s sake.” ° To disturb brotherly harmony,
and to endanger schism over mere matters of personal prefer-
ence, is not so much to assert a proper right of Christian
citizenship as to indulge in antichristian egoism.
11 Cor. v.; 2 Cor. ii. 5-11. Sin Pet. vi 3, Sip Pet vik: |e:
4 The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, p. 533. S Thess. v. 12, F3.
488 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
II. — CRITICISM OF THE ULTRA—SACERDOTAL CONCEPTION
OF THE CHURCH.
The conception of the Church, as outlined above, collides
with the monarchical theory of the Roman Catholic Church,
and also with the aristocratic theory held by the Greek Church
and by the High Church wing of the Anglican communion.
The Roman Catholic theory finds its culminating expression
in the dogmas of papal supremacy and papal infallibility.1 The
former, as authoritatively promulgated by the Vatican Council
of 1869—70, assigns to the pope the most unqualified lord-
ship over the Church which can be conceived to be vested in
a human being. Language affords no terms more expressive
of absolute rule than those contained in the following canon :
“Tf any shall say that the Roman pontiff has the office merely
of inspection or direction, and not full and supreme power of
jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which
belong to faith and morals, but also in those which relate to
the discipline and government of the Church spread through-
out the world; or assert that he possesses merely the principal
part, and not all the fullness of this supreme power; or that
this power which he enjoys is not ordinary and immediate,
both over each and all the churches, and over each and all the
pastors and the faithful: let him be anathema.” ?
In a brief consideration of the merits of this tremendous
assumption, the emphasis falls particularly upon three
points : —
1. A dogma of such vast import as that of papal supremacy
ought to be a most certain and distinct part of revelation.
There is nothing with which it can be compared for reach of
practical significance except the existence of God and the fact
of a redemptive economy. As was expressly defined by
1 Some of the paragraphs on these themes are substantially a reproduction
of matter given to print by us several years ago in a religious periodical.
2 Fourth Session, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chap. IIL.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 489
Boniface VIII, in the bull Unam Sanctam, the dogma of
papal supremacy implies that subjection to the pope is indis-
pensable to salvation. It leads also to the conclusion that the
biblical revelation has no right of direct impact upon human
minds; that in truth for all, except the pope, it is no sun in
the spiritual firmament, but a mere moon, having permission
to shine upon the world at large only as it is reflected from
the understanding of the vicegerent in the Vatican, who is
alike the arbiter of faith and of conduct. Surely a dogma thus
vitally related to salvation, and fundamentally determinative of
the function of the biblical revelation, ought not to be ignored
or left in the mist by that revelation.
2. The dogma of papal supremacy is not taught either clearly
or obscurely in the Scriptures. Indeed, so far is the New
Testament from assigning any peculiar prerogatives to the
Bishop of Rome, that it does not even mention that official.
It may be granted that Christ spoke of Peter as a foundation,
and also as a bearer of the keys.! But when it is seen that
Christ spoke in like manner of the other apostles as bearers of
the keys;? that all the apostles are placed together in the
foundation ;? that the Book of Acts furnishes not one trace of
constitutional supremacy in Peter; that the Epistles of Paul
reveal him as claiming full equality in the grace of apostleship,
and even assuming to correct Peter on a certain occasion,*
what more can we reasonably make of the mention of Peter as
a foundation than a simple declaration that he should take an
eminent part in founding the Church? Peter was a founda-
tion as doing the work of afounder. The other apostles were
a foundation in the same sense; John in a measure scarcely
inferior to that of Peter; Paul, in even a larger measure, by
reason of his “more abundant labors” in the Gentile world.
The special mention of Peter at a particular juncture is ade-
1 Matt. xvi. 18, 19. 8 Eph. ii. 20.
2 Matt. xviii. 18. * Gal. i. 1, 11-17, ii. 6-15.
490 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
quately explained by the special occasion for rewarding him
which he had just given by his noble confession. The glorious
place which some of the other apostles were to have in the
foundation was left to the disclosure of subsequent history.
In the case of all alike, the idea of proper successors to their
place in the foundation is rationally excluded. To predicate
strict succession here would be like assuming a continous suc-
cession of founders of the American Republic.
If the New Testament assigns no constitutional supremacy
to Peter, still further is it from bestowing that supremacy on
the Bishop of Rome; for the New Testament makes not the
slightest association between the apostle and the Roman
bishop. The way in which Romish exegesis foists the latter
into the place of the former is arbitrary to the last degree.
It rivals the violence of Gnostic interpretation to make Peter
figure for the Bishop of Rome on certain select occasions
when words of honorable import were addressed to him. Why
exclude a representative force from certain other words which
have a different import? Christ said to Peter: “Get thee be-
hind me Satan ;”’ also, “ Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny
me thrice.” Is it to be concluded from these sayings that
each Roman bishop must be an incarnation of Satan, and
sometime between supper and breakfast must deny Christ
three times? Scarcely more arbitrary is it to draw this in-
ference than to build a papal theory on the more complimen-
tary sentences.
3. History establishes by overwhelming evidence that papal
supremacy, so far as realized in theory and fact, was attained
through a long-continued accretion of assumption and power.
Newman has observed that “ Christianity developed in the
form, first, of a Catholic, then of a papal, Church.” In thus
writing he may have been a very bad Romanist, but he showed
himself at this point to be a respectable historian. The papal
type was truly foreign to the first stage of Christianity.
Doubtless a keen eye might early have detected a shadow of
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 491
the coming transformation. Imperial Rome was a towering
and majestic form in the ancient world. Even Christians, who
were supposed to cast their gaze beyond earthly grandeur, felt
a certain awe before the proud mistress of the world. This
appears distinctly in Tertullian, who conceived of Roman
dominion as co-extensive with the temporal order of things,
so that when Rome should fall the world would come to an
end! Evidently this feeling was fitted to lend more or less of
aid to the dignity of the Roman bishop. If in the fourth
century the imperial associations of the newly-founded capital
of the east speedily lifted its bishop above all eastern rivals,
making Constantinople to take precedence in episcopal rank
of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, the grander associa-
tions of Rome could hardly fail to do still more for its bishop.
The evolution of the papacy is adequately explained. The
institution came by no sudden bound into the world, but by a
slower process than that which transformed French feudalism
into the autocratic rule of Louis XIV. Even by the sixth
century the evolution was only partially accomplished. The
whole history of the councils in the fourth, fifth, and sixth
centuries reveals, at most, an aristocratic, not a monarchical
type of church government. The insignificant part fulfilled
by the Roman bishop in calling these great assemblies, in pre-
siding over them, and in confirming their decisions, makes the
supposition that the Church of that era attached monarchical
authority to him, in anything like the sense of the Vatican
decree, grossly far-fetched and unhistoric. Broad facts like
these weigh vastly more than any flattering tributes which in-
terested individuals, seeking the aid of a powerful ally, amid
the sharp contentions of the time, may have rendered.
If we go back to the first three centuries we find no indi-
cation that any further dignity was accorded to the Roman
bishop than would inevitably fall to the episcopal head in a
1 Apologeticus, xxxii.
492 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
great apostolic seat and centre of earthly dominion ; that is, a
certain primacy in honor and actual influence. Two or three
sentences are indeed on record, which, when wrenched out of
their connection, may be made to render a sort of testimony
in favor of the Romish theory. Thus Tertullian referred to
the Roman bishop as “ Pontifex Maximus.” But he applied
the pagan title in manifest irony, connecting it with a decree
which he said could not be posted with propriety except ‘on
the very gates of the sensual appetites.”’! Irenzeus is thought
to have spoken of the necessity of agreeing with the Roman
church. But in the connection he was thinking of Rome,
not as a centre of ecclesiastical authority, but as a depository
of tradition, which, as being received from the illustrious
apostles Peter and Paul, and handed down through an un-
broken succession of bishops or presbyters, he believed to be
incorrupt.2 His thought was identical with that of Tertul-
lian, who said that the capricious exegesis of heretics must be
met by an appeal to the churches of apostolic origin, Chris-
tians in the East appealing to Smyrna, Corinth, Philippi, and
Ephesus, while Christians in Italy could most conveniently
appeal to Rome.* Irenzus, writing in the West, naturally
fixed upon the only apostolic seat in that section of the
empire. As his own words plainly show he mentioned Rome
simply as an eminent example of a class. His conduct,
1 De Pudicitia, i.
* Cont, Harri. 3.02.
3 De Praescript, Haer. xxxil., xxxvi.
4 The comments passed on the reference of Irenzus to the position of the
Roman church are based on a not uncommon understanding of his words.
If, with William Bright, we suppose zecesse est to denote simple necessity,
instead of obligation, and convenire ad to mean to come together to, rather
than to agree with, then obviously any tribute to the Roman church which is
contained in the words of Irenzus is very much retrenched. The conclusion,
in that case, would be that he represents Rome as being not so much the
source of orthodoxy as a reservoir of the same, on account of an ingathering
of Christians from all parts of the Church (The Roman See in the Early
Church, pp. 31-36).
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 493
moreover, supplies a comment on his meaning, since he boldly
opposed the intolerant course of the Roman bishop, Victor, in
the Easter controversy, and advised the churches contrary to
his policy.!. Cyprian, in one instance, associated the notion
of sacerdotal unity with Peter and Rome.? But nothing is
clearer than that he thought of them rather as means of sym-
bolizing that unity than as having any monopoly of sacerdotal
prerogatives. He expressed his theory of church government
in these significant words: “The episcopate is one, each part
of which is held by each one for the whole.’® Still further,
in open opposition to the attempt of the Roman bishop,
Stephen, to press his own views on the subject of re-baptism,
he declared: ‘Every bishop, according to the allowance of
his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment,
and can no more be judged by another than he himself can
judge another.” 4
So the most noted tributes to the Roman bishop in the first
three centuries are found on examination to be no expression
of the specific papal theory. It required centuries of indus-
trious aggression and assertion, aided by great forgeries, to
enthrone that theory even within the limits of Latin Christen-
dom.
In connection with the long current assumption in Roman
Catholic circles respecting the infallibility of the Church, the
doctrine of the unqualified supremacy of the pope, as formu-
lated in the canon which was cited, involves by necessary in-
ference his dogmatic infallibility. The Vatican decree on
this subject, therefore, only gave explicit statement to an im-
plication of the declaration on administrative supremacy. The
decree reads as follows: ‘We teach and define that it is a
dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman pontiff when he
a SER
1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 24. 8 De Unitate Eccl.
2 Fpist. liv., ad Cornelium, 4 Third Council of Carthage, A.D. 256.
494 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of
pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme
apostolical authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith and
morals to be held by the universal Church, by the divine as-
sistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that
infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his
Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding
faith or morals; and that therefore such definitions of the
Roman pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from
the consent of the Church. But if any one—which may
God avert-—— presume to contradict this our definition: let
him be anathema.”
The field of infallibility, as thus defined, is evidently a very
broad one. Almost any important matter involves a point of
faith or morals, and is therefore a possible subject for an in-
fallible decision. The requisition that the decision should be
given in an ex cathedra manner is more of a limitation; but
even this is not a very definite restriction. For, while the
language of the decree implies that an er cathedra decision is
one directed, in the papal intention, to the whole Church, it does
not say that it must be formally so directed. A decision may
be implicitly for the whole Church which is not explicitly
addressed to all the faithful. That a decision of the former
kind may be ex cathedra has never been authoritatively de-
nied; and there is slight danger, also, that a denial of this
sort will ever appear, since it would abridge rather inconveni-
ently the force of this and that papal utterance. In fact,
various infallibilists have taught that a formal address to the
whole Church is not a necessary characteristic of an er cathe-
dra document.
In estimating the merits of the dogma it is legitimate to
array against its credibility every Roman Catholic tenet which
is discordant with reason or revelation, since every one of
these has received the papal sanction. But, foregoing this
means of criticism, we will note the following considerations :
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 495
1. The fact that enormous frauds paved the way to the
declaration of papal infallibility, if not a proper disproof of
the dogma, certainly invites to a suspicious attitude towards
its claims. As to the fact stated, the evidence is of compel-
ling force. A candid historian cannot deny that a strain of
increased papal assumption was filtered into the literature of
the Church from the pseudo-Isidore decretals which were
cor.cocted in the ninth century. No more can he deny that
the forgery of the thirteenth century which deceived Thomas
Aquinas — leading him to quote in favor of papal infallibility
sentences that the fathers, to whom they were attributed, had
never written — had a great effect upon theological opinion
in the following centuries. Let it be granted that the Ultra-
montane party, as represented in the Vatican Council, did not
openly defend these fictions ; it is still true that a majority of
the party had been greatly influenced by them. Not only
had their thoughts been shaped by inferences drawn from the
forgeries, but portions of the very forgeries themselves had
been served up to them in works which entered fundamentally
into the education of the priesthood, especially in the Latin
nations. Liguori, for example, a writer held in extraordinary
repute, repeats no inconsiderable portion of the hoary false-
hoods.!. In short Dollinger was guilty of no presumption
when he offered to prove that the bishops of the Romance
countries — Italy, Spain, South America, and France — had
been very largely misled by fabricated and garbled proofs.”
2. Only by the most extravagant and arbitrary interpreta-
tion can any warrant be found in the Scriptures for papal infalli-
bility. The Vatican decree cites three passages: Matt. xvi. 18,
Luke xxii. 32, John xxi. 15-17. Did ever feat of interpreter
compare with this? A declaration that Peter should fulfill an
honorable part in the founding of the Church, a prayer that
1 Déllinger und Reusch, Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten in der r6misch-
katholischen Kirche seit dem sechzehnten Jahrhundert, I. 403-412.
2 Letter to Archbishop von Scherr, March 28, 1871.
496 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
the apostle, worsted by temptation, might not fall into a fatal
apostasy from his Master, a threefold exhortation to pastoral
fidelity, which probably reminded Peter of his threefold de-
nial, — these items prove the Roman bishop infallible, though
none of them proves as much for Peter himself, and one of
them might as well be cited in proof of a needed conversion
of the pope as in support of his infallibility! Surely the
fathers may be pardoned for not having discovered papal in-
fallibility in these passages. As Dollinger contends, none of
them applied the passages in the Vatican sense. It is true
that Pope Agatho in 680 cited the verse in Luke; but his
own words, as well as the conditions of the case, make it far
more credible that he meant to claim indefectibility in the
sense of Bossuet than infallibility in the sense of the Vatican
decree. Bossuet, while denying strict infallibility, believed
that the Roman see could not be persistently given to error.
3. The dogma of papal infallibility is contradicted by broad
ranges of historical facts. Whatever may have been the scope
of the oversight exercised by the Roman bishop within the
limits of his own patriarchate, the record of the early Church
as a whole shows that it had no idea that doctrinal disputes
could be settled by the short method of appealing to him.
They were fought out on the arena of debate until carried
before an ecumenical council. To be sure, we are reminded
in high-sounding phrase that the great Council of Chalcedon
exclaimed over the letter of Leo the Great: ‘Peter has
spoken through Leo!’ But the exclamation is of small
consequence. Words every whit as complimentary were
uttered in the same breath respecting Cyril of Alexandria,
and Leo’s letter was approved simply because its teaching
was agreeable to a majority of the assembly.! No less
garbled is the alleged declaration of Augustine: “Rome has
spoken ; the cause is ended.” Augustine joined the sentence
1 Mansi, vi. 971.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 497
of two councils with that of the Roman bishop. Moreover,
he did not hesitate, together with the North African clergy,
to correct the Roman bishop, Zosimus, in his dealing with the
Pelagians. He also excused Cyprian’s position respecting re-
baptism, on the ground that the Church in his age had not
rendered an authoritative decision on that subject ;2 which is
just the same as saying that the voice of the Roman bishop
was not authoritative, that dignitary having already given his
decision in very plain terms.
Another broad range of facts, equally adverse to papal in-
fallibility, is the chain of anathemas fulminated against Hono-
rius I as a teacher and patron of heresy. Three ecumenical
councils —the sixth, seventh, and eighth — concurred in the
anathema. Pope Leo II solemnly approved it, and after him
it was subscribed to by the popes for no less than three cen-
turies. It is not necessary to inquire into the exact nature of
the trespass of Honorius. The Church which, for centuries,
condemned him on charge of heresy, without once taking care
to utter in connection with its anathemas a saving clause for
papal infallibility, could not have cherished the notion of infal-
libility in the Vatican sense. The doctrine, therefore, lacks
the mark of valid tradition.
A third range of facts is supplied by the moral record of
the popes. No well-informed person will deny that worldly-
minded and depraved men have sometimes gained the papal
office. No thoughtful person will deny that the almost bound-
less adulation, which is awarded to the incumbent of the high
office, is itself likely to be a source of powerful temptations,
against which even the best have no perfect safeguard. To
make infallibility, therefore, an attachment of the papal office
is to divorce it from all necessary connection with personal
sanctity ; and this is equivalent to affirming a magic which is
unworthy of a place in any spiritual creed.
1 Serm. cxxxi. 2 De Bapt. cont. Donat. Lib. ii. n. 5.
498 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION
A kindred range of facts is found in the part which the
-popes have taken in the long tragedy of religious persecution.
Scores of them were implicated in the work of organizing and
supporting the Inquisition. Leo X, in an ex cathedra docu-
ment, condemned Luther’s affirmation that the burning of
heretics is contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit. The most
recent popes haye denounced the principle of religious toler-
ance. Even Leo XIII, by quoting as authority the encyclical
of Gregory XVI, issued in 1832, and the Syllabus of Errors,
published by Pius LX, as well as by utterances of his own, has
indicated that a Roman Catholic power commits a grievous
sin when it tolerates any form of dissenting worship, except
under the pressure of practical necessity.1 Religious toler-
ance, as it exists to-day, has been introduced in the face of
papal precepts and prohibitions, and either it must be wrong
in principle, or the popes are not the appointed guides of
the race.
4. The dogma of papal infallibility is contradicted by many
specific facts. The following is to be regarded as only a
partial enumeration: (1) Liberius, as we are assured by
Athanasius and Jerome, subscribed to a Semi-Arian creed.
(2) Vigilius vacillated in a most disreputable way between
opposition and consent in his attitude toward the dogmatic
schemes of Justinian. (3) Gelasius I used language which
distinctly implies that the substance of bread and wine is not
changed or eliminated by consecration. (4) Honorius |
taught the Monothelite heresy in epistles which were im-
plicitly addressed to the whole Church, and which Hefele,
one of the most competent of recent Roman Catholic his-
torians, declares to have been given ex cathedra. (5) Inno-
cent III denied the immaculate conception of the Virgin,
1 Epist. Encyc. de Civitatum Constitutione Cristiana, Nov. 1, 1885; Epist.
ad Card. Vicarium Monaco la Valetta, June 26, 1878; Litterae Encyc. ad
Episcopos Italiae, Feb. 15, 1882; Epist., July 19, 1889 (to the Emperor of
Brazil).
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 499
whereas Pius IX made itadogma. (6) The Council of Con-
stance declared the pope to be, both in matters of faith and
administration, an authority secondary to the council. Martin
V expressed his assent to the decisions of this council con-
summated in regular sessions, and also issued a formal require-
ment for an acknowledgment of the ecumenical character of
the assembly. To these decisions, so far as they bear upon
the papal office, those of the Vatican Council are diametrically
opposed. So pope and council at Constance contradict pope
and council at Rome. (7) Eugenius IV, in an elaborate de-
cree addressed to the Armenians, gave as essential to the
sacrament of penance a formula which the Greek Church
never used, and which the Latin Church itself did not employ
for eleven centuries. He also defined some of the other sac-
raments of the Roman list in a way which assailed their
validity as they had been practiced in the earlier ages.
(8) Adrian VI, in a work republished after his election to the
papacy, declared it certain that the Roman pontiff could fall
into and decree error in matters of faith. (9g) Paul V, Urban
VIII, and Alexander VII took a responsible part in the con-
demnation of the Copernican theory as contrary to Scripture
and savoring of heresy. (10) Clement XI, in the bull Uyz-
genitus, reprobated sentences which may reasonably be con-
sidered the equivalents of New Testament statements, and
assailed one of the plainest dictates of common morality by
condemning the assertion that “the fear of an unjust excom-
munication ought never to hinder us from doing our duty.”
In respect to some of these instances there may be a chance
to take refuge in technicality. But technicality is a shabby
and artificial refuge. To refine on the precise way in which
the pope must speak, in order to deliver himself infallibly, is
to discredit the notion of his infallibility in the sight of clear
practical intelligence. If we are not required to believe him
when he faces to the west, there is minor occasion for repos-
ing entire confidence in him when he faces to the east.
500 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
In the aristocratic theory of the Orthodox Greek Church,
and of the High Church party in the Anglican establishment,
the stress is upon the episcopal office, viewed as held in con-
tinuous succession from the apostles. Only that ecclesiastical
organization, it is contended, which has bishops, standing in
the unbroken line of descent from the apostles as respects
their ordination, is any part of the true Church. In objec-
tion to this theory it is to be remarked : —
1. If episcopacy, in the sense defined, is so necessary, that
the company of professing Christians which lacks it is with-
out all proper church institutions and sacraments, we should
expect to find it clearly prescribed in the New Testament.
But such is not the case. Episcopacy of the Anglican or
Greek type is not even brought to view in the New Testa-
ment writings, much less set forth as a perpetual requirement.
The only bishops who figure there are officers of local
churches ; and as such they are mentioned in the plural, and
in various connections are apparently identified with elders or
presbyters.! It is barely possible that before the death of the
Apostle John, a distinction began to be made within the board
of presbyters by the impartation of increased dignity and pre-
rogative to the president of the board. But the New Testa-
ment makes no mention even of such an incipient episcopate ;
and, if it be supposed to have arisen before the close of the
first century, it still remains true that no one is in condition
to prove that apostolic authority, as distinct from a natural
evolution, brought it about. Bishop Lightfoot expresses the
most that can be claimed, on the warrant of known facts, for
the connection of episcopacy with the apostolic era, when
he says: “It is clear that at the close of the apostolic age,
the two lower orders of the threefold ministry were firmly
and widely established; but traces of the third and highest
t Acts xx. 17, 28; Titus i. 5-9. Compare Phil. i. 1; 1 Tim. ili. 1-9; 1 Pet.
Vv - PAS
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES 50!
order, the episcopal, properly so-called, are few and indistinct.
For the opinion hazarded by Theodoret, and adopted by many
later writers, that the same officers in the Church who were
first called apostles came afterwards to be designated as
bishops, is baseless.” ! The same eminent scholar remarks
further of the evidences in the case: “They show that the
episcopate was created out of the presbytery. They show
that this creation was not so much an isolated act as a pro-
gressive development, not advancing everywhere at a uniform
rate, but exhibiting at one and the same time different stages
of growth in different churches.” In view of these facts, no
proper basis is left for the doctrine of a necessary apostolic
succession in a line of bishops. An institution which was
unknown to the first generation of Christians, and which is
not proved to have been imposed by apostolic authority upon
even the first generation to which it was known, cannot with-
out great arbitrariness be exalted into a perpetual test of
ecclesiastical legitimacy.
If one prefers to modify the conception of the rise of the
episcopate, as contained in the sketch just given, by introduc-
ing Harnack’s conclusion, according to which the primitive
bishop, as being in particular the almoner of the congregation
and the superintendent of its worship, was, from the first, dis-
tinguished from the simple presbyter, we are still remote from
a historical ground for the High Church contention. Almoners
and superintendents of worship, commonly subsisting in the
plural in connection with each local church, are poorly adapted
to illustrate any sort of hierarchical conception of the epis-
copate.?
1 First Dissertation on Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians.
2 There is good evidence that in some of the principal churches the plural
episcopate obtained in the second Christian generation as well as in the first.
‘“‘ Tt was a plural episcopate to which St. Paul referred in the church at Philippi,
and it was still a plural episcopate in the churches of Rome and Corinth at the
close of the first century as also in the community described in the Didache.
What seems like an allusion to a single bishop in 1 Tim. iii. 1. 2 (cf. Titus i. 7)
33
502 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
2. It savors of the incredible to suppose that the continued
existence of the Christian Church was made by divine appoint-
ment dependent upon the integrity of a succession which no
one can prove to have been truly maintained. As Archbishop
Whately has remarked, “ There is not a minister in all Chris-
tendom who is able to trace up with any approach to certainty
his own spiritual pedigree.’’! “If we should know,” says
Frederic Myers, “without dispute, the names of all the per-
sons who have filled any particular see, from the apostles’
time to our own, and the names of the persons by whom they
were consecrated, this would go but a little way to the proof
that any apostolic gift had been duly transmitted through the
medium of this succession. For that some scheme of means
is essential to the conferring of such a gift by one man on an-
other will be admitted. Then what the essential means are
must first be indisputably determined ; and then whether these
means have been in each case strictly observed. The only
proof which could be received as satisfactory in a case where
such tremendous results depend upon the alternative must be
one which shall afford a reasonable probability that, in every
one of the distinct terms of the series of ordinations between
the apostles’ times and our own, this scheme of means has
been observed uniformly in all essential particulars. Now the
evidence which is necessary to the establishing of this is of too
complex and subtle a character to be conveyed through the
ordinary channels of human testimony. Never in any religion
of the world was there heard of anything so difficult as this
theory of the transmission of an invisible latent gift of grace
for nearly two thousand years being essential to the validity of
priestly acts.” @
may be a desire to call special attention to the grave importance of the office.”
(A. V. G. Allen, Christian Institutions, p. 43.)
1 The Kingdom of Christ. Essay II., § 30.
2 Catholic Thoughts on the Church of Christ and the Church of England,
Ppp- 102, 103.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. §03
3. It cannot be discovered that those who enjoy the benefits
of a supposed apostolic succession are notably distinguished, as
respects spiritual fruits, from those who are destitute of the
grace of which that succession is claimed to be the exclusive
channel. It is true that Dr. Pusey and some others have
believed themselves to have discovered that pious Anglicans
are favored with an element of religious sanctity which is
denied to pious Dissenters. But this is an opinion which
carries conviction only toa party that is more than willing to be
convinced, While it may add to the complacency with which
those who entertain it thank God that they are not as other
men, it cannot count for aught in any court of evidence.
Meanwhile, the fact lies open to the observation of the world
that many of those who, according to the High Church phrase,
are left to the uncovenanted mercies of God, are so adorned
with the Christian graces, that it is a complete puzzle to figure
out in what respects they would be better off if they were
possessed of God’s covenanted mercies. The facts quite un-
mistakably favor the suspicion that God is larger and more
generous than He is represented to be in the High Church
theory. It seems to be the truth that, as He has not confined
the sunlight to a narrow zone, so He has not bound His grace
to lines of episcopal succession.
III. — Tur MINISTRY OF THE WORD.
In proportion as the spiritual character of the Church is
emphasized, and the notion of a sacerdotal mechanism is put
aside, stress falls upon the ministry of the Word as a chief
function of the Church. Among the threefold offices of
Christ the prophetical is that to which in particular it is heir.
We may grant that the Church reflects in some measure
each of the three offices of Christ. It reflects the kingly in
so far as it is a codgent with its Divine Head in promoting
504 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
His spiritual rule in the earth. It reflects the priestly office
in so far as through prayer and self-sacrificing effort it follows
up Christ’s reconciling work in behalf of the sinful and the
unworthy. But the proper fulfillment of these offices is
largely identical with a faithful witnessing to Christ and His
truth. Taken in the broad sense, the ministry of the Word,
or the exposition and enforcement of the truth as it is in
Christ, is a foremost part of the service which the Church has
to fulfill. It is its high office to be giving men perpetually
authentic glimpses of the divine in its most potent aspects as
these are contained in the character and reconciling work of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
The word “authentic ’’ is to be understood here of course
in a relative sense. It is an arbitrary putting of theory in
place of fact which predicates infallibility of the Church in its
teaching function. As history refutes the papal claim, so it
leaves no reasonable ground for supposing any organ of the
Church, or the Church as a whole, to be perfectly guarded
against error.. Nor is it necessary that it should be endowed
with a prerogative of Deity, in order to fulfill its vocation in
the earth. By constantly returning, in a teachable spirit, to
the mirror of divine verities contained in the Bible, it may as-
sure itself of the main tenor of religious truth, and draw out
safe and salutary lessons for the practical guidance of men.
So long as it pursues this method its errors will not fatally
hide the saving light of divine truth, and, moreover, it will be
in position to rectify its more serious mistakes; whereas the
opposite procedure of treating ecclesiastical decisions as pro-
ducts of infallible authority is a scheme for excluding correc-
tion, a scheme supremely adapted to promote fossilization in
error. The less respect is due to this form of idolatry from
the fact that history teaches that it naturally tends to jealousy
of the free use of the Scriptures by the people.
In the ministry of the Word, preaching, or the direct proc-
lamation of the message of truth, as it was a conspicuous
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 505
element in the activity of Christ and the apostles, must ever
hold a prominent place. But the ministry of the Word is not
confined to this means. A prayer, which has as truly a bibli-
cal foundation as a sermon, and which affords as persuasive a
picture of God’s love, or inspires as much awe of His righte-
ousness, fulfills, to this extent, just as truly as the sermon, a
ministering of the Word. The well-devised hymn also, as
being an embodiment of scriptural truth, only in metrical form
and set to music, is also a means for bringing the Word to the
ears and hearts of men. In graphic picturing and moving
appeal it often vies with the most fervid address. Still
further, a genuine ministry of the Word is afforded when
Christians in social worship or in private interviews commend
gospel promises and truths by a modest and candid narrative
of their religious experiences. When such personal testimon-
ies get above the plane of routine and prescription, and are
proffered as spontaneous expressions of gratitude, love, and
faith, they serve in a special degree to impart a vivid impres-
sion of the reality of Christ’s relations to men. Once more,
a literature which is born of Christian faith and is dominated
by the New Testament ideal, whether formally treating of
religious themes or not, must be regarded as fulfilling an im-
portant office in the ministry of the Word. This function of
the Church is thus seen to be inclusive of a wide-reaching
activity. While preaching is a leading means of getting the
truth of Christ into the thought, and conscience, and feeling
of men, it has many efficient allies.
The power of the Word, as ministered through the Church,
has both a natural and a supernatural ground. It is naturally
effective, since the spiritual wisdom contained in the Word is
intrinsically adapted to the deep-lying needs and aspirations of
the human spirit. It reaches results above the plane of
nature, in that its agency is accompanied by the vitalizing
presence of the Holy Spirit. Paul gives the explanation of
the profound effect which has attended many a humble proc-
506 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
lamation of the Word, when he thus describes his communica-
tion to the Corinthians: “I was with you in weakness, and
in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my
preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in
demonstration of the spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power
Or ode a4
As was noticed in the discussion of regeneration, the reve-
lation and promulgation of truth are of the nature of an oppor-
tunity to the Holy Spirit in carrying forward the work of
spiritual renovation. But it is a decided aberration to suppose,
as was done by some of the dogmatists of the seventeenth and
the eighteenth century, that the whole virtue of the Holy
Spirit has gone, so to speak, into the words of the sacred canon,
and apart from them there is no longer any sphere for His
activity. Such a view is a species of deism, a thrusting of
the second cause into the place of the first. No collection
of writings can possibly define the scope of the Holy Spirit’s
agency. While the contents of the Scriptures furnish ready
and copious materials for spiritual impressions, no one has
any warrant for saying that the Holy Spirit never works apart
from these materials in shaping the thoughts and impulses of
human souls. That point of view would exclude Him from
all effective contact with the vast aggregate of men who have
no means of acquaintance with scriptural sayings. Christ’s
declaration, that God is more willing to give the Holy Spirit
than earthly parents are to give good gifts to their children,
means naturally something more than that it is His good
pleasure that men should have a free opportunity to read or
hear the contents of a collection of sacred books. Only a
generation which has drifted away from the intense biblical
view of the divine immanence could harbor such a theory as
that in question.
1 3 Cor. ii. 3-5.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 507
IV. — PRAYER AS RELATED TO CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD.
New Testament teaching and Christian thought generally
assume that a social function belongs to prayer, that every
true child of God will have the disposition to pray for others.
The obligation to this expression of good will is not open to
question; neither can there be any occasion to doubt that
prayer in this sense is fruitful of subjective benefit. It serves
to lead the petitioner in mind and heart both toward God and
toward his fellows. The only question for serious considera-
tion respects its objective efficiency. Against this, it must
be granted, a somewhat plausible challenge can be brought.
It can be argued, for example, that God, as being perfectly
benevolent, is ready to bestow upon those who may be the
objects of our prayers all the blessings, and especially those
of a spiritual nature, which they are qualified to receive; and
so He has no need to wait for our petitions. In answer to
this objection we may note :—
1. Prayer for others is an unquenchable impulse in those
who have the divine treasure and are conscious of its worth.
It is a spontaneous outflow of good will and is not subject to
prohibition. This fact may not afford an intelligible account
of the objective efficacy of prayer; but it certainly suggests
that the notion of such efficacy cannot be illusory. It is hard
to suppose that the spiritual world is so constituted that a
necessary spiritual function should fail altogether of that
which is its special aim.
2. An intrinsic connection between the subjective and the
objective provides for a certain objective efficacy of prayer.
In sympathetically praying for others we place ourselves in a
favorable attitude for receiving and fulfilling in their behalf
divine suggestions of such ministries as may be best adapted
to promote their well-being.
3. Expressions of friendly interest and good-will have a
natural efficacy to reinforce the effect of religious teaching,
§08 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
and to incline men to give heed to salutary counsel. Prayer for
others belongs among these expressions. The knowledge that
one is lovingly remembered before the divine throne may well
be to him an incentive to look seriously to his own duty and
privilege.
4. It is possible that there may be some subtle interrelation
between souls, so that the earnest persistent concern of one
for another, even if it is not distinctly brought to the knowl-
edge of the person upon whom it is expended, may yet be not
wholly destitute of influence upon his thought and feeling.
This point, it may be granted, is too speculative to receive
much emphasis ; but, since scientific opinion is not altogether
intolerant of the notion of telepathy, the suggestion of a hidden
means of interaction between souls may be worth stating, in
opposition to a precipitate verdict against the objective utility
of prayer.
5. Both on scriptural and rational grounds God is to be
considered a factor in all outpouring of benevolent desire.
He is codgent in every normal prayer. We are, therefore,
only representing God as consistently following up His own
action when we suppose Him to accord to prayer a real office
in the extension of goodness and blessedness in the world.
V.— THE SACRAMENTS IN GENERAL.
The subject of the sacraments bears an intimate relation to
that of the ministry of the Word. As Augustine apprehended,
a sacrament is “a kind of visible word.”! It presents truth
to the eye, serving much the same purpose which is fulfilled
by well-designed pictures. To specify more closely, we may
say that the use or purpose of the sacraments is embraced in
three main particulars: (1) they are special means of solemnly
1 Tract. in Joan. Ixxx.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 509
confessing discipleship; (2) they are signs of divine truth
and grace; (3) they are seals or tokens of God’s benevolent
will.
Any voluntary partaking of the sacraments is a solemn
declaration of personal allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ
and of faith in Him as the Saviour of men. In this point of
view they serve an eminent practical end. But the best part
of their worth is not apprehended in a consideration of what
the participant gives, but rather ina contemplation of what is
given to him. Ina vivid way the sacraments set before him
the great benefits of the new dispensation — the cleansing, the
forgiveness, and the fellowship which are provided thereby.
They are divinely chosen signs; and just because they are
divinely chosen they are more than signs. The facts of the
economy of grace being supposed, the sacraments would be
apt signs even were they chosen by men. But, being divinely
chosen, they are distinct memorials of God’s wish that men
should be convinced of His benevolent will, and apprehend the
largeness of His grace. In view of this significance they are
seals or tokens. They make visible proclamation of the con-
soling truth that he who fulfills the conditions of the gospel
call may surely count on a share in the blessings provided by
redeeming love.
In a certain sense the sacraments may be termed means of
grace. They are such in essentially the same sense as the
ministry of the Word. In so far as they image truth which
is adapted to the deep needs and aspirations of men they have
a natural virtue for spiritual effects. So far as the truth
which they image affords a fit instrument for the Holy Spirit,
they are accessory to results which are above the plane of
nature. No virtue beyond this needs to be assumed for the
sacraments. At least, no scriptural sentence requires such
assumption, and no rational construction can be given to the
same. ‘The only conceivable ways in which a physical instru-
ment can be made subservient to spiritual effects is by sug-
§10 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
gestion of truth, or by serving as a means or occasion in
relation to a spiritual agent; and that the sacraments afford
any means or fit occasion of working to the Holy Spirit, which
He does not have in kind apart from them, waits to be proved.
It is a magical pharmacy, and out of harmony with the spiritual
nature of Christianity, which supposes that physical things can
fulfill a remedial function for human souls in other ways than
those specified. Christ should be understood to have put
a veto on all sacramental materialism in these words: “It
is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing:
the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are
likes
In the early Church the word sacrament had a very indef-
inite range, being applied to a variety,of rites and also to the
more significant events and truths of the new dispensation.
The Roman Catholic list of seven sacraments was propounded
by Peter Lombard in the twelfth century, and was sanctioned
by ecclesiastical authority near the middle of the fifteenth
century. Evidently it is largely a matter of option, or human
agreement, what extension shall be given to the term “sacra-
ments.” The important consideration is that no other rites,
either in the Roman Catholic list of seven, or in any other
list, stand on a parity with baptism and the Lord’s supper.
These, if we may trust a primitive and dominant tradition,
were distinctly enjoined by Christ. They stand forth as the
peculiar rites of the new dispensation. They have also a pro-
nounced symbolical import. On the other hand, all rites be-
sides these which have been styled sacraments are destitute
of credible proof that they were instituted by Christ, and some
of them are also wanting in respect of a distinct symbolical
import. It is, therefore, in the interest of a consistent ter-
minology to class baptism and the Lord’s supper by themselves
as the sacraments of the Christian Church.
1 John vi. 63.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. Sir
VI. — Baptism.
Baptism in its Christian use served from the beginning as
an initiatory rite. It signified, as the act of the candidate, the
entrance or the open confession of entrance, into a new re-
ligious relation, namely, that of discipleship toward the Lord
Jesus Christ. As a divinely chosen symbol it represents the
entrance into a new religious state, a state appropriate to the
new relation, that is, a state of cleansing from the guilt and
pollution of sin. Cleansing, washing, making new by taking
away the old ingrained corruption —this is essentially the
typical sense of baptism, as is to be concluded from the natural
association of water with purification, from the Old Testament
symbolism, and from the tenor of the New Testament refer-
ences! It is true that Paul in two or three instances asso-
ciated baptism with burial and resurrection.? But, though a
considerable number of theological writers, moved in part by
a controversial interest, have been inclined to make this repre-
sentation the standard for New Testament thought, it is
decidedly more consonant with the sum total of biblical state-
ments to regard the Pauline sentences as expressive of a
secondary association of baptism than of its primary and more
obvious import. It is an instance of specializing after the
somewhat subtle manner to which the apostle was much given.
By his absorbing interest in the thought of Christ’s death he
was led to substitute for the general notion of purification and
renovation, which belongs to baptism, the more special notion
of coming to newness of life by dying, so to speak, with Christ
and rising again. The figure is Pauline, natural to one who
made so much of mystical union with Christ in His death.
But Paul himself seems not to have been tied to this particular
1 Ps. li. 2, 7; Isa. i. 16, 18; Jer. iv. 14; Ezek. xvi. 9; John iii. 5; Acts xxii.
16; Eph. v. 26; Titus iii. 5; 1 Pet. iii. 21.
2 Rom. ii. 3-5; Coll. ii. 12.
512 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
view of baptism;! so that there is very slight occasion to take
it as the precise expression of the meaning of the rite, as
opposed to the idea of cleansing and renewal suggested by the
major part of the data at hand.
In the first days of Christianity, baptism was coincident
ordinarily with a religious crisis. Immediately upon the exer-
cise of faith in the person and saving office of Christ it was
administered as the proper expression of that faith and the
seal of discipleship. Falling thus at the initiation of a new
life, and being often attended with tokens of the presence and
power of the Holy Spirit, it was naturally very closely asso-
ciated with the regeneration which it symbolized. Under a
different order of conditions, where the new life initiated by
faith is not commonly coincident with the era of baptism,
it has properly a less intimate association with regeneration.
It may still be given a certain association therewith, in that
the grace which goes with its proper reception is in the line of
regenerating efficiency, an increment in the new life. But
to make baptism distinctly the instrument or occasion of re-
generation, under a scheme which commonly interposes an
interval between self-surrendering faith in Christ and the
administration of the rite, is to banish faith utterly from the
primacy which the New Testament accords to it in the appro-
priation of salvation. On page after page there is a direct or
indirect inculcation of the maxim, ‘ Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved,” whereas baptism is associ-
ated with the grasp of saving benefits only in isolated in-
stances. In fact it is given no more positive association with
regeneration than is the ministry of the Word;? so that it
would be just about as proper and scriptural to limit regen-
eration to an occasion of sermon-hearing as to limit it to a
baptismal occasion. In a true perspective of New Testa-
re a S
1 Eph. v. 26.
2 John xvii. 17; James i. 18; 1 Pet. i. 23; 2 Pet. i. 4.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 513
ment teaching it is clear enough that no external transaction
whatever stands on anything like a parity with that interior
central act of man’s religious personality which is called faith,
the profoundly ethical and religious transaction by which one
delivers himself up to God as revealed in Jesus Christ. This
is the great condition of salvation, apart from which there is
no warrant for supposing that any external worship or exercise
in hearing can avail aught, and with which there is no strict
necessity for any ceremonial adjunct. It is true that Christ
is reported to have said to Nicodemus, except a man be born
of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God. But any one who will read the whole passage cannot
fail to see that the main stress is upon the office of the Spirit
and not upon that of water. He may observe also that the
reference to water appears to be introduced by way of explana-
tion, or for the purpose of elucidating to Nicodemus the mean-
ing of re-birth, the association here of water with the Spirit
being analagous to the association of fire with the Spirit in
the synoptical representation.1 The whole sentence, there-
fore, may be regarded as teaching that unless the Holy Spirit
works in a man that cleansing or renewal which is symbolized
by the use of water, he can be no fit subject for the kingdom
of God. That the same Christ, who rebuked the ceremonial
scrupulosity and littleness of the Pharisees, and declared so
emphatically the readiness of the heavenly Father to bestow
the Holy Spirit in response to sincere asking, meant to repre-
sent the renewing operation of the Spirit as bound to a cere-
monial use of water is simply inconceivable.2_ The experience
of the apostles certainly interposed a very decided barrier
against the harboring by them of any such ultra-ritualistic
notion. Peter, for example, was a witness of the unmistakable
tokens of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon Cornelius
1 Luke ili. 16; Matt. iii. 11.
2 Matt. xv. 1-20; Mark vii. 1-23; Luke xi. 13.
514 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
and his friends, antecedent to their reception of baptism, and
himself asked, “‘Can any man forbid the water, that these
should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost
as well as we?”’!
By a comparatively early exaggeration, stress upon the pro-
priety and utility of baptism passed over into an assertion of
its necessity. From the days of Augustine it was the current
opinion in the Latin Church that no one can be saved in de-
fault of baptism, except on the score of a desire and purpose
which would secure the rite if the opportunity should be
offered. As infants cannot furnish these compensations, there
was understood to be no chance of their salvation in case
they should die unbaptized. In the modern Roman Catholic
Church, though an occasional theologian has dissented from
this view, it has continued to hold the place of a standard
belief. Perrone says: “ Infants departing from this life with-
out baptism, do not attain to eternal salvation”’ ;* and he adds
that this proposition is a part of the established faith — a con-
clusion which is unavoidable if strict dogmatic authority be
affirmed of the Tridentine Catechism, since it plainly con
ditions the salvation of infants upon baptism.3
On the merits of such a doctrine, it is enough to say that
it turns the divine benevolence into an enigmatic and unmean-
ing phrase. The God who excludes countless millions of souls
from the kingdom of heaven for a mere lack of a ceremonial
application of water must in consistency be regarded as caring
little or nothing for souls. In some respects this inference of
ACS XA? 2 Praelect. Theol., De Hom.
8 Pars II. Cap. ii. 31, 34. Nihil magis necessarium videri potest, quam ut
[fideles] doceantur, omnibus hominibus baptismi legem a Domino praescriptam
esse ita, ut, nisi per baptisimi gratiam Deo renascantur, in sempiternam mise-
riam et interitum a parentibus, sive illi fideles, sive infideles sint, procreentur.
-.. Quum pueris infantibus nulla alia salutis comparandae ratio, nisi eis bap-
tismus praebeatur, relicta sit: facile intelligitur, quam gravi culpa illi sese ob.
stringant, qui eos sacramenti gratia diutius, quam necessitas postulet, carere
patiantur,
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. §15
an intemperate sacramentalism is worse than the dogma of
absolute reprobation. The predestinarian, making the number
of the reprobate God’s secret, can at least entertain the hope
that it is a small minority of the race. But the ultra sacra-
mentalist is confronted by the indisputable fact that no small
fraction of the human family dies without baptism in infancy,
and so, from his point of view, is hopelessly doomed. More-
over, it is difficult to exclude the essence of the doctrine of
unconditional reprobation in connection with belief in the
necessary doom of unbaptized infants. If those who live to
adult years have any real opportunity either to receive baptism
or to afford compensations for the same, then those who die
unbaptized in infancy are discriminated against. They appear
as a class that is damned without having had the slightest
chance by personal agency to escape damnation. If their
early death be counted purely accidental, it argues indiffer-
ence and arbitrariness in God to hinge their eternal destiny
on accidents which they had no power to avoid. If, on the
other hand, their early death is reckoned as a part of a provi-
dential order, then their damnation is made to appear as a
part of God’s regular scheme. In any case the spirit, if not
the precise form, of the doctrine of arbitrary reprobation
cleaves to this theory of an overdrawn sacramentalism re-
specting the necessity of baptism. The atrocity of the theory
is indeed mitigated to some extent by the supposition that the
punishment of unbaptized infants consists in being deprived
of a good, rather than in any positive infliction of pain. Still,
the theory outrages the thought of divine justice and benevo-
lence, since the good of which the unbaptized are said to be
deprived is the proper goal of the human spirit, and to be
numbered with the lost, as opposed to the saved, cannot mean
anything less than an immeasurable calamity, unless language
be used with utter frivolity.
Those who insist upon the necessity of baptism very natur-
ally credit it with a decisive effect.even in purely passive sub-
516 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
jects, such as are infants. But no good warrant for this
opinion can be found in Scripture, reason, or experience. It
cannot be found in Scripture, for that says not a word about
the effect of baptism on subjects who are incapable of exer-
cising faith or confessing discipleship. It cannot be found in
reason, for there is no more of natural opportunity for the
working of the Holy Spirit in the infant that receives baptism
than in the one that is denied the rite; and if, accordingly, a
saving transformation is wrought in the one and refused to the
other, an extravagant premium is put on ritual as opposed to
souls. It cannot be found in experience, for no one is able
to discover that baptized subjects are not required to meet
every demand of personal conscious agency which is imposed
upon the unbaptized, in order to the initiation of genuine piety
of heart and life. That the Holy Spirit is near to the soul of
the young child, and has ways of shaping or counteracting its
most initial moral tendencies, may be true; but that His
agency in such a subject is tied to the rite of baptism, or is
peculiarly operative therein, is an ecclesiastical fancy for which
no good warrant has ever been discovered.
The propriety of infant baptism is not measured by the
extent of its immediate effect upon its subject. On the part
of believing parents, it is a solemn expression of their wish to
dedicate their offspring to the Lord, and to have them par-
takers of all the sanctities of the Christian religion. On the
part of the children, it is a reminder, as soon as they come to
years of understanding, that they ought not to count them-
selves aliens to Christ’s family, but as already having a dis-
tinct relation thereto, which it behoves them to carry forward
to perfection. This relation, it is true, should not be given
too much of the character of a finality. After generous room
has been conceded to the charitable assumption that the child
trained in Christian teachings will become in spirit and in
truth a disciple of Christ, his own choice and line of conduct
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. S17
should be allowed to determine his standing as being within
or without the circle of church fellowship proper. Meanwhile,
the consciousness of an already existing relation to religious
society may naturally serve as a motive for reflection and for
choice in the right direction.
Doubtless the silence of the New Testament may be urged
in objection to the practice of infant baptism. But two con-
siderations serve to break very largely the force of this objec-
tion. In the first place, no detailed treatment is given to the
subject of baptism in the New Testament. In the second
place, aside from a slender thread of narrative, the whole of
the New Testament is made up of discourses and epistles
addressed to the adult understanding on the great themes of
the Christian religion. Naturally the conditions of baptism
that are specified in such a subject-matter correspond with the
standing of the persons immediately contemplated, and are
defined to be in particular repentance and faith. The Jews
in making proselytes imposed analogous demands, without,
however, implying that those born in a Jewish household
must meet these demands before they could receive the sign
of the Old Testament covenant. So the demands which are
put forth in the essentially missionary messages of the New
Testament are not necessarily interpreted as rigidly applying
to those born in Christian households. Moreover, it may be
noticed that silence about the baptism of children is paralleled
by silence about the method of their salvation. Does the
latter prove that they are not subjects of salvation? Lack
of specific treatment of either point is no decisive means of
judgment. We are thus directed to general grounds of infer-
ence, and note the following in favor of infant baptism : —
1. The religious relation of the children of believers was
acknowledged under the old dispensation, and was signalized
by applying to them the covenant sign. As Dorner argues,
“The Church cannot be poorer than the synagogue, the new
covenant cannot express less love than the covenant of circum-
34
518 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
cision, whose benefits applied also to children. The first ser-
mon of Peter alluded to this.” !
2. Christ’s reception of little children and the blessing which
He pronounced upon them intimate that they are proper sub-
jects of religious recognition.? Paul’s words, also, are indicative
of the conviction that the children of believing parents are
properly viewed as having a distinctive relation to the Chris-
tian brotherhood. Now in baptism parents and Church unite
in giving solemn recognition of the religious relation in which
children are normally conceived to be standing.
3. Early usage, while. not decisive, rather favors than ex-
cludes the supposition that infant baptism was sanctioned
by apostolic practice, at least was not unknown before the
close of the apostolic era. Cyprian assumed, at the middle
of the third century, together with the bishops associated
with him in North Africa, that it was the common duty of
parents to have their children baptized soon after their birth.‘
Origen’s references to the subject indicate that a like view
had place at the same time in the East, and was no recent
innovation, since he declares the administration of baptism
to infants a matter of apostolic tradition.® Tertullian’s oppo-
sition to it about a half century earlier—mainly on the
ground of the inexpediency of placing children, or their
sponsors, under the heavy responsibilities of the baptismal
covenant — shows that it was being practiced at that date.®
The same motive which led him to oppose haste in the case
of children also led him to advise the postponement of bap-
tism even for adults whose circumstances in life exposed
them to considerable temptations. As in this item he seems
1 System of Christian Doctrine, § 141.
2 Matt. xix. 13-15; Mark x. 13-16.
8 1 Cor. vii. 14.
* Epist. Iviii., ad Fidum.
5 Comm. in epist. ad Rom. v. 9; In Lev. Hom. viii.
® De Baptismo, xviii.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 519
to have gone counter to early precedent, so there is little or
no guarantee that he respected any good precedent in his
dissuasion from infant baptism. Earlier than Tertullian
there is no very definite reference to the subject, a fact that
is not surprising when we consider the very brief and scanty
references to the general topic of baptism in the writings of
the second century. A comparison of two passages of Ire-
nzus affords a measure of probability that he had in mind,
as he wrote, the custom of baptizing infants.}
Among subordinate questions it remains to notice the
form of baptism, the relation of John’s baptism to the Chris-
tian, and the question of the allowable repetition of the rite.
Those who lay great stress upon the form of baptism very
commonly take these grounds: (1) The primitive meaning
of the word farrw is to immerse. (2) This meaning was
retained intact in connection with the Christian appropria-
tion of the word, since Christ, when He gave the command
to baptize, had in mind not merely such a use of water as
might symbolize purification and renovation, but distinctively
and exclusively the rite of immersion, and designed to make
this special mode of using water obligatory for all time.
The first of these points needs very little consideration.
Every one admits that words frequently travel away from
their original sense, and gain applied and accommodated
meanings, Any evidence, therefore, as to the significance
of the word daptizo, which may have been prevalent in pre-
Christian time, affords no more than probability, not decisive
proof, as respects its Christian sense. Of the points speci-
fied the second is properly entitled to the main consideration.
A rational judgment needs to be formed as to Christ’s atti-
tude in relation to the Christian rite. Only a fraction of the
pertinent considerations is taken into account when it is
1 Cont. Haer. ii. 22. 4, iii. 17. 1.
520 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
assumed that Christ had a mental picture of a particular
mode of using water when He gave the command to baptize,
or that the apostles had an image of one special way of using
water when they spoke of baptism. The glance of Christ’s
eye or the movement of His thought may have been to a par-
ticular kind of lily, when He declared that Solomon’s apparel
could not compare with its beautiful clothing ; but it does not
follow that He would not have said the same of other species
of flowers equally adapted to vie with Solomon’s glory.
Similarly He may have had in mind a specific picture of
table customs when He instituted a memorial feast, and yet
have been remote from the purpose to make out of this order
of mental association an inflexible law for the celebration of
the eucharistic rite. Applying the illustration, we may say
that Christ, borrowing from current ceremonial usage, may
have had in mind a particular form of baptismal rite, with-
out placing any considerable stress upon that form, or design-
ing to make it invariably binding. It is plainly not enough
to surmise the mental image which He entertained in order
to make out an exclusive claim for one special form. It
must also. be known that His mind, above and beyond the
general religious purpose to be served by the rite, was tena-
cious of the special form, so that He wished to leave no mar-
gin for variation in accordance with different conditions and
circumstances. But who has the means of knowing this?
With all respect to the advocates of the exclusive validity of
immersion, it must be affirmed that it is utterly improbable
that Christ, in prescribing baptism, was inflexibly tenacious in
respect of form, or meant to exclude all margin of variation.
A rite typical of a purified and renovated life, and serving as
an open confession of discipleship, was the important thing
to be secured; and the securing of this much is consistent
with a varied use of water. That Christ’s attitude of mind
was one of tolerance toward accommodation and variety may
be argued on two grounds. In the first place, His whole
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. §21
ministry was characterized by stress upon the spirit, as op-
posed to exaggerating the value of forms. He was ever call-
ing men to the large and free life of faith and love, not to
the narrowness of ceremonial scrupulosity. In the second
place, the facts of early Christian history favor the suppo-
sition that it was agreeable to the mind of Christ to allow a
measure of flexibility in ceremonial requisitions. The lan-
guage of Cyprian makes it clear that near the middle of the
third century sprinkling was counted a valid mode of baptism
for the sick.’ At an earlier date — somewhat uncertain, but
probably not remote from the verge of the apostolic era —
the so-called ‘‘ Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” shows that
the mode of baptism was allowed to be varied for other con-
ditions than those of sickness, a difficulty as respects access
to running water being specified as a sufficient warrant for
simply pouring water upon the head of the candidate.? The
champion of immersion, it is true, may have the courage to
say that this flexibility as to mode was of the nature of a
corruption. But a community that was moving away from
apostolic spirituality would naturally have diverged from the
primitive standpoint, not by greater flexibility in usage, but
in the way of greater elaboration of forms and punctilious-
ness in their observance. To suppose that Jesus or Paul
was not willing to grant as much liberty in respect of forms
as was allowed by the author of a treatise so legal in tone as
the “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” is to suppose the
very improbable, not to say the absurd.
In view of these considerations, it becomes a matter of
secondary importance to determine what was the standing
association of the word daptizo in the first century, or what
image most naturally went with it in the mind of Christ.
Very likely the word was still suggestive, to a considerable
extent, of the meaning which pertained to it originally,
1 Epist. Ixxv. 12, ad Magnum. 2 Didache, Chap. vii.
522 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
namely, immersion. But there are indications that its signifi-
cance had been broadened, so that it could be used without
any conscious reference to a complete submergence in the
baptismal element. Thus in the Gospels —not to mention
instances where baptism seems to be used as the equivalent
of washing ! — Christ is portrayed as one who should baptize
with the Holy Ghost and with fire ;* but in the Book of Acts
the fulfillment is pictured by the descent of tongues of fire
upon the heads of the disciples, not by a submergence of the
subjects of the baptism. Again, a comparison of chapter i. §
with chapter 11. 16-18, in the Book of Acts, identifies baptism
by the Holy Spirit as baptism by an outpouring. The same
identification appears in Peter’s account of the baptism of
Cornelius.®
These are very good evidences that even in New Testa-
ment thinking the meaning of baptism was not summed up
in immersion. It was, therefore, in the line of scriptural pre-
cedent when, in the second century, more than immersion was
included under the term, as appears in the option conceded
in the “ Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’”’ in the custom of
styling martyrdom the baptism of blood, and in the fact that
the first Latin fathers, instead of translating by zmersio the
Greek word for baptism, simply transferred it into Latin.
Less conclusive than the facts and considerations presented,
but yet sufficient to establish a certain probability of latitude
under apostolic administration, is the narrative of instances in
which the circumstances speak against the credibility of com-
plete immersion — such instances as the baptism of three
thousand at Pentecost in the hostile city of Jerusalem, and
the baptism of the Philippian jailer and his household in the
night by imprisoned evangelists.
If practical considerations are allowed to have any weight,
1 Luke xi. 38; Mark vii. 4. Compare Heb. ix. 10.
2 Matt. iii. 11; Mark i. 8; Luke iii. 16.
8 Acts xi. 16, 17.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. §23
it must be granted that the physical element is too prominent
in the immersion of adult candidates to make it under all
natural and social conditions an ideal rite for a thoroughly
rational and spiritual religion. The crucifixion involved in an
honest submission to immersion may undoubtedly have its
reward ; but Christianity is not so much of a monastic scheme
that it hinges benefits on any needless bodily austerity.
As Christ associated John the Baptist with the vanishing
Old Testament dispensation, rather than placed him distinctly
within the new kingdom which He Himself represented,! the
natural inference is that John’s baptism belonged to a pre-
liminary order of things, and so was not properly Christian
baptism. This inference is confirmed by the account of those
whom Paul baptized at Ephesus notwithstanding they had al-
ready received John’s baptism.”
In general, since baptism is the rite of initiation into the
Christian communion, its repetition involves an incongruity.
Only in cases where the title to the Christian name, on the
part of the communion in whose midst it was administered,
is fairly open to question, is it appropriate to ask for its
repetition.
VII.— Tue Lorp’s Supper.
While baptism is the rite of initiation into Christian fellow-
ship, the Lord’s supper is the rite of continued fellowship, on
the part of disciples, both with Christ and with one another,
and accordingly, in contrast with the former, was designed for
frequent repetition.
In a full statement of the significance of the Lord’s supper,
such as may be gathered from the sum total of New Testa-
ment references,® the following specifications are in point:
1 Matt. xi. 11. 2 Acts xix. I-7.
8 Matt. xxvi. 26-28; Mark xiv. 22-24; Luke xxii. 19, 20; 1 Cor. x. 15-17,
xi. 23-29.
524 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
(1) The supper is a memorial of the sacrificial death of Christ,
or of His broken body and shed blood. “As often as ye eat
this bread and drink this cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death
till He come.” (2) Inasmuch as the emblems are not merely
viewed, but also taken by the communicant, the rite is sig-
nificant of a close personal relation — the offer of Christ in
all the benefits of His passion and the acceptance of Him as
thus offered. (3) As being of the Lord’s own appointment,
it is a token of His gracious will, a seal of the new covenant.
(4) As being a response on the part of the communicant to
this token, it is a solemn confession of discipleship and a
pledge of loyal devotion. (5) Since it brings the disciples of
Christ together in the intimacy of a sacred meal, it is signifi-
cant of their oneness in their head. “The bread which we
break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ? seeing
that we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all
partake of the one bread.”
Thus the Lord’s supper is a most deep, solemn, and tender
message of divine truth. It memorializes the greatest deed
of divine love, and invites by its apt emblems to a trustful
and affectionate appropriation of the highest grace. If truth
is ever utilized by the Holy Spirit for the edification of the
disciple, then no reason can be imagined why the rich message
of this sacred feast should not be effective of large spiritual
benefit to all true participants.
The obvious spiritual meaning of the sacrament is so full
and satisfactory that it is very little to the credit of the
Church that it ever had the disposition to obscure that mean-
ing by an overgrowth of materialism and magic. The maxi-
mum specimen of this overgrowth is seen in the doctrine of
transubstantiation, which came to prominence in the eighth
and ninth centuries, and obtained its first ecumenical sanction
at the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215. As authoritatively
promulgated by the Council of Trent, this doctrine assumes
that by the act of consecration the substance of bread and
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 525
wine is changed into the substance of Christ’s body and blood ;
and that the entire Christ is under each species (apparent
bread and wine), and under every part of each species when
separated. In opposition to this vast assumption the follow-
ing considerations are to be urged : —
1. Exegetically the assumption is entirely unnecessary. It
was but a sober instance of Oriental rhetoric when Christ
named the bread and wine His body and blood. Parallel in-
stances of a like graphic way of speaking are found in his
recorded discourses, as, for example, when He speaks of Him-
self as the “door” or the “vine.’’ Indeed, it would not have
sounded like the language of Christ if He had formally char-
acterized the bread and wine as emblems or symbols. There
was no demand in the circumstances of the occasion for such
formality and precision. The unsophisticated men who were
with Him, being familiar with His manner of speech, and
seeing Him intact before themselves, could not have once
dreamed that the bread and wine were aught but chosen
means to figure the body and blood of their Master. More-
over, in another connection Christ had already taken pains to
repudiate the materialistic notion that there was to be any
actual eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood, or that
any benefit could be derived therefrom.1
2. The Roman Catholic doctrine assumes the rationally
inconceivable, in that it predicates the transformation of one
1 John vi. 63. The discoveryin this chapter of a dogmatic discourse on the
eucharist is quite at fault. Aside from the light cast by the great interpreting
sentence at the close, two facts stand opposed to the supposition of a content
of that sort. In the first part of the discourse the same office is assigned to
faith which in the latter part is assigned to eating Christ’s flesh and drinking
His blood. Again, the eating and drinking are described as in themselves
effective; no condition that these acts must be done worthily is stated. Put-
ting these facts together we are directed to the conclusion that the eating and
drinking are figurative terms for a spiritual transaction, namely, the appropria-
ation of Christ in the whole virtue of the truth and saving office which pertain
to Him.
526 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION,
substance into another already existing substance. This is
no better than saying that 1 + 1 = 1. To secure any ap-
proach to congruity of thought, it would be necessary to
assume that the substance of the bread and wine is anni-
hilated and replaced by the substance of Christ’s body and
blood. But the standard Romish definition, instead of making
room for this conception, speaks of “ conversion of substance.”
The natural inference is that its framers meant to affirm
that one substance is actually turned into another already
existing substance. This was plainly the view of Thomas
Aquinas, who distinctly rejected the supposition of annihila-
tion and replacement.) _
3. The doctrine of transubstantiation involves an artificial
and unphilosophical notion of the relation between substance
and attribute. So far as any human test can discover, every
attribute that belonged to the eucharistic bread and wine be-
fore consecration is retained after the formula of institution
has been pronounced. The assumed change of substance
leaves every attribute of which we have any knowledge in-
tact. We are thus asked to believe that the relation between
substance and attribute is much the same as that between a
cushion and the pins which are stuck into it ; the cushion is
removed, and by a kind of divine magic the pins are kept in
their old positions. This may answer for an untrained im-
agination. But in a tolerable metaphysical conception it
must be seen that substance and attribute are inseparable;
that, if a thing exists, it must exist in some special mode or
modes; that these modes are what is meant by attributes ?;
and that, accordingly, to strip off the attributes and to leave
1 Sum. Theol. Pars ili. Quaest. Ixxv. Art. 3.
2 It may be observed here that a Roman Catholic scholar, in a recent volume,
represents the definition of the scholastics as essentially coinciding with this
statement, the terms employed by them in describing a quality or attribute
being modus essendi vel dispositio substantiae.. (Otto Willmann, Geschichte des
Idealismus, 1896, II. 375.)
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 527
the substance, or to expel the substance and leave the at-
tributes, is entirely out of the question. That in Romish
nomenclature the term “accidents” is put in place of attri-
butes does not help the matter, All the known attributes of
bread and wine, including those as fundamentally associated
with them in our thought as extension, weight, color, and
nourishing power, come into the account ; so that the advo-
cate of transubstantiation must either grant that attributes
proper are separable from substance, or that we have no
knowledge of any attribute whatever. His theory, therefore,
crowds him into the indefensible notion that there is no neces-
sary connection between existence and modes of existence.
It may be noticed that, from other points of view, the Ro-
man Catholic theory is seen to involve an arbitrary severance
of substance and attribute. According to that theory, the
bodily substance of an adult human being can be wholly con-
tained within the limits of a particle no larger thana needle’s
point, and there be robbed of every sort of manifestation, so
as to be absolutely beyond the reach of human perception.
Now, to say that bodily substance can retain its integrity, or
real nature, in spite of such suppression of all its known
characteristics, is as much as saying that there is no neces-
sary connection between substance and attribute. Toadd to
the burden which is put upon rational thinking by the theory
in question, it enforces the conclusion that a given set of at-
tributes is not suppressed at the very time that it is sup-
pressed — not suppressed, that is, as belonging to Christ’s
body in the heavenly sphere, where presumably it exhibits
the human type in stature and contour, but suppressed in the
same identical subject as contained in any portion of the
eucharistic species. Imagine a piece of iron glowing at a
white heat in one place, and at the same time covered with
frost in another place, or absolutely void of any token of tem-
perature or any other state or quality.
The current assertion of Roman Catholic theologians, that
528 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
the body of Christ is present in the eucharistic species after
the manner of a spirit involves the same artificial relation be-
tween substance and attribute. If a body can take on the
mode of subsistence of a spirit, why may not the reverse be
true? Why may we not suppose spirits that are light or
heavy, brown or white, conical, cubical, or cylindrical in
shape? Then, too, it is not a little puzzling to define what
can be meant by eating a body that subsists in the mode of
a spirit.
_ 4. Contradictory representations are involved by the Ro-
man Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation as respects motion
and multipresence. Since the whole substance of Christ’s
body is declared to be in each separate portion of consecrated
bread, and these portions may be at the same time in all parts
of the world, it follows that the same undivided physical sub-
stance may at the same instant be moving east and west,
north and south, upwards and downwards; that, in fact, it
may be travelling at once in all conceivable directions around
the earth, or may be resting in its entirety within every square
mile on the face of the earth, or even performing both of these
feats at once. To take a historic instance, we are required to
think that in the last supper, as celebrated by Christ with
His disciples, the whole substance of his body may have been
at the same time in His living frame, in His hand or mouth,
and in the hand or mouth of each disciple. Now all this is
not merely in defiance of the imagination, it is equally an-
tagonistic to rational thinking. Whatever else a physical sub-
stance may be, it is certainly a definite quantum of physical
force or energy. To assume, then, that a physical substance
can move in its entirety in all conceivable directions, and be in
its entirety in any number of distinct places, is just as good as
saying that a definite quantum of physical force or energy can
be increased ten thousand times, and yet remain the same.
5. The doctrine of transubstantiation cannot be reconciled
with religious propriety in the act of communing. Only a
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 529
peculiarly educated sentimentality can regard that a proper
dealing with the sacred body of Christ, which consigns it to
mouth and stomach. First to worship and then literally to
eat the Christ in the consecrated wafer is to join the highest
tribute with the greatest indignity.
Some of the above objections to the Roman Catholic doc-
trine do not apply to the Lutheran theory of the presence of
the body of Christ together with the substance of bread and
wine, as these visible elements are received by the communi-
cant; but others of them do apply. In general, theories of
the real bodily presence, aside from the question of their
rational conceivability, are amenable to these criticisms : —
1. They withdraw attention from the central meaning of
the eucharistic rite as a memorial of Christ’s death. The
body which is supposed to be present can be only the glorified
body. In proportion, therefore, as the thought is concen-
trated upon that, the historic intent of the rite fails of fulfill-
ment, and it ceases to vitalize the sense of fellowship with the
suffering and dying Redeemer.
2. These theories involve an unscriptural materialism.
The whole trend of the New Testament directs to depend-
ence upon the truth and Spirit of God for spiritual effects.
There seems, then, to be no proper function left for the real
body of Christ in the eucharistic elements. Spiritual effects
are not appropriate to such an agent, that is, an invisible physi-
cal substance ; and there is no warrant for supposing that the
Lord’s supper was meant to be a medium of corporeal benefits.
To be sure, some theologians have imagined that Christ’s
glorified body, as proffered in the eucharistic elements, some-
how works toward the bodily transfiguration which is consum-
mated in the resurrection. But there is no proper warrant
for this notion. The Scriptures ascribe the resurrection to the
marvelous working of God’s power, and in no wise teach that
a mere lack of participation of the eucharistic elements will
nullify the believer’s prospect of attaining to a glorified body.
§30 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
It is doubtless very easy for the advocates of the real
bodily presence to charge upon their opponents, that they
leave to the Lord’s supper only empty symbols. But the
elements, though symbolical, are not empty symbols. As
was seen, they have a rich spiritual import. To view in them
the most precious truths of the redemptive economy is to dis-
cover and to utilize a far better content than can be found in
a physical presence for which no appropriate spiritual function
can be specified.
There being no proper warrant for the real bodily presence,
there can be of course no warrant for the idea of the eucharis-
tic sacrifice as embodied in the Roman Catholic doctrine of
the mass —a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the
dead. No victim is present to be offered upon the altar.
Moreover, no foundation for the doctrine can be discovered
in any words of Christ or the apostles, save by an exegetical
absolutism akin to that which forces the dogma of papal in-
fallibility into utterly irrelevant texts. The New Testament
contemplates no other propitiatory sacrifice than that which
was consummated on the cross, once for all.) It is true that
a doctrine of sacrifice, approaching to the Roman Catholic,
was well under way before the end of the fourth century.
But it was as distinctly an innovation as was the contempo-
rary saint-worship. The earlier fathers did not entertain it,
though a few of them spoke in a free rhetorical way of the
eucharistic elements as a thank-offering presented by the
congregation. The following words of Irenzus are in point,
and indicate how moderate a sacrificial import was attributed
to the eucharist in the latter part of the second century:
“Sacrifices do not sanctify a man, for God stands in no need
of sacrifice; but it is the conscience of the offerer which
sanctifies the sacrifice when it is pure, and thus moves God
to accept it as froma friend. .. . Now we make an offering to
1 Heb. ix. 24-28.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 53!
Him, not as though He stood in need of it, but rendering
thanks for His gift, and thus sanctifying what has been
created.”! Not far from the time of Irenzus, Clement of
Alexandria reproduced more nearly the proper conception of
sacrifice within the compass of the new dispensation. ‘The
sacrifice of the Church,” he says, “is the word breathing as
incense from holy souls. ... The righteous soul is the truly
sacred altar, and incense arising from it is holy prayer.”?
Since baptism is the initiatory rite of Christian discipleship,
there is obviously a certain propriety in making it in general
the antecedent of the privilege to participate in the Lord’s
supper. But no one can prove that it is the will of Christ,
that, always, irrespective of the demands of special circum-
stances, baptism must be insisted upon as a prerequisite to
access to the Lord’s table. It is not in the spirit of Christ
to reckon rigid conformity to ecclesiastical propriety above the
dictates of Christian cordiality, Much less, then, is it legiti-
mate to insist upon a special form of baptism as a condition
of participation in the eucharist.%
VIII. — THE ALLEGED SACRAMENT OF PENANCE.
Among the sacraments which the Roman Catholic Church
affirms, in addition to baptism and the eucharist, that of pen-
ance has such a far-reaching significance that it appropriately
comes under review in this connection.
The authorative teaching of that Church, as set forth in the
decrees and canons of the Council of Trent, represents that
forgiveness of sins, which are committed after baptism, is ob-
1 Cont. Haer. iv. 18. 3, 6. 2 Strom. vii. 6.
8 John Wesley’s exclusion of a pious man in Georgia from the Lord’s table,
on the ground of irregular baptism, belonged to the legal stage in his religious
development, and was a piece of folly of which he afterwards heartily repented.
(Journal, September, 1749).
532 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
tained through the sacrament of penance; that for the valid
execution of this sacrament contrition, confession, and satis-
faction are required of the penitent, and the act of absolution
on the part of the priest ; that even though contrition be per-
fect, it does not secure remission apart from at least a desire
for the sacrament; and that the utterance by the priest of the
absolving sentence is a judicial act. The last point is thus
worded: ‘ Although the absolution of the priest is the dis-
pensation of another’s bounty, yet it is not a bare ministry
only, whether of announcing the gospel or of declaring that
sins are forgiven, but is after the manner of a judicial act,
whereby sentence is pronounced by the priest as by a judge.”’
Against this theory of judicial absolution, viewed as one
of the necessary conditions of forgiveness, the following ob-
jections are to be urged: —
1. The doctrine authorizes what, from the conditions of
the case, must ordinarily be an act of presumption. A posi-
tive declaration of forgiveness, where there is no knowledge
whether forgiveness is possible, is surely an overstepping of
the claims of truth and moderation. But knowledge of this
kind is beyond the reach of the confessor. He has no nat-
ural means of knowing whether the penitent cherishes that
contrition of heart, or at least attrition, without which, accord-
ing to the Tridentine decisions, he cannot be absolved. To
bring in supernatural means, to assume that a revelation is
always given to the officiating priest, whether he be a saint
or a besotted sinner, is to predicate the sheerest magic. Be-
ing thus without either natural or supernatural means to
know certainly the state of the penitent’s heart, what right
has the priest to say: “J absolve thee?” If the absolving
sentence had to do only with the ecclesiastical relation of the
penitent, it might be allowed to pass. But in Romish theory
it reaches higher than this, and is assumed to be actually an
instrument of absolution in the sight of God. Herein lies
the stain of presumption.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 533
2. The doctrine of judicial absolution involves a notion of
the divine forgiveness which is artificial and derogatory to the
divine character. In any worthy view of God it must be seen
that the priest is too late with his absolving sentence. The
very same contrition which can properly entitle the penitent
to the supposed benefit of that sentence, that is, one that
answers to the scriptural idea of true repentance, invites the
divine clemency. It is next toa sacrilege against the benevo-
lence of God to suppose that He will wait for the intervention
of ecclesiastical machinery before inwardly assuming a favor-
able attitude toward a sincere penitent. Such a conclusion
puts the very nature of God under bondage to a creaturely
formality transacted upon His footstool. But what more is
divine forgiveness in its essence than this favoring inward
attitude ? Is there anything in the universe that can stand
against this, or even unite with it, in determining the real
status of a soul in relation to the divine kingdom? The
notion that the priest can get ahead of the movement of the
divine mind and heart cannot rationally be entertained for a
moment.! It is indeed conceivable that in this or that instance
the priest might be commissioned to declare to the penitent
the already existing fact of his forgiveness, though the New
Testament indicates as a matter of fact, that the Holy Spirit
is ready to fulfill that office by awakening the filial conscious-
ness and shedding abroad the love of God in the heart. This
merely declaratory office, however, is just what Romish dogma
repudiates. To provide for a judicial sentence it enthrones
technicality over the ethical nature of God.
If it be assumed, as it is in the Tridentine decrees, that
1“ To say of any soul that is filled with sorrow for its sins that it can remain
unforgiven, or that its forgiveness can be delayed for some other reason, is to
utter what is really a contradiction in terms—a contradiction as great as to
speak of the vanishing of darkness without the approach of light, or of the
earth becoming nearer to the sun without the sun becoming nearer to the
earth.” (John Caird, University Sermons, p. 140.)
35
534 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
genuine contrition will always seek the absolving office of the
priest, all that needs to be said is, that abundant facts utterly
discredit the assumption. The real world gives the lie here
to the speculations of the doctors.
3. The tenet respecting zudictal absolution is discounten-
anced by the facts of ecclesiastical history. It may be granted
that an overgrowth of sacerdotalism appeared in the Church,
and that a mist began to spread over the proper distinction
between reconciliation with the Church and reconciliation
with God, at a comparatively early date. Still it was a long
time before sacerdotalism reached that height of assumption
which is expressed in the Tridentine doctrine of a necessary
judicial absolution by the mouth of the priest. In proof of
this it will suffice to quote these facts: (1) In the fourth
century the office of penitential presbyter, established in the
preceding century, was abolished in the East. The historians,
Socrates and Sozomen, in recording this event use statements
which plainly indicate that for the time there was a lapse as
respects any requirement of confession, since the one writer
says that “ Everyone was left to his own conscience as regards
participation in the sacred mysteries,’! and the other re-
marks, that people were no longer deterred from committing
sins through dread of “exposing them to the scrutiny of a
severe judge.” * Now, this lapse in the practice of confession
powerfully testifies to the truth that the motive of the prac-
tice could not have been an apprehended necessity of the
priestly absolution as a condition of forgiveness before God.
We are reminded here, as we are in other connections, that
confession of private sins was primarily imposed for the two-
fold purpose of guarding the sacredness of the Christian
mysteries and advising the penitent as to the proper satisfac-
tions for his transgressions. (2) For many centuries abso-
lution was administered, not in the form of a judicial sentence,
1 Hist. Eccl. v. 19. 2 Hist. Eccl. vii. 16.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 535
but in that of a supplication, expressed in words like these:
“May the omnipotent God absolve thee, and spare thee, and
remit and blot out all thy sins.”! Roman Catholic scholars
have acknowledged that up to the eleventh or twelfth century
this was the current form of absolution.2 (3) Peter Lombard
in the twelfth century, in a work which served as a handbook
of theology through the scholastic era, distinctly denies the
judicial function of the priest. Referring to God’s agency he
says: “ He himself alone through Himself remits sins, who also
purifies the soul from interior stain and releases from the
debt of eternal death. But He has not conceded this to the
priests, to whom, nevertheless, He has assigned the power
of loosing and binding —that is, of showing men bound or
loosed.” * His contemporary, Pullus, used equivalent words.’
In the conception of both the office of the priest was evi-
dently declaratory, much like that of the Jewish priest to
whom the healed leper presented himself. A stronger view
may, indeed, have been partly current at that time, but the
fact that representative theologians still in the twelfth century
denied the theory of judicial absolution combines with other
historical evidence to show that this theory for a long time
was no part of the accredited faith of the Church, and was
enthroned finally only as the result of an extreme develop-
ment of sacerdotal assumption.
4. The doctrine of judicial absolution has no proper war-
rant in the tenor of New Testament teaching. From one
end of the New Testament to the other not a single case is
on record in which an apostle or his delegate undertook to for-
give sins in the sense of cancelling guilt in the sight of God,
or to retain them in the sense of giving permanency to guilt.
1H. J. Schmitz, Die Bussbiicher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche, pp.
757,778.
2 Amort, De Origine, Progressu, Valore, ac Fructu Indulgentiarum, Pars -
§ 2, p. 3.
§ Sent. IV. 18. 5, 6. 4 Sent. VI. 16.
536 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
Paul, it is true, speaks of delivering over the Corinthian
offender to Satan; but this, if not merely a rhetorical equiva-
lent for expulsion from the Church, denotes the consignment
of the transgressor to a special physical chastisement, a super-
natural infliction upon the body in return for his grievous
trespass. In either case no ground is afforded for imagining
that the apostolic sentence determined the status of the cul-
prit as condemned or forgiven in the sight of God. Nowhere
does an apostle appear with a judicial sentence of absolution
upon his lips. Nowhere is there any trace of a confessional
in the New Testament; for, there is not the slightest need
of concluding that the exhortation of James to a mutual con-
fession of faults means the secret whispering of a penitent in
the ear of a priest for the sake of getting his sentence of abso-
lution. As was indicated in another connection, an inter-
change of brotherly sympathy and a motive to prayer in each
other’s behalf were the ends which James had in mind.
This absence of any trace of judicial absolution in the ad-
ministration of the apostles suggests, at the least, that the
passages in the Gospels which speak of an apostolic function
of binding and loosing, or of remitting and retaining sins,
ought to be taken with those modifications which are dic-
tated by a reasonable account of human limitations. As the
apostles were not omniscient, and did not have the power to
transform either the nature of man or of God, it was simply
impossible for them to forgive sins in the eminent sense.
Nor is there the slightest occasion to interpret the gospel
passages in favor of such a faculty. Those passages, as is
intimated by the context of Matt. xviii. 18, simply express,
in striking form, the twofold fact that the apostles were en-
dowed with full authority to administer government and dis-
cipline in the Church, and might expect in the fulfillment of
this lofty function the special aid of the Holy Spirit. They
ee
1 Matt. xvi. 19, xviii. 18; John xx. 23.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. $37
were authorized to bind and to loose, to put on or to take off
censures, to exclude or to receive, in connection with the
visible Church ; and, moreover, could cherish the high confi-
dence, that, in virtue of the Holy Spirit’s aid, what they
should do in the visible sphere would be, in general, a reflex
of that done in heaven, their exercise of indulgence or severity
being made conformable to a divine discretion. To suppose
the loosing or binding on earth by a human agent to precede
or to condition that in heaven, the ecclesiastical to govern
the essential, is to indulge in a beggarly anthropomorphism.
The point of emphasis is the agreement of the two, and the
special grace which should effect the agreement, or lift up
the apostolic administration into conformity with the divine
will. The apostolic act would be seconded or confirmed by
God just because of its agreement with His foregoing judg-
ment —that judgment that neither requires nor allows any
temporal interval in its response to interior conditions.
The language addressed by Christ to His apostles sets
forth an ideal. No men less near to the ideal in holiness,
spiritual wisdom, and guidance of the Holy Spirit than were
the apostles can come as near as they did to the fulfillment
of those words — that is, as near to making what is done in
the visible Church a reflex of that which is done in heaven.
The above exposition proceeds on the supposition that the
words respecting binding and loosing, as also those on remit-
ting and retaining, were addressed more directly and _par-
ticularly to the apostles. If a broader application be given
to them, they will of course be still less available for the sup-
port of a high sacerdotal theory. Now the context preceding
and following Matt. xviii. 18 suggests that the power of bind-
ing and loosing therein mentioned was regarded as pertaining
to the Christian brotherhood in general. Also in relation
to John xx. 23, if we consult the parallel passage in Luke
(xxiv. 33-36), we gain the impression that others than apos-
tles were in the group to which the words on remitting and
4
536 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
retaining were addressed. In connection with either of the
sentences under consideration, it remains to be proved that a
prerogative of a set of officials, rather than the function of a
brotherhood, was described.
5. In its practical effect the confessional, with its attach-
ment of priestly absolution, tends to devitalize the sense of
direct personal relation to God, and to put in its place a sense
of dependence upon ecclesiastical mechanism. The pardon
of sins is transferred, so to speak, from a divine to an earthly
court-room. The penitent comes, under ecclesiastical requi-
sition, before a human official, instead of being led by the
feeling of his spiritual necessity to a direct transaction with
the God of holiness and love. In proportion as he thinks on
the virtue of uncovering his sin to the former, he is tempted
to slight the demand to make earnest suit to the latter for
pardon. He thus forfeits in greater or less measure the spir-
itual sensibility which comes from a near approach to God,
and tends to the plane of a mechanical dealing with sin.
So decided is the tendency of the scheme of sacramental
absolution toward this mechanical dealing with sin that it
has virtually been sanctioned in Roman Catholic theory.
Eminent writers of that Church have not hesitated soberly
to advocate the astounding proposition that there is no such
necessity for thorough-going penitence and love toward God
under the new dispensation as existed under the old, inas-
much as the Christian sacrament comes in to make up the
deficit. Distinguishing between contrition and the more
superficial type of repentance known as attrition, they have
maintained that the latter, plus the sacrament of penance,
makes a man, in respect of his standing, as good as contrite.!
This doctrine, it is true, has not been distinctly sanctioned
by any ecumenical decree. But it has obtained large cur-
1 Liguori, Theologia Moralis, Lib. VI. Tract. iv. n. 440-442; Laymann,
Theol. Moral., Lib. V. Tract. vi. Cap. ii.; Sasse, Institutiones Theologicae de
Sacramentis Ecclesiae, 1898, Vol, Il. pp. 121-160.
CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. §39
rency, and the extraordinary honors which have been be-
stowed by recent popes upon such a pronounced advocate of
it as Liguori amount to its virtual commendation by an
authority that boasts of being above all correction.
It must be said, moreover, that the institution of the con-
fessional, as it exists in Roman Catholicism, tends to a mixture
of burdensome legality and unethical laxity. The former ele-
ment provokes to the latter. The slavery of detailed confes-
sion, and of doing penance by rule, creates a motive to lighten
the yoke by cutting down the estimate of various orders of
offences, so as to exclude them from the rank of serious or
mortal sins. Hence it has come about that a very consider-
able amount of perverse casuistry has found its way into
Roman Catholic works of “ moral theology,’ and maxims that
are not fit to be exposed in the market-place have been sanc-
tioned by authors who have commanded high esteem in the
foremost circles of Romish orthodoxy.! This fact is not neces-
sarily indicative of any corrupt disposition or intent; but it
does constitute a striking comment on the entanglements of
a system which imposes an exorbitant demand for weighing
and measuring sins.
1 See the author’s Church History, Modern Church, Part I. pp. 412-425,
490-500.
540 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
CHAPTER III.
THE COMPLETING STAGES IN THE PROGRESS OF THE
CHURCH OR KINGDOM OF GOD.
I.— THE CONSUMMATION OF THE CHURCH MILITANT.
Ir we take the Church in its ideal sense, as substantially
equivalent to the kingdom of God among men, it is evidently
appropriate to discuss the themes of eschatology under the
point of view of great eras or consummations awaiting the
Church. For, while the perfecting of the individual conditions
that of the community, it is still true that the goal toward
which Christianity looks is not simply a great number of
perfect men, but a great number of perfect men perfectly as-
sociated together, having a peculiar union with each other
because of their oneness with Christ, a spiritual brotherhood,
a holy and imperishable kingdom. To forecast, therefore, the
movement toward the goal is to picture the great outlines in
the destiny of the Church as well as the main crises in the
perfecting of the individual.
It is the peculiarity of the New Testament forecast that it
strongly tends to mount above the earthly horizon into a
sphere of glorified existence. As was noticed in the con-
sideration of the subject of immortality,! the national and pre-
liminary character of the Jewish religion naturally dictated
that it should deal somewhat scantily with the supra-mundane
unfoldment of the divine kingdom. Both the Old Testament
1 Part III. Chapter II. Section ITI.
COMPLETING STAGES. 541
and the New are intensely prophetical ; both show the impress
of a divinely enkindled optimism ; the great difference is that
in the latter the light is upon a loftier horizon, illuminating a
scene which is distinctly characterized as belonging to the
region of incorruptibility and immortality.
Transcendent as is the prospect held forth, it is still well
approved to Christian faith, As Dorner has remarked, “A
pregnant eschatological element lies in Christian faith, as such.
Faith has experienced so much of Christ’s effectual working,
that in presence of what is still lacking, however much this
may be, it possesses not merely the hope, but the certainty,
that the divine idea of the world will not remain simply a fair
but impotent. picture of imagination.” }
While the prophetic glance of the New Testament hastens
towards the scenes of the heavenly life, it does not slight alto-
gether the future of the Church in this world. Various sen-
tences in the discourses of Christ and the messages of the
apostles touch upon this theme. These may be classified as
foreshadowing on the one hand progress and triumph, and on
the other trial and conflict.
In the former line of passages we have, first, the declaration
that the “Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the
whole world for a testimony unto all the nations.” 2 The
natural sense of these words is not merely that a few individ-
uals in the different nations shall have a fugitive opportunity
to gain a superficial notion about the gracious purpose of God
in Christ, but rather that the nations, the great bodies of men
in the world, shall have something like a real chance to hear
the gospel and to respond to its message. The universal
preaching was designed to prepare for the consummation of
the age. It is evident, however, that this design could be ful-
filled only by a preaching which should penetrate in some good
measure to the understanding of men. The words in question,
1 System of Christian Doctrine, § 151. 2 Matt. xxiv. 14; Mark xiii. to,
542 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
therefore, have the force of a prophecy of a great missionary
progress of Christianity. Whatever measure those addressed
may have applied to them, it is difficult to think that the
Master put into them any smaller meaning than this.
A second intimation on the side of progress and victory is
contained in Paul’s declared confidence, that under the mar-
vellous providence of God the ingathering of the Gentiles
would be followed by a general conversion of the Jews.
Speaking of his unbelieving nation he says: “If the casting
away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the
receiving of them be but life from the dead? ... I would not
have you, brethren, ignorant of this mystery, that a hardening
in part hath befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles
be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved.’’! This, as being
in the intense dialect of prophetical optimism, is not to be
taken too precisely ; but it certainly indicates the faith of the
apostle that in course of time the Jewish people would very
generally accept the gospel message.
It is to be noticed that Paul says nothing about a temporal
restoration of the Jews. In his view all who possess the
Christian faith are the true seed of Abraham. His emphatic
repudiation of national barriers, and other artificial distinctions
among Christians,? makes it utterly improbable that he looked
for any such special mission of the Jews as those figure who
suppose that they are to be restored to their own land, and
to be honored with a sort of primacy in the work of evangeliz-
ing the world. ‘The main resort of the interpreters who are
enamored of this theory must be Old Testament prophecy.
But they gain here a very unsubstantial foundation for their
conclusion. From the theocratic point of view of the prophets,
the Jewish people was the centre and heart of the kingdom
of God upon earth. In their anticipations for that kingdom,
therefore, they naturally pictured the fortunes of this. people,
nt a Le ye
1 Rom. xi. 15, 25, 26. 2 Gal. iii. 26-29.
.
)
COMPLETING STAGES. $43
coloring the scene according to their special environment and
outlook. In the face of a Christian environment essentially
the same hopes and expectations would prompt to a different
order of expressions. A glorious fulfillment of the old proph-
ecies —a union of fulfillment and transcendence — is found in
the great facts that the Jewish people returned from the Baby-
lonish captivity, furnished the household in which Christianity
was born, as also the first agents by whom it was carried
abroad in the world, and thus became a light to the Gentiles,
an instrument of blessing on a vast scale to the human race.
It is indeed possible that the force of historic associations may
combine with special circumstances to effect a partial restora-
tion of the Jews to Palestine. But it would still be entirely
problematical whether this would promote rather than hinder
the spiritual conquest of the world by Christianity. Those
who desert a New Testament outlook for that of an outgrown
dispensation are in a poor way to have their anticipations
fulfilled.
Another intimation of substantial victory awaiting the
Church is contained in the passage of the Apocalypse which
represents Satan as bound for a thousand years, and describes
the joint reign of martyred saints and faithful witnesses with
Christ in these terms: ‘‘And I saw thrones, and they sat
upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw
the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of
Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as worshipped not
the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon
their forehead and upon their hand; and they lived and reigned
with Christ athousand years. The rest of the dead lived not
until the thousand years should be finished. This is the first
resurrection : over these the second death hath no power ; but
they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with
Him a thousand years.”’}
1 Rev. xx. 4-6.
$44 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
If one were to come to this passage, without prejudice either
for or against the doctrine of the visible coming and reign
of Christ, for a period prior to what the context pictures as
the general resurrection, he would gather from it, we think,
the following points: (1) The Revelator conceived that the
Church, or the general body of believers, is to enjoy a period
of relative security and ascendency in this world. This is
symbolized by the binding of Satan for a thousand years —a
figurative equivalent for the declaration that violent expres-
sions of an anti-christian spirit shall be put in abeyance for a
considerable term. (2) The Revelator conceived that at the
beginning of this term certain classes of elect souls will be
the subjects of a special resurrection, thus preceding the great
mass of the dead, who are not to be raised till the end of the
thousand years. That the first resurrection, of which the elect
souls are the subjects, was intended to denote an investment
with bodies appropriate to the eternal state, is implied by the
fact that it is described as an anticipation of the general resur-
rection, which in the concluding part of the chapter is associ-
ated with the final judgment, and which, in early Christian
thought, undoubtedly included a renewal of embodied life.
Certainly it would make an ill-jointed combination to assert
that the great majority of the dead are to be raised a thousand
years after the resurrection of a special company has been
consummated, if, in one instance, it is supposed that a literal
resurrection was meant, and in the other something entirely
different. (3) It is open to question whether the Revelator
conceived that the reign of Christ, together with the subjects
of the first resurrection, was to be a visible reign upon the
earth. Not a word is said in the passage which unequivocally
points to a visible manifestation upon an earthly theatre. It
is true that in the verses which describe the events that im-
mediately follow upon the millennial reign there is a reference
to the camp of the saints, and to the beloved city, as being
compassed about by the enemy; but all this is naturally
COMPLETING STAGES. 545
understood of believers who are still in the flesh, and so gives
no earthly habitation either to Christ or to those who had
come to share specially in His glory as subjects of the first
resurrection. There being thus nothing in the description
which positively requires the assumption of a visible earthly
reign, that assumption is subject to the full force of all the
objections which stand against it. In the first place it has to
encounter the fact of contrariety to the general representation
of the New Testament, wherein the coming of Christ is de-
scribed as the immediate antecedent of the great crisis which
is to usher in the eternal kingdom.! Then again it has to en-
counter the import of Christ’s teaching, that His work would
be better furthered by His presence in heaven than by visible
association with His disciples upon earth, and that the energy
of the Holy Spirit and the word of testimony are to be the
means of spiritual conquest. These grounds of objection, it is
true, will not appear inconsistent with interpreting the passage
under consideration in the literal millenarian sense, in case
one is pleased to regard its author as going counter to the
trend of New Testament teaching. But this supposition of
course cancels the dogmatic value of the passage. The pos-
sible, or even probable, sense of a verse or two makes no suit-
able dogmatic basis in face of a contrary tenor in prominent
lines of New Testament representation. Authority must,
therefore, be declared to be decidedly wanting for the mille-
narian doctrine of a visible earthly reign, whatever interpreta-
tion be put upon the Revelator’s language. As is remarked
in a recent treatise on eschatology: “In all other writers of
the New Testament this doctrine is not only ignored, but
its acceptance is made impossible in their definite doctrinal
systems of the last things, for in these the second advent and
the last judgment synchronize. Thus the millennium, or the
reign of Christ for one thousand years on the present earth,
1 Matt. xxiv. 29-31, xxv. 31-33; 1 Thess. iv. 16-18; 1 Cor. xv. 23, 24.
548 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
observe that very largely in its forecast of the fortunes of the
Church militant time measures are not closely regarded. As
is the case with the larger part of prophecy, the stress falls
rather upon the logical sequence, the movement toward the
providential goal, than upon the temporal intervals. The
apostles were well assured of the goal, and of the general
tenor of the antecedents through which it must be reached.
As respects the times of fulfillment they had no definite fore-
sight, and could only cherish the general attitude of expec-
tancy which earnest longing for the great consummation
naturally begets, and which it seems to have been the will
of Christ that His followers should cherish, as an incitement
to fidelity and hope, till the day of His appearing. Most of
the apostolic references indicate an apprehension that the
Christian age would run a speedy course. We learn, how-
ever, that ere long account began to be taken in Christian
circles of the principle that a day with the Lord is as a thou-
sand years, and a thousand years as one day.
In the condensed narrative, which is given in the Gospels,
of Christ’s discourse on the destruction of Jerusalem and the
closing of the dispensation, it may seem to be implied that
these events were to occur in close conjunction, and both
alike were to fall within the limits of the generation then
living. But it is not improbable that in the fragmentary
report of the discourse its original perspective has been some-
what marred. The same Christ who foresaw truly the speedy
destruction of Jerusalem, who emphasized the method of
gradual unfoldment as characteristic of the kingdom,? and
who taught unmistakably, in the parables of the vineyard and
the marriage supper of the king’s son, that, after the day of
vengeance had come upon the Jews, the great spiritual trust
which they had borne in the world should pass over to the
Gentiles,? cannot consistently be regarded as placing the con-
12 Pet. iii. 8. 2 Matt. xiii. 31-33; Mark iv. 26-32.
8 Matt. xxi. 33-46; Mark xii. 1-12; Luke xx. g-18; Matt. xxii. 1-7.
COMPLETING STAGES. 549
summation of earthly history so close to the fall of the fated
city. Supposing that in His discourse the destruction of
Jerusalem was taken as typical or suggestive of the end of
the world, and that He passed rather abruptly from the one
to the other, we can easily conceive how in the report of His
words a closer temporal connection may have been given to
the two events than belonged to them in His thought.
It may perhaps be suggested that interpretation will be
facilitated by predicating only one event in this connection,
rather than two, and identifying that one event with the
coming of Christ in the visitation of judgment upon Jerusa-
lem. In response to this suggestion it is to be granted, in-
asmuch as Christ deemed it appropriate to assume a very
intimate connection between the kingdom of God and His
own person, that He could consistently identify a triumph of
the kingdom with His own triumph, and in figurative lan-
guage describe it as a coming of the Son of Man, a manifes-
tation and demonstration of His victorious life and activity
beyond His apparent defeat through death. A spiritual out-
burst like that of Pentecost, or a great judgment like that
which sealed the fate of Jerusalem, as it marked a signal era
in the progress of the kingdom, showed forth Christ as the
living head of the kingdom, and could be accounted, in a sense,
His coming or self-manifestation. Certain sentences in the
Gospels are perhaps most fittingly construed when their
reference to Christ’s coming is taken in this sense.) Some
recent exegetes are of the opinion that the same principle of
interpretation can be applied to the whole content of the
eschatological discourse in Matt. xxiv. and Mark xiii. The
outlook in these chapters, they claim, does not reach beyond
the fall of Jerusalem, so that there is no occasion to assume
any disparity between Christ's meaning and the report of the
evangelists. But this way of eliminating stones of stumbling
36 1 Matt. x. 23, xvi. 28; Mark ix. 1; Luke ix, 27.
550 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
is not well adapted to give entire satisfaction. It is difficult,
for one thing, to suppose that Christ’s declaration of igno-
rance respecting the “day and the hour” had reference to
an event which was described as certain to occur within the
existing generation. Prophecy was coming to close quarters
in assuming to fix even the generation within which a great
crisis should occur. Such exactness and precision as the
actual naming of the day and the hour seem to have been
too remote from the circle of reasonable requirement to elicit
naturally any mention. A superior congruity is therefore
gained for Christ’s solemn asseveration of the impossibility of
giving a temporal location to the coming event, if this assev-
eration is regarded as applying toa greater and remoter crisis
than the impending fall of Jerusalem, the phrase “day and
hour”’ being used only as a more vivid expression for the
unknown future time. Moreover, it is to be reckoned im-
probable that some of the reported words of Christ, notably
those in Matt. xxiv. 29-31 and Mark xili. 24—27, should have
been meant to picture anything less than the end of the dis-
pensation. Especially improbable is it that those who penned
the words gave to them a significance falling short of this.
The Gospels show that the primitive disciples were slow of
heart to understand the kingdom on the side of its spiritual
significance. Other parts of the New Testament, as well as
the Gospels, evince that the apocalyptic conception of
Christ’s second coming was prominent in the minds of the
disciples in the early days of Christianity. Consequently it
looks like a doubtful refinement upon the probable position
of the gospel writers to exclude that conception from the
basis of the reports contained in the passages under review.!
On the whole, we consider that we choose the path of least
difficulty and greatest probability when we conclude that
1 Compare J. A. Beet, The Last Things, third edition, p. 50; G. B. Stevens,
Theology of the New Testament, pp. 158-162.
COMPLETING STAGES. 51
the reports of the evangelists in this connection do not
fully reproduce the order and perspective of the original
discourse.
Il.—TwHer Lirt AFTER DEATH IN ITS MORE IMMEDIATE
CONDITIONS.
In the dramatic representation which the New Testament
gives of the future, the second coming of Christ and the resur-
rection follow upon the scene which mirrors the fortunes of
the Church militant. Very scanty consideration is accorded
to the state of the dead in the interval preceding these events.
In explanation of this fact two prominent reasons may be
urged. On the one hand, the absence of any definite time
measure of the interval between the ascension of Christ and
His return, as it left the apostles free to think of that interval
as very brief, naturally limited the occasion and the disposi-
tion to make much account of the experiences which might
be included therein. On the other hand, a practical spirit
could not be indifferent to the truth that the issues of eternity
vastly outweigh those of any portion of time, and that conse-
quently the question of paramount importance is not, what
does earthly conduct prepare for a man in any limited portion
of the hereafter? but rather, how does it affect his eternal
destiny? In giving supremacy to the practical point of view
the New Testament could not do otherwise than emphasize
the seriousness of the life in this world by associating it
closely with the immeasurable interests of eternity.
The latter of these two reasons abides in undiminished
force. The practical man will ever regard the result of con-
duct and character upon the final destiny as the matter of
foremost personal concern. But it is obviously different as re-
spects the former reason. As century is added to century, and
the number of those in the region of the dead becomes many
times greater than that of the living upon the earth, their life
552 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
in that region for a prolonged age, however subordinate its
import may be to that of the eternal state, acquires un-
doubtedly very large significance. The conscious life of in-
numerable millions of beings for an extended period cannot
be reckoned a matter of small account.
We say conscious life, for the doctrine of the sleep of the
dead prior to the resurrection violates the clear tenor of
the biblical teaching. Not to mention the pregnant declara-
tion of Christ that God is the God of the living and not of
the dead, the continuance of conscious existence is implied in
the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, in the appearance
of Moses and Elijah upon the mount of transfiguration, in the
assurance to the dying thief that he should enter paradise on
the day of the crucifixion, in the prayer of the martyred
Stephen that the Lord would receive his spirit, in the expec-
tation of Paul that departure from this life would make him
present with Christ, in the representation of Peter respecting
Christ’s preaching to the spirits in prison, and in John’s vision
of the souls of those who had been slain for their confession of
Christ, and who appear to have been still waiting for the resur-
rection.! Since no natural interpretation can be given to these
texts on the supposition of non-existence or unconsciousness
after death, they greatly outweigh such sentences as speak of
death as an entrance into silence and inaction ;? for such can
easily be explained as rhetorical descriptions of disappearance
from the scene of visible activity, a gliding away from the
bustling life of earthly communities.
The fact of conscious existence in the period immediately
subsequent to death signifies necessarily that this is a period
of at least partial awards. Proper consciousness precludes a
neutral state. Moreover, the New Testament references
1 Matt. xxii. 32; Luke xvi. 19-31; Mark ix. 4; Luke xxiii. 43; Acts vii.
59; 2 Cor. v. 8; Phil. i. 21-23; 1 Pet. ili. 19; Rev. vi. gQ-11. See also 1 Thess.
be Cage 2) ga oe ge
2 Ps. vi. 5, cxv. 17; Dan. xii. 2; 1 Cor. xv. 51; 1 Thess. iv. 14, v. 10.
COMPLETING STAGES. 553
which imply consciousness indicate for the most part a posi-
tive realization either of felicity or of pain. At the same time,
the association which is given to the resurrection and the judg-
ment, with the bestowment of reward and retribution, is cer-
tainly fitted to convey the impression that neither reward nor
retribution is rendered in full measure immediately after
death.
Beyond these specifications little can be said, on the basis
of any distinct authority, respecting the initial stage of exis-
tence beyond this life, or the intermediate state as it is com-
monly designated. The definiteness which the subject has
attained in the Roman Catholic system is due to the trans-
ference of a cluster of medizval fancies into the sphere of
doctrine. To those who reject the infallibility of the Church,
the traditional Roman Catholic teaching about purgatory, and
the assumed prerogative of the pope to hasten the progress
of souls through its tortures by the grant of indulgences, will
not appear to have any proper warrant in the canonical Scrip-
tures.! The assumption on which this teaching is founded,
namely, that when sin is forgiven a part of the penalty still
remains, and must be discharged by some form of penance or
be covered by an ecclesiastical grant, as has already been in-
dicated, is decidedly anti-Pauline; and it may be added that
it is no less contradictory of the attitude toward repentant
sinners which the language of Christ ascribes to the heavenly
Father. As for the pope’s alleged jurisdiction over the inter-
mediate realm, it runs into the height of absurdity to suppose
that an earthly sinner, who needs to look well to his own sal-
vation, has been intrusted with any oversight or responsibility
in relation to that measureless world of spirits. For this pre-
posterous assumption a very poor compensation is offered by
distinguishing a few among the dead as patrons of believers
1 Bellarmin cites for the doctrine of purgatory, Matt. v. 22, 25, 26; Luke
xii. §8, 59, xvi. 9, xxiii. 42; Acts ii. 24; 1 Cor. iii. 15, xv. 29; Phil. ii. 10;
2 Maccabees xii.
554 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
upon earth, and predicating a radical dependence of the latter
upon the former, which dependence is to be expressed in
prayers and acts of homage. If the one item makes the dead
absurdly dependent upon an earthly official, the other assumes
for the living an exaggerated dependence upon the dead, and
shadows the privilege of more direct access to God through
the one perfect mediator, Christ Jesus. That the departed
remember the living, and blend with their ascriptions to God
acceptable prayers for those upon the field of earthly conflict,
may be true; but it by no means follows, because prayers of
saints to God have worth, that, therefore, prayers to saints can
fulfill any useful office.
A speculation respecting the intermediate state, which has
been favored by a number of Protestant theologians, deserves
a passing notice. As phrased by Martensen, it runs thus:
“In comparison with the present state it must be said of the
departed, that they are in a condition of rest, a condition of
passivity, that they are in the night in which no man can
work. Their realm is not a realm of deeds and works, for the
outward conditions under which deeds and works can be ac-
complished are not present. Nevertheless they live a deep
spiritual life; for the realm of the dead is the realm of inward-
ness, the realm of the still deep reflection upon self, a realm
of recollection in the full sense of the word, in the sense that
the soul enters here into its own interior, retreats to that which
is the ground of its life, the true interior of all being.”! An
element of truth may belong to this representation, but there
is no certain means of determining how far it gives a true
picture of the state and experience of souls. On the one
hand, the stress which is laid in the Scriptures upon the resur-
rection may be regarded as implying that the embodied exis-
tence is necessary to the highest personal and community life ;
on the other hand, however, an energetic activity is ascribed
1 Dogmatik, § 276.
COMPLETING STAGES. 555
to angels, and the Scriptures fail to give us positive assurance
that they do not fall under the category of purely spiritual
beings.
A question of larger import than the one just considered is
that which relates to the experience of progressive sanctifica-
tion and to the possibility of distinct moral transitions in the
intermediate state.
The argument for the negative side is comprised in these
facts: (1) Throughout the New Testament men are addressed
as if the present were the time of decision, and destiny de-
pended upon the use made of its opportunities! (2) Judg-
ment is represented to be based on conduct in this life?
(3) Toa very large extent Christian conviction through the
centuries has been in favor of the conclusion that the es-
sential lot of all men is fixed this side the border of the other
world.
The principal considerations which may be urged in favor
of the supposition that progressive sanctification and distinct
moral transitions may have place in tne intermediate state are
the following :—
1. So great is the tendency of conduct to fashion and to fix
character, that in any practical address the present must be
emphasized as the time of decision upon coming destiny. The
New Testament as a practical book, addressing those to whom
the gospel message has come, and who have understandings
sufficiently matured to respond to the message, would naturally
. put the whole stress upon present opportunity, even if for
some human beings differently circumstanced it should be the
purpose of God to provide means of spiritual education and
improvement in the interim between death and the close of
the dispensation. Moreover, the lack of any definite time
1 Matt. v. 29, 30, xviii. 8, 9, xxiv. 42, 44; Mark ix. 42-48, xiii. 33-37; Luke
xiii. 23-30, xvi. 27-31; John iii. 36, ix. 4; Heb. ii. 1-3.
2 Matt. xxv. 41-45; 2 Cor. v. 10; 1 Thess. i. 5-10; Heb. ix. 27; Rev. xxii.
II, 12.
556 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
measure in the New Testament for the intermediate state, and
the apostolic anticipation of the speedy coming of Christ,
served to decrease to some extent the occasion for regarding
aught but the earthly theatre of opportunity.
2. Peter’s reference to the preaching of Christ, apparently
in the interval between His death and resurrection, though
somewhat obscure and enigmatic, is most naturally inter-
preted as implying a presentation of the gospel message to
some portion of the dead.' Of the effect of this preaching,
it is true, no record is given.
3. Great multitudes of men who may be regarded as pos-
sessing the root of Christian character do not appear to have
been completely sanctified before death. Therefore, since
death cannot be regarded as transforming man’s spiritual
nature, the reason of the case seems to dictate that the com-
pletion of sanctification must be effected by a process cover-
ing a greater or less interval. At least, no rational warrant
can be found for the supposition that multitudes, whom the
providence and grace of God fail to bring to entire holiness
during the years of earthly life, encounter means of complete
spiritual transformation the moment they pass out of this
life. |
4. A considerable fraction of the race dies before the dawn
of moral experience. Another fraction dies after such a scanty
experience that character cannot be regarded as having been
given a decisive bent either toward good or evil by personal
conduct. This applies both to the young and to those of -
maturer years who have had very inferior opportunities for
religious knowledge and training. Now, it will not be denied
that each one in all this immense aggregate of human beings,
if located for a sufficient interval on the theatre of earthly
opportunity, would need to make a distinct personal decision
in order to become a proper subject of Christ’s kingdom, and
1; Pet. iii. 18-20, iv. 6. See Part IV. Chapter II. Section I.
COMPLETING STAGES. 557
would be so free in that decision that the issue would be truly
contingent. A real or contingent choice would lie before every-
one of them in this world. What determines that it should
not be their prerogative, or unavoidable experience, in the in-
termediate state? If it be said that the power of God perfects
their spiritual natures on the instant, then a sweeping appli-
cation is given to the doctrine of irresistible grace, and the
inference is justified that for a large fraction of the race the
fact of death is equivalent to predestination unto eternal life.
If, on the other hand, it is supposed that the grace necessary,
in conjunction with a possible use of freedom, for perfecting
any of those in the classes under consideration is withheld by
God, then the genuineness of His wish that they should be
saved is impeached, and place is given to a conception which
is essentially that of unconditional reprobation.
5. The advocate of freedom in the Arminian sense needs
to remind himself of two things in this connection, First, he
needs to note that a negative condition of salvation, such as
is the mere willingness of God to save, guarantees the salva.
tion of no one, and in no wise displaces the demand for a per-
sonal choice, which, in the case of immature and untried moral
agents, whose character has not been precipitated by acting
under any clear light of truth, must be regarded as containing
an element of contingency. Secondly, he should observe that
it has an appearance of inconsistency to repudiate Augustinian
or Calvinistic postulates for this life while giving them a vast
application to the life beyond the grave. The statement that
God could not have kept Adam from falling, without violence
to his moral constitution, harmonizes ill with the supposition
that He can cancel on the instant all contingency in the
spiritual estate of millions of souls who are quite as immature
as was Adam when he came from the Creator’s hand, not to
speak of the millions whose condition approximates to this
description. Beyond all dispute, it makes a noticeable dis-
junction in thought to regard men as autonomous personalities
558 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
in this world, and then to relegate them without distinction,
just across the border of this world, to the character of goods
which determine nothing as to where they shall be stored.
That the difficulty noted is not met by quoting the oft-
repeated and indubitable maxim about men being judged ac-
cording to the light enjoyed is perfectly obvious. The question
concerns not merely a standard of judgment, but a method of
bringing into the positive possession of holy character. The
fact that a man is not irremediably condemned in consideration
of the very slight advantages falling to his lot, involves no
denial that it is necessary te reckon him still a subject for an
educative and perfecting process, and that his will is not
so entirely a certain factor in this process as to leave no shade
of doubt about the outcome.
A theory which assumes that Arminianism holds good for
two worlds, and not for one only, which makes moral strenu-
ousness anywhere and everywhere a condition of established
citizenship in the divine kingdom, and which gives no promise
to those who harden their hearts against the ample message
of grace in the present, to whatever charge it may be exposed,
cannot be accused of laxity. It is a stringent theory. Doubt-
less it can be given an abusive application ; and so may the
opposing theory. The one is as well-guarded in this respect
as the other. To extend the time-limit for specially con-
ditioned souls affords naturally no greater occasion for unwar-
rantable expectations than does a lowering of the standard of
requirement for ultimate salvation. That a strong motive to
lower the standard operates, in connection with the theory
of a total exclusion of moral transitions from the sphere of
the future life, will not be denied by one who makes a careful]
survey of the religious world.
Our consciousness of the superficiality and unfairness, with
which the considerations which make for the possibility of
moral transitions in the intermediate state have often been
treated, has inclined us to give to this side of the subject the
COMPLETING STAGES. 559
larger space. It would quite mistake our meaning, however,
to suppose that we account this point of view of any great
practical significance. The appropriate course for the Chris-
tian worker is open to no rational doubt, whether we consult
the testimony of reason, of experience, or of revelation. Pene-
trated with the conviction that the remedial system of the
gospel ought to be brought to bear upon every human life at
the earliest possible point, in order that the stifling effect
of sinful indulgence upon the spiritual sensibilities may be
forestalled, he ought to urge divine invitations and warnings
with as much earnestness as would naturally inspire his ad-
dress if he should see in the decisions of the hour foreshadow-
ings of eternal destinies. New Testament preaching must
in all reason be regarded as model preaching. The office of
preaching is not to project theories about those who do not
have opportunities in this world, but rather to bring to men
who do have opportunities a vital sense of the greatness of
offered privilege and the seriousness of unavoidable respon-
sibility.
IlI.—- THe SrEconp ADVENT AND THE RESURRECTION,
The references of the New Testament to the geography of
the other world need in large part to be construed as figura-
tive or accommodated expressions. There is, therefore, very
little occasion to speak of an intermediate place. But it is
not altogether feasible to dispense with a reference to an zw-
termediate state. This phrase has insinuated itself into the
preceding discussion. That some measure of propriety be-
longs to its use must be admitted by one who supposes a time
element to enter into the moral cleansing and perfecting of
souls beyond the borders of this life. The period of the pro-
cess of perfecting would have from this point of view more
or less of the character of an intermediate state. Something
560 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
may also be conceded to the thought, that for the complete
realization of the heavenly estate the perfecting of the whole
body of the redeemed is the necessary antecedent, so that any
measure of fruition preceding this supreme consummation
must have in some degree the character of a preliminary or
intermediate stage.
If the second coming of Christ, with its accompaniment of
the resurrection from the dead, is to be associated with a dis-
tinct era, then evidently a very intelligible ground for affirm-
ing an intermediate state is presented, since the embodied
life, conceived to be introduced by the resurrection, must in
some respects be distinguished from the condition preceding.
Now, to assume a distinct era for the advent and the related
events is to follow the natural sense of numerous texts.!
Even a writer so much disposed as was John to transport into
a present application the terms descriptive of future realities
—such as resurrection, judgment, and eternal life — has given
indications that he entertained the idea of a distinct era for
the advent and the resurrection.2, An apparent exception to
this way of thinking on the part of Paul, as will be shown
presently, is not so certainly shut up to one interpretation as
to count for very much in an exposition of the apostolic
standpoint.
To rule out, therefore, the conception of an extraordinary
epoch of manifestation and consummation, we should need to
take many New Testament texts much as we do the Old
Testament references to Sheol, that is, as rather an incidental
employment of the framework of current eschatological think-
ing than as having specifically the force of revelation. On
rational grounds it is doubtless possible to say somewhat in
justification of the supposition that the investment with the
new body occurs immediately after death. Still, it strikes
1 Matt. xxiv. 30, xxv. 31; Mark xiii. 26; Luke xxi. 27; Acts i. 11; 1 Thess.
iv. 16; 2 Thess. i. 7, 10; Heb. ix. 28; Rev. i. 7.
2 John vy, 28, 29, vi. 39, 40, 44, 54, xi. 24, xii. 48, xiv. 3, xxi. 22; 1 John ii. 28.
COMPLETING STAGES. S61
us that it is somewhat venturesome, in consideration of our
ignorance, to so far abridge the natural import of the New
Testament language as to shut out or ignore the idea of a
special era.
Not a few interpreters have thought it necessary to em-
phasize the idea that the second advent is to be a visible com-
ing, and have spoken as though it must be within the field
of the natural vision of the dwellers upon the face of the
earth. But this is pushing pictorial representation into a
needless excess of literalism. The point of emphasis in the
New Testament predictions is the certainty of the personal
manifestation of Christ to His disciples and to the race gen-
erally. All are to apprehend His presence, and to know that
the one revealed in glory and might is the same as He who
was born of Mary and suffered under Pontius Pilate. Even
the most detailed of the descriptions, such as that of Paul to
the Thessalonians,! are not required to be taken as meaning
anything more than this. It is to be noticed that the apostle
here does not so much as say that Christ is to set foot upon
the earth. He is to descend, indeed; but His disciples are to
be caught up in the clouds to meet Him in the air —a rhetori-
cal expression which probably was not designed to be exact
any more than are our words when we speak of the translation
of men into the skies. The whole description, when stripped
of its imaginative coloring, reduces to the truth of the certain
manifestation of Christ and the certain welcome by Him of all
His followers into the heavenly kingdom. Of course it is
very appropriate to assist our apprehension of the second
advent by imaginative picturings; but it shows poor discre-
tion to attempt to secure for the domain of dogmatic teaching
that which belongs to the sphere of religious imagination.
On the subject of the resurrection we have also some forms
1; Thess. iv, 16-18.
562 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
of expression which belong not so much to exact doctrinal dis-
course as to the pictorial art of the religious imagination. The
dogmatic trend of the scriptural representations is comprised
mainly in these particulars: (1) Souls in the ultimate stage
of man’s existence are to be invested with bodies ; (2) these
bodies are to be so far different from those of the present as
to be suitable to the heavenly and incorruptible life; (3) the
resurrection, or investment with bodies, is to take place
generally at the era of the second advent; (4) nature, in
some part at least, is to undergo a renewing or transfigur-
ation analogous to that wrought in man’s corporeal being.
Of these items the third and the fourth, though clearly enough
suggested by the language of the apostolic writings, do not
need to receive the same emphasis as the two preceding.
That the resurrection has a reference to the body is not
only implied by the general cast of the texts in which it is
mentioned,! but is unequivocally taught in the most detailed
exposition of the theme which is contained in the New Tes-
tament.? It is true that the word “resurrection ” is used occa-
sionally in a spiritual sense ;? but this is on account of the
aptness of the physical transformation to figure that which is
wrought in the spiritual nature. Only an arbitrary exegesis
can reduce the scriptural teaching to a mere assertion either of
spiritual transformation or of the immortality of the soul.
As certainly as the New Testament teaches a bodily resur-
rection, it distinguishes between the qualities of the future
body and that of the present. Christ’s exclusion of the mar-
riage relation, and comparison of the state of risen saints to
that of angels in heaven, involve such a distinction. Paul
more directly and explicitly affirms the distinction in these
sentences: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. ... It is
1 John v. 28, 29, vi. 44; Acts xxiv. 15; 1 Thess. iv. 14-16; Rev. xx. 13.
2 Cor. xv. Compare Phil. iii. 21.
®Rom. vi. 4, §; Eph. v. 14; Col. ii, 12, 13.
COMPLETING STAGES. 563
sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown
in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it
is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised
a spiritual body.’’! The word “spiritual” here is evidently
used in a relative sense. It puts the resurrection body in
contrast with the grossness of flesh and blood in the earthly
body, and indicates that it is to be a suitable partner or instru-
ment of the glorified spirit.
In former times it was commonly thought necessary to
affirm a material identity between the future body and that
of the present. But Paul, while he intimates that there is
some bond of connection between the one and the other, is far
from affirming a material identity.2. The only ground for in-
ferring this identity is the association of the resurrection with
the grave, and this is by no means of compelling force. The
earth is the common grave of the race. In death men univer-
sally give back their bodies to the mass of physical nature.
Suppose, then, that one should wish to express in vivid rhetori-
cal phrase the fact that out of the mass of physical nature the
constituents of new bodies will be taken through the marvel-
lous working of God’s power; what better could he do than to
speak of the grave as yielding up its dead? This is the fitting
equivalent in popular discourse for the declaration that physi-
cal nature which receives the old body is to be the source of
the new and far more perfect body which is forever to mirror
the glory of the indwelling spirit. In reconstituting man’s
physical being material identity is of no consequence whatever.
One set of molecules is just as good as another of the same
order. It is therefore enormously improbable that God has
devised an intricate and far-reaching economy for conserving
from each body the quantity of matter necessary for physical
perfection, and has undertaken to gather together in the day
of the resurrection the scattered particles which are comprised
11 Cor. xv. 42-44, 50. 21 Cor. xv. 35-38.
564 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
in this quantity. Sameness of type, resulting from the opera-
tion of the same organizing principle, provides for the proper
identity of the body throughout the changes of earthly life;
and there is no occasion to suppose any further basis of iden-
tity in the future state.
Reference was made to an apparent exception to the cus-
tomary New Testament association of the resurrection with a
distinct era. Taken by itself Paul’s language in 2 Cor. v. 1-5
might be regarded as indicative of a belief that the time of the
individual’s departure from the earth is the time of his invest-
ment with a heavenly corporeity. But more explicit state-
ments show that the apostle conceived of the resurrection as
a distinct future crisis for men collectively.1. Some inter-
preters, it is true, have concluded that between the writing of
First and Second Corinthians Paul changed his view. But
when either epistle was written the apostle was far along in
his theological development. Moreover, only a few months
apparently intervened between the composition of the first
epistle to the church at Corinth and the second. It is to be
esteemed, therefore, much more likely that Paul in 2 Cor. v.
1—5 rhetorically ignored, in his personal anticipation, the inter-
val between death and resurrection, than that he meant to
give expression to a pronounced disagreement with the com-
munication addressed so shortly before to the Corinthians.
Very possibly Paul may have shifted his point of view some-
what in his later days. As between the apocalyptic concep-
tion, with its stress upon the exterior crisis in the progress of
the kingdom, and the more spiritual conception wherein the
principal emphasis falls upon inward fellowship with God
through Christ, he may have inclined to the latter. Never-
theless, it requires more evidence than is available to make
credible the supposition that he consciously rejected, at any
time, the apocalyptic order of representation. The analogy of
1; Thess. iv. 16,17; 1 Cor. xv. 23, 51, 52.
COMPLETING STAGES. 565
the Johannine writings, which, with all their spiritual and ideal-
izing tendency, give still a place to the apocalyptic idea, argues
against Paul’s renunciation of the same. Again, it is notice-
able that in Phil. iii, 20, 21, Paul associates the exercise of
Christ's resurrection power with His future coming from
heaven. Still further, the words in 2 Tim. ii, 18, implying
as they do that the resurrection belongs under the category
of a future event, are not fully reconcilable with the notion
that for each individual it is coincident with death.
A notion, having a point of kinship with the revised concep-
tion of the resurrection attributed to Paul, is that which sup-
poses within the present body one of more subtle essence,
and regards the latter as being disengaged at death from the
former. The difficulty with this view is a total lack of proof,
both in the sphere of science and of Scripture.
As to the transformation of nature we have this declaration
of Paul: “The earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for
the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was sub-
jected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him
who subjected it, in hope that also the creation itself shall be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty
of the glory of the children of God.”’! A like consummation
is pictured in John’s comprehensive words: “I saw a new
heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first
earth are passed away; and the sea is no more.”? To at-
tempt an exact interpretation of these passages would be a
profitless venture. Probably neither Paul nor John had any
information to give beyond the general idea of a natural sys-
tem so constituted as to be a suitable theatre for the subjects
of the resurrection; and to this much consistent thinking
offers no objection.
It has often been noticed that Paul says nothing in his
epistles about the resurrection of the wicked. This may be
1 Rom. viii. 19-21. 2 Rev. xxi. 1. Compare Ps. cii. 26; Isa. xxxiv. 4, li. 6, Ixv. 17, 18
87
566 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
in large part explained by the consideration that the epistles
were addressed to those who, in the judgment of charity,
were to be counted true disciples of Christ, and the subject of
the resurrection was considered only in such points of view
as might be of immediate interest to them. A fact less easily
disposed of is the representation of the resurrection as an ob-
ject of earnest pursuit, a prize to be won in the way of fidelity
and devotion to Christ.1 On the whole, the Epistles of Paul
leave room for doubt as to his belief in the resurrection of the
wicked. It is only in the Book of Acts that he appears on
record as holding that there-is to be a resurrection both of the
just and the unjust.”
IV.— THE JUDGMENT.
In the scriptural representation this event tollows immedi-
ately upon the resurrection, is consummated by Christ in per-
son, and is co-extensive with the race.*? It is portrayed with
dramatic vividness and intensity. The most solemn strains
of poetry and the most graphic delineations of the artist have
not transcended the plane of the biblical] description.
The great truth lodged in the total representation of the
judgment is the certain rectification of all disparity between
desert and fortune, the certain and unqualified consummation
of the judicial process which is going on in the world. Weare
notified that the work of sifting out the evil is to be carried
to entire completion, that whatever is unfit for the spiritual
and eternal kingdom of Christ is to be separated so that this
kingdom shall appear without spot or blemish.
1 Phil. iii. 11.
2 Acts xxiv. 15. Compare John v. 28, 29; Rev. xx. 11-15.
3 Matt. xi. 24, xiii. 30, 39, 49, xvi. 27, xxv. 31-46; John v. 22-29, xii. 48;
Acts x. 42, xvii. 31; 2 Cor. v.10; 2 Thess.i. 7-10; 2 Tim. iv. 1; 2 Pet. ii. 1-9,
iii. 10-13; Rev. xx. 11-15.
COMPLETING STAGES. 567
These, in our view, are the dogmatic elements which are
comprised in the account of the judgment as given in the New
Testament. In this account, as is wont to be the case with
vivid prophetical picturing, the culmination is put for the
whole process. A more prosaic and leisurely contemplation
has to pay regard to antecedent stages of judgment. It must
include a reference to the witness of the Holy Spirit as an
inner judgment, an attestation, while it is in force, of heirship
to eternal life. Again it must involve a due rating of the fact
that fellowship with Christ in the intermediate state, or con-
scious unfitness for that fellowship, has the virtue of a sen.
tence from the Divine Judge. In consideration of the length
of the intermediate state for the great mass of men, it must
be concluded that the vast majority of the race experiences no
inconsiderable installment of judgment before the great con-
cluding epoch pictured in revelation. If, in addition to this
fact, we consider the operation of ordinary psychological laws
to continue after death, we shall find further reason for allow-
ing the thought of the intermediate state to modify our con-
ception of the judgment. Under the operation of these laws
the remote is reduced to small dimensions. Suppose then,
that one dies at the age of ten, and has ten thousand years of
conscious life before the resurrection era. In the retrospect
the period of earthly life will naturally be reduced well nigh
to the vanishing point. Must it not, therefore, seem very
artificial and strange to have that brief period passed under
detailed scrutiny before God’s tribunal, and made a basis of
eternal destiny, to the neglect of all the experience of the
prolonged age intervening? Could it seem to the crucified
thief an appropriate procedure, after having spent several
thousand years with Christ in paradise, and progressed
through all this long period in spiritual stature, to have the
record which preceded the crucifixion judicially reproduced ?
Instances of this kind advise us not to interpret too literally
the representation of a review of all earthly conduct at the
568 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
great assize. As previously noticed, the New Testament in
pursuance of its practical aim to furnish adequate motives to
right conduct in this world does not stop to consider the inter-
mediate state, but links earthly doing immediately with eternal
destiny. This is, practically, as has been said, the important
point of view. Still a complete theory must take account of
the age-long life for the majority of the race in the intermedi-
ate state; and when this is done it must seem an unnatural
excess of formality to bring the earthly record into specific
review. What fixes destiny is the ultimate character. The
deeds done in the body derive their significance from this
point of view. Earthly conduct invites to an approving or
condemnatory sentence in the divine mind according to the
permanent deposit which it has made in the ethical and reli-
gious nature. Translated out of the language of popular
rhetoric into that of dogmatic specification, this is what the
New Testament representation means. It foreshadows the
great fact that there is an ultimate dispensation in which
universally there shall be a proper adjustment between lot
and character, a final consignment of each individual to his
own place. The introduction of this dispensation may have
its spectacular accompaniments; but it is no part of the prov-
ince of dogma to catalogue these, or to insist upon the literal
fulfillment of this or that element of prophetical picturing.!
V.— THE FINAL DISPENSATION.
The light of prophecy casts a momentary gleam beyond the
throne of judgment, and discloses two companies : the one upon
1 The literalist may well be made to hesitate when he discovers that a de-
tailed review before a judgment throne of a company numbering only fifty
times as many as are now living on the earth would require an interval of
not less than two thousand years, even should only one second be granted to
the examination of each individual.
COMPLETING STAGES. 569
the right hand, the other upon the left; the one pronounced
blessed, the other accursed ; the one welcomed to a city of
which God and the Lamb are the unchanging light, the other
cast into the outer darkness; the one heir to eternal life and
received into a kingdom prepared from the foundation of the
world, the other subjected to the second death and dispatched
into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels.!
1 Matt. xxv. 34-40, 46; Rev. xxi. 22-27, xxii. 1-5; Matt. xxv. 30, 41-46, v.
29, 30, viii. 12, xvili. 8, 9; Mark ix. 43-48; Rev. xx. 14, 15, xxi. 8.
A few words on biblical terminology will not be inappropriate at this point.
Of the three terms, Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna, used to foreshadow the lot
and location of men beyond this life, the last only is assigned a thoroughly dis-
tinct and uniform significance. In correspondence with the limited develop-
ment of eschatology in the Old Testament, Sheol denotes generally the common
receptacle of the dead, the deep, silent, shadowed pit, beneath the earth’s sur-
face, where the souls of all classes of mortals experience the relative emptiness
and oblivion of a shadelike existence (Gen. xxxvii. 35, xlii. 38; Deut. xxxii.
2 wal, i. O- JOD VIL. Oo, x. 21, 22, XO, XIV. 3%, Xvi. 19,16; xxvi. GO; \ Ps, vi
Sy ik. 17, xxx, 3, Xlix. 10,-lv. 15, Ixxxvi. 13, bexxviil’ 5, 12, bexxix! 48;' Prov.i,
Tay V5, Vile 27, 1X: 17, 18, XV, 11, /24, 'Xxill, 14, xxvii.’ 20; xxx. 164 Eccl. ix.'s.
6; Cant. viii. 6; Isa. v. 14, xiv. g, 15, xxxvili. 10, 11, 18; Lam. iii. 6; Ezek.
xxxi, 14-18, xxxii. 18-24; Hab. ii. 5). But, inasmuch as its subterranean loca-
tion assimilates it in a measure to the grave which receives the bodies of the
departed, it is used sometimes where the latter term seems to be in place.
Says Schultz: “In later as well as in olden times, the grave is, beyond all
doubt, the prototype with which the idea of Sheol is associated — not as if the
two were confounded, but, because the abode of the dead being thought of as
underground, the imagination naturally pictures it as a grave. Even in ordin-
ary language the two ideas readily alternate. The inhabitants of Sheol are
those ‘who dwell in the dust,’ who go down to the pit” (Old Testament
Theology, II. 324). Being viewed as the common abode of the dead, Sheol
was not of course described as specifically a place of punishment. Only as the
death which brought men into its inclosure was regarded as a manifestation of
divine wrath, did it appear in Old Testament contemplation as a theatre of
retribution.
The corresponding New Testament term, Hades, is used in some connec-
tions in much the same general way for the region of the dead (Rev. xx. 13;
Acts ii. 27, 31); but in other relations it is given a more positive association
with the future retribution upon the wicked than pertains to Sheol (Matt.
xi. 23, xvi. 18; Luke x. 15, xvi. 23). The meaning of Gehenna, on the other
hand, is uniformly that of the place or estate of future punishment (Matt. v.
22, 29, 30, x. 28, xviii. 9, xxiii. 15, 33; Mark ix. 43, 45,47, Luke xi. §; James
570 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
Whatever figurative elements enter into the description of
the fate of the wicked, there is no legitimate escape from the
conclusion that the description was meant to convey an im-
pression of irremediable doom. Such a doom is emphatically
intimated by the aspect of finality which the facts associated
with the sentence pronounced upon the wicked impart thereto.
The sentence comes after trial, at the end of the world, in the
issue of a general judgment which is pictured as the complet-
ing act of God’s judicial agency.
A doom that excludes all remedy is also indicated by the
emphatic terms which are employed to express the punish-
ment visited upon the wicked. They are cast into the zz-
guenchable fire; they go away into eternal punishment ;?
they suffer eternal destruction from the face of the Lord.*
The word aidvos, which is rendered into English as “ eternal”’
in the above passages, does not, it is true, necessarily denote
endless duration; but it certainly 1s capable of that meaning,
being applied even to the Divine Being,‘ as well as to the
presumably imperishable blessedness and riches of the right-
eous.° Being thus capable of signifying the never-ending, the
reasonable conclusion is that it was meant to have this mean-
ing in relation to the punishment of the wicked, since that
punishment is put in antithesis to the lot of the righteous,
and is given in every context in which it is mentioned a de-
cisive aspect of finality. To assume that aidvos was con-
sciously used in the restricted sense of a long, but not endless,
period is incongruous with all the pains taken to convey an
impression of finality as regards the outcome of faith and
righteousness on the one hand, and of unbelief and wicked-
ness on the other.
RREOEDEE Hons PANG AT Ita DEE NUT AN Ln ALON AMON ADO ME ka
iii. 6). A like significance belongs to the word Tartarus, which is used ina
verbal form in 2 Pet. ii. 4.
1 Matt. iii. 12; Mark ix. 43-48; Rev. xx. 10.
2 Matt. xxv. 46. 4 Rom. xvi. 26; Heb. ix. 14.
8:2 Thess: i:)0, 5 Matt. xxv. 46; 2 Cor. iv. 17, v.1; Heb. v. 9, ix. 15.
COMPLETING STAGES. 571
Once more, the fact of an irremediable doom for at least
some of the wicked is clearly indicated by the description of
a sin which is never to be forgiven. “Verily I say unto you,
All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and
their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme : but
whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never
forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”? “If any man
see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and
God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There
is asin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should
make request.’ * The force of such language is not easily
evaded. If it be said that we are not definitely informed that
anyone has ever committed the sin in question, the obvious
reply is that Christ and the apostles were not of such a specu-
lative temper as to make it likely that they would deal with
far-fetched hypotheses. Their solemn declarations, therefore,
respecting an unpardonable sin imply a real liability of men
to its perpetration. If, again, it be said that the sin described
is indeed never forgiven, but the penalty of it may be dis-
charged in a long though limited period, an equally obvious
reply is at hand, since the divine forgiveness, in New Testa-
ment usage, means restoration to divine favor and communion,
and not merely the bare cancelling of a specific penalty ; accord-
ingly, the endless exclusion from forgiveness must be regarded as
signifying endless exclusion from divine favor and communion.
The evidence which may be urged against the notion of
irremediable doom is contained in certain passages, found
mostly in the Epistles of Paul, which strongly emphasize the
unifying and reconciling office of Christ. Taken in their
1 Mark iii. 28, 29; Matt. xii.31, 32. The sin referred to in these texts may
be described as desperate and persistent resistance of ample light.
2 John v. 16,
3 Rom. v. 15, 18, xi. 32; 1 Cor. xv. 22, 27, 28; 2 Cor. v. 18, 19; Eph. io,
10; Phil. ii. 10, 11; Col. i. 19, 20; 1 Tim. iv. 10. See also John xii. 32; Acts
iii. 21; Rev. xx. 14, 15.
B72 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
literal verbal sense several of these texts can be interpreted
as teaching universal restorationism. But were they meant
to inculcate this doctrine? We are far from being persuaded
that this conclusion, which involves the New Testament in
sharp contradiction with itself, is warranted. So far as Paul’s
sentences are concerned, they are largely explained by the
Pauline idealism, which led the apostle repeatedly to speak
of the work of Christ according to its proper aim and intrinsic
tendency. As he represented the trespass of Adam accord-
ing to its tendency, and so pictured the race as condemned
with the forefather, though this is not the precise fact, so he
described the work of Christ according to its ideal aim and in-
trinsic tendency or fitness to reconcile all unto God. This
idealizing habit of thought and expression, taken in connec-
tion with his undoubting confidence that the lordship of Christ
would ultimately be gloriously demonstrated, and universally
recognized by the rational creation, either with loyal delight
or under the compelling force of divine disclosure, explains the
whole line of his statements which have a seeming affiliation
with restorationism. That he thought of the obdurately
wicked as candidates for a hopeless doom is clearly intimated
by the picture which he drew of the divine vengeance which,
at the second coming of Christ, shall be rendered “to them
that know not God and to them that obey not the gospel of
our Lord Jesus: who shall suffer punishment, even eternal
destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of
His might.” ?
As for the few texts outside of Paul’s writings which have
a restorationist sound, there is very little difficulty involved in
their interpretation. John xi. 32 may be regarded as a vivid
rhetorical expression of the arresting power and unique attrac-
tion of Christ crucified. It does not state that all men are
to be drawn so effectually to true faith as to obtain eternal
12 Thess. i. 7-9.
COMPLETING STAGES. 57S
salvation ; and it cannot fairly be questioned that the evange-
list who recorded the words thought that some men would
persist in unbelief and become the subjects of the abiding
wrath of God.’ Acts iil. 21, in speaking of the restoration of
all things, simply points forward to a great consummation
of the Messianic kingdom, which is to precede the closing up
of the dispensation. The description given in Rev. xx. 14 of
the casting of death and Hades into the lake of fire cannot
be regarded as picturing the end or absence of retribution, for
in the very next verse it is said, “If any was not found written
in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.’”’
We have spoken thus far of an irremediable doom without
attempting to determine whether this consists in conscious
suffering or in annihilation. The general opinion of the
Church has embraced the former alternative, though occa-
sionally an earnest advocate of annihilation has appeared. In
the language of some apologists for the latter view the phrase
“conditional immortality”’ plays a conspicuous réle. The
phrase is in one sense of indubitable propriety, since the as-
sumption of the creation of souls involves the conclusion that
their continued being is conditioned upon the purpose of the
Creator. But in the annihilationist’s creed there is the more
specific conclusion that inherence in Christ is, according to
God's purpose and plan, an essential condition of immortality.
The fact that the Scriptures describe the fate of the wicked
by such terms as death and destruction may be cited in favor
of annihilation.2 But it is certain that these terms are used,
in various connections, in a figurative sense, with reference
rather to a wretched and impoverished state of being than to
cessation of being.® They afford, therefore, no certain ground
1 John iii. 36; 1 John v. 16.
2 Matt. vii. 13, x. 28; Rom. vi. 23, viii. 13; John iii. 16; 2 Thess.i.g; Rev.
Bx: 14,57 'S;
8 john v. 24; Rom. vii. 9-11; Eph. ii. 1; Col. ii. 13; Matt. x. 6, 39; Luke
xix. 10; 2 Pet. iii. 6, 7.
574 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
for affirming annihilation proper. Indeed, so far as scriptural
data are concerned, the references to the undying worm, to
eternal punishment, and to the smoke of torment ascending
forever,! furnish quite as much evidence on the side of con-
scious suffering as can be cited in favor of the opposing alter-
native. There is some room, however, for the suspicion that
the purpose underlying this order of expressions was rather to
paint irremediable doom, with wretchedness so long as con-
sciousness should last, than to teach positively strict endless-
ness of painful existence. On either theory, the punishment
is endless, in the sense that the condemnatory sentence is
never to be lifted, never to be succeeded by restoration to favor
and blessing. Specific instances in the Scriptures indicate
that the word “eternal” may be applied to an act or process
which, though temporary in itself, induces irreversible conse-
quences.”
On purely rational grounds something can beesaid in favor
of the annihilation of the incorrigibly wicked. Why should
they be preserved to mar to all eternity the perfection of the
universe? If it be said that the exigencies of the divine gov-
ernment call for their preservation and continued misery, it
is still difficult to construe any such governmental exigencies.
The knowledge of their lot certainly cannot be regarded as
perpetually needed by the righteous to confirm them in their
holy and blessed estate. To those who have reached the
proper height of loving communion with God the fear of pain
must become an inferior incentive compared with the horror
of the thought of sinning against infinite holiness and love.
The supreme spiritual motives to perfect allegiance must
be so great, that all the motives which could come from the
knowledge of a theatre of suffering in the outer darkness
must be, in the comparison, only as a rush-light to the sun.
Thus we are left without the ability to specify any good
1 Mark ix. 48; Matt. xxv. 46; Rev. xiv. 11. 2 Heb. vi. 2; Jude 7.
COMPLETING STAGES. 575
reason for the preservation of lost men. But on a theme
which reaches like this into mist and obscurity, it little
becomes us to dogmatize with full confidence. We have
the fact of irremediable doom; we have no distinct warrant
for annihilation; we do well, so far as any attempt at indoc-
trination is concerned, to leave the subject where it is left
by the Scriptures.
A philosophical justification of an irrepealable sentence
against a man is found solely in the possibility of moral sui-
cide, or the extinction of spiritual capacity by continued per-
versity. The Scriptures, it 1s true, do not seem definitely to
assign such a ground to the ultimate fate of the wicked. But
it is not arbitrary to say that this is due largely to the prac-
tical aim and to the popular, vivid, and concrete style of the
Scriptures. It puts the urgency of right conduct upon earth
more vividly to associate it immediately with future destiny
than it does to speak of its result upon the spiritual nature,
and then to draw the inference that this nature, according to
its gravitation toward good or evil, is a ground of eternal
blessedness or of eternal perdition. Had they been wont to
use a more prosaic and abstract form of discourse, the Scrip-
tures would doubtless have given a larger place to the latter
representation. As it is, they cannot be said to have dis-
carded it altogether; on the contrary, there are solemn inti-
mations in the words of Christ that the extinction of the
higher capacities of the soul is the great penalty of misdoing.!
A nature impoverished by the loss of its better capacities,
and impelled by the inferior appetencies which cannot be
satisfied in the life to come, is of necessity a subject of future
punishment. It has in itself the elements of perdition, and
needs no such instrument of torture as is supposed in the pre-
posterous theory of literal hell fire.
We have characterized the foregoing as the sole philosophi-
1 Matt. vi. 23; Luke xi. 34; Matt. xiii. 12, xxv. 29; Mark iv. 25; Luke viii. 18.
576 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
cal justification of irremediable doom. In this we have ignored
the reasoning of Thomas Aquinas! and some others that sin,
as being against an infinite being, has an infinite demerit,
and is therefore justly visited with endless punishment. Such
reasoning is not adapted to carry conviction. It leaves no
room for a proper distinction between sins, since all alike must
be regarded as infinite, inasmuch as all are more or less di-
rectly against God. It depreciates the significance which
cought to be assigned to the interior moral disposition in de-
termining the merit or demerit of an act. One would need
to suppose, on the basis of the objective measure in question,
that to slander the race is an incomparably greater sin than
to slander an individual, whereas it is by no means certain
that the latter may not involve just as much malice as could
be put into the former. The true measure of sin is subjective
and intensive, not exterior and extensive. Doubtless the great-
ness and the holiness of the object which is sinned against
serve to enlarge the measure of the sin where that object is
distinctly apprehended as standing in the way of sin. But
even then the measure of the sin is not determined by the
mere quantity or quality of the object. It is not the degree
of greatness and holiness sinned against that gives the
measure of sin, but rather the degree of selfish and reckless
defiance of greatness and holiness. When this is infinite the
sin can properly be described as infinite; but who is prepared
to say that even the most enlightened devil can put an infinite
degree of selfish and reckless defiance of God into his trans-
gression? It is to be noticed, moreover, that a sin in which
there is a conscious reference to God may be less than one
in which there is no such reference. The perplexed soul which
gives transient harborage to a doubt about the justice of divine
providence certainly transgresses in a less degree than the
one who, without a reference to God, nurtures in his heart
1 Sum. Theol. II. 1. 87. 4.
COMPLETING STAGES. 577
murderous violence against his neighbor. We are thus
forced to conclude, that the sin of a man, whether with or
without conscious reference to God, is not properly infinite,
and can be so described only in a loose rhetorical yse of
language.
There is a growing tendency in Christian minds to repudi-
ate the possibility of eternal suffering being the lot of a
majority of the race. This implies of course either that the
incorrigibly wicked will be annihilated, or that they will in
fact make a minority. Christ’s words in response to the ques-
tion, “Are there few that be saved?’’! may seem to stand
in the way of the latter assumption. But the scope designed
to be given to His words is matter for inquiry. Few, if any,
would wish to contend that they distinctly contemplated that
great fraction of the race which passes off the earthly stage
before reaching the opportunity for intelligent choice of one
way or another. As regards those having opportunity for
moral decisions, the words were undoubtedly true to the ap-
pearance of things in that unbelieving and recreant generation ;
but who can say that they were meant to give the picture of
what must be found in any and every age in spite of all divine
expenditure through a remedial economy? With the prog-
ress of the ages the conditions may be greatly changed. More-
over it is to be noticed that Christ in another connection sug-
gested a basis of an improved expectation by saying, ‘‘ With
God all things are possible.’’ Doubtless He felt deeply the
proneness of men to enter the broad way. Still it is properly
subject to question whether He designed to affirm that the
great majority will be sure to repel continuously all power of
salutary arrest and to pursue the wrong way up to the point
of eternal destiny. Revelation affords here no unequivocal
verdict. Meanwhile a worthy optimism cannot refrain from
the hope that the heirs of the kingdom — “the great multi-
1 Luke xiii. 23, 24; Matt. vii. 13, 14.
578 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
tude which no man can number” !— will be found greatly te
exceed those who have no part with Christ.
As respects the heavenly estate into which the righteous
enter, an ample ground for the most exalted expectation is
supplied by their filial relations to God. In a filial conscious-
ness the world to come can but stand forth in bright outlines.
Paul’s reasoning, ‘If children, then heirs, heirs of God and
joint heirs with Christ,” * commends itself equally to head and
heart, and opens the door upon a measureless prospect. Whom
God admits to His household and owns as His children He
will undoubtedly enrich with no ordinary estate. It must be
His desire and purpose to furnish them, out of the infinite
treasures of His own perfection and blessedness, the highest
measure of pure felicity of which they are capable.
Heaven is a sphere of unique blessedness as being the sphere
of a unique harmony. External nature, ordered as perfect
and unchecked benevolence may dictate, is there completely
adjusted, we may believe, to the spiritual bodies of the saints,
and spreads out into a scene of transcendent beauty. Each
member of the heavenly community, radiant with spiritual per-
fection, is an object of complacency and spontaneous delight
to every other. Thus, mutually giving and receiving holy
joys, all know the fruition of a society in which love is abso-
lutely sovereign. As the center of this holy society, the
ground of its harmony, the life of its life, sufficiently known
to invite to full confidence and loving communion, sufficiently |
mysterious in the infinite depth of His being to afford a field
of endless research and revelation, is He who is truly known
to be Immanuel, the everpresent One, who is above, and in,
and through, all things, and by whom all things consist. Each
heir of immortal life knows Him as the source of his own per-
tection, and sees His grace and beauty mirrored in all the rest
1 Rev. vii. 9. 2 Rom. viii. 17.
COMPLETING STAGES. 579
of the heavenly host. So all are “perfected into one,” and
the prayer of Christ gains its ideal fulfillment. To the Church
militant, struggling through earthly vicissitudes and battling
with foes, has succeeded the Church triumphant, dwelling in
unclouded light and secure in its eternal inheritance.
The greatness of God and of His universe guarantees to this
company of His immortal children opportunities of adequate
variety as well as of endless progress in their experiences.
No occasion of satiety needs to be apprehended from lack of
fresh discoveries and new points of view. Moreover, it is
characteristic of the spiritual and eternal to be permanently
satisfying. ‘There is this great difference,” says Augustine,
“between things temporal and things eternal, that a temporal
object is valued more before we possess it, and begins to prove
worthless the moment we attain it, because it does not satisfy
the soul, which has its only true and sure resting-place in eter-
nity: an eternal object, on the other hand, is loved with
greater ardor when it is in possession than while it is still an
object of desire, for no one in his longing for it can set a
higher value on it than really belongs to it, so as to think it
comparatively worthless when he finds it of less value than
he thought; on the contrary, however high the value any
man may set upon it when he is on his way to possess it, he
will find it, when it comes into his possession of higher value
still.” In the symbolism of the Revelator the abundant pro-
vision for unfailing freshness and satisfaction of spirit, on the
part of the inhabitants of heaven, is represented by a “river
of water of life, bright as a crystal, proceeding out of the
throne of God and the Lamb.”
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APPENDIX.
I.
THE MIRACLE OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION.
A BRIEF summary of grounds for faith in the historical verity
of Christ’s resurrection may fitly be appended to the discussion
which has been awarded to the general subject of miracles.
1. The resurrection of Christ is perfectly consonant with
the unique character and extraordinary mission ascribed to
Him by the New Testament in the whole trend of its teaching.
Why should not the career of One who was so exceptional in
character and mission pass on to an exceptional goal? If it
was really His vocation to be the Saviour of men, His resur-
rection is properly reckoned an essential factor in the perfect
fulfillment of His vocation. It was supremely adapted to sup-
port confidence in His saving office, and to enkindle a salutary
hope in men as respects their own heirship to immortal life.
Such was the vital conviction of the New Testament writers,’
and the reason of the case can easily be seen to have been
with them. The sober conclusion must be that if it was worth
while to provide an extraordinary Redeemer, it was worth
while also to furnish Him with the redemptive potency in-
contestably inherent in the great fact of His resurrection.
2. The resurrection of Christ is made credible by the inti-
mate relation existing between the recorded forecast of the
same and an indubitably fulfilled prophecy. All the evangelists
testify that Christ foretold to the disciples, with specification
of approximate date and of circumstances, His violent death.’
*Rom. 1. 4; 1v..25; viii. 11,)34; 1 Cor. xv. 12-23; 1. Thess. iv. 14;
Phil. iii. 10; Eph. i. 19, 20; ii. 5, 6; 1 Peter i. 3; Heb. xiii. 20.
*Matt, xvi. 21-23; xvii. 9-13; xx. 17-19; xxi. 37-44; Xxvi. I, 2, 12,
21-25; Mark viii. 31-33; ix. 9-13, 31, 32; X. 33, 34; xii. 6-11; xiv. 8, 18-
21; Luke ix. 22, 31; xviii. 32, 33; xx. 13-17; John ii. 19-22; xii. 7, 32,
33; xiii. 21-30.
531
38
582 APPENDIX.
They are clear and emphatic upon this point. Nor does it
lie within the limits of sane criticism to allege that these pro-
phetic utterances were manufactured post eventum. Some
of them appear as part and parcel of a fabric as remote from
an appearance of invention as anything in the gospel narra-
tives. What else, for instance, than a true reminiscence can
be supposed to be contained in Peter’s impetuous rebuke to
the prophesying Christ, and in the intense response of Christ,
“Get thee behind me, Satan?” Features like these stamp
the account in which they stand as an excerpt from real his-
tory. In like manner the parable of the householder and
the wicked husbandmen is» commended by its simple and
graphic character as a substantially true reproduction of the
Master’s words, and so testifies to a distinct forecast by Him
of His violent death. Now, the evangelists who record this
line of well-accredited prophesying associate with it another
line of prophesying; namely, that respecting the rising of the
Son of Man from the dead. Our contention is that the ful-
fillment of the one line of prophesying makes credible the
fulfillment of the other also. He who foresaw with such cer-
tainty that He must pass on to a tragic death may very well
be regarded as having been endowed with authentic fore-
sight when He spoke of His resurrection from the dead. To
be sure, it may be alleged that the recorded forecast of the
resurrection does not stand on a parity with the recorded pre-
diction of the death upon the cross. In fact, the plea has been
made, that if Christ had thrown out any clear intimations of a
resurrection the disciples would not have been so disheartened
and paralyzed by the death of their Master. But this is an
induction which merits very scanty respect. Only by slow
degrees did the disciples rise to anything like a spiritual con-
ception of the Messianic kingdom. From their habitual point
of view the death of the Messiah was a dark enigma. It
seemed to them like the swallowing up of all hope and prom-
ise. They remained unreconciled to the thought of such a
terrible issue. By natural consequence, while their minds
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 583
thus rebelled against the thought of the death of their Master,
the idea of His resurrection remained in mist and obscurity.
As one of the evangelists reports, they had questionings on
the subject, and shrank from asking explanations.’ The mes-
sage on either point was for the time being beyond them.
When, therefore, the catastrophe came, when the Master went
down under a storm of hate and contempt, and the shadow of
His ignominy darkened the pathway of their own lives, nat-
urally they were too stricken in heart to entertain any sub-
stantial hope. To triumph over the dismal appearance required
a faith approaching more nearly to omnipotent virtue than any
which they were able to exercise. Considering the plane of
religious understanding reached by them when they were con-
fronted by the tragedy of Calvary, we may affirm that their
practical neglect for the time being of the thought of a resur-
rection of the crucified One is no disproof of the fact that He
gave prophetic intimations of His resurrection as well as of
His death. Nor is it necessary to stop with this mere negativing
of the objector’s plea. It can be claimed that an appearance
of incongruity would attach to Christ’s representations respect-
ing Himself, unless it be granted that along with the forecast
of the ignominious death there went a prophecy of triumph
over death and the grave. The profound emphasis which
Christ placed upon allegiance to Himself and the eminent
place which He claimed for Himself in the divine kingdom
would have been in palpable disharmony with His references
to His crucifixion, had no intimations been added of a life
coming to glorious manifestation beyond the cross and the
tomb. The record of these intimations stands as a congruous
element in a historical complex. We claim, therefore, that
it is reasonable to accept that record as representative of a his-
torical verity and to rate it, in consideration of its close asso-
ciation with a fulfilled prophecy, as a support to faith in the
resurrection of our Lord.
3. The victorious confidence, with which the disciples took
up and prosecuted the cause of their crucified Master, must
'Mark ix. 10, 32.
584 APPENDIX
be referred to some adequate cause. The scholarship of the
Christian world is practically agreed in identifying that cause
with the undoubting belief of the disciples in the resurrection
of Christ. Various critics may question the fact of the resur-
rection, but it requires exceptional hardihood to deny the
triumphant belief of the disciples in the matter. What accounts
for that belief? For one who does not rule out miracles
by dogmatic fiat the most satisfactory explanation will take
the form of this statement: The belief was enkindled and
sustained by the actual appearance of Christ as victor over
death and the grave. b
Among the opposing explanations which have been offered,
that which appeals to a sham resurrection, or the awakening
of the entombed Christ from a swoon, hardly deserves serious
consideration. The smiting words of Strauss scarcely exag-
gerate its failure to meet the historical situation. He says:
“One who crept forth half dead from the grave, and crawled
about a sickly patient, who had need of medical care, of ban-
daging, nursing, and strengthening, and who must still in the
end succumb to his sufferings, could not have made upon
the disciples that impression that He was the conqueror of
death and the grave and the prince of life, which lay back
of their ensuing activity. Such a resuscitation would simply
have weakened the impression made upon them by His life
and death; at most it would have given to it a pathetic cast;
by no possibility could it have transformed their sorrow into
enthusiasm, their reverence into worship.”
Not very much superior is the explanation which refers the
unshaken belief of the disciples to illusion or subjective fan-
tasy. This amounts practically to an attempt to escape miracle
at the expense of attributing miraculous virtue to illusion.
It strains rational conviction to the point of torture when we
are asked to conclude that a mere ghost, dressed up by a dis-
tempered imagination, could have wrought such a mighty
and substantial result. Then, too, it is troublesome to con-
ceive how groups of individuals, some of whom at least were
1Das Leben Jesu fiir das deutsche Volk bearbeitet, 2te Aufl. p. 298
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 585
as hardheaded and practical men as might be found in that
age, could have been subjects for a common and simultaneous
illusion. It is to be noted, moreover, that the disciples be-
lieved, not merely that they saw the risen Christ, but that
they also received messages from Him. This is the common
testimony of the evangelists. Is it to be supposed that their
senses conspired to play them tricks? Of course, the reality
of the messages may be denied. But the fact remains that
they are conformable to the tenor of the Gospels, and that in
their combination of simplicity and grandeur they are such
messages as might properly be supposed to have been spoken
by the risen Lord.
Decidedly more respectable than either of the attempted
explanations just considered is that which refers the belief
of the primitive disciples to interior visions wrought by ob-
jective agency. The assumption here is that Christ, apart
from the body which was consigned to the grave, wrought
upon the minds of the disciples, thus giving them a sense of
His recovered presence. The visions were not pure hallu-
cinations. Christ was back of them, though simply as a spir-
itual agent, and not as an embodied personality. With respect
to this theory, the natural conclusion is that it is not worth
while. It assumes a miracle, only in a psychical as opposed to
a physical range. No appreciable advantage belongs to such
an exchange, and there attaches to it the disadvantage that
it bars out the means of accounting for various items which
are contained in the resurrection narratives. In particular
the explicit uncontradicted testimony to the empty tomb makes
against its acceptance.
4. We have from the hand of the Apostle Paul testimony
to a succession of appearances of the risen Christ—testimony
given under conditions which secure to it substantially the
same worth that would belong to the direct statements of eye-
witnesses. It is supposed by some recent historians that
Paul may have been converted within a year from the death
of Christ. At most only an interval of a few years fell be-
tween the two events. From that point he was in communica-
586 APPENDIX.
tion with witnesses to the resurrection. He had a pro-
longed interview with Peter about three years after
his espousal of the new faith. As having been for-
merly a special agent of the Pharisaic and priestly party in its
attempt to suppress those who believed on Jesus, he must have
known what that party was able to offer against the fact of
the resurrection. He was on the field and had the advantage
of close association with the bitter opponents as well as with
the friends of the new religious movement. While he was
thus furnished with substantial sources of information, he
wrote under conditions which advised to carefulness and so-
briety in his statements; for, in the third decade from the
crucifixion many of those to whom he referred as witnesses
of the reappearance of Christ must have been still at hand,
as indeed he took pains to affirm. We are compelled, there-
fore, to admit that we are confronted by a most weighty his-
torical testimony when we take up these words of the apostle:
“T delivered unto you first of all that which also I received,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures ;
and that He was buried; and that He hath been raised on
the third day according to the Scriptures ; and that He appeared
to Cephas ; then to the twelve; then He appeared to above five
hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain
until now, but some are fallen asleep; then He appeared to
james; then to all the apostles.”
An attempt is sometimes made to discount this statement
of Paul, and to turn it into evidence for a vision hypothesis,
by greatly emphasizing the fact that the apostle numbers him-
self among those to whom the resurrection of Christ had been
directly attested. Paul, it is contended, had only a vision of
Christ, and therefore it may be presumed that the witnesses
to whom he referred were not supposed to have had any more
tangible proofs of a resurrection than that contained in mere
visions. But this construction is quite manifestly unwarranted
and warped. There is no reason to infer that Paul did not
believe that Christ was objectively presented to himself be-
13 Cor. xv. 3-7.
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 587
fore the gates of Damascus. It is in truth utterly wide of the
probability to suppose that he thought of that great experience
as a mere matter of inward vision. In numbering himself,
therefore, among those able to witness to the fact of the res-
urrection, he casts no doubt on the objective reality of the
appearances of Christ to the earlier witnesses. Nor did he
by any means intend to disconnect those appearances from an
earthly theatre by his reference to an appearance from heaven.
What his language implies is the belief that the risen Christ
actually appeared to himself, not that He appeared in precisely
the same way as to the others. The appearance from heaven
corresponds with the thought of Christ as seated at the right
hand of the Father, which seems to have been current among
the disciples from a point adjacent to the first Christian
Pentecost.
5. Though Paul’s language does not contain an explicit
mention of the empty tomb, it does contain an implicit refer-
ence thereto. Who can doubt that, when he spoke of the
common tradition as affirming that Christ was buried and was
raised on the third day, he thought of Joseph’s tomb being
emptied of its prisoner, and meant to say that this item was
an undisputed part of the tradition? We have then an item
witnessed to by all the New Testament writers who make any
detailed reference to the resurrection; for each of the four evan-
gelists begins his story of the Easter morning with a picture
of the empty tomb.
Now, this item, respecting which we have such complete
unanimity, is not of small historical significance. To suppose
that a rumor got started about the tomb being empty, and
that this rumor incited no one to make investigation into the
matter is to suppose that both the disciples and their deadly
opponents were dreamers living in dreamland. ‘Too much was
at stake on either side to admit of easy-going indolence. The
tomb must have been found empty. What had become of the
body? To charge the disciples with having stolen and con-
cealed it is to make choice of an alternative that lands one in
helpless absurdity. A dead body under their hand and a hie
538 APPENDIX.
upon their consciences could never have fitted the disciples
to be the heroes and martyrs of a new dispensation. On the
other hand, if their opponents had rifled the tomb they had
but to produce their prey to confound the newborn enthusiasm
of the sect of the Nazarene. So the empty tomb, unanimously
witnessed to by the New Testament historians, joins with the
appearances of the risen Christ as reported through the apostle
to the Gentiles to bespeak faith in the fact of the resurrection.
6. Each of the evangelists is in agreement with Paul in
teaching that the risen Christ appeared to the entire company
of the apostles. Mark’s Gospel, it is true, does not in the
extant conclusion reach to a-description of the appearance, but
it clearly presumes upon the fact of the appearance sketched
in the appended verses. Paul mentions two visitations of
Christ to the whole group of the apostles. John also men-
tions two visitations, though taking note that Thomas was ab-
sent from the apostolic company on the occasion of the first
of these.
7. The apparent discrepancies between the different ac-
counts of the resurrection are due in no small degree to the
fact that no one of them is complete. In reviewing them a
sober historical judgment will require us not to reckon omis-
sions as tantamount to denials. ‘There is no reason, for in-
stance, to suppose that Paul meant to deny that Christ ap-
peared to one or more of the devoted women who were num-
bered among His followers. It suited his purpose to specify
by name only such witnesses as by virtue of official station
and general reputation had weight even in parts of the Chris-
tian domain remote from Jerusalem. Almost no significance
therefore pertains to the omission. Scarcely more do the
omissions of this or that evangelist discredit items in the nar-
ratives of the rest. Doubtless it remains an enigma, why
Mark (and Matthew only less completely in his dependence
upon Mark) passed over the appearances at Jerusalem and
emphasized Galilee as the theatre of Christ’s revisitation of the
disciples. Possibly the explanation may be akin to that which
eminent critics offer for the fact that the Judzan ministry of
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRISw. 589
Christ receives such scanty notice in the same Gospel. The
Galilean point of view may have been predominant in the
ultimate source upon which Mark’s compendium of this sec-
tion of the gospel history was based. In any event, it is to
be noticed that Mark agrees with all the other evangelists
in assuming that the disciples were still at Jerusalem when
Christ came forth from the tomb. His narrative, therefore,
at least provides an interval for possible appearances at Jeru-
salem before the retirement of the disciples to Galilee. Mind-
ful of this fact, and taking note also of the exceeding brevity
of Mark’s treatment of the theme of the resurrection—a brevity
such as to suggest mutilation of the original manuscript—we
shall find no adequate reason for estimating the narrative of
Luke and John by the positive contents of the second Gospel.’
We have said that omissions are not equivalent to con-
tradictions. We may add that variations and even contradic-
tions in details are no valid disproof of the essential fact to
which they pertain. A reminiscence may be perfectly unfal-
tering as to a great central fact, while yet it is unable to
reproduce with certainty this or that particular. A criticism,
which has not become nearsighted and picayunish by too con-
tinuous grubbing in small details, will not magnify the import
of discrepancies in the subordinate particulars of brief and
independent narratives. We have the fact that a man of Paul’s
moral potency and intellectual calibre, on the basis of data
gathered within a few years of Christ’s death, specified as
vouchers for the actual appearance of the risen Christ a full list
of witnesses, the majority of whom were still alive at the time
when he wrote. We have the unanimous testimony of the
New Testament historians to the fact of the empty tomb. We
have the concurrent testimony of Paul and all the evangelists
to the appearance of Christ to the whole apostolic company.
We have the fact that there was manifestly at work in the
company of the disciples, very soon after the crucifixion, a
mighty creative power such as might well flow from a great
and unique event like the resurrection. We have the record
‘Compare Friedrich Loofs, Die Auferstehungsberichte und ihr Wert.
590 APPENDIX.
of Christ’s own forecast of His resurrection closely linked
with the true prophecy of His violent death. We have the
consideration that the resurrection may most reasonably be
reckoned as a completing factor in the office of Saviour so
prominently associated with Christ in the Gospels. Surely all
this makes a basis upon which faith can rest without being
in the slightest degree amenable to the charge of triviality or
venturesomeness.
As respects the type of the body in which the risen Christ
made His appearances, there are no adequate means of deter-
mination. On the one hand it can be said that a certain mys-
tery attached to the movements of Christ in connection with
these appearances, and that a sign may be found here that He
was no longer under the restraints of a body of the common
earthly type. On the other hand, it can be claimed that any
extraordinary feature in His movements may be explained by
the fact that the period for the self-chosen limitations of the
servant-form was now past, and He was free to use His divine
power in His own behalf. It may also be urged that some
of the items reported in the gospel narratives are adverse to
the supposition of a radical change of bodily type before the
eve of the ascension. The subject is one upon which an at-
tempt to dogmatize is not likely to be fruitful.
1 b.
ETHNIC SYSTEMS ESPECIALLY AS RESPECTS
TRINITARIAN FEATURES.
A VARIABLE grouping of the gods, rather than any real
parallel to the Christian Trinity, has in general been character-
istic of the non-Christian religions. That the grouping should
often have taken the form of triads is very little cause for
surprise. In the first place, a ready suggestion of a triad has
been supplied in the widespread conception of the universe as
ETHNIC TRINITIES. 591
consisting of three great provinces; namely, heaven, earth,
and underworld; or, heaven, earth, and sea. A _ polytheistic
system naturally assigned these provinces to as many dif-
ferent divinities. In the second place, a basis for the triad
has been furnished in the family relation, as it has been car-
ried over from the human to the divine sphere. Often a
feminine counterpart or partner has been associated with a
god, and a third divinity has stood to the pair as offspring
or as trusted messenger. In the third place, as the result of
a political consolidation of different districts and a fusion of
different religious parties, a close association has been effected
between different gods. Naturally in some of these instances
of combination triads resulted. Finally, in so far as the ele-
ment of priestly reflection, or conscious endeavor at system-
making, has had place in filling out the content of a religion,
a partiality for the number three may sometimes have wrought
for the disposing of the gods in triads.
In the ancient polytheistic nature-religion of Babylonia,
the conception of the threefold division of the world seems to
have been back of the foremost representation of the gods
as a triad. Anu stood for the god who presides in heaven,
Bel for the immediate ruler of the earth, and Ea for the di-
vinity who has his seat in the deep waters under the earth
whence spring all fountains and streams. Alongside of this
triad a second was in course of time developed, including Sin,
Shamas, and Ramman, associated respectively with the moon,
the sun, and the storm of rain. The subsistence of the two
triads indicates a very loose and qualified sort of trinitarian
faith among the Babylonians. As much is indicated further-
more by the great prominence given to divinities outside of
these groups. The goddess Ishtar was accorded a high sta-
tion, and Marduk, favored by the political prestige of Babylon,
of which city he was the patron deity, came to outrank in prac-
tical importance every other member of the Babylonian pan-
theon. The Assyrian pantheon corresponded very nearly
with the Babylonian, with the exception that the national god,
sg2 APPENDIX.
Ashur, was placed at the head, being given precedence over
the primitive Babylonian triad.’
The ancient Egyptian religion, with its multiplicity of gods,
furnished rather a record of triads than of a trinity proper.
These triads were formed in many instances by a combination
of the gods acknowledged in neighboring districts, the com-
bination being made after the pattern of the family relation.
“In the nomes,” says Maspero, “where the master was a god,
often he contented himself with a single spouse and a single
son; often also two goddesses were associated with him, who
held at once the place of sisters and spouses, according to the
national usage. The triads formed by the addition of two
goddesses were almost always broken up into two new triads,
each of which included a paternal god, a goddess-mother, and a
divinity standing in the relation of son.” Supplementing the
more spontaneous development of triads, there was a group-
ing in which the reflection of a priestly school was a prom-
inent factor. The school of Heliopolis assigned the work of
creation to the great sun god Ra and to four couples of gods
produced by him. To this ennead they annexed two secondary
enneads composed of divinities selected from the multitude
recognized in the local cults of Egypt. In this scheme it ap-
pears that a certain pre-eminence was given to one of the
gods. But this pre-eminence had a very unsubstantial tenure.
Various gods were practically made rivals of the sun god Ra,
or, indeed were ranked under different names as sun gods.
Prominent among these favorite divinities were Osiris, his sis-
ter and spouse Isis, and Horus, the son of Isis. We have here
an interesting triad, but not one to which any considerable
significance can be attached from the trinitarian point of view,
since other triads were recognized, and moreover in the Osiris
myth itself we have to do quite as much with a quaternion of
gods as with a triad, a place being given to Set, the artful
1Compare Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria ; Jeremias,
in Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, edited by Chantepie de la Saus-
saye.
*Histoire Ancienne des Peoples de l’Orient Classique, I. 104, 105.
ETHNIC TRINITIES. 593
brother of Osiris. Varied and shifting polytheistic combina-
tions are what the Egyptian religion on the whole presents
to us. In the speculatve thought of the priesthood, it is true,
there may have been a sort of transcendence of the polythe-
istic standpoint, in favor of the conviction that all the gods are
one, being but different forms of the supreme essence. But,
as will be noticed in connection with the religious systems of
India, this casting of the blanket of a pantheistic conception
over the multiplicities of polytheism is at a very considerable
remove from Christian trinitarianism.
In the Persian religion the triad seems not to have been any
considerable factor. The rank of being standing next to the
good deity, Ahura Mazda, consisted of not less than six mem-
bers. Among these so-called ‘““Amesha Spentas’” a certain
pre-eminence may have pertained to the first two, Vohu Mano
and Asha Vahista. Nevertheless in idea and function they all
belonged to essentially the same rank. While their names
give a hint that they may have been nothing more than per-
sonifications of abstract ideals, they figure as personal beings.
They may be said to represent the archangelic type, as being
created servants of Ahura Mazda, though in the matter of
worship and sacrifice they appear as sharers of divine honors.
With their creator they were conceived to constitute the high-
est sphere of being. Yet it was but a wavering line which di-
vided off this sphere. The priestly god Sraosha, the protector
of the poor and the defenseless, and the efficient champion
against the demons, attained substantially to the level of the
six special associates of Ahura Mazda. In the later era of
the Persian religion, Mithra, the god of heavenly light and the
preserver of good faith, was awarded a position of great prom-
inence. During the third and fourth centuries his cult was
more largely patronized in the Roman Empire than that of
any other Oriental divinity. It is thus seen that in the Per-
sian or Zoroastrian religion we have beneath the overlord,
Ahura Mazda, many divinities or semi-divinities, and no
proper trinity.
The Greek religion, in its popular and poetic form, as dis-
594 APPENDIX.
tinguished from the religious platform embodied 1n the post-
Socratic Greek philosophy, can not be said to have shown any
particular affinity with the trinitarian conception. The over-
lord, Zeus, is represented as himself descended from an
earlier generation of gods, and around and beneath him is de-
picted a crowd of divinities. The triad appears only as an
unstable and accidental factor. In the Odyssey instances may
be noticed of a special association of Zeus, Pallas, and Apollo.
This may indicate that in the thought of the poet they were
regarded as closely linked in their superintendence of the is-
sues which he was contemplating. But his thought also paid
tribute to Poseidon, and others. Moreover, it is to be noticed
that in the Iliad antagonistic parts are assigned to the members
of the triad just mentioned, since Pallas appears as the stead-
fast and ardent champion of the Greeks, while Zeus and Apollo
lend their aid betimes to the beleaguered Trojans. In both of
the great poems there is a plenty of incarnations in the sense
of transient investments of divinities with human forms; but
neither presents any proper counterpart to the trinitarian
idea or to the Christian thought of the incarnation.
Much the same estimate is to be passed upon the triads of
the Teutonic mythology as upon those contained in the popular
form of the Greek religion. The grouping of three gods to-
gether, as, for instance, Thor, Odin, and Freyr, is undoubt-
edly of frequent occurrence. But very little significance is to
be attached to the combination. “It is probably to be explained
on the score of an enumeration of the chief gods, or of the
coupling of the gods of various tribes and peoples.”
In India we meet with a somewhat closer approach to the
trinitarian idea than is found in any of the religions thus
far considered. This approach, however, belongs to a com-
paratively late epoch. The religion of the Vedic age—a
naturalistic, mytho-poetic polytheism, modified here and there
by a base of pantheistic thinking—placed no stress upon a
threefold impersonation of the divine. Each god was raised
in turn by the partiality of his devotees to the supreme place,
1De la Saussaye, the Religion of the Ancient Teutons, pp. 286, 287.
ETHNIC TRINITIES. 595
and was regarded as in a manner absorbing in himself the
whole sum of divinity. Thus in the Rig-Veda one reads that
Agni is Varuna, Indra; that in him are all the gods. This
form of representation, in so far as it implies one personality
under varied manifestations, may have borne a certain resem-
blance to a purely modalistic trinitarianism ; but it differs even
from this type of trinitarian doctrine in that there was no
arrest at the number three. ‘The combination of polytheistic
and pantheistic postulates, upon which it reposed, permitted
the assumption of any number of impersonations of the divine
being; indeed, as appears in the Brahmanical philosophy,
which came in to supplement the original Vedic teaching, each
human personality could claim a substantial identity with the
divine self.
The trimurti of later Hinduism was based in the same com-
bination of polytheistic and pantheistic postulates which under-
lay the Vedic representation of multiplicity and unity. The
polytheistic postulate was first operative. Vishnu and Siva, at
the primary stage of development, were simply gods in a
crowd of gods. But in course of time powerful sects became
attached to each. Very naturally, sectarian zeal did not stop
short of the most comprehensive claims. The devotees of
Vishnu would not be content to assign to him any place below
the highest. The same was true of the devotees of Siva. At
length resort was made to the idea that the rival claims of the
two great sectarian gods might be harmonized in the assump-
tion that the two were after all substantially identical, being
coequal manifestations of the one divine essence. Thus the
conception of the godhead as susbsisting in a dual mode was
reached. At this juncture there was no powerful sect to cham-
pion the distinctive claims of Brahma. But the traditional
thought of Brahma as the all-god was still operative, and ac-
cordingly he was associated as an equal with Vishnu and Siva.
Thus was constituted the Hindu trimurtt, We have already
cited the opinion of Lehmann, that it was introduced as a
makeshift for blending together different cults, and that in
the Hindu religion it has had only a minor significance for
596 APPENDIX.
faith or speculation (p. 226). It is to be noticed, further-
more, that in point of time it followed the formulation of the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity. In this fact there is a sug-
gestion of the possibility of borrowing; but there is no distinct
warrant for turning the possibility into probability. “We do
not believe,” says Hopkins, “that the trinitarianism of India
was derived from Christian sources. But it must be admitted
to be historically possible that the creed of the Christians,
known to the Hindus of the sixth and seventh centuries, may
have suggested to the latter the idea of the trinity as a means
of adjusting the claims of Brahmanism, Krishnaism [a pop-
ular form of Vishnuism] and Sivaism.’” Whether indebted
or not to the Christian dogma, Hindu trinitarianism, with its
polytheistic and pantheistic premises, and its compounding
of rival cults evidently differed to a very considerable degree
from the catholic Christian doctrine of the Trinity.
In the latest Greek philosophy, the Neo-Platonic, ethnic
speculation contributed a representation having a certain re-
semblance to the trinitarian dogma as held by catholic Chris-
tendom. To some extent a basis for this approximation
was supplied by two of the preceding philosophies, Platonism
and Stoicism. In the former the representation of the Ideas
as supersensible realities, as the eternal pattern of the visible
universe, as the unchanging source of all excellence and gen-
uine being in the world, and as the sole medium of absolute
knowledge, was well suited to furnish outlines of a Logos doc-
trine. That it was actually suggestive in this direction is shown
by the acknowledgments of Philo and some of the early
Christian fathers.” Besides furnishing in this way an historic
ground for a Logos doctrine, Platonism gave a dim sugges-
tion of a triad, in referring to the good, to a child begotten in his
image, and to a soul immanent to the world.“ As respects
rr
1K. W. Hopkins, The Religions of India, p. 545.
2Philo, De Monarchia, i. 6; Origen, Cont. Celsum, vi. 64; Clement
of Alexandria, Strom. v. 3.
*Republic, Book vi.
‘Timeus.
ETHNIC TRINITIES. 597
Stoicism, in its affirmation of a ruling principle, a cosmic
reason, it made an approach to a Logos doctrine. Indeed the
Stoics used the term Logos to designate this cosmic reason.
In considerable part, however, the materialistic monism which
colored their system, differenced their thought of the Logos
both from the Christian idea included under that name and
from the meaning which was attached to the middle term of
the Neo-Platonic triad.
Plotinus, as representing the summit of Neo-Platonic specu-
lation, is best taken as the expositor of the trinitarian idea
which comes to expression in that speculation. At the head
of his system stands the most transcendental notion that could
possibly be framed. The first being, otherwise called by Ploti-
nus the principle and the good, as well as God, is conceived as
an impersonal infinite, absolutely undifferentiated, perfectly
exclusive of everything which can suggest variety of content,
and above every category which the speech of man supplies.
To use some of the words of our philosopher: “The prin-
ciple itself, as it is beyond intellect, so likewise is it beyond
knowledge; but knowledge subsists in the nature which is
next to this. For to know is one certain thing; but this prin-
ciple is one without the addition of cerfain. For if it was a
certain one, it would net be the one itself. For itself is prior
to a certain or some particular thing. Hence it is in reality
ineffable. For of whatever you speak, you speak of a certain
thing. But of that which is beyond all things, and which is
beyond even most venerable intellect, it is alone true to assert
that it has not any other name [than the ineffable], and that
it is not some one of all things. Properly speaking, there is
no name of it, because nothing can be asserted of it.
We can say what it is not, but we can not say what it is, so
that we speak of it from things posterior to it. . . . The
good is not being; for being has, as it were, the form of the
one. But that is formless, and is even without intelligible form.
God is something which is not essence, but beyond
991
essence.
1K nneads, V, iii, VI, ix. Thomas Taylor’s translation.
39
598 APPENDIX.
As exalted above all distinctions, above the distinction be~
tween the knower and the known, above the distinction between
being and will, the supreme entity can not entertain any pur-
poses or produce aught by volitional activity. Nevertheless,
according to Plotinus, production does occur. By an absolute
necessity of nature the first being is a source of causal eff-
ciency. His fullness, so to speak, overflows and spreads out
into successive ranks of being, ranks decreasing in dignity
and worth in proportion to their distance from the source.
By this representation it is not meant that any partition of the
substance of the first being is to be supposed. He remains
eternally impartible and unmoved. The outgoing from him is
purely dynamic, the forth-putting of energy or power. The
different degrees in which his working is embodied or mani-
fested in different beings determines their rank. Those which
are remotest from the primary source, or have their content
mediated through the largest number of intermediate links,
stand lowest in the scale.’
The immediate product of this necessitated energizing of the
first being is the vovs, or intellect, a timeless mind, absorbed
in the contemplation of itself and of the first being, represent-
ative of the first stage in differentiation, since intellect, as con-
trasted with the absolute simplicity of the first being, includes
both self and the knowledge of self.
Next to the vovs is the Yuxy, the cosmic soul, whence spring
all the lesser orders of souls. It has its immediate source in
the vovs, as the vovs has its source in the first being. “Just
as external discourse,” says Plotinus, “is an image of the dis-
cursive energy within the soul, after the same manner, soul,
and the whole of its energy, are the discourse of intellect.’’*
Since the cosmic soul was regarded by Plotinus as separated
by a very considerable interval from all ranks of being below
its sphere, his system quite distinctly recognizes a triad. In-
deed, in explicit opposition to contemporary Gnostics, with
their long list of partial impersonations of the divine, he con-
1Compare Eduard Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen.
27Finneads, V, i.
ETHNIC TRINITIES. 599
tended that the list should enumerate only the first being, intel-
lect, and soul. “This,” he said, “is the order according to
nature, neither to admit more nor fewer than these in the in-
telligible. For those who admit fewer than these must either
say that soul and intellect are the same, or that intellect and
that which is first are the same. It has, however, been fre-
quently demonstrated by us that these are different from each
other.”
From the exposition which has been given it follows that
the triad of Plotinus, whatever analogy it may bear to the
Trinity postulated by Christian teaching, differs from the same
to a very appreciable degree. In so far as that teaching in-
corporates the idea of three co-ordinate Divine Persons, as has
been to a considerable extent the case since the days of Augus-
tine, no proper parallel is furnished in the triad of Plotinus,
for in this the first being is placed high above the plane of the
vos and the wy, these being considered as products of his
dynamical working. If comparison be made with a form of
Christian teaching which admits a more or less pronounced
subordination of the Son and the Spirit, such a form as had
place with some of the early fathers, and has also been favored
by a considerable number of theologians in more recent times,
the triad of Plotinus comes appreciably nearer to furnishing
a parallel. But even in this case the distance between the
Christian and the Neo-Platonic thought is not small. The
first being, about whom Plotinus discourses, is far other, in
his utterly abstract and impersonal character, than the Father
acknowledged in the Christian system. The vots of Plotinus,
absorbed in a comtemplation which never descends below the
plane of its own being, is far other than the eternal Word, who
was made flesh and dwelt among us. Certain marks of re-
semblance may be admitted; but, on the whole, the contrasts
between the Plotinian triad and the Christian Trinity are quite
as noticeable as the points of similarity.
Since Plotinus wrote in the third century, the possibility
that his thought may have been influenced to some extent by
1Rnneads, IT, ix.
Goo APPENDIX.
Christian thinking must be conceded, just as the like possi-
bility needs to be recognized in relation to those who formu-
lated the Hindu conception of the trimurti. But judicial schol-
arship does not make much account of the possibility. As
heir to the various phases of Hellenic philosophy, and as
touched by the spirit of Oriental mysticism which was abroad
in the Roman world of his day, Plotinus may have found suf-
ficient incentive to represent the hierarchy of being as it ap-
pears in his system.
Our examination of the principal embodiments of ethnic
thinking leads to the conclusion that only in Hinduism and in
the later Greek philosophy do we find a noteworthy resem-
blance to the Christian conception of the Trinity, and that
even in these two instances the resemblance can be afhrmed
only with important limitations.
To the above discussion of the trinitarian features of ethnic
systems we subjoin two or three items explanatory of other
matters that have received a passing reference.
The affirmation of large obligations on the part of the Koran
to the Old Testament was not meant to imply that Mohammed
drew directly from the writings of the Hebrews. There are
good reasons for the conclusion that the Old Testament ma-
terials utilized in the Koran were appropriated through oral
channels. Before reaching the hand of the Arabian prophet
they had been mixed with much apocryphal matter. Stanley
Lane-Poole estimates that about one-fourth of the Koran con-
sists in legends derived from the Jewish Haggadah. -
As respects the dualism ascribed to Zoroastrianism (p. 85),
it is fair to observe that it is subject to a qualification in the
eschatology of that system. In the ultimate issue, Ahura
Mazda and his allies are to overthrow the powers of evil
and darkness led by Angra Mainyu. Thus the ultimate su-
premacy of the good deity is provided for, though, of course,
it needs to be granted that logically an inferior ground is fur-
nished for this outcome by the representation of a divided
power back of creation.
SCHOLASTIC REALISM. 601
The ultra-ritualistic text which was cited from a Brahmanical
source (p. 117), was designed to be taken as only partially
representative ; that is, representative of one side of the Brah-
imanical system. Texts of a contrary tenor doubtless occur
within the extended literature of that system. What admits of
being asserted is, that there is a strain of Brahmanical teach-
ing which tends to sacrifice ethical values to an ultra-ritualistic
standpoint. The repeated declaration, that the very gods are
dependent for their supremacy upon sacrifices, finds here and
there a congenial supplement in the ascription of a well-nigh
limitless efficacy to certain rites.
Il.
SCHOLASTIC REALISM.
It is well understood that “realism” in the scholastic sense
is not antithetic to “idealism,” but to “nominalism.” It stands
for the conclusion that we are not dealing with mere names
or conventional signs when we mention “universals’”—general
terms, such as “wisdom,” “man,” “bird,” “animal,” “body,”
“color.” In all instances of this kind, it holds, we are dealing
with objective realities. To speak succinctly, scholastic realism
has to do with the nature and function of universals, and rep-
resents an emphatic position in favor of their reality, their
actual existence in an objective range or apart from the hu-
man mind engaged in contemplating them.
The medieval scholastics found an historic basis for their
realistic doctrine in Platonism, or in Aristotelianism, or in a
combination of the two. As commonly understood, Plato was
an advocate of the most emphatic and unqualified realism. Be-
fore the individuals of like name he placed the universal ; be-
fore concrete entities, the ideas. He regarded the latter as
eternal and imperishable archetypes, uniform, and self-identical
realities; whereas, individual things belong to the sphere of
mutation, and depend for the measure of reality which they do
possess, as well as for their cognizability, upon participation
602 APPENDIX.
in the universal essences, the ideas. So Plato has been gen-
erally understood to have taught. Lotze makes the suggestion
that Plato was badly served in this relation by the Greek lan-
guage, as failing to afford suitable means of discrimination
between “validity” and “subsistence ;” that what he wished to
insist upon was not the independent subsistence of ideas, but
their unconditional validity—the fact of an ideal order or sys-
tem which abides in its truth quite independent of any expres-
sion in the sphere of sensible and concrete reality, the perfect
and unassailable integrity of thought-distinctions over against
the flux characteristic of all finite things.’ However, the ver-
dict that Plato conceived of the ideas as substantial entities
can claim a pretty good ground in the fact that a philosopher
as near to him as Aristotle so judged, and also in the fact that
historical critics as competent as Zeller, Erdmann, and others,
have pronounced very decidedly for the same conclusion.
Aristotle repudiated the theory of the independent and sub-
stantial existence of universals. The individual alone, he main-
tained, is entitled to be called substance. A general name is a
predicate-term, not a subject-term. It is significant of an at-
tribute, or a complex of attributes, viewed as common to a
greater or less number of individuals. There is no whiteness
apart from individual white objects, and no humanity save
in individual men. To name universals, therefore, is to ex-
press the common or resembling qualities of a plurality of ob-
jects. In this line of statements Aristotle seems to stand es-
sentially on the basis of conceptualism, or the theory which
makes universals expressive of concepts—mental representa-
tions of the common or (more strictly) similar in a plurality
of objects. But, on the other hand, Aristotle made statements
which were capable of being understoond in a sense approxi-
mating not a little to Platonic realism. With Plato he taught
both that individuals are known in their essential character in
and through universals, and that the objects of genuine knowl-
edge must be supposed to be real. In this way, notwithstand-
ing his ascription of substantiality solely to individuals, he gave
1Logik, pp. 501-506.
SCHOLASTIC REALISM. 603
occasion to emphasize the superior reality of universals. A
chance was afforded to one who was disposed to interpret
Aristotle in favor of a somewhat stanch type of realism to do
so without appearing to go far afield. If not fairly invited, this
order of interpretation was not distinctly excluded. Platonism
was undoubtedly the more congenial basis for a pronounced
realism, but it could also find harborage among those who
reckoned themselves disciples of Aristotle.
The essence of the Platonic doctrine came to be expressed in
the formula untversalia ante rem, while the characteristic fea-
ture of Aristotle’s teaching in this relation was set forth in
the formula universalia in re. These formulas may be accred-
ited with a measure of propriety as applied to the respective
ways of thinking of the two Greek philosophers. But evidently
they are not fitted in themselves to serve as means of an ac-
curate classification of realistic doctrine. It is necessary to
inquire in what sense the universal is supposed to be prior
to the individual thing, and in what sense it is supposed to
be in the individual thing. As a matter of fact, pronounced
realists in the Middle Ages had no objection to either formula.
If they did not hold that universals are before the things in
the manner of strictly independent entities, they did hold that
they have a prior existence as the forms or patterns of things
contained in the divine mind from eternity; and they were
also agreed in maintaining that in an important sense they are
in things. A discriminating exegesis must therefore look be-
yond the mere formula with which the teaching of a writer
may have been associated.
It is commonly admitted that Erigena reproduced sub-
stantially the Platonic realism. He conceived of universals
as real essences, superior in rank to individuals, logically prior
to them, and containing the fundament of their being. As
Ueberweg remarks, he seems to have hypostatized the tabula
logica, making the degrees of abstraction to correspond with
the degrees in the scale of real existence. A close approxima-
tion to the realistic teaching of Erigena was made by Anselm.
He reproached contemporary nominalists for estimating umi-
604 APPENDIX.
versales substantias as mere words, and for showing themselves
incapable of understanding by color anything distinct from
body, or by wisdom anything distinct from the soul, being so
merged in sense as to be disqualified from contemplating things
sole and pure. He also represented the ideas which God thinks
in the Logos as a veritable basis of the creature universe, the
unchanging grounds of changing things, originals to which
the things of the time-world but feebly correspond. Anselm
did not indeed define his position very precisely, but such hints
as he has given leave no reason to doubt that his thinking was
emphatically of the realistic order. Among those who followed,
William of Champeaux strongly asserted the objective reality
of universals, and reduced individuals to the rank of accidental
distinctions superinduced upon a common base. Funda-
mentally Socrates, Plato, and the rest, as he represented, are
one and the same entity, the universal, humanity, which in
manifestation is diversified by certain accidental forms or char-
acteristics. In the list of emphatic realists may be mentioned
also Odo of Cambrai, Bernard of Chartres, Walter of Mortagne,
and William of Auvergne.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was somewhat
of a tendency to curtail the realistic theory. This tendency
may have been due in part to the growing ascendency of Aris-
totle in the thinking of that period. Abelard and John of
Salisbury are understood to have espoused essentially the plat-
form of conceptualism. Even such masters of orthodoxy as
Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas indulged in statements
which make for conceptualism rather than for any type of
realism. When the former said, Non est universale nisi dum
intelligitur, he was certainly very far from giving expression
to a realistic tenet. Language that looks in the same direction
may be found with Aquinas.” However, the teaching of Aqui-
nas shows also traces of realistic leaven. For instance, in his
theory of cognition he seems to assume in things, as in some
1Metaphys. Lib. v, tract. vi. cap. vil, cited by Hauréau, Histoire de
la Philosophie Scolastique, ii, 325.
2Sum. Theol., Pars i, quaest. xliv, art. iii; Pars i, quaest. xlv, art. iv.
SCHOLASTIC REALISM. 605
sense separable from their matter, a real existence of forms,
that is, of universals in the sense of the realists. A fervent
admirer thus construes the theory of the “angelic doctor” rela-
tive to the process of knowledge: “The thing effects by means
of the image-like in itself, that is the thought element, its en-
trance into the inner world of images, that is the circle of our
thinking. Through the species as an element in the being of
the thing, which element is conformable to the soul, the subject
[of cognition] is placed in the soul. The soul receives the for-
eign form without losing its own, and this is the pre-eminence
of the cognitive being.’”
Somewhat more fully than Aquinas, Duns Scotus and the
Scotists paid tribute to realistic doctrine. It is true that on
the one hand Scotus reproduced the Aristotelian stress upon
the individual; but it is also true that he brought to the front
the other side of Aristotle’s teaching—his stress upon the two
facts that individuals are known in their essential character
through universals, and that the objects of knowledge must
be supposed to be real. In construing this order of representa-
tion the “subtle doctor” seems to have assumed that, corre-
sponding to the names of genera and species, there are ob-
jectively subsistent forms, prior in the order of generation to
the individual, and constituting a nature which without detri-
ment to its unity may be in any number of individuals.
“Universal natures,” says Stockl in exposition of Scotist doc-
trine, “would exist, even if the understanding which thinks
them should not exist. . . . Universal natures are consti-
tuted through the union of the generic and the specific form,
and these forms present themselves to the understanding as
objects located in nature itself, objects which are independent
of the act of thinking on the part of the understanding.”
Scotus may have said some things which look in the direction
10tto Willman, Geschichte des Idealismus ii, 386, 387. The following
is a part of the statement of Aquinas: Cognoscentia a non-cognoscentibus
in hoc distinguuntur, quia non-cognoscentia nihil habent nisi formam
suam tantum, sed cognoscens natum est habere formam etiam rei alte-
rius; nam species cogniti est in cognoscente.
“Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, ii, 789.
606 APPENDIX
of a modification of this decisively realistic teaching, but it
must at least be admitted that realistic doctrine finds very
congenial ground in his representations.’
In the fourteenth century a distinct revolt against realism
was inaugurated by William Occam and his school. The
Occamist teaching has been styled “nominalism;’ but it is
a fair question whether it would not be more justly denom-
inated “conceptualism.” For a time it ruled a good part of
the ecclesiastical domain. Realism, however, was not effec-
tually displaced. In a general view it appears as a prominent
element in medizval scholasticism. Even in quarters where
it was not inculcated in the most open and unequivocal manner
there was a tendency to admit more or less of its implications.
If now we inquire respecting the merits of the realistic
doctrine which formed so conspicuous a factor in scholastic
thinking, we are compelled to pronounce it philosophically
unsound. There is absolutely no rational warrant for the real
objective existence of universals, and all the analogies which
are pertinent to the subject are distinctly opposed to such ex-
istence. Suppose there were in the mind of God from eternity
generic and specific patterns of things to be made, what con-
nection could these have had with real subsistence? Analogy
would lead us to say, not a whit more connection than a rule
of action has with the act which it forecasts, or a picture with
the object which it represents. A man purposing to make
clothespins and ball clubs naturally fashions in his mind pat-
terns of these things. What relation in such a case do the
patterns hold to the things? Just simply that of antecedent
thought-forms. They stand for a purely subjective mental
function. They are in the mind and of the mind, and can no
more get out of the mind into the things in any real sense than
a part of the mind can be cut off and inserted into a lump
of matter. The things correspond in certain respects to the
patterns, because the will uses the patterns as standards or
1Stockl, Hauréau, and Willmann agree in the conclusion that in the
Scotist formalism a very considerable approach was made to the Platonic
hypostatizing of universals. Some other interpreters have understood
Scotus in the sense of a less pronounced realism.
SCHOLASTIC REALISM. 607
rules of action in making the things. In no proper sense are
the mental patterns moved into the things, or made to reside in
them, or to serve as a constitutive element of their being.
The being of the things is due to the shaping, energizing will—
the mental patterns serving simply as the rational antecedent,
the governing rule for the agency of the will which effectuates
the things. Such is the dictate of any analogy to which we
can appeal. Out of the range of finite experience we can get
no warrant whatever for the making of any supposed ideas
or patterns in the divine mind anything more than rules of
procedure for the creative divine will. For aught we know
there may be in the divine mind ideas which serve as the
rational antecedents of things; there may be even ideas of as
general a cast as one may be pleased to imagine; but that
these ideas enter literally into the being of things, or are to
be credited with any sort of objective or extra-mental sub-
sistence, with any subsistence other than purely conceptual,
there is no reason to suppose. It is slipshod thinking which
ignores or minifies the gulf between the mere notions of things
and things themselves.
But it will be asked, is it not true, as Plato and Aristotle
assumed, that individuals are known through universals, and
that the objects of genuine knowledge must be supposed to
be real? This is to be granted. If we look carefully, however,
at the import of the facts in question, we shall find no justifica-
tion therein of the realistic doctrine. To say that individuals
are known through universals is simply to say that nothing is
known in the way of absolute isolation, but rather in the way
of connection or comparison with the known. Having on
hand, as understood categories, such general or class terms
as “animal,” “rational,” “volitional,” ‘moral,’ “spiritual,”
“corporeal,” “mortal,” and “immortal,” we proceed to define
a given individual that is introduced to our attention by apply-
ing to the same these terms or as many of them as are suitable
to the case. What does that signify? That the individual
is veritably compounded of universals corresponding to the
list of general terms mentioned? Nothing of the sort. It
608 APPENDIX. |
signifies merely that the individual is capable of being viewed
in class relations and is defined to our minds by being so viewed.
Intrinsically he may be individual in every atom of his being;
yet, if he has points of resemblance to other individuals, he
can be set in relation to them on the score of these points
of resemblance—in other words, be associated with them under
class terms. The resemblances being real, the act of association
or classification is not arbitrary, but correspondent to fact.
The Platonic and Aristotelian propositions under considera-
tion reduce, therefore, to this: The individual is defined to
our thought by being viewed in class relations, and a genuine
basis for so viewing him’ (or it) is supplied in his actual
resemblances to other individuals. In the individual there is
and can be nothing universal. Rationality in John is purely
John’s capacity for rational activity. But in so far as John is
rational, he has a distinct resemblance to James and Nathan
and the rest, and so in the comparing mind can be brought
under a common designation with them. ‘The universal is
a matter of concept or mental representation. Conceptualism
must be pronounced the true theory, it being at the same time
understood that the concept expressed in a general term is not
arbitrarily formed, but has respect to actual resemblances of
individuals.
Using language with customary freedom, one may indeed
speak of ideas as being immanent in things. As a matter of
fact, philosophical writers who confess no allegiance to scho-
lastic realism are not unaccustomed to define the continuous
identity of changing things by saying that through all their
changes they remain true to their immanent ideas. The lan-
guage is excusable, but of course in strictness there are no
ideas in the things. What is meant is that the shaping and
conserving power back of things secures their conformity
throughout their history to certain types or patterns.
Scholastic realism may be credited with a certain service in
emphasizing the truth that knowledge rejects the isolation of
its objects, and that in the great system of reality there are
means for something more than an arbitrary association or
THE THEORY OF IDEAL PREEXISTENCE. 609
grouping of objects. In its characteristic tenet, however, it
appropriated from antique philosophy products of immature
thinking. The doctrine of the real existence of universals is
an unmanageable figment. The theologian will exhibit wisdom
in excluding from his system anything which rests upon the
realistic postulate as a necessary basis.
LV
THE THEORY OF A MERELY IDEAL PREEXIST-
ENCE OF CHRIST.
OccaSIONALLY in recent times a writer on biblical topics
has attempted to make over the doctrine of Christ’s preéxist-
ence into the theory of His prior subsistence simply in divine
idea and purpose. The notion that the New Testament con-
cedes any proper standing-ground to this theory belongs so
unmistakably among the eccentricities of theological thinking
that it calls for only a brief consideration. The substance of
what needs to be urged may be presented under three or four
heads, as follows:
1. The neutrality of the synoptical Gospels on the theme is
not to be taken as proof that faith in a real preéxistence of
Christ was not current among the apostles at a comparatively
early period. The scope of those writings, attempting as they
did a simple reproduction of the earthly career of the Messiah,
narrowed quite distinctly the occasion to introduce the topic
of preéxistence. Being allied with a theological rather than
with a purely historical interest that topic stood aside from
their controlling aim. Doubtless it might have been intro-
duced in some reported word of the Master, and its absence
can be taken as evidence that it did not figure prominently in
His public utterances. But the non-appearance of an item in
the brief and imperfect narratives of the first three evangelists
is not a sure indication that it was not recognized implicitly
or explicitly at one point or another in Christ’s discourses.
Much less is it a sure indication that it was not entertained in
610 APPENDIX.
the thought and conviction of the apostles at a relatively early
stage. As the confession of Peter shows, even during the
earthly life of Christ they had reached the conception that
in an extraordinary sense He was the Son of God. The
resurrection and the marvelous display of divine power on
the day of pentecost mightily reinforced that conception.
Thinking thus of Christ as in an extraordinary sense the Son
of God, they evidently were in close mental conjunction with
the idea of His personal preéxistence. That this idea was
actually embraced and held by them is strongly evidenced by
the contemporary teaching of Paul—a teaching perfectly un-
equivocal, as will be shown presently, in its assumption of
real preéxistence. Even if Paul had possessed the boldness
to sound a dissenting christological note in the presence of
those who had been the personal companions of Christ,’ it
is not probable that he would have treated the doctrine of
preéxistence as an accepted postulate, needing no word of
commendation, had he been conscious of standing apart in this
matter from the apostolic brotherhood. The sober inference
is that by the middle years of the first century, and probably
at an earlier point, the thought of Christ’s personal preexist-
ence had the right of way among the responsible teachers of the
Church, including those who were the principal channels for
transmitting the history contained in the synoptical Gospels.
2. So plainly do the Epistles of Paul, the Epistle to the
Hebrews, and the Apocalypse assume the real preexistence of
Christ that exegesis goes on a fool’s errand when it attempts
1Too much account is not to be made of Paul’s declaration to the
Galatians that he received his gospel by revelation, as though this state-
ment was designed to cover the whole range of Christian doctrine. Doubt-
less what the apostle meant to assert was his indubitable conviction of a
divine commission to proclaim to the Gentiles a message, or “gospel,”
of grace and emancipation, as opposed to a scheme of legal bondage.
To read into his words a wholesale affirmation of dogmatic independ-
ence is entirely unwarrantable. In this same epistle Paul has informed
us that early in his Christian course he took pains to have a fifteen days’
conference with Peter; and in other connections he has given evidence
of a disposition to consult the primitive Christian tradition. (1 Cor. vii
10; xi. 23; xv. 4-7.)
THE THEORY OF IDEAL PREEXISTENCE. O11
to reduce their teaching to the thought of a merely ideal pre-
existence. Take the words of Paul in Phil. ii. 5-8, descriptive
of recession from a divine form to the form of a servant. Is
it to be supposed that the apostle could have imagined that
a description of that sort could be made to fit an abstraction?
He was evidently endeavoring to picture the maximum instance
of the spirit of self-renunciation, and he found that instance
in the voluntary exchange, by the Son of God, of an estate
of glory for an estate of humiliation. On the theory of nothing
but an ideal preéxistence the incarnation could have expressed
absolutely no thought, volition, or purpose of its subject, and
so, of course, could not rationally be used to exhibit Him as
an example of the spirit of self-renunciation. No more can
the same theory be made to harmonize with the parallel repre-
sentation in 2 Cor. vili. 9. Surely Paul could never have
dreamed of picturing any transition in the earthly life of
Christ as an exchange of wealth for poverty. The obscure
home in Nazareth was no palace of luxury. The apostle’s
representation is pithless save on the assumption that a heavenly
estate preceded the earthly lot of Christ. Quite as little does
Paul’s language satisfy any rational demand of speech, if it
be concluded that his thought admitted only a conceptual pre-
€xistence in the mind of God when he said of Christ: “In
Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth,
things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or domin-
ions or principalities or powers; all things have been created
through Him and unto Him; and He is before all things, and
in Him all things consist.” Passages testifying with equal
distinctness to faith in real preéxistence are contained in the
Epistle to the Hebrews ;* and the Apocalypse gives an unmis-
takable indication of the like belief.
A token that a fair exegesis can not escape the conclusion
contended for above, is found in the fact that critics who pay
scanty respect to the trinitarian dogma are very positive in
maintaining that the assumption of the real preéxistence of
ICol. i. 15-17.
*Heb. i. 2, 3; x. 5-7.
SRev, i. 17, 18; iii. 14; xxii. 13.
612 APPENDIX.
Christ underlies this whole list of writings. Here belong such
New Testament scholars as Holtzmann and Pfleiderer.’ Es-
pecially worthy of notice is the admission of Beyschlag.
Though minded to attenuate as far as possible the scriptural
testimony to a real preéxistence of Christ, he was compelled to
grant that several of the New Testament writers, being im-
perfectly schooled in the distinction between conceptual and
real existence, predicated the latter of the pre-incarnate Christ.
“Paul thinks,” he says, “of a real intermediate being between
God and the world, in whom the world already exists in possi-
bility, the firstborn of every creature, in whom alli things were
created.” The same point of view he finds represented also
in the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews. “The author
of the Apocalypse,” he says, “like Paul and the author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, regarded Christ as a preéxistent in-
termediate being between God and the world, God and hu-
manity, related to 6 6es as his unique image, and to the
world and humanity as a personal archetype, and who, after
mediating the creation of the world, appeared among His
brethren in the fullness of the times as a child of man and
offspring of David, in order to gain an eternal kingship over
them as Saviour by His life, death, and resurrection—in a word,
the author of the Apocalypse united the Logos idea with the
idea of Messiah realized in Jesus.’* In consideration of the
very pronounced dogmatic preferences of Beyschlag, these
words must be regarded as a striking tribute to the compelling
force of New Testament data.
3. There is reason for concluding that the same thought
of preéxistence which is mirrored in the Pauline: Epistles, the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse was back of the
composition of the First Epistle of Peter. This is the judg-
ment of Holtzmann, Pfleiderer, and Von Soden. The lan-
81-87, 251-253, 296, 297; I. 469-472. Otto Pfleiderer, Der Paulinismus,
pp. 111-117. Das Urchristenthum, pp. 349, 350, 630-633.
New Testament Theology, ii. 84.
‘New Testament Theology, ii. 380.
ees
THE THEORY OF IDEAL PREEXISTENCE. 613
guage of the epistle, it may be granted, is not very explicit,
but it is certainly suggestive of something more than an ideal
preéxistence. Christ is described as one “who was foreknown
indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested
at the end of the times for your sake.”* Now manifestation
is most naturally affirmed of a subject conceived to be already
existing in an invisible sphere. There is therefore a hint here
that the author thought of a preéxistent Christ, and this hint
is supported by the representation, in a preceding verse (i. I1),
that the spirit of Christ wrought in the Old Testament
prophets.
4. With the same distinctness as the Pauline Epistles, the
fourth Gospel teaches the real preéxistence of Christ. No one
could have written as the author of that Gospel wrote except
under the motive-power of a positive and unwavering belief
in the real preéxistence of his Lord. Observe the manifold
ways in which this belief is evidenced. The Word which was
in the beginning and universally operative in the work of
creation is declared to have become flesh and to have dwelt
among men. John the Baptist is represented as saying of the
Christ, “He was before me.” Of Himself Christ affirmed:
“No man hath ascended into heaven but He that descended
out of heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.”
“He that cometh from above is above all. . . . What He
hath seen and heard of that He beareth witness.” “The bread
of God is He that cometh down out of heaven, and giveth life
unto the world.” “Not that any man hath seen the Father,
save He which is from God He hath seen the Father.” “What
then if ye shall behold the Son of Man ascending where He
was before.” “Before Abraham was I am.” “Glorify me with
Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before
the world was.”
The collective force of these statements is simply invincible,
and one and another of them taken separately make a sorry
task for the critic who would eliminate the thought of real
1y Peter i. 20. Compare Heb. ix. 26.
John i. 1-14, 16, 30; iii. 13, 31, 32; vi. 33, 46, 62; viii. 58; xvil. 5.
40
614 APPENDIX.
preéxistence from the fourth Gospel. For instance, how on
the supposition of a purely ideal preéxistence can Christ be
said to have dealt honestly with the Jews in making such an
affirmation as is recorded in vill, 58? His Jewish interrogators
understood a preceding statement to imply logically that He
was contemporary with Abraham. Instead of correcting their
inference He approved it, or rather transcended it by explicitly
affirming an antiquity superior to that of Abraham. Who
can imagine that the evangelist designed to represent Him in
this saying as merely throwing dust in the eyes of His oppo-
nents, by using terms in a sense foreign to the occasion? Again,
it is quite over-taxing to expel the thought of a real preexist-
ence from xvi, 5. It has been alleged, indeed, that inasmuch as
Christ asks for glorification as a reward for the faithful ful-
fillment of His mission, it could not have been His by right of
original position. But this reasoning rests upon an arbitrary
premise. Nothing in the context enforces the conclusion that
Christ asks for glorification simply and solely as a reward for
fidelity. In His perfect filial submission He recognized that the
times and the seasons were in the Father’s hand. It seemed
to Him that His work was approaching a consummation, so
that soon the state of humiliation might properly give place
to the state of exaltation. Very naturally, therefore, He gave
expression to the aspiration by which His spirit was upborne.
So far from standing in the way of His confident request, the
perfection of His title to heavenly glory gave all the freer
scope to His communion with the Father respecting His in-
vestment with that glory. Once more, it has been urged that
the glory to which Christ looked may be compared to the
treasure reserved in heaven for believers, or to the kingdom
prepared for the faithful from the foundation of the world;
and that consequently it is only a conceptual preéxistence with
which we are here confronted. But this way of arguing over-
looks the broad difference between the things brought into
comparison. It is one thing to conceive of a treasure, a sphere
of glory, a heavenly kingdom, as standing ready for foreor-
dained subjects. It is another thing to say of a given subject
ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS, 615
that he possessed or enjoyed that glory or that kingdom before
the world was. A statement of the latter order is never made
in the New Testament respecting God’s redeemed children.
Christ’s reference to a glory which He had with the Father
before the world was stands apart from and in antithesis to
any scriptural language ever applied to the simple human heir
to a prepared estate.
The general plea that personification was congenial to the
Jewish mind of that era, and that a Platonizing estimate of
ideas was rife, has far too little weight to offset the concurring
representations in the fourth Gospel which speak for faith in
real personal preéxistence. Writers of the first century were
not blind to the distinction between preéxistence in idea and
preéxistence in fact. If some of them did not always make
as wide a chasm between the two as subsists in our thought,
they were still cognizant of the difference between the mere
idea of a person and the actual person.. No known fact in any
wise authorizes us to think that a writer, as self-consistent as
was the author of the fourth Gospel in the use of language
adapted to picture real preéxistence, meant to picture anything
less.
V.
SOME, ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS.
I. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.
A LIFE-UNION of one man with one woman is unmistakably
_the biblical ideal of marriage. In the Old Testament, it is
true, a degree of tolerance is manifest for polygamy. But this
tolerance is quite another thing than positive approbation. The
reflective thought and higher religious feeling of the ancient
oracles unequivocally favor monogamy. ‘The first man is rep-
resented as provided by divine arrangement with a single
spouse, and the divinely initiated plan for him is set forth as
a model for all time, the description in the given connection
implying that the conjugal bond in general means the union
of one man with one woman. In the wisdom literature every
‘Compare Dalman, The Words of Jesus, p. 299.
616 APPENDIX
reference to the domestic ideal implies monogamy, and the
same may be said of the whole body of the prophetical litera-
ture. Unless, then, one is minded to magnify the tolerated
exception, and to overlook the ideal which emerges from the
Old Testament religion as a whole, he can find no substantial
basis for polygamy in the ancient oracles.
The teaching of the New Testament contemplates no other
form of the marriage relation than that of monogamy. Its
whole point of view is perfectly conformable to the words in
which Christ summed up the essential import of the institution
of marriage, “they twain shall become one flesh.’”” Moreover
the premium which the New Testament places upon the ethical
as opposed to mere physical preeminence, the crown which it
awards to the virtues in which women are indubitably equal
sharers with men, its declaration that artificial distinctions
are abolished through Christ—all this is utterly incompatible
with the signal disparagement and degradation of women which
are inseparable from polygamous customs. A civilization
rationally based in the New Testament could not fail to reckon
monogamy among the simple decencies. It inevitably becomes
the ideal as the barbaric deification of physical force recedes.
Nothing but the barbaric standard could ever sanction a ré-
gime which makes woman the victim of man’s caprice, and
places her under the odious liability of being compelled to
take up with a fraction of a husband.
If the biblical revelation as a whole enforces the monog-
amous ideal, it also makes strongly for the integrity and
permanence of the marriage relation. A very considerable
degree of facility for divorce may have been granted to the
husband under the Old Testament régime. But in the New
Testament the point of view is quite accordant with the best
prophetical sentiment as it comes to expression in the words
of Malachi, “I hate putting away, saith the Lord, the God of
Israel” (ii. 16). Christ took pains to characterize the license
granted under the Mosaic legislation as an accommodation to
IMatt. xix. 5,6; Mark x. 8.
ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 617
abnormal conditions, and plainly indicated that under the new
order which He was commissioned to introduce a closer ad-
hesion to the ideal of marriage as a life-union must be main-
tained. According to the report of His words in Mark and
Luke, He made no provision whatever for divorce.’ In
Matthew’s text, on the other hand, He grants a single ground
of divorce, namely, zopvefa, fornication, illicit connection of
the wife (or husband) with a third party. This ground of
exception makes it impossible to claim biblical authority for an
absolute prohibition of divorce. One may indeed make the
critical conjecture that the second and third evangelists give
the truer version of our Lord’s teaching; but a conjecture
which is incapable of verification can not nullify the virtue of
the fact that one of the evangelists places Christ on record as
admitting a ground of divorce. The certain assurance which
alone would justify an appeal to His authority for a total ex-
clusion of divorce is under the historical conditions unattain-
able. And by divorce in Matthew’s sense must be understood
an absolute separation, with the right, at least of the innocent
party, to remarry. Roman Catholicism, it is true, attempts
to reconcile with Matthew’s statement its own prohibition of
all absolute dissolution of marriage by making a distinction
between separation quoad vinculum and separation quoad
thorum, and construing Matthew’s text as legitimating only
the latter. But this is a refinement entirely foreign to the
conditions under which the words of Christ were uttered. To
Jewish minds “the putting away” (droAvev) could mean
nothing less than the abrogation of the existing marriage.
That the form of statement conveyed, or was meant to convey,
any thought of separation merely as to cohabitation, there is
no reason to suppose.
While the Gospels mention only one valid ground of di-
vorce, the words of Paul in 1 Cor. vii, 15 can be understood
as admitting a second. He says that where the unbelieving
IMark x. 5-12. Luke xvi. 18,
*Matt. v. 32; xix. 9.
618 APPENDIX.
(or non-Christian) partner is unwilling to live with the be-
lieving partner, a separation may ensue by the withdrawal of
the unbelieving partner. “The brother or the sister is not
under bondage in such cases.” It may be contended, indeed,
that Paul did not in this relation contemplate absolute divorce,
that he meant to teach, not that the deserted partner should
be free to contract a new marriage, but that this partner should
not be burdened with the task of trying to keep up a practical
union in face of the known purpose and deed of the deserting
partner. This may be a possible interpretation, but it is not
the more natural one. It is placed at a discount by the obvious
powerlessness of the deserted party to keep up the union.
Those addressed by Paul hardly needed to be told that they
were not under bondage to attempt the impossible. Then, too,
a comparison with Rom. vii. 2 ff. suggests that the “not being
under bondage” meant in the mind of the apostle a possible
release equivalent to that resulting from the death of the un-
believing partner. Perhaps the apostle found a reason for not
being more specific as to the rights of the deserted partner in
the fact that the temper and conduct of the deserter might
involve different degrees of hopelessness as to the possibility
of reconciliation. This much, then, results from the data:
There is no means of establishing the conclusion that Paul
admitted only one ground of divorce, and the probability is on
the side of the supposition that he counted desertion, under
conditions giving no rational hope of remedy, as an adequate
ground.
If this contention holds, it is difficult to escape the path
taken by many eminent exegetes and writers on ethics, who
prefer to see in the gospel precept on this theme a general
principle rather than a clearly defined law. We are directed to
the conclusion that it was not so much the intention of Christ
to limit divorce absolutely to the specific ground of marital
infidelity, as to impress the truth that nothing short of a willful
abuse of the marriage relation so extreme as to nullify its
purpose and to be practically intolerable, nothing that could
not rationally be regarded as the equivalent of the contempt
ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 619
expressed: for the marriage bond by adultery, could justify its
dissolution.’
Of course the individual Christian ought to count himself
obligated to the highest ideal. He cannot consistently enter the
marriage relation without purposing to cultivate a charity which
is ready to endure all things short of complicity in that which
is repugnant to the law of God. The ecclesiastical standard,
as governing those who confess obligation to a common faith,
may properly approximate to that which is enthroned in the
conscience of the enlightened Christian. The ecclesiastical
body, however, has to consult for the total religious and moral
good of its members, and so will need to consider very seriously
whether a rigor which is most worthy of the election of the
individual can be enforced throughout a given constituency
with favorable results. When it comes to the more complex
sphere of the State, the demand for serious consideration of
the general outcome is increased. Lax divorce laws are un-
doubtedly instruments of social corruption, very decidedly
prejudicial to the dignity of the family. But, on the other
hand, law has no omnipotence in itself to create domestic
virtue, and extra rigor in maintaining the indissolubility of
marriage may enlarge the temptation to certain forms of crim-
inality. ‘The legislator, dealing with a heterogeneous mass,
many of whom confess allegiance neither to biblical nor to eccle-
siastical authority, will need to consider not merely what would
be the rule in an ideal society, but also what under the existing
conditions is feasible and likely to be promotive of social health
and purity.
Il. SuNDAY OBSERVANCE.
The relation of Sunday observance to any sabbatical institu-
tion in pre-Mosaic time falls rationally out of consideration,
since there is no substantial evidence of the existence of such
1Compare Kostlin, Christliche Ethik, pp. 606, 607; Martensen, Chris-
tian Ethics, Social, pp. 42-44; Dorner, System of Christian Ethics, pp.
540-545; Bowne, Principles of Ethics, p. 239; Newman Smyth, Christian
Ethics, pp. 413, 414; Pateson, Hasting’s Dict. of the Bible, III. 275, 276.
620 APPENDIX.
an institution. Doubtless the division of time into intervals of
seven days was more or less current in remote antiquity, being
readily suggested by the phases of the moon. It had a certain
recognition among the Babylonians, and very likely also among
the forefathers of the Hebrew nation. But of a day distinctly
sabbatical in character and hedged about by religious sanctions
the Bible gives us no information in connection with the period
in question. It is stated indeed that in the thought of God a
ground for hallowing the seventh day was furnished in the
fact of rest from the work of creation on that day; but it ts
not stated that this divine thought was made a ground for any
immediate publication of an obligation to keep holy the seventh
day, and there is no hint of such publication having occurred
before the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. A distinct
sabbatical institution, which is capable of being regarded as
an antecedent of the Christian’s Sunday or Lord’s-day, first
meets us on the field of biblical history in the Mosaic age.
There is no possibility of gaining any substantial biblical basis
for Sunday observance in any law or requirement back of that
age. This conclusion holds good entirely apart from revised
views of the composition of the Pentateuch.
As respects the bearing of the fourth commandment in the
decalogue upon Sunday observance two extreme views need
to be avoided. On the one hand is the view which assigns
to the fourth commandment the value of a perpetual law or
statute. This is plainly untenable from the Christian stand-
point. The fourth commandment requires the observance of
the seventh day of the week. Christians do not, and from the
beginning have not, with inconsiderable exceptions, observed
that day. Thus immemorial Christian custom testifies to the
absence of a proper legal or statutory character in the fourth
commandment under the Christian dispensation, unless indeed
the Christian body has been continuously guilty of law-break-
ing. it has sometimes been thought that the charge of law-
breaking can be avoided, and at the same time a legal force
be conserved to the fourth commandment, by resorting to the
assumption of authoritative amendment. The apostles, it is
_
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in Pe
ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 621
urged, under divine guidance changed the day, setting over,
so to speak, the fourth commandment from the seventh onto
the first day. The trouble with this assumption is that it is
thoroughly arbitrary and fanciful. Not only is it without
positive warrant; it is distinctively contradictory to the his-
torical data, as will appear from the following facts: (1.) The
apostolical literature makes no association between the Jewish
Sabbath and the first day of the week which was honored by
the early Christians in memory of the resurrection of their
Lord. An epistle like that to the Hebrews, with all its alertness
to relate Old Testament symbols to New Testament realities,
affirms no relation between the Sabbath and the Christian day.
The symbolical import which it attaches to the Jewish day is
given another connection. (2.) Apostolic authority in rela-
tion to the Gentile world is on record as treating the Old Tes-
tament law, not as amended, but as inapplicable or non-existent.
The Council of Jerusalem in its enumeration of ancient require-
ments which Gentile converts ought to observe makes no men-
tion of the Sabbath law. Paul in his epistles takes pains to teach
that Christians are not amenable to the Sabbath law of the
Jews,’ and he does this without interposing a single hint that
another day than the seventh had fallen heir to its legal claims.
The whole tenor of his reference to the subject shows the
preposterous nature of the assumption of a formal apostolic
amendment of the fourth commandment. (3.) In the patristic
literature of the first three centuries no sort of an appeal is
made to the fourth commandment as a sanction for the special
observance of the first day of the week. This day is treated
as an independent day, and in some instances care is taken to
affirm its independent standing.”
It may be noticed that if the facts of apostolic and post-
apostolic history disprove the supposition of an authoritative
amendment of the fourth commandment, they are equally ad-
1Gal. iv. 9, 10; Rom. xiv. 5,6; Col. it. 16.
*Ignatius, Ad Magnes. vill, ix; Epistle of Barnabas, xv; Justin, Dial.
cum. Tryph. xvili, xix; Irenzus, Cont. Haer. iv. 16: Tertullian, Ady.
Judezos iv., Adv. Mare. v. 4.
622 APPENDIX.
verse to the retention of the fourth commandment in its un-
amended form as obligating to the observance of the seventh
day. The unavoidable inference from these facts is that for
Gentile Christianity the fourth commandment was treated in
the apostolic and post-apostolic age as no longer binding. Only
by an uncritical blending of dispensations and by a contra-
vening of the tenor of primitive Christian history can the advo-
cates of seventh-day observance obtain any standing-ground.
The contention that the fourth commandment must be re-
garded as perpetually binding because it forms part of a moral
code is too superficial to deserve more than a passing word.
Nobody has been assured by competent authority that the
decalogue in its entirety is a moral code. Content rather than
place determines the nature of a law, and judged by its contents
the fourth commandment is not properly a moral law. It was
not treated as such by the apostles. It is not asserted to be
such by the moral sense of men. Nobody blames the heathen
for not having observed it. Nobody knows that it is binding
on heavenly society. Nobody knows that it specifies just the
exact portion of time as an interval of rest which the weal of
each individual demands, the fact being that the needs of
individuals differ widely. It is far from being characterized
by the certainty and uniformity of application which distinguish
a moral law proper. Plainly it belongs in the field of utility
as something well suited to the average needs of men, among
things auxiliary to moral ends, but not in itself entitled to be
counted a part of the moral law.
The other extreme to which reference was made consists in
denying to the fourth commandment any significance for Chris-
tians except such as may belong to it simply as a relic of an-
tiquity. This is intemperately and unwisely disparaging. The
fourth commandment is indeed gone as a statute. But as in-
folding in itself a great lesson it abides. Teaching emphatically
the need of a recurring day of rest and religious meditation
for Israel, it teaches by implication the need of such a day
for all mankind. In terms of perfect sobriety and fidelity to
history we might say of the fourth commandment, as respects
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ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 623
its permanent function, it has the worth of a great historical
precedent providentially designed to supply the general model
of the Christian week and to teach impressively the need of a
recurring day of rest and worship.
What has been said prepares for a statement of the valid
grounds of Sunday observance. They are chiefly the following:
(1.) The Old Testament law taken in the character of a potent
historical precedent as defined above. (2.) New Testament
fact, namely, the signalizing of Sunday as the special day of
Christians from the start, the day of religious assemblies,’ the
day characterized by a holy significance, insomuch that in a
New Testament writing it is already termed the Lord’s-day.’
It is not proved that in fact or by apostolic requirement it
was treated at first as a strictly sabbatic day. While the Church
had no control over the civil legislation, it would have in-
volved special embarrassment to prohibit all secular engage-
ments on Sunday to Christian converts. The tenor of post-
apostolic history unmistakably favors the conclusion that the
prohibition of Sunday labor was an offshoot of the sacred
character attached to the day. First the day was accounted
sacred on the score of its lofty and cheering associations ; and
then naturally, as the conditions of the empire became agreeable
to the Christian interest, the sacredness of Sunday was guarded
by the prohibition of such labors as tended to lower it to the
plane of other days. (3.) The intrinsic propriety of commem-
orating the crowning event of the gospel history—the resur-
rection of our Lord. In that event the New Testament day
obtains a sanction far more significant and inspiriting than
that cited for the Old Testament day. (4.) The inference
from reason and long-continued experience that men, in the
period of earthly toil and discipline, as physical and as spiritual
beings, as individuals and as members of communities, need
a day which in the whole tenor of its conditions speaks of rest
and divine communion.
As respects the keeping of the day, it is impossible to give
an exact measure of personal or corporate obligation. The
1r Cor. xvi. I, 2. *Rey. i. 10,
624 APPENDIX.
thoughtful Christian will consider not merely what his con-
science may permit to himself individually considered, but also
the demands of wholesome influence upon others. On the
one hand, he will not place a premium upon enforced dullness ;
on the other, he will wish to guard the day of specially sacred
associations from the fuss, tumult, and burden of the ordinary
secular day. With the legislator the same motive may prop-
etly be effective which is conspicuous in the Deuteronomic
version of the fourth commandment. A well devised Sunday
law safeguards to the laborer the respite which the greed of
capital too often stands ready to snatch away from him. Such
a law is legitimated by the same humanitarian interest which
places legal restriction on the number of hours composing a
working-day. It is justified also as contributing to the needful
opportunity for that moral and religious training upon which
the health of communities and the perpetuity of states is in-
timately dependent.
III. TEMPERANCE.
One who looks for a radical temperance platform in the
letter of the Scriptures is likely to be disappointed. They
contain indeed emphatic censures upon all excess in the use of
intoxicating beverages; but entire abstinence is not formally
enjoined and at most receives an appreciative mention in con-
nection with the Nazarites and Rechabites.. The general im-
pression conveyed by the sum total of scriptural references is
that in the age of either Testament not so much wine-drinking
in itself, as excess in wine-drinking, was counted a grave fault.
This impression, it is true, might be revised in favor of a more
stringent point of view, if it could be shown that the Scriptures
take pains to distinguish between fermented and unfermented
wine, speaking uniformly of the former in terms of disparage-
ment, and confining all tolerant and friendly references to the
Deut. v. 14, I5-
*Prov,; xx, I; XX1il, 29-353, 18a. V.« II, 12; XxVill.'I, 3, 7; pbs vines
Titus ii. 3; 1 Thess. v, 6-8.
s3Num. vi. I-4; Amos ii. II, 12; Jer. xxxv.
ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 625
latter. But this cannot be done. While the name of “wine”
appears to be used with sufficient latitude to include the un-
fermented juice of the grape, no close discrimination is made
between one kind of wine and another, and any one who
attempts such discrimination runs a very serious risk of sub-
stituting imagination and personal preference for facts. It
lies beyond the province of any exegete to determine that in
a given instance of a simple reference to the use of wine the
term denotes nothing but the unfermented product of the grape.
The most that can be said with certainty is that the biblical
wines, as deriving their strength from no other source than
fermentation, were mild in comparison with much of the doc-
tored wine of these later days.
While thus the letter of the Scriptures cannot be appealed
to in behalf of an obligation to entire abstinence from spirituous
beverages, one has no sort of need to go begging for proofs
of such an obligation. There is placed before the men of this
generation such a picture of waste and ruin resulting from
the drink habit as never met the vision of the biblical writers.
They saw indeed something of the mischief wrought by the
use of intoxicants, but all that they witnessed was but a tame
incident compared to the tragedy which runs through our civ-
ilization and threatens to cover increasing areas of horror and
distress. Duty for the modern man must take its measure from
a sane consideration of this tragedy. In the face of such a
tremendous issue he does not need to wait for the discovery
of a literal injunction in oracles written under conditions much
less acute and tragic. _He needs only principles and readiness
of heart to apply them according to the rational dictates of the
situation. And of principles suited to this subject there is no
deficit in the Bible. On the one hand, the high calling of every
man in Christ Jesus is a mighty protest against needless ex-
posure to personal wreckage and slavery under the drink habit.
On the other hand, the requirement of brotherly consideration
for those who by temperament and inheritance are very seri-
ously exposed to the curse of intemperance ought to be a most
potent summons to self-denying abstinence, even if no personal
626 APPENDIX.
hazard should come into the account. When one reflects upon
the subtle and penetrating power of example there surely needs
to be no halting inference in his mind as respects the duty of
entire abstinence. What the apostle said about the use of meat,
which in the view of scrupulous persons might seem to be
profaned by its associations, any serious witness of the drink
plague may well feel compelled to say, with no less emphasis,
respecting the use of a thing so intrinsically doubtful as an
intoxicating beverage.
Obligation as to personal habit and the attitude of the citizen
toward the traffic in spirituous liquors are things by no means
indifferently related. But when it comes to restrictive and pro-
scriptive measures, the practical man will consider what there
is reasonable hope of accomplishing at one stage and what
must wait for a later stage. He will find it impossible to ignore
the claims of a wise opportunism. An abstract logic may cry
out that, inasmuch as the liquor traffic is fearfully bad, a vote
for anything less than immediate extirpation involves sinful
compromise and truckling to iniquity. But the adequate vote
comes only through education, and when it comes the enact-
ment to which it is instrumental has permanent virtue only
through a public conscience continuously keyed up to a high
pitch. Measures that overreach the existing degree of prep-
aration incur considerable hazard of harmful reactions. It
may be a shame for Christian communities to be so slow in
the work of preparation ; but the goal cannot be reached without
a thorough discharge of the task of preparation; and that means
the formation of great constituencies thoroughly permeated
with stanch temperance sentiment. In the natural order eccle-
siastical tuition, influence, and restraint must be expected to
march in advance of civil legislation. An efficient support to
temperance legislation would indeed be secured if labor organ-
izations should universally gird themselves for a firm, united,
and persistent war against the drink curse. But the superior
burden of responsibility for the sustentation of a vital and
potent temperance sentiment rests upon the great Christian
1y Cor. viii. 13; Rom. xiv. 15.
ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 627
communions. This responsibility they cannot shirk without
discounting their vocation to serve as leading instrumentalities
for the practical realization of the divine kingdom. When all
the great Churches have fulfilled the demands of a sane tem-
perance zeal within the bounds of their several constituencies,
the outlook for effective action by the State will have a fair
degree of promise.’
10n the general theme see Daniel Dorchester, The Liquor Problem
in All Ages; Alex Gustafson, The Foundation of Death; Norman Kerr,
Wines, Scriptural and Ecclesiastical.
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REVIEW SCHEME.
Hart I.
CHAPTER I.
I.
1. The ineptness of any unqualified declaration of the impossi-
bility of knowledge. 2. Reasons for concluding that a unitary
psychical agent is a necessary presupposition of knowledge.
It.
1. Difficulties incurred by radical sensationalism through its
denial of the unitary agent. 2. Illustration of the shortcomings of
sensationalism as afforded in John Stuart Mill’s admission. 3. Illus-
tration afforded by various incongruities in Herbert Spencer’s
teaching.
Ii.
1. The necessity of assuming real agency or activity in the
attainment of knowledge. 2. Kant’s way of recognizing this
subjective factor in knowledge, or his doctrine of the categories.
3. The two factors determining the appearances of things.
ily
Reasons for concluding that certainty of knowledge is not seri-
ously interfered with by the unavoidable intrusion of a subjective
factor.
V.
1. Kant’s position on the question whether the categories, or
constitutional view-points, have objective validity; in other words,
whether there is that outside of the thinking subject which corre-
sponds to them. 2. Reasons for criticising the Kantian position
629
630 REVIEW SCHEME.
relative to this topic. 3. The question whether it is allowable to
admit distinctions among the categories as respects objective valid-
ity. 4. The difficulties incident to the claim for the objective reality
of space. 5. Difficulties belonging to the supposition of the ob-
jective reality of time. 6. The rule which, in the face of these
difficult questions, is adapted to secure intellectual confidence.
7. The highest available criterion of the truth of notions.
VI.
1. The connection which the thought of the objective validity
of the categories has with the supposition that the world is adjusted
to reason. 2. A special subjective ground for faith in the ration-
ality of the world-system. |
Vil.
1. Importance, for cognition, of the subject-matter supplied by
inner states and experiences (such as are not directly dependent
upon sense-perception). 2. Illustration of how the consciousness
of volitional energy supplies a basis for rational inference. 3. Illus-
tration of how the experience of certain orders of feelings may
provide a ground for highly important inductions. 4. Cautions
which need to be observed in attempts to utilize the feelings for
the ends of knowledge or valid doctrinal construction. 5. State-
ment and criticism of Schleiermacher’s theory of the function of
feeling in religion. 6. The proper conception of the relaticn
between morality (taken in the broad sense) and religion.
Vill.
1. Estimate of the actual force of historical connections in deter
mining beliefs, and of the benefit resulting from this method o!
furnishing an outfit to each succeeding generation. 2. The condi
tions under which, and the extent to which, long-continued persist
ence of an idea gives it a title to acceptance. 3. The importan
bearing of a moral element on the attitude toward the historica
deposit.
TX.
1. Considerations which may be urged against the necessity of
taking a revelation, or collection of oracles, as a strict unity.
REVIEW SCHEME. 631
2. The prerogative which, from this point of view, must be accred-
ited to reason in judging the contents of a revelation. 3. Summary
of points on the province of reason in relation to revelation. 4. The
cardinal error of the old Deistic speculation on the relation of rea-
son to revelation.
X.
The way in which the idea of God has an important bearing on
rational certainty.
CHAPTER II.
i,
Considerations which justify the making of the theme of the
divine existence antecedent to that of revelation.
If.
’ ’
1. Definition of the terms ‘‘person’’ and ‘‘infinite’’ as applied
to God. 2. The mistake involved in denying personality to God
in the interest of His greatness. 3. Statement and refutation of the
objection to the personality of the Infinite which is based on the
supposed requirements of self-consciousness.
III.
1. Reasons for reducing the list of anti-theistic theories, which
call for formal attention, to materialism and pantheism. 2. Points
of contrast between materialism and pantheism; points of similarity.
IV.
1. Illustration of the fact that materialism is not distinguished
by the narrow range of its necessary assumptions. 2. Illustration
of the large assumptions characteristic of pantheistic systems.
3. Conclusion as to the test which these systems must meet if they
are to earn any valid title to supplant theistic faith.
Pie
1. The failure of materialism, whether of the ordinary or of the
mystical type, to construe the facts of cognition. 2. Other grounds
632 REVIEW SCHEME.
of objection to materialism. 3. Extent to which monism can prop-
erly be associated with materialism. 4. Criticism of the monistic
theory as presented by Romanes. 5. Grounds of objection to the
more common form of the monistic theory. 6. Professor Ladd’s
comment on monism as a metaphysical theory for the relation
between body and mind.
VI.
1. Extent to which the objections against materialism apply to
pantheism. 2. Grounds of the inability of pantheism to satisfy
religious needs. 3. A discrimination as to different forms of pan-
theism. }
VII.
1. The great efficiency of factors other than logic or formal
argumentation in nurturing theistic faith. 2. The view to be
taken on the question whether proper demonstration of the divine
existence is possible. 3. Reasons for assigning real value to well-
ordered proofs of the divine existence.
VI.
1. The point of view from which the cosmological argument
proceeds. 2. Possible objections to the argument and answers
thereto. 3. Reasons for making the unitary power demanded by
the argument the source of the being of the world-factors and not
merely of their relations. 4. The degree to which this argument
fulfills the requirement of a proof of the theistic conception.
IX.
1. The characteristics which the design argument, if valid, would
require us to impute to the Being who is back of nature. 2. Facts
in nature which are adapted to give an impression of a designing
Intelligence. 3. Various expedients which are adopted to evade
the need of postulating design, and the answers which may be ren-
dered. 4. The bearing of such a theory as that of ‘natural
selection’? upon the argument from design. 5. Answer to the
allegation that evidences of design are signs of the limitation of
the Creator.
REVIEW SCHEME. 633
»,
1. The several points contained in the argument from human
nature. 2. Reply to the charge that this argument savors of
anthropomorphism.
XI.
1. The alleged deficiency of the foregoing arguments. 2. Con-
siderations which practically annul the significance of the asserted
deficiency.
XII.
1. Statement and criticism of the ontological argument. 2. Es-
timate of the Cartesian argument based on the supposition that an
Infinite Author is needed to account for the idea of God. 3. The
objections which may be urged against the theory that God is
known by direct intuition properly so called. 4. Conclusion as to
the grounds which legitimate theistic faith.
CHAPTER III.
Lo
1. Considerations which approve faith in the possibility of special
revelations. 2. Reply to the objection that the doctrine of special
revelations is disparaging to the wisdom of God. 3. The differ-
ent forms which special revelation may take.
hr.
1. Conditions which may rationally be supposed to be imposed
upon the method of revelation by the nature of cognition and the
demands of mental integrity. 2. The conditions which similarly
are imposed by the moral limitations of even superior men. 3. The
lesson on the probable method of revelation supplied by reference
to the way in which the interpretation of the natural world has
proceeded. 4. The proper induction from the given list of
considerations.
Ill.
t. Illustrations from the apostolic history of how the method of
revelation has corresponded to the rational presuppositions. 2. II-
634 REVIEW SCHEME.
lustration from the history of Israel, and from the content of
the Psalms. 3. Relative prominence of the historical process as
a medium of revelation.
IV.
t. Relation of the full use of the historical process to the preémi-
nence of the Bible in respect of variety and balance of factors, and
the proper rating of this preéminence. 2. Illustration of the
preéminence of the Bible, in the given respect, from the types of
literature found in the Old Testament. 3. Illustration from the
framework. of Old Testament theology. 4. Illustration from the
relation between the two Testaments. 5. Illustration from the
different classes of writing and types of doctrinal conception in the
New Testament.
Vis
1. The place among the credentials of the Bible which belongs
to the unique personality of Christ, taken together with the ex-
traordinary antecedents and consequents of its manifestation in the
world. 2. Statement of the characteristics exemplified in Christ
which make Him the marvel of history. 3. Relation of His human
perfection to warrantable confidence in the sobriety of His self-
consciousness even in its loftier expressions. 4. Ground for faith
in the substantial truthfulness of the gospel picture of Christ.
5. The proper rating of the prophetical forecast of Christ’s person
and work. 6. Considerations which may be urged in behalf of
conceding considerable latitude to a typical sense in prophecy.
7. The great motives which directed the minds of the prophets to
a Messianic outlook, and the forms under which their hope and
expectation were given expression. 8. Elements in the remarkable
picture which supplements the manifestation of the unique person-
ality of Christ.
hV ks
1. The style in which prophecy generally portrays the issues of
the future. 2. Instances of definite prediction of specific events.
3. Inference as to the warrant for finding in the facts of prophet-
ical foresight a token of a divine factor in the biblical revelation.
REVIEW SCHEME. 635
Vik
1. Reasons for rating miracles among possible events. 2. Sense
in which the term is used in the discussion. 3. The kind of agency
presupposed in the working of miracles, and the compatibility of
the use of such agency with a due conservation of the system of
nature. 4. Conditions or tests of the genuineness and evidential
value of reputed miracles, and the need of taking these tests
together. 5. Application of the tests to the gospel miracles, with
answers to the various forms of challenge brought against the reli-
ability of the testimony in their behalf. 6. The extent to which
the given tests apply to the Old Testament miracles. 7. Reply to
the objection based on the facile multiplication of the stories of
miracles in the annals of the saints. 8. Evidences for the miracle
of Christ’s resurrection. (See pp. 581-590. )
VIII.
1. The argument for the Bible which is furnished by the facts of
Christian consciousness or inward experience. 2. The question
whether this argument can be made to vouch for the entire Bible.
3. Answer to a possible objection to the force of the argument.
IX.
1. Respects in which a comparative view of ‘‘sacred books’’
goes to establish the superiority of the Christian Scriptures. 2. Re-
ply to the contention that the argument thus constructed falls
short of accrediting the Bible as containing the ultimate religion.
X.
1. The test of canonicity which must be rated as foremost, in
consideration of the location of the principal evidence for the
biblical revelation. 2. Secondary tests of canonicity. 3. Facts
pertinent to the question whether it is possible to secure a perfectly
definite standard of canonicity. 4. The books of the Old Testa-
ment which are most exposed to doubt, and the grounds on which
they have been challenged. 5. The objections which hold against
the Old Testament Apocrypha. 6. The extent to which the canon-
icity of New Testament books has been, or is now, matter of
serious discussion.
636 REVIEW SCHEME.
XI.
1. The bearing of the problem of the authorship of the Penta-
teuch upon biblical authority. 2. The bearing of such questions
as the unity of the Book of Isaiah and the date of the Book of
Daniel upon biblical authority. 3. Extent to which Christian
dogmatics is under stress to decide such questions. 4. Considera-
tions which give importance to the question of the authorship of
the Fourth Gospel, explanation of the contrast between this Gospel
and the Synoptical Gospels, and the evidences external and inter-
nal which may be cited in favor of assigning it to the Apostie John.
5. Critical views respecting the authorship of epistles bearing the
name of Paul.
XU
1. Definition of inspiration, and conclusion as to the proper
place for discussing the theme in dealing with the Bible. 2 The
testimony in the Bible to the fact of inspiration, and the question
how far this testimony avails for the construction of a dogmatic
theory. 3. Reasons (rational and historical) for believing that
inspiration, as operative in the biblical writers, was dynamical rather
than mechanical. 4. The expectation which, from this point of
view, could justly be entertained as respects the presence of errors
in the Bible. 5. The evidence furnished by the biblical books on
the question of errancy, and the bearing of antiquarian research on
the same question. 6. Considerations which serve to show that
the presence of errors in the Bible is not necessarily a stumbling-
block to intelligent faith, or an occasion of nullifying the function
of the Bible as a standard. 7. Views to be held respecting the
operation of inspiration in different degrees; respecting its influ-
ence upon language; respecting the warrant to connect it specially
with the act of writing ; and respecting its kinship with the enlight-
ening office of the Holy Spirit in believers generally. 8. The
approved theory of inspiration as contrasted with competing theo-
ries, and the terms in which it may be expressed.
XIL.
1. Definition of the Christian consciousness, and specification
of the respects in which alone it is competent to supplement the
REVIEW SCHEME. 637
biblical revelation. 2. The question of the competency of church
authority to supplement that revelation, or to go beyond the de-
mands of the Christian consciousness in imposing beliefs. 3. Rea-
sons for concluding that tradition, as defined in Roman Catholic
dogmatics, can not be appealed to as a trustworthy extra-biblical
authority, and in fact is not practically depended upon in the
Roman Church. 4. The capital fault by which Newman’s theory
of doctrinal development is vitiated.
Bart II.
CHAPTER I.
ts
1. The logical demand of the preceding positions as respects
admitting a veritable knowledge of God. 2. Reaction against
excessive Claims relative to the knowledge of God, and the result-
ing agnostic doctrine as expressed by Dean Mansel. 3. Points in
the agnostic teaching of Herbert Spencer. 4. The bearing of
such teaching on the interests of religion. 5. The fundamental
error underlying this teaching. 6. Ways in which fathers and
scholastics affiliated with agnosticism, and grounds for modifying
their representations. 7. The qualified agnosticism of Ritschl.
8. The scriptural data on the subject of knowing God, and the
conclusion to be drawn.
II.
1. Classification of the divine attributes. 2. Definition of unity
and spirituality, with specification of the theosophic modification
of the latter. 3. The proper interpretation of immutability and
of omnipresence. 4. The twofold meaning of the eternity of
God, and the question of His recognition of a temporal order.
5. A point of common agreement as respects the compass of the
divine knowledge. 6. The Arminian theory on the divine fore-
knowledge of the free or contingent. 7. Questionable character
of the supplement which is sometimes made to this theory in the
638 REVIEW SCHEME.
doctrine of the sctentia media. 8. The Calvinian theory of fore-
knowledge taken in comparison with the Arminian. 9. Estimate
of the advantages which the doctrine of nescience is supposed to
have over the Arminian theory, and statement of the objections
which may be brought against it. 10. The truth expressed in
the doctrine of the divine omnipotence, and the forms of teaching
by which it is compromised.
III.
1. Obvious grounds for ascribing an ethical nature to God, and
the import of the term. 2. The compendious expression for the
ethical nature of God. 43. Discrimination of the meanings per-
taining to the terms holiness, righteousness, and justice. 4. Ques-
tion as to the extent of the demands of divine justice, and specifica-
tion of its relation to punishment. 5. Proper conception of the
relation between love and justice. 6. Different aspects of divine
love, its ruling conception, the appropriateness of its expenditure
upon sinners, and the occasion for a revelation of it over and
above that contained in nature. 7. Comparison of the two
Testaments as to their ways of setting forth love and judgment
respectively.
IV.
1. Reasons for affirming indefectibility of God’s moral nature.
2. The proper conception of the relation of will (in its activity)
to the ethical nature of God. 3. Union of necessity and freedom
in God. 4. Relation of the will of God to truth and right.
CHAPTER II.
I
1. The side from which it is best to approach the discussion of
the doctrine of the Trinity. 2. The reason for including the
period beyond the New Testament in the historical review. 3. The
historical evidence for the divinity of Christ as contained in the
teaching of the fourth century. 4. The historical evidence furnished
by the third century. 5. The historical evidence furnished by the
second century. 6, The grouping of the New Testament books for
ete
REVIEW SCHEME. 639
the purpose of taking their evidence in the reverse order. 7. Caution
against an unwarrantable inference from the application to Christ
of terms belonging to the human scale. 8. The evidence for
Christ’s divinity contained in the Gospel and the Epistles of John.
g. The evidence contained in the Book of Revelation and in the
Epistle to the Hebrews. 10. The evidence contained in the Syn-
optical Gospels and the Book of Acts. 11. The evidence contained
in the later Pauline Epistles. 12. The evidence contained in the
earlier Pauline Epistles. 13. General conclusion respecting the
New ‘Testament evidence for the divinity of Christ. 14. State-
ments in the Old Testament which may be regarded as bearing on
this theme.
gly
1. Evidence from the patristic writings as to faith in the person-
ality and divinity of the Holy Spirit. 2. The scriptural evidence
for the personality and divinity of the Spirit.
IIl.
1. The maximum warrant for the trinitarian theory. 2. Rea-
sons for rejecting the Arian and Sabellian theories, as also for
ruling out any form of simple modalism. 3. Question as to
whether the term ‘‘Son’’ is expressive of a pre-temporal and
necessary relation. 4. Question as to whether the Scriptures
afford an explicit ground for the metaphysical conception of the
procession of the Spirit. 5. Question as to whether it is appro-
priate to admit a certain subordination of the Son and the Spirit to
the Father.
LY:
1. The compatibility of the trinitarian doctrine with reason,
and the advantages which it can claim in construing the thought of
a self-sufficient Being. 2. Inquiry as to the extent of the rational
grounds which make for a trinality, and not simply a duality, of
Divine Persons. 3. The proper expectation relative to illustrating
the trinitarian truth, and the illustration of greatest historical note.
4. Speculation as to dependence of the divine self-consciousness on
the trinitarian process. 5. The form of the Hegelian doctrine of
640 REVIEW SCHEME.
the Trinity. 6. The limiting notions which belong to the term
‘‘Person’’ in the trinitarian discussion. 7. Formula for giving
intelligible expression to the doctrine of the Trinity.
CHAPTER III.
I.
1. The interest dominating the biblical references to the theme
of creation. 2. The different attempts which have been made to
conserve a scientific character to the creation narrative in Genesis,
and the difficulties which they have severally encountered. 3. The
most eligible conclusion respecting the character of the narrative.
4. The question whether biblical data favor the ex mihilo doctrine
of creation (or the doctrine that the Creator made use of no pre-
existing stuff). 5. Superiority of the biblical standpoint to that of
pagan teaching. 6. The motive of creation.
Il,
1. Limitation of the province of natural science on the theme
of creation. 2. Bearing of the scientific doctrine of evolution on
the theistic conception, and also on the subject of man’s dignity
and destiny. 3. Testimonies of scientists on the latter point.
4. The principal considerations which may be urged for the fact
of the evolution of organic nature. 5. The chief factors in evolu-
tion as recognized by naturalists. 6. Considerations which may
be urged on the side of objection to the evolution theory, and the
conclusion which they seem to legitimate.
IIl.
1. Reasons on the score of which philosophy may justly incline
to the conclusion that the world was created ex nthilo. 2. The
theory taught by scholastic realism of the more pronounced type
relative to an eternal substratum of things, and the grounds for its
rejection. 3. The relation of creation to time.
IV.
1. Purpose of the biblical references to the theme of conservation.
z. The reason for distinguishing between creation and conservation.
REVIEW SCHEME. 641
3. The question whether any real interest is sacrificed in construing
impersonal nature as simply the product of a constant divine
energizing.
Ve
1. The inference which the notion of divine conservation enforces
as to the extent of Divine Providence. 2. Objections to the doc-
trine of an all-inclusive providence. 3. The best considerations
which may be urged in reply to the objections. 4. Reasons for
concluding that God may exercise His providence in special ways,
and that the scheme of law does not prevent answers to prayer.
Part III.
CHAPTER I.
1.
1. The feature in which the point of view of the Bible relative
to the rational creation bears resemblance to its manner of contem-
plating physical nature. 2. Suggestion as to the extent of the
rational creation beyond the sphere of men.
Ii.
1. Occasion to presume on the presence of popular or pictorial
elements in the biblical angelology. 2. Periods or stages which
may be distinguished in biblical angelology.
hy
Enumeration of matters more or less clearly revealed respecting
angels.
IV.
1. The extent of the data for determining the time of the crea-
tion of angels. 2. The most that can be said on the question
whether angels have bodies. 3. The reasonable conclusion as to
the relation of angels to time and space.
042 REVIEW SCHEME.
Vi
1. The credibility of the fact of the existence of evil angels.
2. Instances, real or supposed, of references to Satan and evil
angels in the Old Testament. 3. Progress in the biblical concep-
tion of Satan. 4. The way in which the references to the chief-
tainship of Satan may be understood. 5. Judgment on views
which deny the personality of Satan. 6. The objections urged
against the reality of demoniacal possession, and the grounds which
may be alleged against their conclusiveness. 7. Biblical facts
which lend support to the supposition that on the theme of demoni-
acal possession Christ practiced a very considerable measure of
accommodation. 8. The destiny contemplated in the Bible for
Satan and his angels.
VI.
1. The reason for the divine toleration of the agency of evil
angels. 2. The suitable attitude of the religious man toward the
subject of the evil kingdom.
CHAPTER II.
I.
1. The extent to which the Bible attempts to give an anthro-
pology. 2. The Old Testament method of designating the higher
nature in man. 3. The New Testament method of designating
this nature, and the question whether it gives any ground for pre-
ferring trichotomy to dichotomy. 4. The choice between trichot-
omy and dichotomy which is favored by rational grounds. 5. The
estimate which the Bible in general places upon man’s body, and
the question whether Paul’s characterization of the ‘‘flesh’’ stands
in contrast with that estimate.
‘Be
1. The scriptural assumption as to the ground of bodily death.
2. Suggestion as to a possible method, in connection with a sinless
race, of securing immunity from death in spite of natural mortality.
REVIEW SCHEME. 643
Iil,
1. The rational considerations which may be urged in behalf of
the immortality of the soul, and the degree of their conclusiveness.
2. The tenor of the biblical teachings on this subject, and the
explanation of the contrast between the Old Testament representa-
tions and those of the New Testament.
LY:
1. Reasons for not accepting the notion of preéxistence when
dealing with the question of the origin of souls. 2. Scriptural and
rational evidences for creationism and traducianism respectively,
and the grounds which may be urged in behalf of a preference for
the former. 3. Estimate of the theory which combines the two.
4. Data bearing on the question of the unity of the race. 5. Data
relative to the antiquity of the race.
V.
1. The elements which conscience, taken in the broader sense,
includes. 2. Reasons for concluding that each of these elements
is based in man’s inherent moral constitution. 3. The sense in
which conscience can be called the voice of God. 4. Substance of
Paul’s teaching on the subject of conscience.
vi
1. The verdict which is naturally drawn from the facts of con-
science respecting the freedom of man. 2. The main proofs that
freedom, in the sense of a power of contrary chotce, belongs to man.
3. The principal objections urged by the determinist against free-
dom, and refutation of these objections (including that expressed
in the Edwardean puzzle). 4. Statement of the way in which the
determinist, or necessitarian, attempts to secure responsibility, and
exposure of its faultiness. 5. The distinction between formal
Jreedom and real freedom, and the relation in which they must
stand to one another in a truly free and responsible creaturely agent.
644 REVIEW SCHEME.
6. The question whether there is clear philosophical warrant for the
possible attainment by a creature of absolute fixity of character.
7. The proper view on the relation of freedom to power or ability.
VIl.
1. Legitimacy of the notion of an original righteousness. 2. Point
of difference between the scholastics and the Reformers in constru-
ing this notion. 3. The lack of scriptural warrant for the very
emphatic views respecting the nature or content of original right-
eousness which have sometimes been entertained.
VIII.
1. Extent to which an explanation of apostasy can rationally be
expected. 2. Estimate of the Leibnitzian theory on this subject.
3. Estimate of the theory which finds the explanation of sin in
man’s sensuous nature. 4. Estimate of the theory which imputes
sin to one or another form of divine purpose. 5. The question
whether sin is adequately described as negation or privation. 6. The
question whether sin in all its forms can be brought under the
category of selfishness.
IX.
1. The amount of reference in the Bible to the Adamic connec-
tions of human sinfulness. 2. Grounds for concluding that Old
Testament thought did not assume that the sin of Adam brought
condemnation, as a birth condition, upon his posterity. 3. Grounds
for concluding that New Testament (or Pauline) thinking did not
assume the given result of Adam’s sin. 4. The serious rational
objections which stand against every form of the doctrine that the
race incurred guilt or condemnation on the simple ground of
Adam’s sin. 5. Specific objections to the realistic theory. 6. Ob-
jections to the theory of immediate imputation. 7. Objections te
the theory of mediate imputation, as also to a misty form of impu-
tation. 8. The only sense in which original sin can be affirmed of
the posterity of Adam. 9. The proper measure of hereditary cor-
ruption. 10. The proper measure of personal sinfulness.
REVIEW SCHEME. 645
Part IV.
CHAPTER I.
I.
1. Scriptural evidences in favor of the conclusion that in the
incarnation the Son of God assumed human nature in the full sense.
2. The force of rational considerations and of doctrinal consensus
on the side of the same conclusion.
II.
1. Explanation of the limited extent to which the fact of the
supernatural conception of Christ comes to view in the New Testa-
ment. 2. Reasons for believing that the fact as reported in the
Gospel narratives was based in apostolic tradition. 3. The appro-
priate rating of the dogmatic import of the supernatural conception.
4. The standpoint of the New Testament respecting the sinlessness
of Christ. 5. Judgment on attempts to discredit the fact of Christ’s
sinless humanity. 6. The chief grounds of faith in the truth of
Christ’s sinlessness. 7. The religious worth of this truth. 8. The
question whether temptation is to be regarded as compatible with
the sinlessness of Christ’s manhood, and with the fact of its unique
connection with the divine. 9. The theoretical position which it
seems necessary to take respecting the lability of Christ, in the
period of trial, to yield to temptation.
III.
1, Statement (in brief terms) of the Christological problem.
2. Considerations which may serve to modify the demand for
instant solution.
IV.
1. The general Christological standard promulgated by the
Council of Chalcedon, and the sphere for further construction
which it has been supposed to have left open. 2. The historical
circumstances under which the doctrine of the communicatio tdioma-
tum arose, and the import of the doctrine. 3. Reasons for reject-
ing the doctrine. 4. Statement of the radical doctrine of the
646 REVIEW SCHEME.
kenosis in the three principal forms under which it has appeared.
5. Rating of the scriptural basis for a doctrine of the kenosis. 6.
Objections which hold against the kenotic theories. 7. Estimate
of the Ritschlian Christology.
V.
1. Preliminary considerations which need to be emphasized in
in an examination of the grounds of preference for the catholic
theory of Christ’s person. 2. The main points which may be urged
in behalf of the catholic theory, as against competing theories, in
spite of the fact that it is not unburdened with mystery. 3. Indi-
cation of the extent to which the aspect of dualism may be overcome
on the basis of the catholic premises. 4. A special way of putting
the explanation of the appearance of limitations of the knowledge
of the incarnato Christ. 5. Illustration from kindred topics of the
fact that we ought not to be surprised at our inability completely to
solve the Christological problem. 6. Appropriate viewpoint ex-
pressed by one of the early fathers. 7. Terms which may pru-
dently be used in a formal Christological definition.
Viz
1. Explanation of the exclusive connection with the work of
redemption which the Bible gives to the incarnation. 2. Consid-
erations which bespeak tolerance for the theory that in the divine
plan the incarnation did not hinge altogether upon man’s apostasy.
CHAPTER II.
I,
1. The three offices of Christ, and the sense in which they are
distinguishable. 2. The degree to which the kingly office was
manifested in Christ’s earthly career. 3. Distinctive features in
Christ’s prophetical ministry, and the question as to the spheres or
regions in which it was fulfilled. 4. The point of emphasis in
Christ’s priestly office, and the period covered by that office.
5. The importance, for the Church, of a proportionate stress upon
the three offices.
-_
sr fe
ee a, oes eo
REVIEW SCHEME. 647
If.
1. The main ground on which we are to proceed in determining
the Old Testament doctrine of atonement. 2. Ritschl’s view
respecting the import of the Old Testament sacrificial system, and
the reasons for rejecting that view. 3. The part of the sacrificial
transaction which principally expressed the idea of atonement, and
the reason given in the Old Testament for locating atoning virtue
therein. 4. Extent to which the cost to the offerer entered into
the. estimate of the value of the sacrifice; extent to which the
gracious appointment of God entered into that estimate. 5. Sum-
mary of the more essential points in the significance of the sacri-
ficial ritual. 6. Question whether this significance can be regarded
as seriously abridged by references to other grounds of divine
favor, or in consideration of critical theories as to the development
of the sacrificial system. 7. Conclusion as to the appropriate way
of construing the sacrificial language of the New Testament.
III.
1. List of propositions relative to the work of atonement which
are clearly warranted by scriptural texts. 2. Some obvious con-
clusions which spring from a survey of the texts. 3. The preferable
interpretation of the anguished exclamation of Christ upon the
cross. 4. The respect in which we may reasonably suppose the
suffering of Christ to have worth to God. 5. Meaning of the
“<< objective element ’’ in Christ’s work of atonement.
IV.
1. The main points of view in the Socinian Theory. 2. Con-
ceptions which were central to the theory of Schleiermacher. 3.
Statement and criticism of Bushnell’s original theory, and the way
in which this was supplemented in his revised theory. 4. The
theory of Albrecht Ritschl. 5. Respects in which these theories
are subject to criticism.
V.
1. Statement and criticism of the Swedenborgian theory.
2. Statement and criticism of the mystical theory. 3. Statement
648 REVIEW SCHEME.
of the judicial theory and of the list of objections to which it is
exposed. 4. The point in the strict governmental theory which
is exposed to criticism. ,
VI.
1. The rational objection which holds against the supposition of
any real antithesis between the Father and the Son as respects their
relation to the sinful race. 2. The objection to the application of
a commercial analogy to the subject of atonement. 3. The im-
portance of giving a due place to the great truths embraced in the
subjective theories, alongside the recognition of an objective ele-
ment. 4. Scriptural and rational justification of the assignment
of a non-temporal character to the atonement as related to divine
thought and feeling. 5. Reasons for affirming an objective ele-
ment or aspect. 6. The propriety of giving an objective or God-
ward bearing to that of which God Himself is the chief source.
7. Reasons for associating atoning virtue with the whole earthly
life of Christ. 8. Proper way of dealing with the question as to
what might have been spared from the actual contents of Christ’s
ministry. 9. Summary of the principal points in the approved
theory.
VIL.
r. Objections which might possibly be urged against such an
idea of atonement as is contained in the text, and responses thereto.
2. A significant admission of Bushnell relative to the practically
fruitful way of regarding the atonement.
Hart V.
CHAPTER I.
ite
1. Position taken on the universality of the opportunity to appro-
priate the salvation provided in Christ. 2. The sense in which
the Scriptures admit and enforce the idea of election or predesti-
nation, and the contrast between this sense and that contained in
REVIEW SCHEME. 649
the Augustinian or Calvinistic dogma. 3. Reasons for concluding
that Paul does not teach (either in Romans or elsewhere) predesti-
nation in the ultra or Calvinian sense. 4. The preferable inter-
pretation of the Johannine sentences which have sometimes been
cited in the interest of an ultra predestinarianism. 5. Considera-
tions which are properly urged against using Mark iv, 11, 12, or
Acts xiii, 48, in support of unconditional election. 6. The positive
evidences afforded by Paul and John on the side of the universality
of the opportunity for salvation. 7. The futility of the attempt to
reconcile the cordial universality of the gospel call with fixed
limitation of real opportunity for salvation. 8. The historical
conditions under which the radical doctrine of predestination
gained currency, and the comment afforded thereby on the merits
of the doctrine. 9. The rational objections to the doctrine in
question. 10. Inappropriateness of an appeal in its behalf to the
analogy of nature.
HE.
1. List of the human conditions of salvation which are mentioned
in the Scriptures, and the inquiry whether it is necessary to rate
them all as distinct conditions. 2. Reasons for making faith the
principal condition, and for annexing repentance and evangelical
obedience as secondary conditions. 3. The sense in which faith
may be spoken of as the so/e condition. 4. The meaning of reli-
gious faith; its proper object; its specifically Christian sense as
compared with a general theistic sense ; and the question whether
faith in the former sense is requisite for salvation. 5. The com-
patibility of the description of faith, given in the text, with the
definition in the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi, 1). 6. The proper
conception of the relation between faith and knowledge.
1g as
1. Terms expressive of the objective aspect of salvation.
2. Grounds for concluding that Paul used the term ‘‘ justification ’’
in the objective or judicial sense. 3. The sense which Paul probably
put into the phrase, ‘‘the righteousness of God,’’ when viewing
the righteousness as a matter of gracious bestowment. 4. The
place which Paul assigned to faith in the ground of justification,
650 REVIEW SCHEME.
and his conception of the way in which it fulfills the justifying
office. 5. The true putting of Paul’s doctrine of imputation.
6. The Roman Catholic theory of justification, and the criticism
which may be passed upon it from the standpoint of Paul’s teaching.
7. Consideration of the view which makes justification a corporate
matter rather than an individual one. 8. The sense in which the
resurrection of Christ may be assigned a place in the basis of justi-
fication. 9. The point in which the Epistle of James seems to fall
short of Paul’s teaching. 10. Instructions of Christ in which the
substance of the Pauline doctrine of justification may be detected.
11. The philosophical character of the Pauline doctrine, and the
office which belongs to it in safeguarding the interests of spiritual
religion. 12. Adoption as related to justification. 13. The sense
which pertains to adoption in the light of the universal Fatherhood
of God. 14. The practical value of the doctrine of sonship toward '
God in relation to the cause of human brotherhood.
IV.
1. Terms expressive of salvation in its subjective aspect. 2. The
place logically accorded to ‘‘awakening’’ in the economy of grace,
and the relation to regeneration which is to be assigned to it.
3. Scriptural representations respecting regeneration. 4. Errors
to be avoided in defining regeneration, and the elements, taken in
the order of emphasis, which are to be included in the definition.
5. The question whether regeneration necessarily involves a marked
crisis in consciousness. 6. Conversion, or the change effected in
regeneration viewed from the side of man’s conditioning agency ;
and the grounds for imputing such agency to man. 7. The scope
to be assigned to the instrumentality of truth in regeneration.
8. The compatibility of regeneration with a demand for further
sanctification, and the grounds for inferring that the subjects of
regeneration are generally in need of progress in sanctification.
g. Statement of what may legitimately be included in entire sanc-
tification. 10. The principal means to be employed in carrying
forward one’s sanctification. 11. An obstacle which needs to be
guarded against. 12. Inquiry as to whether valid grounds exist
for denying the possibility of entire sanctification in this life.
REVIEW SCHEME. 651
13. The data of Scripture which have a positive bearing on this
point, and the induction which seems to be warranted.
ue
The true view of the relation between the objective and the sub-
jective phase of salvation.
VI.
1, Reasons for believing that assurance of a filial standing before
God belongs normally to the subject of regeneration. 2. John
Wesley’s exposition of the theme of assurance, the possibility of
improving upon it by putting a larger meaning into the witnessing
of our own spirit, and the chance to gain thereby the ground fot
a better view of the ordinary method of the Holy Spirit’s wit-
nessing. 3. Condensed statement on the mode or process of
assurance. 4. The only adequate assurance of entire sanctification,
and the question whether there is sufficient warrant for expecting
that this form of assurance will be granted.
VII.
1. Connection between the regenerate character and the filial
standing. 2. Statement and estimate of the evidences which bear
on the possibility of a complete loss of the regenerate character.
CHAPTER II.
I.
1. The reason for placing the topic of the Church after that of
the personal appropriation of salvation. 2. The New Testament
employment of the terms ‘‘Church’’ and ‘‘Kingdom.’’ 3. The
amount of attention given in the New Testament to the religious
needs and duties of the individual as compared with that bestowed
on church institutions. 4. Considerations which serve to empha-
size the importance of the Church. 5. Terms applicable to the
Church in its ideal character, and the ground for distinguishing
between the visible and the invisible Church. 6. The point of
superior emphasis on the theme of church unity. 7. Grounds for
652 REVIEW SCHEME.
concluding that the New Testament does not make obligatory a
particular form of church government. 8. New Testament lessons
on the appropriate spirit and tenor of church polity.
Ls
1. The terms of the Vatican decree on papal supremacy. 2. The
main points which enter into a refutation of the theory of papal
supremacy. 3. The relation between the Vatican decree on papal
supremacy and that on papal infallibility. 4. The province covered
by the asserted infallibility. 5. The facts and considerations which
serve to refute the dogma of papal infallibility. 6. The theory of
the episcopal office represented by High Church Anglicans, and
the objections to which it is exposed.
bh
1. The prominence of the ministry of the Word among the
functions of the Church, and the sense in which the Church may
be counted an authentic witness to the truth. 2. The different
forms under which the ministry of the Word may be fulfilled.
3. The source of the efficacy of the Word as ministered through
the Church, and the proper thought respecting the relation of the
Holy Spirit to the Word.
IV.
1. The Christian standpoint on the social function of prayer.
2. Answers to a possible objection against the objective efficacy
of prayer.
v,
1. The main particulars which are properly included in a state-
ment of the purpose of the sacraments. 2. Reasons for counting
the sacraments seals or tokens of God’s benevolent will, and the
sense in which they are means of grace. 3. Views which have been
current as to their number.
Vis
1. The distinctive import of baptism. 2. Conditions in the
primitive Church which tended to give baptism a large importance
alll tags
i eae:
REVIEW SCHEME. 653
and a somewhat intimate association with regeneration. 3. Reasons,
notwithstanding this order of association, for concluding that Christ
and the apostles never thought of placing baptism on a parity with
the great spiritual conditions of salvation. 4. The development
and installation of the view that baptism is necessary for salvation.
5. The judgment which must be passed upon sucha view. 6. Esti-
mate of the theory which makes baptism a source of decisive effects
in purely passive subjects. 7. The import of infant baptism.
8. Explanation of the silence of the New Testament on this theme.
g. The grounds which may be urged in favor of the practice of
infant baptism. 10. The arguments used in favor of immersion,
and the considerations which militate against an exclusive claim
for that form of baptism. 11. The proper classificaton of the
baptismal rite administered by John the Baptist. 12. The question
of the admissibility of a repetition of baptism.
ls
1. Specifications which enter into a full statement of the signifi-
cance of the Lord’s Supper. 2. The rise of the doctrine of tran-
substantiation, and the content of the doctrine as authoritatively
fixed by the Council of Trent. 3. Considerations which demon-
strate the gratuitous and irrational character of the vast assumption
expressed in the doctrine. 4. Objections which stand against any
form of the doctrine of areal bodily presence in the eucharist.
5. Objections to the Roman Catholic theory of the eucharistic
sacrifice. 6. The question whether baptism should be rated as a
necessary antecedent to participation in the Lord’s Supper.
VIII.
1. The constituents of the sacrament of penance, and the char-
acter pertaining to the absolving sentence of the priest, according
to Roman Catholic standards. 2. Considerations, rational and
historical, which serve to refute the theory of priestly absolution.
3. The admissible and preferable interpretation of the scriptural
passages which have been claimed in behalf of a priestly preroga-
tive of absolution. 4. The criticisms which may be urged on the
score of practical effects, against the confessional with its attach-
ment of priestly absolution.
654 REVIEW SCHEME.
CHAPTER III.
{.
1. The propriety of including under the topic of eschatology the
fortunes in store for the Church as well as those awaiting the indi-
vidual. 2. The peculiarity of the New Testament forecast as
compared with the character of the outlook in the Old Testament.
3. The important eschatological element naturally resident in
Christian faith. 4. Foreshadowings of the fortunes of the Church
in this world on the side of progress and victory. 5. Interpretation
of the reference to the millennial reign, and statement of the view
relative to a visible reign of Christ upon earth which the New Tes-
tament representation as a whole enforces. 6. Representations
respecting trial and conflict as awaiting the Church, and views as to
the identity of the hostile powers which are depicted. 7. Extent
to which time measures were regarded in the New Testament fore-
casts, and the probable explanation of the forms of statement which
might be taken as implying that Christ predicted the speedy close
of the dispensation.
II.
1. Explanation of the scanty consideration given to the state of
the dead in the period antecedent to the resurrection. 2. The
change of view-point effected, in relation to this theme, by the
progress of the centuries. 3. Grounds for accounting the imme-
diate state of the dead as one of conscious life, and the necessary
inference as to its being a state of reward and retribution. 4. Fan-
ciful and unfounded theories respecting the dead, and respecting
the interrelations between them and the living. 5. Martensen’s
speculation respecting the self-inclosed life of the dwellers in the
other world prior to the resurrection. 6. Considerations which
may be urged against the possibility of distinct moral transitions
in the intermediate state. 7. Considerations which are favorable
to such possibility for certain classes. 8. The tone which reason,
experience, and revelation alike declare should be characteristic of
the message addressed to those dwelling in the midst of the expos-
ures and allurements of sin.
REVIEW SCHEME. 655
III.
1. The grounds for admitting the fact of an intermediate state.
2. The exegetical expedient which is required for ruling out the
idea of a special era for the advent and the resurrection. 3. The
truth which underlies the pictorial representation of the second
advent. 4. The main particulars included in New Testament
teaching respecting the resurrection. 5. Grounds for distinguishing
the resurrection body, in respect of qualities, from the body of the
present state. 6. The question whether it is necessary to affirm any
material identity between the body of the resurrection state and
that of the present life. 7. Reasons for not accepting the supposi-
tion that Paul revised his view that there is to be a special era of
resurrection. 8. Estimate of the theory that the resurrection con-
sists in the disengagement of an ethereal body. 9. The import of
Pauline and Johannine references to a transformation of nature.
10. The notable absence of reference in the Epistles of Paul to
the resurrection of the wicked.
IV.
1. The great truth which is lodged in the biblical picture of the
final judgment. 2. Reasons for not taking the picture in the
spirit of literalism.
Mia
1. Grounds for the conclusion that the teachings in the New
Testament were designed to convey, as respects the fate of the
wicked, an impression of irremediable doom. 2. Interpretation of
the passages which are alleged to make for a contrary conclusion.
3. The scriptural statements bearing on the question of the anni-
hilation of the wicked, and the condition in which they leave this
subject. 4. The force of rational considerations in relation to the
same subject. 5. The sole philosophical justification of an irre-
pealable sentence against a man, and the forms of scriptural
representation that implicitly refer to this ground of doom. 6. Esti-
mate of the attempt of Thomas Aquinas to furnish a different
justification. 7. Considerations which tend to modify the somber
inference as to the number of the lost which might be based on
the verbal form of a statement of Christ. 8. The ground supplied
in a filial relation to God for an exalted expectation as regards
future blessedness, and the elements which may be presumed to
enter into that blessedness.
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INDEXES.
I.— INDEX OF TOPICS.
Absolution, the assumed prerogative of,
532 ff.
Adam as related to the origin of sin,
311 ff.
Adoption, 451 f.
Advent, Christ’s second, 560 f.
Agnosticism, 3, 38, 159 ff.
Angels, good, 257 ff.; evil, 263 ff.
Angel of Jehovah, 211 f.
Annihilation, as possible fate of the in-
corrigibly wicked, 573 ff.
Anthropomorphism, 66 ff.
Antichrist, 546 f.
Antiquity, the question of man’s, 287 ff.
Apocrypha, the Old Testament, 123 ff.
Apollinarianism, 329 f.
Apostasy, ground of the possibility of,
305 ff.; exposure of the converted
man thereto, 476 ff.
Arianism, 193 f., 329.
Assurance, relative to sonship, 469 ff.
relative to perfected sonship or entire
sanctification, 474 ff.
Atonement, Christ’s, 186 f., 360 ff.;
canons for interpreting biblical lan-
guage on the subject, 366 ff.; classifi-
cation of scriptural testimonies, 373
ff.; general inferences from those
testimonies, 382 ff.; deficient theories,
386 ff.; theories exaggerating some
side or aspect, 391 ff.; views best
answering to all the data, 401 ff.;
response to objections, 412 f.
Awakening, 453 f.
Baptism, general meaning of, 511 f.;
relation to regeneration, 512 ff.; ex-
aggerated stress on the necessity of
the rite, 514 f.; infant subjects, §15
ff.; question of mode, 519 ff.; nature
of John’s baptism, 523; re-baptism,
523.
Baruch, the book of, 125.
Bible, see “ revelation.”
Body, not disparaged in the Bible, 275
f.: naturally mortal, 278; doctrine of
its resurrection, 560 ff.
Brahmanism, 84.
Buddhism, 84, 115 ff.
Canonicity, tests of, 118 ff.
Categories, 8 ff.
Certainty, conditions of, 4 ff.
Chalcedon, council of, 330, 339.
Christ, uniqueness of His personality
the great credential of revelation, 90
ff.; tokens in the New Testament of
the potency of His life, 100 ff.; proofs
of His divinity, 192 ff.; His eternal
sonship, 219 f.; complete humanity,
325 ff.; supernatural conception, 330
ff.; sinlessness, 332 ff.; temptation,
336 f.; problem of His person, 338
ff.; question whether He would have
become incarnate but for sin, 358;
three-fold office, 360 ff.; atonement,
366 ff.; resurrection, 581 ff.
Christology, see “ Christ.”
Church, nature of the, 479 ff.; compari-
son of its meaning with that of “the
kingdom,” 480 f.; distinction be-
tween the visible and the invisible,
482 f.; true conception of unity,
483 f.; relation of polity to ecclesi-
astical legitimacy, 484 f.; normal
spirit of polity, 486 f.; criticism of
657
658
the Roman Catholic conception, 488
ff.; criticism of the Anglican High
Church theory, 500 ff.; foreshadowed
fortunes for the militant stage in the
progress of the Church, 540 ff.
Cognition, rational view respecting its
method, 8 ff.
Communicatio idiomatum, doctrine of
the, 340 ff.
Confession, as a gospel] requirement,
435; as prescribed by sacerdotalism,
§32 ff.
Confucianism, 115 f.
Conscience, its elements and authority,
289 ff.
Conservation, 246 ff.
Continuity, historical, as ground of cer-,
tainty, 24 ff.
Conversion, 457.
Creation, according to revelation, 228 ff.;
according to science, 236 ff; accord-
ing to philosophy, 244 ff.
Creationism, 284 ff.
Daniel, the Book of, 131 f.; apochry-
phal additions, 125.
Decretals, the pseudo-Isidore, 495.
Demoniacal possession, 267 ff.
Depravity, human, 321.
Descent into Hades, Christ’s, 262 ff.
Design, as discoverable in nature, §8 ff.
Determinism, arguments for, 296 ff.
Dichotomy, 274 f.
Disciplina arcana, 152 f.
Donum superadditum, 304.
Ebionism, 197, 332.
Ecclesiasticus, Book of, 125 f.
Episcopacy, facts relative to the origin
of, 500 f.
Eschatology, its content as related to
the Church militant, 540 ff.; inter-
mediate state, 551 ff.; second advent,
560 f.; resurrection, 561 ff.; judg-
ment, 366 ff.; doom of the wicked,
569 ff.; the heavenly life, 578 f.
Esther, Book of, 121 f.
Eternity, as pertaining to God, 171 ff.
Eucharist, see ‘‘ Lord’s supper.”
Evolution, 237 ff.
Faith, as related to salvation, 434 ff.;
as connected with repentance, obedi-
ence, and good works, 436 ff.; defini-
tion, 438 ff.; function in justification,
443 ff.
Feelings, as related to knowledge, 17
INDEX OF TOPICS.
ff.; as related to personal religion,
224,
Flesh, Pauline sense of the term, 276f.
Foreknowledge, the divine, 173 ff.
Freedom, as bearing on warrant for dis-
tinction between truth and error, 7 f.;
17f.; 44f.; proofs of its existence
in man, 294 ff.; the distinction between
“real” and “ formal,” 301 f.
Gehenna, 569.
Gnosticism, 197.
God, the idea of, as related to intellec-
tual confidence, 31 f.; proofs of exis-
tence, 33 ff.; not a subject for demon-
stration proper, 54; cosmological and
other arguments, 55 ff.; attributes,
167 ff.; trinitarian distinctions, 192 ff.;
agency in creation and preservation,
228 ff., 246 ff.
Gospels, critical views as to the origin
of the Synoptical, 110; evidences for
the Johannine authorship of the
fourth Gospel, 133 ff.
Hades, 569.
Heaven, 578.
Hinduism, 115 f.
History, as basis of the biblical revela-
tion, 79 ff.
Holiness, of God, 185.
Holy Spirit, the, 212 ff., 220 f.
Immortality of the soul, 279 ff.; 573 ff.
Immutability, the divine, 169 f.; ques-
tion of its attainability, in the ethical
sense, by man, 302.
Imputation, theories of, in relation to
original sin, 319 f.
Inerrancy, not unqualifiedly predicable
of the Bible, 142 ff.
Infallibility, papal, 493 ff.
Infinitude, shown to be compatible with
personality, 34 ff.
Inspiration, scriptural, 138 ff.
Intermediate state, the small account
made of it in apostolic thought, 551 f.;
scriptural and rational data as to its
characteristics, 552 ff.; question as to
the possibility of moral transitions
therein, 555 ff.
Intuition, as related to the proof of the
divine existence, 72.
Isaiah, the Book of, 131.
Jews, temporal restoration of the, 542 f.
Judgment, the, 566 ff.
INDEX
Judith, Book of, 124 f.
Justice, divine, 185 ff.
Justification, Pauline doctrine of, 441 ff.;
points of contrast between it and the
Roman Catholic doctrine, 446f.; its
disagreement in one respect with |
Ritschl’s conception, 448; function
assigned in Paul’s doctrine to the
resurrection, 448 f.; extent to which
the doctrine of the Pauline epistles
appears in other New Testament
writings, 449 f.; philosophical char-
acter and religious value of the doc-
trine, 451;
of justification with
Kenosis, radical doctrine of the, 343 ff.
Koran, 84 f.
Law, the Mosaic, 83.
Lord’s supper, significance of the,
523 f.; criticism of transubstantiation
and other forms of the doctrine of a
real bodily presence, 524 ff.; criticism
of the notion of the mass or eucharis-
tic sacrifice, 530 f.
Love, divine, 184, 187 ff.; as the crown-
ing excellence in man, 435.
Maccabees, Books of, 126.
Marriage and Divorce, 615 ff.
Mary, the Virgin, 155 f.
Materialism, 38 ff.
Millenarianism, 543 ff.
Miracles, 105 ff., 253.
Mohammedanism, 85, 116.
Monism, 47 ff.
Monophysitism, 339.
Monothelitism, 353.
Morality, as related to religion, 23 f.;
as based in the human constitution,
65 f.
Nescience, as attributed to God in re-
lation to future free acts, 177 ff.
Nestorianism, 339.
New Testament, its variety and balance
of factors, 87 ff.
Nicene creed, 193.
Obedience, as related to the appropria-
tion of salvation, 434, 437; as related
to Christian growth, 460 f.
Old Testament, its variety and balance
of factors, 83 ff.
Omnipotence, 180 ff.
OF
inseparable connection |
regeneration, |
468 f.; conditions of forfeiture, 476f. |
TOPICS. 659
| Omnipresence, the divine, 170 f,
Omuniscience, 173 ff.
| Ontological argument, 69 ff.
Original righteousness, 303 f.
| Original sin, 311 ff.
Pantheism, 38 ff., 50 ff.
Papal supremacy and infallibility, 488 ff.
| Pastoral Epistles, 139%.
Paul of Samosata, humanitarian theory
| of, 194.
_ Penance, alleged sacrament of, 531 ff.
_Pentateuch, question of its authorship
as related to biblical authority, 128 ff.
Person, definition of the term, 34.
Prayer, as related so the providential
order, 253; as offered for one’s
fellows, 507 f.; as addressed to saints,
553f.
Predestination, extent to which it is a
biblical idea, 417 ff.; Paul’s teaching
relative thereto, 419 ff.; John’s teach-
ing, 424 f., 427f.; teaching of other
New Testament writers, 425 f.; criti-
cisms of the Calvinian doctrine based
on historical grounds, 430 f.; criticisms
based on rational grounds, 431 ff.
Preéxistence of souls, 283 f.
Prophecy, in its general character, 83;
in its Messianic phase, 95 ff.; in the
sense of specific prediction, 102 ff,
Providence, 249 ff.
Psalms, historical basis of, 81.
Psychology, shortcomings of the sensa-
tional, 4 ff. 42; the biblical, 272 ff.
Punishment, future, 569 ff.
Purgatory, 553.
Reason, antithesis between the “ specu-
lative” and the “practical,” 15 f.;
adjustment of the world to reason,
163 its office in connection with reve-
lation, 27 ff., 149 f.
| Reconciliation, Christ’s work of, 366 ff.
Regeneration, 454 ff.
Religion, as related to morality, 23 f.;
certified to be native to man, 52 ff.
Repentance, as condition of salvation
and religious growth, 434, 436, 460 f.
Responsibility, conditions of, 299 ff.
Restoration of the Jews, 542 f.
Resurrection of the body, 561 ff.
| Revelation, as related to reason, 27 ff.;
| its method and credentials, 74ff.;
question of its sufficiency, 149 ff.
Rewards, future, 578 f.
Righteousness, original, 303 f.
660 INDEX OF SPECIALLY CONSIDERED TEXTS.
Sabellianism, 194, 217 f. Space, difficulty of construing, 12 ff.
Sacraments, general view of, 508 ff.; | Spirit, the Holy, 212 ff.; man’s, 273 ff.
baptism 511 ff.; the Lord’s supper, | Spirituality of the divine nature, 168 f.
523 ff.; the alleged sacrament of | Sunday observance, 6109 ff.
penance, 531 ff. Swedenborgianism, its view of anges,
Sacrifices, the Old Testament system) 261; its theory of atonement, 393 f.
of, 366 ff.;
Salvation, universal provision for, 417 ff.; Temperance, 624 ff.
conditions of appropriation, 434 ff.; Time, difficulty of construing, 14 f,
possibility of loss, 476 ff. | 174; as related to creation, 246.
Sanctification, 459 ff.; question of its! Tobit, Book of, 124.
possible completion in this life, | Tradition, as defined by Roman Catholi-
464 ff.: question of possible assurance | cism, 151 ff.
of entire sanctification, 474 ff. | Traducianism, 284 ff.
Satan, 263 ff.; as connected with sub- | Transubstantiation, doctrine of, 524 ff.
ject of redemption in patristic thought, | Trent, council of, 524f., 531 f.
394: as bound for a thousand years, 4 Trichotomy, 274 f.
544 f. Trimurti, Hindu doctrine of, 226.
Scientia media, 174 ff. Trinity, the, 192 ff., 590 ff.
Self-consciousness, 7, 36 f.
Semi-Arianism, 193. Unity, the divine, 167 f.; race unity, 287.
Sheol, 281.
Simplicity, ultra view of, in connection | Vatican council, 488, 493 f.
with the divine essence, 163 f.
Sin, considered as to a possible explana- | Will, as ground of rational inference,
tion, 305 ff.; as to a possible identifi- 17f; as dowered with freedom, 294 ff.
cation in all its forms with a single | Wisdom, Book of, 125 f., 264, 283.
principle, 310 f; as to its relation to | Witness to sonship, 469 ff.
Adam’s trespass, 311 ff. Word, ministry of the, 503 ff.
Son of Man, 327 f. Works, 437 f.
Soul, scriptural use of the term, 272 ff.;
theories of origin, 283 ff. Zoroastrianism, 85, 115 f.
Il.—INDEX OF SPECIALLY CONSIDERED TEXTS.
Gen. 1-228 ff)3) 11.5, 18; 19, 234; vi. 2,) John tate, (202, 325 11 toy 2k eee
4, 265. Hi. '§, 5133) Al. 0,, 2863: /iv. 26); n6ds
Lev. xvii. 11, 370 f. xii, 32, (592;) xiv. 6, “4053 0xivp ans
1 Sam: xxis 12; 176: 2033 Xx.'23, § 36: f.;) xxi. VSeny, 40 ea
Job xxxvil. 7, 262. Acts Mk) 215557345 1Vi 125 355.5. eiL aes
Isa. ix. 67 97,5292 5 Mili OG H. 262; xili. 48, 426; xxii. 18, 175.
Matt. vi. 12, 466; villi. 10-12, 483; xi. | Rom. i. 18-23, 293 f.; ii. 14, 15, 293 f.,
21-23, F 75s) RUN SAAAI Vee Os LO, 316% 1%. 255,440 540V.. 12-215 Sa ee
489)\'f64.536 16,5 xvill! 20, 26250 xvili. vil, 8,.'22,''23) 276 £3 vill) A Gaara
18, .5365.(xier 26,081; saxiigea 36; VL 7, 2761. * villa) BOLL 7, a ee
XXIV. 29-31, 550. viii. 19-22, 251 f., 565; Vili. 28-30,
Markt! 23) 20,58 713 \iv.183, 12,426 422 f/3ix+xi., 307.4, 419 fF; 59th
f.5 xilL.’ 10, $413) xiii.) 24-27, 5505) Cor, vi. 3, 2613 rix, 26,'279479 9) ees
xili. 32, 342. Z2II; XV. 24; 22, 3L5¥ XV. 24-20, 200s
Dukes xr16,, 2663°RRL 23°24 7 597 xvi. XV. 42-44, 562 f.
31, 1753 Xvi. V.9-17,)450, -xxlheg2,| 2°Cor. i, 14) 2152 v T-5o ghia,
495 f. Gal. ill. 13, 397; v.17, 276 f.
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
Eph. i. 4-7, 423; ii. 3, 316.
Phil. ii. 5-8, 345; iii. 11, 566.
Col. i. 15, 209; 1. 17, 235; 1. 19-22, 346.
1 Thess. iv. 16-18, 561.
2 Thess. ii. 3-12, 546.
1 Tim, iii. 1-9, 500.
Titus i. §-9, 500.
Heb. 1., 205, 219; ii. 11-17, 326; vi. 4-| Rev. xii. 4, 260; xii. 9, 264; xix.
Giavos Vi 2s, 2053: ix, 24, 3973) x
1j440} Mis 3,235) X11.'9, 254.
Ill.— INDEX OF
Adrian VI., 499.
Agatho, 496.
AllenpA. YoG,, 501 f.
Ambrose, 213.
Amort, Eusebius, 535.
Amphilochius, 121.
Anrich, Gustav, 153.
Anselm, 69 f.
Apollinaris, 329 f., 354.
Aquinas, Thomas, 171, 191, 224, 495,
576.
Athanasius, 121, 213.
Athenagoras, 199, 213.
Augustine, 163, 189, 225, 304, 496 f.,
508, 579.
Baader, Franz von, 169.
Bascom, John, 64.
Bamabas, 199.
Basil, 213.
Beet, J. A. 550.
Bellarmin, 154, 440, 446.
Beyschlag, W., 91, 258.
Bissell, E. C., 124.
Boehme, Jacob, 168 f.
Bonaventura, 163.
Boniface VIIIL., 480.
Bossuet, 496.
Bousset, W., 546.
3owne, Borden P., 7, 37 £5 49, 57, 162,
174, 191 f., 238.
Bright, Wm., 492.
Bruce, A. B., 337, 420, 445, 451.
Brugsch, H., 288.
Bushnell, Horace, 94, 335, 387 f., 403,
413.
Caird, John, 349, 352 f., 533.
Calvin, John, 176, 409.
661
James ii. 14-26, 449 f.; v. 16, 435.
I Pet. ii. 24, 397; iti. 18-20, iv. 6, 362
+» 550.
2 Pet. iii. 8, 548.
I John, i. 8, 465 f.; ii.
BUG Tear Vendy S714: Ve
Jude 7, 574.
2, 405; iv. 9,
20, 202.
261; xx. 4-6, 543 ff; xx. 14, §73;
¥E,21,, 506.
AUTHORS.
Charles, R. H., 546.
Clarke, Wm. N., 188.
Clement of Alexandria, 197 f., 213, 531.
Clement of Rome, 200, 213 f.
Clement XI., 499.
Cyprian, 493, 518, 521.
Cyril of Jerusalem, 213.
Darwin, Charles, 63, 241.
Delitzsch, Franz, 169.
Descartes, 70 ff., 191.
Dillmann, A., 211, 234, 265, 368.
Déllinger, Ignaz von, 495 f.
Dorner, I. A., 105, 164, 217, 265, 517,
S4i.
Duns Scotus, 191.
Ebrard, J. H. A., 345, 347, 390.
Edwards, Jonathan, 297, 299 f,
Eichhorn, J. G., 124.
Eimer, G. H. T., 241.
Ellis, Geo. E., 217.
Erskine, Thomas, 392.
Eugenius IV., 499.
Eusebius, 213, 493.
Fairbairn, A. M., 487.
Fichte, 39.
Fiske, Daniel, 459.
Flint, Robert, 51.
Flourens, 43.
Frank, Fr. H. R., 215.
Friedrich, J., 155.
Garvie, A. E., 166.
Gelasius IJ., 498.
Gess, W. F., 344, 347.
Gordon, Geu. A., 21.
Greene, Lhomas Hill, 6,
662 INDEX OF
Gregory Nazianzen, 121, 212 f.
Gregory of Nyssa, 213.
Gregory XVI., 498.
Gustafson, A., 627.
Hamilton, Sir William, 161, 244.
Harnack, Adolf, 133, 138, 196, 201,
501.
Harris, Samuel, 13, 67.
Hedge, lV. H., 217.
Hegel, 39, 40, 160, 225.
Hermas, 199.
Hippolytus, 196, 213.
Hodge, Charles, 300, 395 f., 428 f.
H{oltzmann, H. J., 138, 443.
Hommel, Fritz, 288.
Honorius I., 498.
Tlopkins, E. W., 596.
Horton, R. F., 122.
Howison, G. H., 51.
Hume, David, 107.
Huxley, Thomas H., 241.
Ignatius of Antioch, 200, 213.
Ianocent III., 498.
Trenzeus, 152, 198, 213 f., 492, 530.
James, Wm., 43.
Jastrow, Morris, 232, 288, 592.
Justin Martyr, 1§2, 199, 213.
Kant, 8 ff., 65.
Kee Ns 627.
Ladd) G; Ts,°Ao f.
Lamarck, 241.
Lankester, E. Ray, 239.
Lao-tse, 116.
Laymann, P., 538.
Le Conte, Joseph, 237 ft., 242, 288.
Lehmann, Edv., 226.
Leibnitz, 305.
Lenormant, F., 288.
Leo X., 498.
Leo XIII., 498.
Leontius, 121.
Lidgett, J. S., 385.
Lightfoot, J. B., 500 f.
Liguori, 495, 538.
Loofs, F., 589.
Lotze, Hermann, 37, 69, 297, 357.
Luther, Martin, 340.
Lyell, Charles, 288.
McCabe) LisDi 277) £,
Malou, Bishop of Bruges, 155.
Mansel, H. L., 160 ff.
AUTHORS.
Mansi, 496.
Martensen, H., 263, 554.
Martin, V., 499.
Martineau, James, 334.
Maspero, G., 592.
Maurice, F. D., 392.
Melito, 121.
Meyer, H. A. W., 220, 345, 449.
Miley, John, 400.
Mill, John Stuart, 5, 59, 64, 182.
Miiller, Stig, 283.
Myers, F., 502.
Newman, J. H., 155 f. 490.
Nicephorus, 121.
Nitzsch, F. A. B., 226.
Novatian, 196, 213.
Origen, 181, 195, 213, 283, 310, 358.
Orr, James, 21, 353.
Ottley, R. L., 96.
Paulsen, Friedrich, 42 f., 174.
Paulus, E. G., 108
Perrone, 155.
Peter Lombard, 510, 535.
Petrie, W. M. ¥, 288.
Pfleiderer, Otto, 62 fi. 162, 442
Philo, 283.
Piepenbring, Ch., 273.
Pius IX., 498.
Plato, 245, 283.
Plotinus, 597 ff.
Polycarp, 200.
Powell, H. C., 356.
Prestwich, J., 288 f.
Pullus, 535.
Parves, .G.0 T1124.
Pusey, E. B. , 503.
Quinet, Edgar, tor f.
Renan, Ernest, 109.
Reusch, F. H., 495.
Rhees, Rush, 137.
Rice, W. N., 289.
Riehm, Edward, 123 f., 211, 368.
Rishell, C. W., 11
Ritschl, Albrecht, 165, 367, 388 f.,
403, 448.
Rogers, R. W., 288.
Romanes, G. J., 41, 47 f., 62, 237.
Rosmini, Antonio, 355.
Rothe, Richard, 177.
Routh, M. J. 195.
Royce, Josiah, 21.
Ryle, H. Eo, ter.
INDEX OF AUTHORS. 663
Sabatier, Auguste, 21. Tertullian, 194 f., 196, 213 f., gor f.,
Salmond, S. D. F., 281 f. 518.
Sanday, W., 137, 356. Theophilus, 199.
Sasse, J. B.. 538. Thomasius, G., 343 f., 347, 349.
Saussaye. De la, 594. Tylor, E. B., 53.
Sayce, A. H., 122, 124 f., 288.
Schleiermacher, 22 f., 164, 181, 387 ff.,
402.
Schelling. 160.
Schmitz, H. J., 535.
Schultz, Hermann, 86, 98, 211 f., 368. | Van Oosterzee, 335.
Schurman, J. G., 165. Vincentius, 154,
Seth, Andrew, I1, 70, 248, 292.
Shedd, W. G. T., 177, 317. ;
Smith, W. Robertson, 83, 129. Reig se sa
Spc Faustus, 177, 386. Aretha: ke ‘241,
Socrates, 534- Weiss, Bernhard, 134, 137, » 546.
Eee oR Wendt, H. H., 1 ea Raat
Spencer, Herbert, 5 ft., 40, 49, 67, 161. sie atte IB eal 531.
Spinoza, paritr Whately, Richard, 502.
Stalker, James, Bet Willmann, Otto, 526, 605 f.
Stave, Erik, 260. Wilson, E. B., 241.
Steele, Daniel, 476. ; :
Stevens, Geo. B., 130, 203, 314, 443,
546, 550. Zeller, E., 598, 602.
Strauss, David, 46, tog.
Swedenborg, 391 f.
Ueberweg, 603.
Ulrici, Hermann, 57, 297.
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