QfcE iBtJiwB h PRINCETON, N. J. 54^. Division.. Section . . Number... ,-6is: is • • . *• >\ V &0£yer7^L*\ // (2>? 2 7 ( Y, THE FIRST ADAM AND THE SECOND. THE ELOHIM REVEALED CREATION AND REDEMPTION OF MAN #eoc icpavspcody iv aapxe.—iTm.m.is. SAMUEL j/BAIRD, D.D. PASTOR OF THE P RE S B T T ER I A N CaUKCU, WOODBURT, N. J. PHILADELPHIA: LINDSAY & BLAKISTOX. 18G0. Hutered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by SAMUEL J. BAIRD, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO. PHILADELPHIA.. COLLIN'S, PRINTER. MY BELOVED AND VENERATED MOTHER, ESTHER THOMPSON BAIRD, IS INSCRIBED THIS ATTEMPT TO EXHIBIT SOME OF THE DOCTRINES OF CHRIST, THE PRINCIPLES OF WHICH WERE LEARNED AT IIEIt FEET, FROM THE WESTMINSTER CATECHISMS AND THE WORD OF GOD, AND DEVELOPED IN THEIR HARMONIOUS PROPORTIONS IN THE SABBATH EVENING FAMILY EXPOSITIONS OF A FATHER WHOSE FAITH IS LONG SINCE LOST IN VISION. PREFACE. The Delphic motto, " Know thyself," is the utmost achievement of olassii philosophy. It is the first principle of the doctrine of Christ, — the starting point to the higher knowledge of God and his Son. And, whilst philosophy exhausts itself in constructing the maxim, and utterly fails to show how we may come to self-knowledge, the gospel proclaims Him in whose glorious person man is one with Jehovah, — without whom we can know neither our- selves nor God; and, knowing whom, we have all knowledge. The apostasj of man, the corruption and depravity into which he plunged himself by his rebellion, and the curse thereby incurred from a God of holiness and truth. are the cardinal facts which lie at the basis of the whole saving doctrine of the Scriptures ; — facts which, if misunderstood or ignored, the word of God is a riddle; if denied, the very person of Christ is a lie. The doctrine, there- fore, of original sin, has ever been held, by the church of God, to be funda- mental to the whole system of truth; and every attempt to pervert that doc- trine, or to set it aside, has been justly regarded as heresy, fraught with the most fatal consequences to the scheme of grace and the souls of men. A testimony to doctrines so important can never be unseasonable; and is, per- haps, especially appropriate to the pi-esent time, when we have increasing evidence of defection from these doctrines, among some of our American churches, which once gloried in the faith they now disown, and were set for the defence of the truth which they now reject and assail. At an early date in the ministry of the author, he began to prepare what was designed to be a brief treatise on the doctrine of Christ, viewed as the progressive unfolding of an eternal plan for the revelation of the Most High, Other cares and labours interposed, and the work was laid aside. More recently, circumstances of special interest to him, but of no moment to the public, determined him to utter a testimony to some of the doctrines which are set forth in this work. At first no more was designed than a very brief exposition of some cardinal points. But, as he proceeded, the theme ex- panded; and the importance of the topics, the impossibility of doing them justice in a brief discussion, and the delight enjoyed in contemplating the scheme of God, of which they constitute the chief elements, have insensiblj controlled the pen, until the present volume is the result. It has been remarked, by one of the most eminent of our noble brother- hood of divines, that "we want some central principle, which embraces 5 6 Preface. equally the religion of nature and the religion of grace. Until some such central principle is developed in its all-comprehensive relations, we are obliged to have a twofold theology, as we have a twofold religion, — a cove- nant of works and a covenant of grace, with no bridge between them."* The doctrine which is illustrated in the present work, — that of God revealed through an eternal plan, — presents itself to the mind of the writer as being the desideratum here indicated ; as that around which all doctrinal truths cluster and shine in a light and harmony not otherwise discoverable. It is not, however, as an exhibition of systematic theology, in this light, that the writer lays his present offering at the feet of the church of Christ. But, looking upon this as the true point, from which to view the related doc- trines of the ruin and recovery of man, — the catastrophe of the first Adam and the redeeming work of the second, — he has constructed the argument, on these subjects, in accordance with that idea; and only appealed to the other leading features of* the system of truth for the illustration of these. The fragmentary manner in which the work has been written, — at times snatched from pastoral and other labours and cares, and other causes, — have necessarily induced many imperfections and defects. Nor would the author venture before the public in a form so imperfect, did he not hope that, with all, his offering may be acceptable to Christ, and advantageous to his church and cause. Trained from my childhood in the love of the doctrines of the "Westmin- ster Confession, — confirmed, by the results of my maturest studies, in the conviction that they are in thorough accordance with the word of God, — I have not attempted to conceal the fervour of a devoted zeal in their behalf; nor to imitate that, charity which consists in indifference to the loveliness of the truth and the deformity of error. Constrained, on some points, to differ with brethren and fathers beloved and venerated in our own church, — the candour and directness, which the importance of the questions seemed to de- mand, have not, I trust, been inconsistent with that respect and deference which I cordially cherish for men at whose feet I should be happy to sit. The introductory chapter is designed to exhibit the position which has been occupied by the church, from age to age, on the subject of original sin. The graces of composition have been cheerfully sacrificed to this object. My authorities, besides those marginally acknowledged, are, the Corpus et Syn- tagma Confessionum, by Gaspar Laurentius, Geneva, 1612, and the Collectio Confessionum, by Niemeyer. The fruit and the solace of many toilsome hours is now committed to the candour of the Christian public, — not without the earnest hope and the prayer that He in whose fear it has been written will accept it to his own glory, and the furtherance of his cause. * Southern Presbyterian Review, 1858, vol. s. p. 619. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. — P. 11. $ 1. Doctrinal development through contact with error. § 2. Doctrine of Tertullian. § 3. Hilary and Ambrose. § 4. Pelagius. $ 5. Augustine. § 6. Mediaeval theology. §7. Earlier Reformed confessions. $8. Continental divines. $9. The Remonstrants and the Synod of Dort. § 10. Westminster Assembly. § 11. British divines. £ 12. Doctrine of Placaeus. § 13. Edwardean theology. CHAPTER I. THE TRIUNE CREATOR. — P. 51. £ 1. The creation was by the Trinity as such. § 2. The Father and Son. — The eternal generation. — Proof from the second Psalm, gg 3, 4. From Proverbs viii. 22-31. $ 5. From Proverbs xxx. 3, 4, and Micah v. 2. § 6. From the gospels, g 7. From the epistles. § 8. Other arguments. £ 9. Objections met. § 10. General considerations. $ 11. The Scripture argument summed up. $ 12. The doctrine respecting the Father, Son, and Spirit, severally, and as one. CHAPTER II. THE ETERNAL PLAN. — P. 82. # 1. In working, wisdom requires an object. § 2. God's object was the revelation of himself, the Triune God. § 3. To that end, an eternal plan. $ 4. It includes the minutest details. § 5. The angels and the material universe. — In it God shines. $ 6. His moral glories revealed in man, Christ, and the work of redemption, g 7. Earth its theatre. § 8. The revelation progressive and cumulative. CHAPTER III. THE PROVIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION. — P. 100. § 1. Different theories of second causes. $ 2. Our doctrine. g 3. Edwards' theory. $ 4. His doctrine of identity. § 5. His doctrine unscriptural. $ 6. Office of the sys- tem of nature. § 7. God's immediate agency. — McCosh's theory. j? 8. Miracles and special providences. $ 9. General principles of administration. # 10. Modo of dis- pensation. £ 11. Conclusion. CHAPTER IV. ADAM THE LIKENESS OF GOD. — P. 132. $ 1. Adam the image and likeness. $ 2. His body immortal. $ 3. Likeness in his generative nature. § 4. Proof that this was designed. $ 5. Wonderful nature of gene- ration. I 6. " Nature" defined, § 7. The breath of life, the Spirit's image. § 8. Tho 7 8 Contents. natural attributes of his soul. § 9. His moral powers. — Reason. — Conscience. § 10. The Will. § 11. Nature of motives. \ 12. Freedom of the will. §13. Definitions of liberty : Edwards, Leibnitz, and Aristotle. § 14. Adam's knowledge. § 15. Proof of it from the use of language. § 16. His righteousness and holiness, g 17. His dominion. Recapitulation. CHAPTER V. THE LAW OF GOD. P. 187. § 1. God our sovereign. § 2. Hopkinsian theory. § 3. Beecher's Conflict of Ages. § 4. He sets fate above God. § 5. The doctrine infidel. § 6. Office of intuition, g 7. Doctrine of the Scriptures. § 8. May the creatures sit in judgment on God ? §9. Beecher's experiment. § 10. The doctrine precludes a revelation of God. £ 11. Nature and necessity of God's sovereignty. § 12. The law is, Glorify God. § 13. It demands perfect obedience, of the whole being, perpetually. § 14. It binds all. § 15. Adapts itself to all cases. § 16. Office of the written law. CHAPTER VI. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE LAW. P. 228. \ 1. God's moral attributes, g 2. He glories in them. § 3. Their nature and evi- dence. § 4. Design of their revelation. § 5. The principle thus deduced. § 6. The perfection of the law consists in its transcription from the moral nature of God. CHAPTER VII. THE NATURE OF SIN. — P. 243. § 1. Sin is unlawfulness. § 2. Phenomena of moral natures. £ 3. Moral obligation. — Its subject the nature. § 4. The law addresses the nature. \ 5. Edwards' doctrine of the nature of sin. § 6. Sin of nature. \ 7. Results of our inquiry. § 8. Barnes' doctrine. CHAPTER VIII. DEATH, THE PENALTY OF THE LAW. — P. 263. g 1. Sanctions necessary. § 2. Nature of a penalty. § 3. Death, not metaphorical, j} 4. Its use illustrated in Abel's death. § 5. It is not bodily dissolution. § 6. It is God's inflicted curse. CHAPTER IX. THE LAW A COVENANT OF LIFE. — P. 2S0. j) 1. The covenant gratuitous from God. § 2. The promise, its symbols and seals. § 3. Date of the promise, g 4. The trees of life and knowledge. § 5. The promise was a covenant, g 6. Positive constitution of the covenant. § 7. The life promised. CHAPTER X. ADAM THE COVENANT HEAD OF THE RACE. — P. 305. § 1. Proof of Adam's headship. § 2. The cause of it, the inscription of the covenant in his propagative nature. §3. Proofs of the doctrine. §4. Other scriptural examples. § 5. Principle of identity. § 6. The idea of a " constituted" representation untenable, g 7. The principle of representation, g 8. Eve part of the representative head. Contents. 9 CHAPTER XI. EXTENT OF ADAM'S PARENTAL RELATION. — ORIGIN OF THE SOUL. — P. 335. g 1. History of doctrine on the subject. g 2. Philosophical arguments against propa- gation, g 3. These answered. g 4. Scripture argument against it considered, g 5. Affirmative argument gratuitous. g 6. Seth's birth, g 7. Other Scripture proofs, g 8. The proper position of philosophy in relation to theology, g 9. Creationism involves a duality in man. g 10. Relation to Christ's humanity, g 11. It is inconsistent with the doctrine of miracles. g 12. And with the certainty of the relation of cause and effect. g 13. Difficulty on original sin. g 14. Creation theory on the subject. g 15. Recapitulation. CHAPTER XII. THE APOSTASY OF ADAM. — P. 385. g 1. We know not how sin could enter a holy being. — But it was by his free will, g 2. Process of the apostasy. g 3. Its moral enormity. g 4. It was the depravation of the race. CHAPTER XIII. THE PERMISSION OF MORAL EVIL. — P. 397. g 1. Phases of optimism, g 2. New Haven theory, that God could not prevent sin. g 3. Fallacy of optimism. — It degrades God. g 4. God can, but chooses not to prevent sin ; and by occasion of it reveals his highest moral glories. CHAPTER XIY. Paul's discussion of original sin. — p. 410. g 1. General view of tbe epistle to the Romans. gg 2, 3. Exegesis of ch. v. 12. g 4. Verses 13, 14. g 5. Verses 15-17. g 6. Verses 18, 19. g 7. Verses 20, 21. g 8. Doctrine of the apostle, g 9. Iubeing in Adam and in Christ, g 10. Dr. Hodge on the word, sin. g 11. "Regarded and treated." g 12. Christ "made sin." g 13. Bearing of Dr. H.'s view upon the scope of the apostle, g 14. Parallel of Adam and Christ, g 15. Camplacency in Christ*s righteousness, g 16. Relation of this theory to the fall. g 17. Romans, chapter vi. g 18. Chapter vii. g 19. The doctrine. — Sin an indwelling power, g 20. Its origin in Adam. CHAPTER XV. definition of guilt and of IMPUTATION. — P. 461. g 1. Guilt is criminal liability, g 2. Definitions of Calvin, Marck, Van Mastricht, anil Rutherford, g 3. Analysis of these, g 4. Usage of the Westminster standards, g 5. Imputation defined. CHAPTER XVI. the guilt of adam's first sin. — p. 474. g 1. Doctrine of imputation, g 2. Edwards on imputation, g 3. Arminian theory, g 4. It is untenable, g 5. Use of the word, sin. g 6. Sinners only punished, g 7. Punishment without crime, g 8. Law of identity, g 9. Contrition due for the apostasy. g 10. Sense of personal responsibility, g 11. Our doctrine opposed to mediate imputa- tion, g 12. Adam's transgression, and the sins of our immediate parents. 10 Contents. CHAPTER XVII. NATIVE DEPRAVITY. — P. 510. § 1. Pelagian and Socinian admissions. § 2. Facts of the case. £ 3. Physical cor- ruption. $ 4. Dr. Stuart's " innocent susceptibilities." § 5. Elements of depravity. — Want of righteousness, and actual depravity. § 6. Testimony of the Scriptures. § 7. Total inability. £8. " Natural ability." §9. The crime one. \ 10. Conclusion. CHAPTER XVIII. PROPAGATION OP ORIGINAL SIN. — P. 529. § 1. The doctrine. § 2. Sin sometimes penally admitted, but never originated, by God. \ 3. Edwards' doctrine. § 4. Penal privation theory. § 5. Conclusion. CHAPTER XIX. THE ETERNAL COVENANT. — P. 545. £ 1. The curse on man is stayed. § 2. History of the promise. § 3. The covenant with David. § 4. The eternal covenant. $ 5. The Parties and terms. £ 6. The Holy Spirit the Witness. § 7. It was a real covenant. § 8. Its date eternity. £ 9. Its beneficiaries the elect. £ 10. Its seal the oath of God. §11. It ordained the Son to be the Revealer of God. § 12. In its purview are comprehended all things and events. CHAPTER XX. THE SECOND ADAM. P. 578. § 1. Christ was truly a man. § 2. The Mediator must be a man. § 3. Scripture testimony. § 4. He was without sin. § 5. He is God. § 6. The church his body. — Scripture testimony. £ 7. Nature of the union. § 8. Thus in him all fulness dwells. CHAPTER XXI. Christ's obedience to the law. — P. 605. § 1. Christ's obedience voluntary. 14 Introduction. In respect to the relation of the will of God to the apostasy, Tertullian urges, that "it will justify every crime to assert nothing to happen with- out the approval of God. And the statement leads to the destruction of all morality, even that of God himself, — that any thing which he does not approve may be brought to pass by his will, or that nothing occurs which he does not approve. For since he forbids certain things, and threatens them with eternal punishment, he certainly does not will what he thus denounces, and with which he is offended. On the contrary, what he wills, he both commands, and treats with acceptance, and dis- tinguishes with eternal blessedness. Whilst, therefore, we learn from his precepts, what he approves and condemns ; the will and power of choosing the one or the other, belong to us ; as it is written, ' Behold, I have set before thee good and evil/ for thou hast tasted of the tree of knowledge. . . . Moreover, if you ask, whence is that will by which we choose that which is opposed to the will of God ; I answer, From our- selves. Nor do I speak lightly, (semini enim tuo respondeas necesse est,) for you must answer for the blood which you inherit; since he, (princeps generis et delicti,) the author both of the race and of the apostasy, Adam, chose the transgression which he committed. Nor did the devil infuse into him the will to sin ; but only furnished occasion for the action of his own will."* Of the apostasy, he says that "brutish man, not receiving the things of the Spirit, accounted the law of God foolishness, and transgressed it. Wherefore, not having faith, even that which he seemed to have was taken from him ; to wit, the possession of the garden, and communion with God, through which he would have known all the things of God, had he continued in obedience. What wonder, therefore, if — his works being returned upon himself, and he (in ergastulum terras laborandee relegatus) confined in the bonds of earthly toil, and by his own deed debased and bowed down to the dust — he has thence transmitted to his entire race the common spirit of the world, altogether carnal and here- tical, not receiving the things of God ? For who will hesitate to desig- nate as heresy the crime which Adam committed, by following the bent of his own choice, rather than the mind of God?"f In the doctrine thus stated by Tertullian, and his kindred theory as to the origin of the soul, he seems truly to represent the theology of his age. We are aware that it is sometimes asserted that his doctrine was peculiar to himself, and not commonly held by the orthodox of his time. But we have failed to find a trace of evidence in support of the assertion. In his discussions, he assumes the position of an expounder and de- fender of the common faith on the subject, against the theories of philo- sophers and naturalists.J He opposes the doctrine of Plato, as affording * Tcrtul. De Exhort. Cast. £2. j- Ibid. 2. % Tertul. De Anima, 3, 4. Histwical Slcetch. 15 nourishment to every class of heretics,* and in all his discussions assumes the acquiescence of all Christians. Proposing to prove the generative origin of the soul, he says that it is immaterial from what quarter the question arises, "whether from philosophers, heretics, or the ignorant populace. It is of no importance, to the professors of the truth, who its enemies are, especially since, with such audacity, they deny the soul to be conceived in the womb, and assert it to be inserted from without into the body at the instant of birth." Entering upon the argument, — after a few sentences addressed to the Platonic philosophers, he turns to his brethren: — "I will pause in the argument, that what I answer to philo- sophers and naturalists I may prove to the Christian. For yourself, my brother, build your faith upon the foundation," &c. He sketches a rapid argument from the Scriptures, from which he derives the result that "from one man have flowed the souls of all, nature obeying the original decree, 'Be fruitful, and multiply;' for, in the very preface to the creation of the first man, his entire posterity is spoken of in the plural: — 'Let us make man, and let them have dominion.' "f He then returns to the doc- trines of the various schools of Greek philosophy, and engages in an ex- tended discussion, at the close of which he concludes, that, "in view of the ambitious theories of philosophers and heretics, and the stupid doc- trine of Plato, we have proved the soul to be generated in and of man himself, and that there was, from the beginning, one seed of it, as also of the flesh of the whole race. "J There seems to be no reason to doubt that this was the common doctrine of the church in that age. Of the depravity resulting from the apostasy, Tertullian says that "evil has possession of the soul, from the vice of origin, derived by nature, be- side that which results from the entrance of the spirit of evil. For, as we may say, corruption of nature is another nature, having its own god and father, the author of the corruption himself; yet so that there still remains good in the soul, — that original, divine and legitimate good which belongs to its very nature. For that which is from God is not so much extinguished as obscured; for it can be obscured, since it is not God, but it cannot be extinguished, because it is from God. Hence, as light, intercepted by any obstacle, remains, although invisible, if the intervening substance be sufficiently dense, — so also the good which is in the soul, overborne by evil, by virtue of its nature, is either wholly in- active, its light being hidden, or, finding liberty, shines where it may. Thus, there are the vile and the holy ; but yet the souls are all of one race. So, too, in the worst there is some good, and in the best some evil; for God only is without sin, and Christ is the only sinless man, because he is also God. . . . Therefore, when a renewed soul acquires faith, by the new birth of water and the power of God, the veil of his former cor- ruption being removed, he sheds abroad all his light. He is al.so per- » De Anima, 23, 25. | Ibid- 25~27- t Ibid> 36' 16 Introduction. vaded by the Holy Spirit, as, from his former nativity, by a profane spirit."* $ 3. Hilary of Poictiers, and Ambrose of Milan. Hilary became bishop of Poictiers, in France, about the year 350. He was one of the most eminent men of the age, and stood conspicuous in his labours against Arian heresy. In his works the doctrine of the apos- tasy is identical with that of Tertullian. In his commentary upon Mat- thew xviii. 12 he says, "By the one sheep, man is to be understood, and (sub homine uno, universitas sentienda est) under the figure of one man is to be recognised the whole human species ; for in the apostasy of the one Adam the entire race of man apostatized. "f Allegorizing our Saviour's parable of the divided house, (Matt. x. 34 and Luke xii. 52,) he says, "Here, therefore, are five dwelling in one house, divided three against two and two against three. But we only find in man three ; that is, body, soul and will. For as the soul is given to the body, so also the power is given to each of employing itself as it will. . . . But, from the sin and unbelief of our first parents to subsequent generations, sin began to be the father of our bodies, and unbelief the mother of our souls ; for from these, through the transgression of our first parents, we receive our origin. But the will is present to all. Therefore, now in one house there are five: sin, the father of the body, unbelief, the mother of the soul, and the authority of the will, which binds the whole man to itself by a kind of conjugal right." J Similar is the doctrine of Ambrose, bishop of Milan from 374 to 397 : — " He, the first sinner of our race, (and, oh that he had been the only one!) before he had sinned, did not perceive himself to be naked, but after he had sinned he saw himself to be so ; and therefore thought to cover him- self with fig-leaves, because he found himself to be naked. He therefore made himself naked when he made himself guilty of crime. In him the whole human condition (omnis humana conditio), was made bare, — obnoxious, by succession of nature, not only to crime, but also to misery. "$ Again, — "Our David confesses himself to have sinned, not in himself alone, but in the first man, when, the divine command was transgressed. . . . Truly, we all have sinned in the first man, and, through the succession of nature, the succession of crime also is trans- fused from the one into all. Against whom, then, have I sinned? Against the Father, or the Son? Truly, against him to whom I was under obligation for that which I sinned in not fulfilling. The command is given to man that he should eat of all that was in the garden, but should not touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam * De Anima, 41. f S. Ilil. Opera. Comnicntarius in Matt. Can. xviii. ed. Parisii 1631, fol. 554. t Ibid. Can. x. fol. 513. 'i Apologia David, posterior, cap. viii. Op. Amb. Lut. Par., 1661, torn. i. fol. 512. Historical Sketch. 17 is in each of us. In him. the human condition fell, hecause sin has passed through the one into all. I see the sum of my debt. I see what an amount of crime I have contracted, whilst I taste the forbidden ami interdicted fruit. I owe compensation for the crime which I have done, since the obligation due to heavenly authority could not preserve an untarnished faith."* Again, in his commentary on Romans v. 12, Am- brose says, " It is manifest that in Adam, as in mass, all sinned. For he, being corrupt through sin, begat all his offspring under sin. By him, therefore, we all are sinners, because we all are of him."f § 4. Doctrine of Pelagius and his associates. The Platonic theory of Origen, as to the pre-existence of the souls of men, and their several apostasy and fall in that pre-existent state, con- stituted a signal departure from the accepted doctrine of the church on the subject of original sin, and prepared the way for subsequent errors. But it was not until a century and a half after his death that the opinions adopted by Pelagius and his associates, Celestius and Julian, and dis- seminated by them with great zeal, gave occasion to that controversy which resulted in the more full exposition and defence of the scriptural doctrine on the. subject. The Pelagian system is stated, with sufficient accuracy for our purpose, by Dr. Wiggers, himself an apologist for those whose doctrine he exhibits, in the following propositions: — " 1. A propagation of sin by generation is by no means to be admitted. This physical propagation of sin can be admitted only when we grant the propagation of the soul by generation. But this is a heretical error. Consequently, there is no original sin ; and nothing in the moral nature of man has been corrupted by Adam's sin. "Besides the passages already quoted, the following may suffice as proof that this was a Pelagian tenet. In his commentary on Romans vii. 8, Pelagius remarks: — 'They are insane who teach that the sin of Adam comes to us (per traducein) by propagation.' In another passage, (which, indeed, is not now to be found in that very interpolated work, — but which Augustine quotes from it, verbatim, — De Pec. Mer. iii. 3,) Pelagius says, 'The soul does not come by propagation, but only the flesh; and so, this only has the propagated sin, and this only deserves punishment. But it is unjust that the soul born to-day, that has not conic from the substance of Adam, should bear so old and extrinsic a sin.' And the Pelagians discarded the propagation of souls by generation, — which seemed to lead to materialism, — and assumed that every soul is created immediately by God. In Pelagius' confession of faith, it is said, 'We believe that souls are given by God ; and say that they are made by himself.' . . . * Apologia David, posterior, cap. xii. fol. 519. f Opera, torn. iii. fol. 269. 2 18 Introduction. "2. Adam's transgression was imputed to himself, but not to his pos- terity. A reckoning of Adam's sin as that of his posterity would con- flict with the divine rectitude. Hence, bodily death is no punishment of Adam's imputed sin, but a necessity of nature. "From the commentary of Pelagius on Romans, Augustine quotes his words thus, (De Pec. Mer. iii. 3,) 'It can in no way be conceded that God, who pardons a man's own sins, may impute to him the sins of another.' In his book ' On Nature,' Pelagius says, ' How can the sin be imputed, by God, to the man, which he has not known as his own ?' — De Nat. et Gr. 30. If God is just, he can attribute no foreign blame to infants. 'Children, so long as they are children, that is, before they do any thing by their own will, cannot be punishable (rei).' — Op. Imp. ii. 42. ' According to the apostle, by one man sin came into the world, and death by sin : because the world has regarded him as a criminal, and as one condemned to perpetual death. But death has come upon all men because the same sentence reaches all transgressors of the succeeding period ; yet neither holy men nor the innocent have had to endure this death, but only such as have imitated him by transgression.' — ii. 66. . . . " 3. Now, as sin itself has no more passed over to Adam's posterity than has the punishment of sin, so every man, in respect to his moral nature, is born in just the same state in which Adam was created. " Augustine quotes (De Nat. et Gr. 21) from Pelagius' book, a passage in which it is said, ' What do you seek ? They [infants] are well for whom you seek a physician. Not only are Adam's descendants no weaker than he, but they have even fulfilled more commands, since he neglected to fulfil so much as one.' In the letter to Demetrius, Pelagius depicts the prerogatives of human nature, without making any dis- tinction between Adam's state before the fall and after it. Take only the description of conscience in the fourth chapter. 'A good conscience itself decides respecting the goodness of human nature. Is it not a testimony, which nature herself gives of her goodness, when she shows her displeasure at evil ? There is in our heart, so to express myself, a certain natural holiness, which keeps watch, as it were, in the castle of the soul, and judges of good and evil.' . . . " But with this Pelagian view of the uncorrupted state of man's nature, the admission of a moral corruption of men, in their present condition, by the continued habit of sinning, stood in no contradiction. This Pe- lagius taught expressly. According to the eighth chapter of his letter to Demetrius, he explicitly admits, that, by the protracted habit of sinning, sin appears in a measure to have gained a dominion over human nature, and, consequently, renders the practice of virtue difficult. 'While na- ture was yet new, and a long-continued habit of sinning had not spread, as it were, a mist over human reason, nature was left without a [written] law; to which the Lord, when it was oppressed by too many vices, and Historical Sketch. 19 stained with the mist of ignorance, applied the file of the law, in order that, by its frequent admonitions, nature might be cleansed again and return to its lustre. And there is no other difficulty of doing well but the long-continued habit of vice, which has contaminated us from youth up, and corrupted us for many years, and holds us afterwards so bound and subjugated to herself that she seems, in a measure, to have the force of nature.' Here Pelagius also mentions the bad education by which we are led to evil. But this habit of sinning, however, affects only adults, and that by their own fault. According to the Pelagian theory, man is born in the same state, in respect to his moral nature, in which Adam was created by God."* § 5. Doctrine of Avgustine. The great antagonist of Pelagius was Augustine. In respect to the fundamental doctrine of the Pelagian system, — on the origin of the soul, he seems never to have assumed a decided position. He, however, con- stantly leaned to the doctrine of its generative origin. Writing to Jerome, who very strongly assailed that view, the bishop of Hippo declares that, "neque orando, neque legendo, neque meditando, neque ratiocinando," neither by prayer, by reading, by meditation, nor by reasoning, was he able, upon the assumption of the immediate creation of souls, to obviate the difficulty concerning the propagation of sin.f In his first book, De Anima et ejus Origine, after a review of the arguments upon which reli- ance was placed to establish the immediate-creation theory, he exclaims, "Let no one, therefore, imagine that, if the doctrine of the propagation of souls be false, it is to be refuted by such arguments ; or, if the position that they are breathed into the bodies immediately by God, be true, that it is to be maintained by such reasoning."! In reference to his correspondence with Jerome on this subject, Augus- tine says, "I wrote two books to Jerome, a presbyter of Bethlehem, — one of them concerning the origin of the soul of man. ... In this I do not solve the question which I propose. He responded, commending (con- sultationem meam) my spirit of investigation, but declaring himself unable immediately to reply to my inquiries. So long as he was in the body I refrained from publishing this book, lest he might yet answer, and it would be better that it be published with his reply. But after his death I published it, so that he who reads it may be admonished either to abstain altogether from inquiry as to the mode in which souls are given to the offspring, or, on a subject certainly very obscure, to admit that solution of the question which is consistent with the most evident facts * An Historical Presentation of Augnstinism and Pelagianism. By Gr. F. Wiggers, D.D. Translated by Rev. R. Emerson: Andover, IS 10, p. 84. f Aug. E[iist. xxviii. ad Hieron. % Aug. De Anima et ejus Orig. lib. i. c. 19. 20 Introduction. which the catholic faith recognises, respecting original sin in infants ; who, unless renewed in Christ, will assuredly perish."* Perhaps the reason of his ambiguity on this subject had reference to the impeachments of the Pelagians, who continually asserted that he was still infected with the Manichean heresy of his youth and cited this doctrine as evidence. On this point he says, of his six books in reply to Julian, that "in the first two, by means of the testimonies of the saints, who, after the apostles, have defended the catholic faith, the impudence of Julian is repelled, who thought to object it against us as a Manichean dogma, because we assert original sin to be derived from Adam, which, by the washing of regeneration, is taken away, not only in adults, but in infants also. To what an extent some of Julian's own sentiments harmo- monize with the Manicheans, I showed in the last part of my first book."f In respect to the apostasy and original sin, the following were the lead- ing points of the doctrine which Augustine vindicated against the Pela- gians : — 1. The whole human nature was created holy in the person of Adam. 2. It was so constituted, in its creation, that any act of sin would bind the nature which caused it in the bondage of depravity, as a natural necessity resulting from the sin. This necessary bondage he designates as the first element in the punishment of sin. 3. Adam was endowed with the generative faculty, by means of which his seed, who were one in him, should receive personal existence, and a several part in the common nature. 4. The transgression of Adam induced the subjection of the whole nature to the bondage of the depravity thus embraced ; which, as it is not caused by any immediate divine interposition, but is the native and proper effect of the sin, is, therefore, not only a punishment of the sin, but an element of the criminality which thenceforth attaches to man's nature. 5. As each of the posterity of Adam receives existence, he with his birth acquires a part in the criminality of the first sin, and in the depra- vity so induced. 6. The sin and depravity thus arising involve Adam and all his pos- terity in the penalty of all earthly calamities, and eternal death ; from which nothing but the redemption of Christ can save. 7. The bondage of sin is such that, as there is no escaping its curse but by the blood of Christ, so there is no freedom from its power but by the transforming Spirit of God. A few extracts will be sufficient to illustrate the views presented by Augustine on these points. In reply to the Pelagians, who urged that (aliena peccata) foreign sins could not be justly imputed to any, he says, * Aug. Retractations, lib. ii. "j" Ibid. Historical Sketch. 21 " Nor are those sins called foreign as though they belonged not at all to infants; since in Adarn all then sinned, inasmuch as his nature was en- dowed with a power of producing those who as yet were (omnes ille unus) all one, to wit, he. But the sins are called foreign, because the posterity were not yet living their own lives ; but whatever was to be in the future offspring, the life of the one man contained. ' But by no means is it to be admitted,' say they, (the Pelagians,) 'that God, who par- dons men's own sins, should impute foreign sins.' He pardons ; but by the Spirit of regeneration, not by the flesh of generation. They were, indeed, foreign, when they, who when propagated were to bear them, did not yet exist ; but now, by carnal generation, they belong to those to whom they have not yet been forgiven through the spiritual regenera- tion."* Equally clear is the statement which we quote on page 490 of the present work. Again, he says; " In respect to the origin of the seed, from which all were to spring, all were in that individual ; and all these are he, none of whom as yet existed individually. According to this seminal origin, Levi is said to have been in the loins of his father Abraham. — When, in respect to his substance, he did not yet exist, still, as respects the relation of seed, it is not falsely nor idly said, that he was there."t " The whole human race (universum genus humanum) which by the woman was to become his offspring, was in the first man, when the pair received the divine sentence of condemnation. And what man was, not by creation, but by sin and punishment, that he begat, so far, at least, as pertains to the origin of sin and death. "J "I have said that sin injures no native but its own; I therefore said it, because he who injures a good man does him in fact no injury, since it really increases his heavenly reward. . . . The Pelagians are ready to pervert this sentiment to the support of their dogma, and to say, that infants therefore cannot be injured by (aliena peccata) the sins of another, because I have asserted sins to injure no nature but their own: not observing that infants, as they pertain to the human nature, therefore contract original sin; because in the first man the human nature sinned, and, hence, it is true that human nature is injured by no sins but its own."£ Great exception was taken by the Pelagians to that feature of the sys- tem of Augustine which represents the bondage of the nature of man to sin as being a punishment of the apostasy ; and the outcry is still re- echoed by the disciples of the Pelagian school. As is usual in such cases, these writers begin by misrepresenting the doctrine which they decry. Dr. "Wiggers states it thus: — "The propagation of Adam's sin among his posterity, is a punishment of the same sin. The sin was the punishment * Aug. de Pec. Mer. lib. iii. 7, 8. f °PUS Imperfcctura, lib. \v. 104. % De Civ. Dei, lib. xiii. 3. I Retract, lib. i. cap. 10. 22 Introduction. of the sin. The corruption of human nature in the whole race, was the righteous punishment of the transgression of the first man, in whom all men already existed."* "The most signal moral punishment of Adam's transgression, was, therefore, the sin itself, or the moral corrup- tion, that passed over to his posterity, by which Adam was also punished in his descendants. . . . But the moral punishment of Adam's sin was also a positive punishment of it. An entire moral ruin of man, did not follow from the nature of Adam's transgression, but God had annexed this to it as a punishment ; and it was made a condition by the prohibition. God punished sin with sin. The sinfulness of the whole human race is penal."f The zeal which this writer displays in charging this as the doc- trine of Augustine, does not compensate for the lack of evidence in its support. What Augustine did teach on this point we shall presently see. That he did not hold the opinion thus attributed to him, — that the race are depraved, not by the natural effect of the sin, but by the positive in- terposition of God, — is sufficiently demonstrated by the very quotations with which Wiggers professes to prove his assertions. — "If Christ is the one in whom all are justified, because not the mere imitation of him makes them just, but grace regenerating by the Spirit ; so is Adam there- fore the one in whom all have sinned, because not the mere imitation of him makes them sinners, but the punishment generating by the flesh. "J "We must distinguish three things: — sin, the punishment of sin, and that which in such manner is sin, that it is at the same time also the punishment of sin. Of the third kind is original sin, which is so sin that it is also the punishment.of sin; which is indeed in children just born, but begins to appear in them as they grow up and have the needful wisdom. Yet the source of this sin descends from the will of him that sinned. For it was Adam ; and in him we all were. Adam perished; and in him we all perished. "$ "By the first pair, so great a sin was committed, that by it human nature was changed for the worse, an obligation (obligatione, a bondage) of sin and a necessity of death being transmitted to posterity." || Such are some of the passages of Au- gustine which Wiggers cites, to prove that he held the depravation of man's nature to have been, not a natural consequence of the apostasy, but a positive infliction from God! Nor have we been able to find any thing more plausible, to justify the charge here considered. Neander, with more candour, states Augustine's doctrines. "Man is already determined within himself by his disposition before he proceeds to act. Evil and good cannot spring from the same root. The good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, nor the evil tree good fruit. The root from which all good proceeds, is love to God ; the root of all evil, is love to self. * Wiggers' Augustinisni and Pelagianism, p. 88. f Ibid. pp. 92, 9.3. J Aug. De Pec. Mer. lib. i. 15. g Opus Iinperfectum, lib. i. 47. || De Civ. Dei, lib. xiv. 1. Historical Sketch. 23 According as man is predominantly actuated by love to God, or love to himself, he brings to pass that which is good, or that which is evil. That [Pelagian] definition of free will, he maintains, cannot apply to God nor to holy beings. It in fact presupposes a corruption of the moral powers, and loses its applicability the more in proportion as man advances farther in moral development, — in proportion as he advances to true freedom. At the highest point of moral advancement, freedom and necessity meet together ; the rational being acts with freedom, in determining himself according to the inward law of his nature. . . . Proceeding on the above- stated conception of freedom, Augustine must believe that he found in the actual appearance of human nature, an opposition to the freedom which was so apprehended ; inasmuch as this true conception of freedom is in this case nowhere applicable. Man uniformly finds himself in a state contradicting this freedom, — in a condition of bondage to sin. Thus this determinate conception of freedom leads Augustine to the presup- position of a corruption of human nature, and of an original moral con- dition which preceded it. And cohering also with this is the thought that, when once this original freedom had been disturbed by the first freely chosen aberration from the law of the original nature, a state of bondage followed after the state of freedom. As human nature, evolving itself in conformity with its condition by nature, surrendering itself to the godlike, becomes continually more confirmed and established in true freedom ; so, in surrendering itself to sin, it becomes continually more involved in the bondage of sin ; to which Augustine frequently applies the words of Christ : ' lie who commits sin is the servant of sin.' Evil is its own punishment, as goodness is its own reward."* Such was the sense in which Augustine represented sin as the punishment of sin. As we have already seen, he denies that it can injure any nature but that of the sinner ; and that the posterity of Adam are only injured by sin, as it was the sin of their nature as well as his. He held the depravity to be penally from God in the sense that the Creator, in making man, so constructed his nature, that the embrace of sin would constitute an en- slaving of the nature to its power, — a slavery growing out of the very nature of sin in its relation to the soul ; and in no sense caused by the interposition of God ; but from which nothing but the power of God is adequate to relieve the soul. In reference to the broad line of distinction which runs between the powers of nature, — the operation of second causes, — and the immediate agency of God, as bearing upon this whole subject, the ground taken by Augustine is clearly defined. "The whole of this ordinary course of nature has certain natural laws of its own, according to which, even the spirit of life, which is a created substance, has its specific appetites, * Neander's Church History, Torrey's translation, vol. ii. p. 602. 24 Introduction. but bounded in a certain way, which even the corrupted will cannot pass. And the elements of this material world have a definite power and quality, — what each one can or cannot do, and what can or cannot be done respecting each. From these, as the primordial sources, all things which are generated take, each in its time, their origin and growth, and the limits and modifications of their respective kinds. Hence it happens that pulse is not produced from wheat, nor wheat from pulse — man from beast, nor beast from man. But, besides this natural movement and course of things, the power of the Creator hath in itself a capacity to do, concerning all these, otherwise than their own (quasi seminales rationes) natural powers can do. Yet neither can that which he has implanted in them, relative to these powers, be exercised independently of him, nor yet does he assert his omnipotence by the exercise of an intrusive, arbi- trary force, but by the power of wisdom ; and, concerning each particular thing, in his own time he does that which he had before created in it a capacity to have done. It is, therefore, a different mode of things by which this plant germinates so, and that in a different way; — this time of life is prolific, and that is not ; — a man can speak, and an animal cannot. The (rationes) efficient causes of these and the like modes of operation are not merely in God, but are also by him implanted and concreated in the things he has made. But that wood, cut from off the earth, dry, polished, without any root, without earth or water, should suddenly flourish and bear fruit, — that a woman, barren in youth, should bear a child in old age, — that an ass should speak, — and whatever there is of this kind, he gave it, indeed, to the natures he created, that these things might take place with them. So that he does not with them what, in creating them, he had made impossible to be done with them; since he is not more powerful than himself. But he constituted things in a distinctive manner, so that they should not have these phenomena in the natural course of things, but in that way, for which they were thus so created, that their nature should be fully subject to a more powerful will. God, therefore, has in himself the hidden causes of certain acts, which causes he has not implanted in the things he has made; and these causes he puts in opera- tion, not in that work of providence by which he creates natures as they are, but in that by which he manages, after his pleasure, the things which, according to his pleasure, he made. And here is the grace by which sinners are saved. For, as it respects nature, depraved by its own cor- rupted will, it has in itself no return, except by God's grace, whereby it is aided and restored. Nor need men despair by reason of that saying, — Prov. ii. 19, — ' None who walk in it shall return ;' for it was spoken of the burden of their iniquity, in order that whoever returns should attribute his return, not to himself, but to the grace of God — 'not of works, lest any should boast.' Therefore the apostle speaks of the mystery of this grace as hidden, — not in this world, in which are hidden Historical Sketch. 25 the causal reasons of all things which arise naturally, as Levi was hid in the loins of Abraham, but in God, who created all things."* In respect to God's sovereign relation to sin, he declares that "Some things God both produces and ordains ; others he only produces. The holy he both produces and ordains ; but sinners, so far forth as they are sinners, he does not produce, but only ordains. "f And, with a still more specific reference to the present point, he says, in respect to the language of Paul in Romans ix. 18-20, " We seek for the meritorious cause of the hardening, and we find it ; for (peccatiuniversamassadamnataest) the whole lump of sin is condemned, deservedly. Nor does God harden by impart- ing depravity, but by not imparting mercy ; for they to whom it is not imparted are neither worthy nor deserving of it, but rather, that it should not be imparted, of this they are worthy, this they have deserved. But we seek for the merit of mercy, and do not find it, for there is none; else grace is made void, if rendered to merit, and not freely bestowed. "J That the doctrine of Augustine, in opposition to the Pelagian heresy, was that of the catholic church, and not a new invention of the bishop of Hippo, as is asserted by Wiggers and the apologists of Pelagius, is mani- fest from facts which that writer himself records: — the secrecy of the first proceedings of the Pelagians; the prevarications and falsehoods with which, when brought to trial, they veiled their opinions; and the unani- mous condemnation which those opinions received, even from those synods who, misled by the duplicity of Pelagius and his associates, acquitted them of the charge of holding the obnoxious sentiments. It is further evident from the universal acceptance which was accorded to the teachings of Augustine on the subject, and to the decrees of those synods and councils by which Pelagianism was condemned. I 6. The Mcdiccval Theology. It is not our design to trace, in detail, the history of opinion on the present subject during the middle ages. Nominally, the theology of Augustine was universally received by the church of Rome. But, in reality, the growing corruption of that church produced some essential changes in this as well as the other doctrines of religion. About the beginning of the twelfth century, the Nominal philosophy, introduced by Rosceline and extensively adopted, combined with other causes to give a powerful impulse to Pelagian tendencies. According to the philosophy which prevailed prior to the rise of this sect, such universal conceptions as those of species, genera, and nature have, as their ground, some kind of objective realities. They are not the mere result of thought, but have, in some proper sense, a real existence, and lie, as essences, at the base of the existence of all individuals and particulars. From the Stoical * Dc Genesi ad Literam, lib. ix. 17. 18. f De Genesi ad Lit. lib. i. v. \ Epist. 105, iii. Op. Aug., Parisii ed. 1836, Ep. 191, jj 14. 26 Introduction. philosophy, Rosceline introduced the opposite doctrine, — that only indi- viduals have any real existence. General conceptions are the mere result of logical combinations of thought. They are but abstractions, which have no objective significance. They are mere names, and not things. Hence the designation of Nominalists, by which this sect of philosophers is distinguished. In Rosceline himself the skeptical tend- ency of the Nominal theory developed itself in questions and contro- versies respecting the personality of the Three who subsist in the divine Essence, and the nature of that Essence, — which do not fall within our present inquiry. His most eminent disciple, Abelard, who was also the great expositor of the new philosophy, illustrates, in his writings, its bearing upon the subject of original sin. Rejecting the Augustinian doc- trine of a universal human nature which was in the first man, he was constrained to reject with it the whole doctrine of original sin peculiar to that system. Hence, he expounds Romans v. 12 as meaning no more than that the sin of Adam involves his children in the punishment, but not in the guilt ; and by the word, sin, understands that, not the crime, but the penalty, is, by metonymy, designated. "He could not cast off the theory that all continued subject to those punishments that had passed upon them from Adam; and, indeed, in order to free himself from it, it would have been necessary for him to assume an entirely different posi- tion towards the church doctrine of his time, and to make a far more thorough and resolute application of the thoughts which he had expressed. But, resolved as he was to hold fast on the above determinations of the church doctrine, while he refused at the same time to acknowledge the catholic doctrine concerning original guilt and sin, it could not be otherwise than that, from his own point of view, which would not allow him to acknowledge the mysterious connection between the develop- ment of the entire race and original sin, God must appear only so much the more as a being who acted arbitrarily and unjustly. Thus he was driven from rationalism to the most abrupt supernaturalism, falling back, as the last resort, upon the unlimited will of the Creator, who may dispose of his creatures according to his own pleasure. He thinks that those who are punished without any guilt of their own can no more complain, than the brutes which God has appointed for the service of man, can enter into judgment with him. He goes to the extreme of making the distinction of right and wrong to depend on the divine will;* a representation which, it is evident, directly contradicts his doctrine of God's omnipotence."! * " Hac ratione profiteor, quoquomoclo Deus creaturam suam tractare velit, nullius injuriae potest argui. Nee malum aliquo modo potest diei, quod juxta ejus voluntatem fiat. Non enim aliter bonum a malo diseernere possumus, nisi quod ejus est consen- taneum voluntati et in placito ejus consistit." — Lib. ii. p. 595. f Neander, vol. iv. p. 494. Historical Sketch. 27 In the midst of surrounding developments of error, Odo, or Udardus, of Tour-nay, a contemporary of Abelard, exhibits an illustrious example of the lingering power of Augustine ; as he was, also, of the fervent piety which occasionally shone amid the shadows of the " dark ages." At first a teacher of the realistic philosophy, in the cathedral school at Tournay, he was attended by crowds of enthusiastic pupils from France, Germany and the Netherlands. In his school, engaging in the exposi- tion of Augustine's work De Libero Arbitrio, he came to a passage which sets forth the wretched condition of those whose souls are devoted to earthly pursuits, to the forfeiture of heavenly glory. Applying the argument to himself and his ambitious scholars, so greatly was he moved by his own expostulations, that, bursting into tears, he rose from the chair, and, followed by a number of his pupils, went forth to the church, where he devoted himself to the pursuit of those higher honours which come from God. He became as eminent for piety and zeal in defence of the gospel, as formerly in the walks of philosophy ; and was, suc- cessively, abbot of St. Martin of Tours, and, in 1105, chosen bishop of Cambray. Among his writings are three books on original sin, from which a paragraph will serve to exhibit the thoroughly Augustinian tone of his theology: — "What is the difference between native and personal sin? For sin. is spoken of in two modes, — as natural and personal. That is natural with which we are born, which we derive from Adam, in whom we all sinned. For in him was my soul, — generically, and not personally ; not individu- ally, but in the common nature. For the common nature of all human souls was, in Adam, involved in sin. And therefore every human soul is criminal, as to its nature; although not so personally. Thus the sin which we sinned in Adam, to me indeed is a sin of nature, but in him a personal sin. In Adam it is more criminal, in me less so ; for in him, it was not I who now am, but that which I am, that sinned. There sinned in him. not I, but this which is I. I sinned as (generically) man, and not as Odo. My substance sinned, but not my person ; and since the sub- stance does not exist otherwise than in a person, the sin of my substance attaches to my person, although not a personal sin. For a personal sin is such as, — not that which I am, — but I who now am, commit, — in which Odo, and not humanity, sins, — in which I a person, and not a nature, sin. But inasmuch as there is no person without a nature, the sin of a person is also the sin of a nature, although it is not a sin of nature."* * It is impossible to render into English the terseness and perspicuity of the original. "Quid distat naturale peccatum et personale? Dicitur enim duobus modis peceatum personale et naturale. Et naturale est cum quo nascimur, et quod ab Adam trahimus, in quo omnes peccavimus. In ipso enim erat animamea, specie non persona, non in- dividua sed comrauni natura. Nam omnis humanas aninias natura communis erat in Adam obnoxia peccato. Et ideo omnis humana anima culpabilis est secundam suam 28 Introduction. Other causes combined with the Nominal philosophy to corrupt the doctrines concerning man's nature and original sin. We have seen that Augustine warns his readers, that in respect to the origin of the soul they should either be content to leave the question undiscussed, or adopt the theory of natural propagation, as alone consistent with the scriptural doctrine of our relation to Adam. The schoolmen, however, accepted neither branch of the alternative of Augustine, but, on the contrary, adopted the theory of immediate creation; and the subtleties of the scholastic dialectics were employed in the construction of a system in harmony with this theory, and yet maintaining the semblance of con- sistency with the Augustinian teachings on the subject of original sin. The doctrine respecting the nature of man was also essentially modified. The distinction of bona naturalia and bona gratuita was introduced. Accord- ing to one form of this theory, the first man was endowed with all the natural powers of the soul in full vigour and purity, and a will free and uncorrupt. By the right use of these powers, he was capable of continu- ing in the untarnished integrity of his original estate. But in order to positive righteousness, — to which these natural powers were altogether inadequate, — in order to the accomplishing of any thing which should be positively good, and constitute the perfect likeness of God, he must be invested with supernatural and special gifts of divine grace. This special grace was not bestowed at first ; but reserved until, by the right use of his natural powers, man should have qualified himself for the reception of it, and merited in a certain sense its bestowal. By Thomas Aquinas and the Dominicans, this opinion was so far modi- fied, that they held the distinction between the state of pure nature and that resulting from the superaddition of special grace, to be, indeed, just, forasmuch as original righteousness was not of the nature of man, but consequent upon the special and supernatural aid of divine grace, with- out which its attainment was impossible. But they taught that this special grace was at the beginning bestowed upon man ; so that he was endowed with original righteousness from the first. The difference, however, be- tween the two theories is more apparent than real, even upon this point; since Thomas held it as the most probable opinion that man was created in a state of pure nature, but endowed with powers which were necessa- rily active; and, having been created with a heavenward direction, he naturaui, etsi non secundum suam personam. Ita peccatum quo peccavimus in Adam, mini quidam naturale est, in Adam vero personate. In Adam gravius; levius in me; nam peccavi in eo, non qui sum sed quod sum. Peccavi in eo, non ego, sed hoc, quod sum ego. Peccavi homo, non Odo. Peccavi substantia, non persona: et quia sub- stantia non est nisi in persona, peccatum substantia est etiam persona}, sed non per- sonate. Peccatum vero personate est quo facio ego qui sum, non hoc quod sum; quo pecco Odo, non homo; quo pecco persona, non natura; sed quia persona non est sine natura, peccatum persona? est etiam natura;, sed non naturale." — Biblioth. Vet. Pat. vol. xxi. p. 233, in Beecher's Conflict of Ages, p. 319. Historical Sketch. 29 instantly turned to God, and attained to the possession of supernatural grace and original righteousness. According, however, to either branch of this theory, the whole doctrine of original sin is essentially modified. By the first transgression, man was not divested of natural goodness, nor a real and positive depravity superinduced. Only the supernatural grace, and, by consequence, original righteousness, was taken away, and the natural powers, the bona naluralia, were disordered. "Habit," says Aquinas, "is twofold. There is one in which a power is inclined to action, as knowledges and virtues are habits ; and in this sense original sin is not a habit. In another sense, habit, designates (dispositio alicujus naturae) an arrangement of any nature which is composed of several things, according to which (bene se habet, vel male) it is characterized by excellence, or the reverse ; and especially when such an arrangement so bears, as it were, upon the nature that it constitutes disorder or soundness. And in this sense original sin is a habit; for it is a certain disorderly arrangement, resulting from the dis- solution of that harmony, in which consisted the principle of original righteousness; — as, also, bodily sickness is a disorderly arrangement of the body, by which is destroyed the equilibrium in which consists the principle of health ; whence also original sin is called a languor of the nature. To the question, therefore, whether original sin is a habit merely, it is to be answered, that as bodily sickness has something privative, as the equilibrium of health is taken away, and something positive, to wit, the humours occupying disorderly relations, — so original sin has the pri- vation of original righteousness, and with this a disorderly arrangement of the parts of the soul. Hence, it is not a thing merely privative ; but is also a sort of corrupt habit."* "Well might Luther say, of this doctrine, that, "as it takes from the magnitude of original sin, it is to be shunned as a deadly poison." Out of the former branch of the theory — cherished by the Franciscans, the advocates of the Nominal philosophy — was at length developed the Molina- Pelagian ism of the Jesuits, — the theology which is now dominant in the church of Rome. The theory of Aquinas is reproduced in those Protest- ant writers who, by means of the distinctions of pure, impure and not- pure, as applied to the soul of man, attempt to reconcile the assertion of its immediate creation with the fact of its actual depravity. | 7. The earlier Reformed Confessions. The first Basle confession, 1532. "We confess man, at the first, to have been made wholly after the image of God, in righteousness and holiness. But (sua sponte) by his own will he fell into sin ; by which fall the whole human race is become cor- rupt, and subject to damnation. * S. Thorn. Aquin. Sum. Theol, Pars prima secundae, Qu. lxxxii. 1. 30 Introduction. "Our nature is also vitiated, and has acquired such a tendency to sin, that, unless renewed by the Holy Spirit, man can of himself neither do nor will any thing good." The second Basle or first Helvetic confession, 1536. " Man, when he had been created by a holy God the perfect image of God upon earth, having precedence over all the visible creatures, and con- sisting of soul and body, of which the latter was mortal, the former im- mortal, (sua culpa in vitium prolapsus,) by his own crime falling into de- pravity, drew with him in the same ruin the whole human race, and rendered it obnoxious to the same calamity. "This plague, which they call, original, has so pervaded the whole human race that the child of wrath and enemy of God can be recovered by no power but that of God, through Christ. For, if any good fruit sur- vives, it is continually enfeebled by our vices, and turned to corruption ; for the power of evil prevails, and neither permits men to yield to the guidance of reason nor to cultivate (mentis divinitatem) the likeness of God in the soul." The Gallic confession, attributed to Calvin, 1560. " We believe man, who was created pure and upright and in the likeness of God's image, by his own crime, to have apostatized from the grace which he had received, and thus to have alienated himself from God, the fountain of all righteousness and every good thing ; so that his nature is altogether corrupt, and he, blinded, in understanding and depraved in heart, has lost every feature of that (original) excellence, without the least exception. For, although he has some power of choice between good and evil, yet we affirm whatever light is in him immediately to become darkness when he engages in seeking after God; so that, by his own understanding and reason, he can by no means come to him. Yea, although he is endowed with a will, by which he is moved in one direction or another, yet, as it is entirely under bondage to sin, he has absolutely no liberty for the pursuit of that which is good, unless, by grace, he receive it from the gift of God. "We believe the whole of Adam's posterity to be infected with this contagion, which we call original sin; — that is, (vitium,) a vice flowing from propagation, and not arising from imitation merely, as the Pela- gians suppose, — all the errors of whom we detest. Nor do we think it necessary to inquire how it is possible for this sin to be propagated from one to another. It is enough that those endowments which God bestowed upon Adam were given, not to him alone, but to all his posterity ; and, hence, that we, in his person, were spoiled of all those gifts, and fell under all this misery and curse. "We believe this vice to be (vere peccatum) truly sin, which renders each and every one of the human race, unborn infants not excepted, subject, at the bar of God, to eternal death. We further assert this vice Historical jSketch. 31 to be, even after baptism, truly sin, (quod attinet ad culpam,) which constitutes a crime, although they who are sons of God are not, therefore, condemned ; and that, because, out of his gratuitous goodness and mercy, God does not impute it to them. We further declare this depravity always to bring forth some fruits of wickedness and rebellion ; so that even they who excel in holiness, although they resist its power, yet are defiled with many shortcomings and sins, as long as they remain in this world." The First Scotch confession, 1560. " We confess and acknowledge this our God to have created man, to wit, our first father Adam, to his own image and similitude ; to whom he gave wisdom, lordship, justice, free will, and clear knowdedge of himself; so that, in the whole nature of man, there could be noted no imperfec- tion ; from which honour and perfection, man and woman did both fall. The woman being deceived by the serpent, and man obeying the voice of the woman ; both conspiring against the sovereign majesty of God, who, in express words, had before threatened death, if they presumed to eat of the forbidden tree. " By which transgression,— commonly called original sin, — was the image of God utterly defaced in man, and he and his posterity of nature became enemies to God, slaves to Satan, and servants to sin ; insomuch that death everlasting hath had, and shall have, power and dominion over all that have not been, are not, or shall not be regenerated from above : which regeneration is wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost, working, in the hearts of the elect of God, an assured faith in the pro- mise of God revealed to us in his word ; by which faith we apprehend Christ Jesus, with the graces and benefits promised in him."* Articles of the church of England, 1502. " Art. IX. Of original or birth sin. — Original sin standeth not in the follow- ing of Adam, as the Pelagians do vainly talk, but is the fault and corrup- tion of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteous- ness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit, and, therefore, in every person born into this wyorld, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, — yea, in them that are regenerated, — whereby the lust of the flesh, called, in Greek, [>6vn/ia oapubr, — which some do expound, the wisdom, some the sensuality, some the affections, some the desire of the flesh, — is not subject to the law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized, yet the apostle doth confess that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin." The Belgic confession, 15G2. " We believe God to have made man of the dust of the ground, after * Confessions of public authority in the church of Scotland, Glasgow, 1771, p. 28. 32 Introduction. his image, that is, good, righteous and holy ; who was able, (proprio ar- bitrio) of himself, to regulate his own will, and conform it to the will of God. But, when he was in honour, he knew it not, and did not recog- nise his own good ; but, (seipsum sciens et volens,) following his own mind and will, he enslaved himself to sin, and, by consequence, to death and the curse ; whilst, giving heed to the words and deceptions of the devil, he transgressed the law of life which he received from the Lord, and immediately apostatized and alienated himself from God, his true life, — his nature being altogether vitiated and corrupted by sin. Thus it came to pass that he has rendered himself obnoxious to death, corporeal and spiritual. Therefore, having become evil and perverse, and corrupt in all his ways and plans, he lost all those excellent gifts with which God had adorned him ; so that there is nothing of them left, unless it be the feeblest ray and most slender traces, which, however, are sufficient to render men inexcusable, because whatever of light is in us, is turned into thick darkness, as also the Scripture teaches, saying, ' The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.' For, there, John evidently calls men, darkness. Therefore, what- ever opinions are held respecting the freedom of man's will, we de- servedly reject, since he is the servant of sin, and man can, of himself, do nothing unless it is given him from heaven. Who then will dare to boast himself to be able to do whatever he chooses, when Christ himself has said, ' No one can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him'? Who will hold up his own will, when he hears that all the affections of the flesh are enmity against God ? Who will glory in his own understanding, who knows the natural man to be incapable of knowing the things of the Spirit? In short, who will bring forward even any of his own thoughts, that understands that we are not fit, as of ourselves, to think any thing, but all our sufficiency is of God ? AYhat the apostle says, must therefore remain sure and immovable : — ' It is God who worketh in us, both to will and to do, of his good pleasure.' For no mind, no will, acquiesces in the will of God, upon which Christ himself has not first operated; which he also declares, saying, 'Without me ye can do nothing.' " We believe the sin which is called, original, to have been scattered and diffused, by the disobedience of Adam, through the entire human species. This original sin is a corruption of the whole nature, and a hereditary vice, by which even infants are defiled in the womb ; and which, as some poisonous root, generates every sort of sin in man ; and it is so vile and detestable before God, that it suffices for the condemnation of the whole race. Nor are we to suppose that it is altogether removed, or pulled up by the root, by baptism ; since from it, as from a corrupt spring, unceasing waves and streams arise and continually flow abroad. Yet to the sons of God, it may not be charged nor imputed to condem- nation ; but, of the mere grace and mercy of God, it is remitted to them ; Historical Sketch. 33 not that, relying upon this remission, they may slumber; but that, by the sense of this corruption, pai'don may excite continual groans in believers, and that thereby they may the more ardently desire to be freed from this body of death. Hence, we condemn the error of the Pelagians, who assert this sin of origin to be nothing else than the effect of imitation." The latter Helvetic confession, 15G5. "Man was made in the beginning in the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness, good and upright; but by the subtlety of the serpent, and his own crime, falling from goodness and rectitude, he became ob- noxious to sin, death and various calamities. And such as he became by the fall, such are they who are begotten of him, obnoxious to sin, death and various calamities. Now, sin we understand to be that native corruption of man, from those our first parents, derived or propagated in us all; by which, immersed in depraved lusts, and averse from good, but propense to all evil, full of all unrighteousness, unbelief, contempt and hatred of God, we are not able, of ourselves, to do, or even to think, any thing good. Nay, rather, in thoughts, words and deeds, depraved and at variance with the law of God, we continually bring forth corrupt fruit, appropriate to the evil tree. By reason whereof, through our desert ex- posed to the wrath of God, we are subjected to just punishment; so that we had all been cast off from God, had not Christ the Redeemer brought us back. " By death, therefore, we do not understand merely bodily death, which on account of sin is once to be endured by us all, but also the eternal punish- ment which is due to our sins and corruption. For the aj)Ostle says, Eph. ii., 'We were dead in trespasses and sins, and were by nature the chil- dren of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ.' So Bom. v. 12. As by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed to all men, (in quo omnes peccaverunt,) in whom all sinned. . . . We, moreover, condemn Florinus and Blastus against whom also Irenasus wrote; and all who make God the author of sin. For it is expressly written, Psalm t., 'Thou art not a God that hath plea- sure in wickedness. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing.' And again, John viii., 'When the devil speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it.' But in us ourselves there is enough of vice and corruption, so that it is not necessary that God should infuse into us any new or greater de- pravity. Therefore, when God is said in the Scriptures to harden, to blind, and to deliver over to a reprobate mind, it is to be understood that God does it in just retribution as a righteous judge and avenger. Fur- thermore, as often as God, in the Scriptures, is said and appears to do any evil, it is not therefore said, because man is not the doer of the evil, 3 34 Introduction. but because, in his righteous judgment, God, who is able if he willed to prevent it, permits it to be done, and does not prevent it; either because by the wickedness of man he accomplishes good, as by the sins of Jo- seph's brethren ; or because he may restrain the sins, so that they shall not break out and go beyond what is fitting. St. Augustine says in his Enchiridion, ' In a wonderful and ineffable manner, that is not done con- trary to his will, which nevertheless is contrary to his will. For it could not take place, did not he permit it to be done. Nor yet does he permit it unwillingly, but willing to do so. Nor would a good God permit evil to occur, unless the omnipotent One were able out of evil to accomplish good.' Thus speaks Augustine. The other questions, — Whether God willed the fall of Adam, or impelled him to his fall? or, Why he did not prevent the fall? and such questions, we leave to the inquisitive, knowing that the Lord prohibited man to eat of the forbidden fruit, and punished the transgression ; and yet what was done was not evil with respect to the providence, will and power of God ; but only with respect to our will and that of Satan, repugnant to the will of God." \ 8. Continental Divines of the Reformed church. Those above, are the most important of the earlier Eeformed confes- sions ; with which the others, and the Lutheran formularies and writers, are in perfect harmony. But our space will not permit their insertion. The fact cannot have failed to strike the reader that in no one of these confessions of the Reformed church is the line of demarcation drawn between original sin imputed and original sin inherent. The same man- ner of presentation is characteristic of the writings of Calvin, the master spirit of the Reformed church, whose influence was paramount from an early period of his ministry, and entered decisively into the construction of all the principal Reformed confessions. So strongly are the writings of Calvin characterized by the inseparable combination of the two ele- ments of original sin, — so invariably does he recognise the depravity of man, as the terminus ad quern, — the immediate effect of the first act of transgression, in the entire nature of man, — that occasion has thence been taken to deny that the Genevan reformer held the doctrine of the impu- tation to us of Adam's sin. But the candid reader, who will carefully examine the writings of the illustrious reformer, will find that he dis- tinctly and habitually recognises and earnestly asserts it ; — but that in speaking of it he is ever actuated by an anxiety to guard against the supposition, that we are condemned by an arbitrary putation of a merely extraneous act, personal to Adam; instead of justly suffering for the intrinsic guilt and depravity, which, with our being, flow to us from him, — the idea that the first transgression may justly be designated, after the manner of the Pelagians, (alienum peccatum) a foreign sin. Hence the way in which he associates the two elements in original Historical /Sketch. 35 sin, in his Institutes, and elsewhere. Thus he speaks of "that hereditary corruption, which the fathers called original sin ; meaning by- sin the depravation of a nature previously good and pure; on which subject they had much contention, nothing being farther from carnal apprehension than that all should be made guilty by the crime of one, and so the sin be made common ; which seems to have been the reason why the most ancient doctors of the church do but glance at this point, or at least explained it with less perspicuity than it required. Yet this timidity could not prevent Pelagius arising; who profanely pretended that the sin of Adam only ruined himself, and did not injure his de- scendants. By concealing the disease with this delusion, Satan sought to render it incurable. But when it was evinced by the plain testimony of the scripture, that sin was communicated from the first man to all his posterity, he sophistically urged that it was communicated by imitation, not by propagation. Therefore good men, and beyond all others Augus- tine, have laboured to demonstrate that we are not corrupted by any adventitious means ; but that we derive an innate depravity from our very birth."* Here, Calvin, in the first part of the passage, has in view tin- act of apostasy — "the depravation of a nature previously good," — "the crime of one," which is a "sin common" to all. But as he pro- ceeds lie glides into the other aspect of the subject; and ends with native depravity. The same tiling occurs in the next section, where he very clearly indicates the subject of which he speaks, as being the act of Adam's apostasy. This appears from the contrast which he draws be- tween it and the righteousness by which we are justified. And yet much of what he says on the subject is only predicable of inherent depravity. In fact, the same remark applies to the entire argument contained in the chapter. A few additional citations will set the doctrine of Calvin in a clear light. " In the first epistle to the Corinthians, with a view to confirm the pious in a confidence of the resurrection, he [Paul] shows that the life which had been lost in Adam was recovered in Christ. He who pro- nounces that we are all dead in Adam, does also, at the same time, declare that we are implicated in the crime of the sin, (labe peccati ;) for no condemnation could reach those who were not attainted with any crime, (nulla iniquitatis culpa attingerentur.) But his meaning cannot be better understood than from the relation of the other member of the sentence, where he informs us that the hope of life is restored by Christ. But that is well known to be accomplished only when Christ, by a wonderful communication, transfuses into us the virtue of his righteous- ness; as it is elsewhere said, The Spirit is life, because of righteous- ness."! " It is of importance to point out, here, two distinctions between Christ * Calvin's Institutes, Bouk II. eh. i. 5. f Ibid. 6. 36 Introduction. and Adam. . . . The first is, that, in Adam's sin we are not condemned by a bare imputation, as though the punishment of another's sin were exacted of us, but we therefore endure his punishment, because we are also guilty of the crime, inasmuch as our nature, vitiated in him, is held guilty of iniquity by God. But Christ's righteousness restores to salva- tion by another method ; for it is not accepted of God, because it is intrinsically in us, but the bounty of the Father makes us possess Christ himself, who is bestowed uj)on us with all his blessings." We are aware that these expressions of Calvin have been explained as meaning that we therefore endure the punishment of Adam's sin because we are guilty of native depravity. This was the subterfuge under which Placaeus sought to evade the condemnation of his heresy. But the lan- guage does not, we think, admit of this interpretation. It seems to be unambiguous: — "We therefore endure Adam's punishment (pcenam ejus) because we are guilty of the crime, since our nature, vitiated in him, is held guilty of iniquity by God." It is the apostasy, the vitiating of nature, and not the consequent dej^ravity, which is described; and the whole matter of which Calvin speaks is specifically limited to the action of Adam's sin. It is, in peccato Adcc, that he says we are condemned and punished, because, culpa sumus rei. — "Prior est, quod, in peccato Ada?, non per solam imputationem damnamur, acsi alieni peccati exigeretur a nobis poena; sed ideo pcenam ejus sustinemus, quia et culpse sumus rei, quatenus scilicet natura nostra in ipso vitiata, iniquitatis reatu abstringitur apud Deum."* On this subject the language of Ursinus is very clear: — " Truly, we all justly bear the punishment of Adam's crime, — 1. Because the crime is so Adam's as to be ours also. For we all sinned in Adam's sinning, because we were all in the loins of Adam. 2. Because we all, with our nature, receive the crime of Adam, we approve of it, we imitate it. ' Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?' 3. Since the whole nature of Adam was guilty, and we are propagated from his mass, it is impossible that we should not also be guilty: — 'We are all, by nature, children of wrath.' 4. Adam received his gifts from God under this law: — that he should impart them to us, if he kept them himself, or destroy them alto- gether, if he failed to retain them. Inasmuch, therefore, as he lost them, he lost them not for himself alone, but for all his posterity."f "The first sin," says Marck, "considered in its extent, was as noxious and evil, as in its nature; for it subjected the whole race of man to guilt J * Calvin on Romans v. 17. f Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism, Question vii. Edition of 1634, p. 46. J In what sense Marck uses the word, reatus, (guilt,) in this place, may be seen not only from his definition elsewhere given, but by the language of his next section, where, alluding to the doctrine of propagated guilt, here stated, he says, "Neither is Christ, therefore, subject to the same guilt, (reatui.)" Historical Sketch. 37 and eternal condemnation from God, and that by the dispensation of justice, although the Socinians and Arminians refer it altogether to the sovereignty of God. For, as Adam received the image of God, not for himself alone, but for his seed, so he sinned, not for himself alone, but for us all ; because we all were in him, as the branches in the root, the lump in the first fruits, the members in the head ; and, therefore, we may invert the axiom of Paul. 'For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy ; and if the root be holy, so are the branches.' — Kom. xi. 16. Where- fore it is said that 'in Adam all die.' — 1 Cor. xv. 22. And especially what the apostle has in Rom. v. 12, — 'By one man sin entered the world/ &c, — leads directly to the same conclusion. If «/>' h be taken in a causative sense — 'for that,' — it is not possible that sin and death should pervade the world through the sin of one man. if his crime was not, in the same sense, common to all; or, it maybe rather rendered subjectively for, 'in which, (man,)' as it is not uncommon to use inl for h, as appears in Mark xi. 4 and Ileb. ix. 17 ; — which interpretation, the other being rejected, is con- stantly adopted by Augustine against the Pelagians, who sought cover in the other rendering ; and, since this transgression was not merely personal, as were those which followed it, but common, and, in a sense, belonging to the nature, it hence appears that the dogma of the Pelagians and Remonstrants is to be rejected, — that 'the sin of Adam was so alien to us that it could not be called ours;' for by God it could not be imputed to us justly, unless it was in some manner ours, since 'the soul that sinneth, it shall die.' — Ezek. xviii. 4."* I 9. The Synod of Dort, 1618. In the beginning of the Arminian controversy, the Remonstrants so veiled their sentiments, on the subject of original sin, under ambiguous forms of expression, as to seem in harmony with the Reformed confes- sions. In the declaration or confession which they laid before the Synod of Dort, they say : — " Inasmuch as Adam was (stirps et radix) the germ and root of the whole human race, he therefore involved and implicated not himself only, but also, together with himself, all his posterity, who (quasi in lumbis ipsius conclusi erant) existed as it were in his loins, and were to proceed from him by natural generation, in the same death and miseries; so that all men, without any distinction, our Lord Jesus Christ only excepted, by this one sin of Adam, are deprived of that primitive felicity, and destitute of true righteousness, which is necessaiy to the obtaining of eternal salvation, and are therefore born subject to that death which we have mentioned, and also to many present miseries. And this is commonly called, original sin."f * Marekii Medulla, Locus vi. 36. f Confcs. Remonst. cap. vii. \ 4, in Op. Episcopii, Roterodami, 1G65, vol. ii. 38 Introduction. On this subject, the Synod says, " 1. Man, from the beginning, was created in the image of God, adorned in his mind with the true and saving knowledge of his Creator and of spiritual things, with righteousness in his will and heart, and purity in all his affections, and thus was altogether holy; but, by the instigation of the devil and his own free will, revolting from God, he bereaved himself of these inestimable gifts, and on the contrary, in their place, contracted in himself blindness, horrible darkness, and perversity of judgment, in the mind ; malice, rebellion, hardness, in the will and heart ; and, finally, impurity in all his affections. "2. And such as man was before the fall, such children also he begat; namely, being corrupted, corrupt ones, — corruption having been derived from Adam to all his posterity, (Christ only excepted,) not by imitation, as the Pelagians formerly would have it, but by the propagation of a vicious nature, through the just judgment of God. "3. Therefore all men are conceived in sin and born the children of wrath, indisposed (inepti) to all saving good, propense to evil, dead in sins, and the slaves of sin: and, without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit, they neither are willing nor able to return to God, to correct their depraved nature, or to dispose themselves to the correction of it."* In respect to the confession of the Remonstrants, Turrettin remarks that "at first they spake ambiguously, so that it was uncertain what posi- tion they assumed. But afterward, in their Apology, chapter vii., they plainly show themselves to favour the Socinians, retaining, indeed, the name of imputation, but taking away the thing itself, whilst they declare 'the sin of Adam to be imputed by God to his posterity: not ns though he held them to be really guilty of the same sin and crime with Adam, but as he willed them to be born, subject to the same evil to which Adam rendered himself obnoxious by sin.' "f The following is the language of the Apology here alluded to, which was published by the Remonstrants, in reply to a review of their Confession by four of the divines of Leyden: — "In the fourth section the censor complains that the Eemonstrants set forth their opinion on original sin ambiguously ; for when they say that ' by this one sin of Adam his posterity are all deprived of that primitive felicity and true righteousness,' &c, they do not mean the sin of Adam to have been imputed so to his posterity, as that in Adam (in culpa fue- runt) they were parties to the crime, &c. This is rashly asserted. The Remonstrants have never said that they 'did not so mean; nor are the citations from Arminius and Corvinus sufficient to prove it, nor to be ascribed to all the Remonstrants. But neither the Scriptures nor any reason requires that they should say this. They confess that the sin of * Scott's Hist. Synod of Dort. Prcsb. Board of Pub., p. 292. f Turrettini Institutiones Theol., Locus IX. Qu. ix. 3. Historical Sketch. 39 Adam may be said to be imputed by God to his posterity, so far forth as God willed the posterity of Adam to be born obnoxious to the same evil to which Adam rendered himself liable by sin ; or, in so far as God per- mitted, the evil which was inflicted upon Adam, as punishment, should flow and pass over to his posterity. But nothing renders it necessary for us to say the sin of Adam to be so imputed to his posterity, as if God really considered the posterity of Adam guilty with Adam of the same sin and crime which Adam committed. Yea, neither the Scriptures nor the truth, wisdom nor goodness of God, the nature of sin, nor the prin- ciples of justice and equity, permit that they should represent the sin of Adam to have been so imputed to his posterity. The Scriptures testify God to have threatened the punishment to Adam alone, and to have inflicted it upon Adam only. The divine goodness, truth and wisdom, do not permit that (alienum peccatum alteri proprie imputet) the sin of another should be imputed to one as personally his own, or that that should be imputed (ut proprie) as a personal thing, which was not com- mitted by one's own will. It is contrary to justice and equity that any one should become guilty on account of a sin not his own ; that he should be judged truly criminal who, as to his own will, is innocent, or, rather, is not criminal. . . . "Similar is the next thing which the censor says, 'Nor by the priva- tion of true righteousness do they mean any thing to remain in each of the children of Adam, before his own personal action, which is truly to be called sin.' It is so ; for who of a sound mind will believe that by the privation of original righteousness there remains any sin distinct both from that privation, which itself is held to be sin, and from that sin on account of which the privation takes place? He is insane who is willing to admit such a privation. 'But this,' he says, 'is nothing else than to deny origi- nal sin altogether, and only to recognise a punishment of sin, — by which, even in his posterity, Adam atones for what he did, — and not to admit that in them there is any thing worthy of abhorrence.' Neither is it necessary to acknowledge it, nor do the Remonstrants admit it; nor that any thing worthy, properly speaking, of the hatred of God, is in Adam's posterity from his sin ; nor that, in the posterity of Adam, that which flows from Adam, the sinner, is in them properly called the punishment of sin," &c* I 10. The Westminster Assembly, 1G43-1G48. The question has been raised, how far the Westminster Assembly based the doctrine of original sin upon our natural relation to Adam. And it is sometimes asserted that it is left entirely out of the account, and the whole matter referred to a positive constitution between God and Adam, without which we would not have been responsible for his sin, and by « Apologia pro Conf. Rem. gg 84, So; in Op. Episc, vol. ii. 40 Introduction. which he was made to be our head. In the early English editions of the Westminster Confession, — those of 1G58 and after, — the Scripture proofs were printed in full ; and the particular words which were relied upon for the doctrine in question in each place, were put in Italics. So ar- ranged, Chapter vi. \ 3, will illustrate the manner in which this subject was viewed by the Assembly. "They [our first parents] being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, (/) and the same death in sin and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary gene- ration." " (/) Genesis i. verse 27. So God created Man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. Verse 28. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Gen. ii. verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. Verse 17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Acts xvii. 26. And hath made of one Hood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation. Bomans v. verse 12. Wherefore as by one man sin entered into theworld, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Verse 15. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift; for if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. Verse 16. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemna- tion, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. Verse 17. For if by one man's offence death reigned by one, much more they which re- ceive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Verse 18. Therefore as by the offence of one judg- ment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. Verse 19. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. 1 Cor. xv. verse 21. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. Verse 22. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Verse 45. And so it is written, The first man Adam teas made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Verse 49. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." Here, the reason formally given for the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, is, the fact that he was "the root of mankind." Of this statement the Italics in the proof texts constitute a most significant ex- Historical Sketch. 41 position. They identify and bring into one view, in the narrative of the creation, the generic title, "man," the generative relations, "male and fe- male," and the plurality of the race, "them." And then, after the blessing of fruitfulness and consequent dominion over the whole earth, and the precept which was the test of obedience, all is bound firmly together and laid upon the race, by the declaration that all are "one blood;" constituting the basis upon which is immediately founded the charge that in Adam "all have sinned." Identical with this is the doctrine of the Catechisms. See the Larger Catechism, Qu. 22, 25, 26 ; Shorter, Qu. 10-19. In addition to the Confession and Catechisms, the Assembly put forth an epitome, bearing the title, — "A Brief Sum of Christian Doctrine, con- tained in Holy Scripture, and holden forth in the Confession of Faith and Catechisms. Agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at West- minster, and received by the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland. With the Practical Use thereof."* In this formula, the doctrine of ori- ginal sin is stated in these terms: — Head I. \ 2. "God in six days made all things of nothing, very good in their own kind, in special he made all the angels holy: and made our first parents Adam and Eve, the root of mankind, both upright and able to keep the law written in their heart: which law they were naturally bound to obey, under pain of death ; but God was not bound to reward their service, till he entered into a covenant or contract with them, and their posterity in them, to give them eternal life upon condition of perfect personal obedience, withal threatening death, in case they should fail. "3. Both angels and men were subject to the change of their own free will, as experience proved, God having reserved to himself the incommu- nicable property of being naturally unchangeable. For many angels of their own accord fell by sin from their first estate, and became devils : Our first parents being inticed by Satan, one of these devils, speaking in a serpent, did break the covenant of works, in eating the forbidden fruit, whereby they and their posterity, being in their loins, as branches in the root, and comprehended in the same covenant with them, became not only liable to eternal death, but also lost all ability of will to please God; yea, did become by nature enemies to God, and to all spiritual good; and inclined to evil continually. This is our original sin, the bitter root of all our actual transgressions, in thought, word and deed." \ 11. Divines of the Westminster Confession. Dr. Thomas Goodwin was one of the ablest members of the West- minster Assembly, belonging to the party of the Independents, who * Although the Brief Sum is by the Church of Scotland received, with the other for- mularies of the Assembly of Divines, among her symbolical books, the fact that tho work was the production of the Assembly, is not, I believe, usually stated in Scotch edi- tions. My copy is the fifth London edition, of 1717. 42 Introduction. harmonized perfectly with the other members on the doctrines of the confession. Of his works in folio, the third volume consists of three treatises : — 1. Of an Unregenerate Man's Guiltiness before God, in respect of Sin and Punishment ; 2. Of Man's Kestauration by Grace ; 3. Of Christ, the Mediator. In the first of these he enters very fully into the subject of original sin. In respect to the mode in which Adam came to be our representative, he speaks as follows: — " There are three ways by which it may be conceived or understood that he was a public person : " 1. By the absolute prerogative of God, resolving it wholly into his own secret ordination and appointment of him so to be. Thus some. But this cuts the knot, indeed, but unties it not : and I dare not wholly put it on that account. The covenant with Adam, both for himself and us, was the covenant of nature, as I have shown : and it were hard to say that, in such a covenant, he should use his prerogative alone ; and, in some respects, this was higher (if we suppose it such) than that with Christ, with whom he dealt distinctly, fully making known to him all things that concerned that covenant, which he also voluntarily undertook for to his Father, as in that place cited in Isaiah (Isa. xlix. 1-8) and also here appears. " 2. A second way, therefore, is when it is by a covenant ; and that, so, as though God's will to have it so that he should represent us, was the main foundation it should be resolved into, yet so as withal, God should plainly utter this, and declare it aforehand to him, as he did to Christ, in that place of Isaiah, ' I will give thee for a covenant to the Gentiles,' &c. Now there is no such record of this, more than what hath been mentioned in the former answer, now extant I know of, whereby God declared he would constitute him such, or laid it exj^licitly upon him, otherwise than in those particulars which yet I confess by just and like reason do infer it ; so as I would not wholly put it upon that account neither ; for we read not of God's saying this to him in distinct words, nor of his accepting or undertaking so to be, namely, a public person, that, if he sinned, his posterity should sin in him. Therefore, "3. I should think it to be mixed of the two latter: both that God made him, or appointed him to be, a public person, as 1 Cor. xv.'45, (see my exposition on those words,) yet not so out of mere will, but that it also had for its foundation, so natural and so necessary a ground as it was rather a natural than a voluntary thing. And necessary it was he should be so appointed, if the law of nature were attainted. And to assert this I am induced, among other grounds, by that which, in handling the state of Adam in innocency, I then pursued. That this covenant was a natural covenant, and such as, according to the law of his creation, was due and requisite, and founded uj>on, and consonant to, the princij:>les of nature; and therefore I judge this law concerning the propagation of man's nature to his posterity to be such, and that God did not put forth Historical Sketch. 43 his prerogative in giving forth this alone ; but that, it being a part of his covenant by the law of nature, it was therefore so well known to him. by the light and law of nature, that he needed not have it given him by word of mouth ; though in those forementioned charters, common to him and his posterity, of having dominion over the creatures, and begetting in his likeness or kind, it was sufficiently held forth; and so as that threatening was to be understood in the same manner by him, ' That day thou eatest, thou shalt die ;' wherein all mankind are not only meant, but expressed by the same law that they are in those words, ' Subdue the earth.' — Gen. i. 28. ' And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth ;' which are spoken to Adam immediately, and yet meant of his posterity. And it is certain, that, in respect of conveying all that which was good, he was a common person, as in that of conveying a lordship over the creatures, a covenant of life to them, &e. ; and, by the same reason, he was a common person to convey sin too. And, truly, those words, that we are said to be ' children of wrath' by nature, I understand not only, though so too, by birth, but even to extend to this sense, — by the law of nature. See my expo- sition on those words. "Now the natural necessity, upon which this designation of him to be a public person was made, is this : God had, as author of nature, made this the law of nature, — That man should beget in his own image or likeness; look [like?] what it should prove to be either through his standing or falling, afore he puts this nature out of his hands ; and this law is, in their kind, common to beasts. So, then, in this first man, the whole nature of man being reposited as a common receptacle or cistern of it, from whence it was to flow to others ; therefore, what befalls this nature in him by any action of his, that nature is so to be projiagated from him. God's ordinance, in the law of nature, being — that all should be made of 'one blood,' which could not have been said of any other man than of him, (no, not of Noah, because of the mixture marriages afore with the posterity of Cain.) And thus, also, man's condition dif- fered from that of the angels, of whom each stood as single persons by themselves, being all and each of them created by God immediately, as even Adam, the first man, himself was. But all men universally, by the law of nature, were to receive their nature from him in his likeness ; that is, if he stood and obeyed, then the image of holiness had been conveyed, as it was at first created. If he fell by sin, then, seeing he should thereby corrupt that nature, and that that corruption of nature was also to be his sin in relation to, and as the consequent of, that act of sin that caused it: therefore, if the law of nature were ever fulfilled so as to convey his own image as sinful, (suppose he should sin,) so as it should be reckoned sin in his children, as it was in himself, this could 44 Introduction. not take place, but they must be guilty of that act that caused it, so far as it cast [caused ?] it, as well as himself. If indeed any way could have been supposed how he might have been bereft of that holiness he was created in, without a precedaneous act of sinning, as the cause, then indeed we might have said that privation of holiness should not have been reckoned sin, either to himself nor to his posterity, in that case. This corruption of nature, or want of original righteousness, in such case would not have been, nor could not have been, accounted a sin, (a punishment it might,) but it comes only to be a sin as it referreth to, and is connected with, the guilt of an act of sin that caused that corruption of nature. If, therefore, that corruption became truly and properly a sin in them as well as in him, (and else it hath not the formate of his image,) he must, necessarily, be constituted a public person, representing them even in respect of that act of sin, which should thus first infect and pollute their nature in him ; or else the law of nature will not, in this respect, have its due effect. For that which makes it a sin is not the want of it simply, but as relating to a forfeiture and losing of it by some act those are first guilty of who lose it. Hence, therefore, (I repeat the force of my reason again,) if he will convey this image acquired by his sin as sivfut, there must be a guilt of that act of his sin, which was the cause of it ; and therefore he must be a public person in that first act of sin, so as without this, as the case stood, the law of nature could not have had its course."* We might further quote largely from this writer to the same purpose. He everywhere insists that the sin of Adam is so ours as to require of us contrition for it; and devotes an entire chapter to urge this duty. Whilst the Westminster Assembly was in session, fifty-eight of the most eminent pastors of the city of London, all of them Presbyterians, and of whom seventeen were members of the Assembly, published a " Testimony to the truth of Jesus Christ," and in opposition to the prevailing errors. Dr. William Lyford, who had been called, but prevented by disease from attending upon the Assembly, commenced the preparation of a work designed as "a discovery of the errors, heresies and blasphemies of these times, and the toleration of them, as they are collected and testified against by the ministers of London." The increase of his disease put an end to this work when but partly completed. On the subject of our relation to Adam's sin, this writer says that "No man is cast into hell for Adam's sin, himself being innocent; but in Adam we all sinned. No man dies of another's disease ; but, if we are infected with the same, we die of our own disease. The prophet Ezekiel says (ch. xviii.) that 'the just child of a wicked father shall live: if he seeth all that his father hath done, and considereth, and doth not the like, he shall surely live,' — ver. 14-17 ; but if the son commit the like sins as the father did, then 'they shall bear * Goodwin's Works, folio, London, 1092, vol. iii. p. 14. Historical Sketch. 45 their own iniquity.' — Ver. 13. This is our case in relation to Adam; we are all wicked sons of a wicked father. There is none of us that doeth good ; no, not one. All Adam's sons are wrapped in his sin ; all are under that common guilt. Bring forth a clean son out of Adam's loins, and he shall live. There is duplex reatus, prqprius, et communis. I am guilty of some sins, which another is not ; and another is guilty of sins, which I am not: we have our proper faults. But this one offence, of which Paul speaks, (Rom. v. 12, 16, 19,) involves us all in one common guilt. By it, all of us, being in Adam's loins, are alike guilty; and, therefore, even by that rule, — 'The soul that sinneth, it shall die,' — we must all die, because we all have sinned. 'Sicut omnium hominum natura, ita etiam omnium voluntas, originaliter fuit in Adamo.'"* We shall hereafter see the testimony of Rutherford, a member of the Assembly, of Poole, of Owen, and of Dickinson ; in harmony with Pa- rseus, Witsius, De Moor, and Hoornbeek.f To these we will only here add that of Boston. "1 shall show how Adam's sin of breaking the covenant of works is our sin, — our breaking of it as well as his. It is really ours in itself. It is not ours in its effects onljr, as a father's sin in riotously spending his estate reaches his whole family, reducing them to poverty and want. Though the effects of that riotous spending — the poverty, misery and want — are theirs, yet the riotous spending is the father's only. But so it is not in this case. It is true, the effects of it — the sinful and penal evils fol- lowing this sin— are ours ; we see them, we feel them, and the most stupid groan under them. But the sin itself is ours, too; and, — (1.) The guilt of it is ours. . . . (2.) The fault is ours, — Rom. v. 12: — 'By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned;' namely, in Adam. The fault lies in its contrariety to the holy commandment: this made it a faulty deed, a criminal action, a sin against God ; and, as such, it is ours. We in Adam transgressed the law, — broke through the hedge, — and so broke the covenant. If the fault wen' not ours, a holy God would never punish us for it; but certain it is that he does punish the children of Adam for it. Rom. v. 14: — 'Deatb reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression.' . . . (3.) The stain and blot of it is ours. The whole nature of man was tainted with it, — vitiated and black- ened : and, through defilement and loathsomeness thereby, rendered incapable of. and quite unfit for, communion with God. (Gen. iii. 24.) This sin defiled the whole mass of man's nature, from our father Adam going through all his posterity, like leaven through the whole lump. * The Instructed Christian; or, The Plain Man's Senses Exercised to Discern both Good and Evil. By AVilliam Lyford, B.D., late minister of the gospel at Sherbourn, in the west of England. Republished: Philadelphia, 1847, p. 243. f See below, pp. 443, 468, 171, 482, 505, 506. 5M7. 46 Introduction. 1 Cor. xv. 22: — 'In Adam all die;' their souls die spiritually: his whole race become as dead corpses."* \ 12. The Ptaccean Doctrine. The doctrine which is known under the designation of mediate impu- tation, originated with Joshua de la Place, more commonly called, Placseus, — a professor in the French Eeformed seminary of theology at Saumur. Placseus at first taught that original sin consists solely in the native depravity which we derive from Adam. This opinion was condemned by the National Synod of the French Eeformed church, in 1645. "Pla- cseus, however, contended that the decree of the Synod did not have reference to him; and, among other reasons for this, especially, that he did not deny absolutely the imputation of Adam's sin, but only a certain mode of it ; — he denied immediate and recognised mediate imputation ; that, native corruption intervening, we are subjected to all the punish- ments of sin, which Adam deserved by transgression, and by contracting habitual corruption through the first actual sin. He held original corrup- tion to be inherent in us, through the ordinary generation of our nature from Adam, according to the law of nature, by which like begets like; whence, from parents corrupt, and destitute of original righteousness and holiness, corrupt children must be born. 'This being agreed,' says Pla- cseus, 'imputation is to be distinguished into immediate or antecedent, and mediate or consequent. The one takes place immediately ; that is, corruption of nature not intervening; — the other, mediately; that is, cor- ruption intervening. The one, in the order of nature, precedes the cor- ruption ; the other follows it. The former is regarded as the cause of the corruption; the latter, its effect. The former Placseus rejects; the other he admits.' "f His doctrine was promulgated by Placseus whilst the Westminster Assembly was in actual session. In fact, it was not until it had been dissolved six years, that, in 1655, he published the treatise in which he retreats behind the figment of mediate imputation. It is not impro- bable that the discussion at the time going on in France induced the As- sembly to give a more precise enunciation of the doctrine of original sin imputed, than is to be found in any other Protestant confession. It was in reference to the errors of Placseus, and those of Amyraut and Cappel, professors in the same institution, at Saumur, that the Formula Consensus Helvetica was drawn up and published. In this testimony the Swiss theologians repudiate the Placsean doctrine in the following terms. "As God made the covenant of works with Adam, not only for himself, but, in him as the head and root, with the whole human race, about to descend from him by virtue of the blessing upon his nature ; and to iri- * Boston on the Covenant of Works. Head iii. 2. f De Moorus, Com. in J. Marck. Lugd. Batav. 17C5. Cap. xv. \ 32. Pars iii. p. 263. Historical Sketch. 47 herit the same rectitude had he persisted in it ; so Adam, in his grievous fall, sinned not only for himself, but also for the whole human race which should be born of blood and the will of the flesh, and forfeited the gifts promised in the covenant. We therefore hold the sin of Adam to be imputed to all his posterity by the secret and just judgment of God. For the apostle testifies that 'in Adam all have sinned;' that 'by the dis- obedience of one many were made sinners;' and, that 'in him all die.' — Rom. v. 12, 19 ; 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22. Nor indeed does any mode appear in which hereditary corruption, as well as spiritual death, could seize upon the whole human race, by the just judgment of God, unless some crime of the same human race had preceded, inducing the guilt of that death ; since God, the just judge of all the earth, will punish none (nisi sontem) except the criminal. " After sin, therefore, a man by nature, and hence from his origin, is subject to the wrath and curse of God upon a double charge, before he has in his own person committed any actual sin; first, on account of the (7rapd7TTu/j.a) transgression and disobedience which he committed in the loins of Adam ; and then for the consequent hereditary depravity, infused in his very conception, by which his whole nature is depraved, and spi- ritually dead ; thus, therefore, as is truly asserted, original sin is twofold; to wit, imputed, and hereditary inherent." | 13. The System, of Edwards. In the following pages we shall have occasion to notice particularly several elements of the system of Edwards. Fundamental to the whole, were his doctrines respecting second causes and identity. On the former subject, denying the creatures to have in them any other causative force than the immediate power of God, or any other kind of existence than such as is consistent with continual evanition and new creation out of nothing, — he was shut up to his doctrine of identity, as the necessary result; to wit, that there is really no true identity, in any case, between things which exist in different time and place, — the moon or the person that now is, with that which was a moment since ; — that the only identity possible is that which arises from the mere arbitrary will of God, deter- mining that such and such things shall be held to be one. The doctrine of imputation held by Edwards is logically irreconcilable with this theory of identity. If the only oneness that is possible is such as results from the arbitrary sovereignty of God " making truth" out of an untruth, and if by that power we are "constituted" truly one with Adam, then manifestly we are as really and personally the parties that plucked and ate, as were they who after the transgression heard the voice of God, and fled from his presence. But the moral nature of Edwards, true to itself, although betrayed by his philosophy, revolted from this conclusion. Having assumed the very position of Abelard, he attempts to fortify it by recourse to the aid of Placaeus. — By an "arbitrary constitution" God 48 Introduction. has made us one with Adam the sinner. Hence his sin is truly and per- sonally ours, and justly chargeable to us ; — especially, since we are guilty of endorsing the deed by the actings of our own depravity. But why the "especially"? If I did the deed, no after fact can make it mine any more or less than it is already. Two other doctrines occupied conspicuous places in the theology of Edwards. The first is, that all holiness or virtue consists in disinterested benevolence; or, as expressed by Edwards, in "love to being as such;" and all sin, in selfishness. The second grows out of this, and is the opti- mistic theory. If holiness consists in disinterested benevolence, then God, as a holy being, was bound, when he created the universe, to bring into existence the best possible system, — that which will secure the great- est happiness to the greatest number. These were the principles which — engrafted by Edwards into the theology of the pilgrims — at once developed the system which, in its various phases, was propagated by Hopkins, Smalley, the younger Ed- wards, Emmons, and their associates. The logical process was brief and simple, and the conclusions inevitable : — If the creatures be no causes, — if God is the immediate and only cause, he is the sole cause of sin, both in Adam and us. If there be no powers in man's nature, — if the phe- nomena of his existence and actions are the immediate effects of the power of God,— there can be no native tendencies or dispositions, of which to predicate holiness or sin ; these can consist in nothing but acts. If Adam's nature is not a cause of his posterity, it cannot be the caus.e of their depravity: God, the only cause, produces it in them. If there is no real identity possible in things which exist in different time and place, — if we are one with Adam only by " constitution" and legal intend- ment,— then his sin is, in no sense, really ours ; and justice cannot exact its penalty of us. God may, in sovereignty, act toward us as he would toward sinners ; but the inflictions with which we are visited, in conse- quence of Adam's sin, are not of a punitive character. Again : for the same reason, Christ could not so unite himself with our race, as to be held really accountable for our sins, or truly responsible to the penalty. Nor, on the other hand, can we be so united to him as to acquire any truly proprietary title in his righteousness. The consequence is, that Christ's atonement is denied any strictly vicarious character ; — it was a governmental display, not a satisfaction ; it was made for sins in general, and not specifically for the sins of his people ; and his work was not determinate of the redemption of any one, but only opened the way for the salvation of those who shall believe. Such were the positions of the earlier disciples of Edwards. They rejected, at once, his untenable appeal — untenable on his principles — to the distinction between a posi- tive and a privative cause, to account for God's agency in the production of sin, and did not hesitate, directly, and in terms, to attribute all sinful Historical Sketch. 49 actions to the immediate efficient agency of God. But, falling back upon the optimistic principle, they held that since God was bound to produce the best possible system, and is a most powerful and excellent being, we are shut up to the conclusion that the present system is the best ; and, sin being found in this system, it is inferred that sin is an incident of the best system, and necessary to it. Sin, therefore, thus viewed, upon the whole, is not an evil, but a good ; and hence it is consistent with God's character to produce it. It is only an evil, in that the sinner is not actuated by any such apprehension as this, but by selfish and malevolent feelings. Retaining the old forms of speech, these writers utterly rejected the old doctrines of original sin and justification. So stood the " orthodox" theology of New England at the rise of the school of New Haven. And it is a significant fact, that the first public announcement of the inauguration of a new school of theology, by the professors in that institution, addressed a challenge to the optimists of the prevailing school to justify themselves in assuming that God could prevent all sin in a moral system.* Thus did the revolting fatalism which was involved in Edwards' theory of causation induce a recoil to the opposite extreme, in the assertion of Pelagian free will. The divines of New Haven found, in the very heart of Edwards' system, some of the fundamental and most fruitful features of the doctrine of Pelagius : — that Adam was not the cause of his posterity ; — that, of con- sequence, they were not really, in him, in the covenant ; — that his sin is not theirs, nor its punishment visited on them ; — that depravity is not derived from Adam to his posterity ; — and that sin consists in exercise or action. Accepting these as unquestionable principles, and recoiling, with just abhorrence, from the idea that God is the author of men's sins, they adopted the other alternative deducible from the premises, and concluded that men are created without moral character, and that their depravity is the result of example and circumstances. Boldly repu- diating the system of constituted relations and fictitious intendments, by which the Hopkinsians had maintained a semblance of orthodoxy, they utterly denied any federal union between us and Adam, or any vicarious relation of Christ to his people. Every man comes into the world in the same moral and legal attitude as did Adam. Each one sins and falls by his own free will. Christ died, not as a legal substitute for us, — a vicarious satisfaction for our sins, — but as an exhibition of the love of God to sinners, and a display of the evil of sin ; so that God may, consistently with the welfare of the universe, forgive sin. The sinner is pardoned, not justified ; — sin is forgiven, not taken away; — and justice is waived, not satisfied. Again, supposing man's free will compe- tent to sin in spite of God, it follows that the same power can cease to * Taylor's Concio ad Clerum, 1828, p. 29. 4 50 Introduction. sin, independent of the Spirit of God. Eegeneration is therefore the effect of moral suasion calling into exercise the unaided powers of man's own will. There are probably few who would now be willing to adopt, in its abstract form, the theory of identity which is fundamental to the system of Edwards. But by many it is accepted in its application to the doctrine of original sin, — the very case for which it was invented. By them it is maintained that we are not, in any real sense, one with Adam ; but, by a positive constitution, God has so ordered it that we are regarded and treated as one.* And yet, with all, we are no more intrinsically one with him, nor chargeable with his crime, than we were before. We are only held liable to undergo punishment on account of it. That punishment consists in the privation of original righteousness, and the consequent depravation of the soul. How much more this view harmonizes with that of Abelard and the schoolmen than with the Eeformed confessions a glance will demonstrate. How foreign to the latter, is manifest. In those confessions, from the first to the last, we search in vain for a trace of the positive constitution here imagined, or a hint that the depravity of the race came upon it as the punishment of a foreign sin. On the contrary, they are unanimous in the testimony that not Adam but man sinned in the act of disobedience, and, by the effects of the sin, was depraved ; — that the race, generically, apostatized from holiness, and embraced depravity, in the person of Adam. In particular, the West- minster Confession, written when the Placsean controversy induced special care on these very points, knows nothing of the constructive system ; but bases all its positions on our seminal inbeing in Adam ; and, discriminating carefully between the criminal and the penal elements of Adam's sin, includes in the former the want of original righteousness and the corruption of nature ; and charges the whole immediately upon us as elements of the sinfulness of that estate into which we fell by sinning in Adam ; whilst all this is excluded from any place in the penal element, — the miseries incurred. We venerate the memory of Edwards ; and esteem and love many of the disciples of his theology. But the history of a century confirms the conviction resulting from a priori considerations, that the principles of his system are irreconcilably hostile to the doctrines of grace which he loved ; and must operate, as heretofore, so always, to corrupt and destroy them. * " What exists at this moment ... is a new effect, and, simply and absolutely con- sidered, not the same with any past effect. . . . And there is no identity or oneness, in the case, but what depends on the arbitrary constitution of the Creator; who, by his wise sovereign establishment, so unites these successive new effects that he treats them as one, by communicating to them like properties, relations and circumstances ; and so leads us to regard and treat them as one." — Edwards on Original Sin, Part iv. ch. 2. THE ELOHIM REVEALED. CHAPTER I. THE TRIUNE CREATOR. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." With this announcement the Spirit of God commences the sacred a l. God the volume. He is about to put upon permanent record Triune was the a revelation, intended to answer all those questions Creator. which spontaneously spring, in the depths of the human soul, concerning our highest and eternal interests, — a revelation respecting the nature of God, the cause and the re- medy of our ruinous estate, the purpose for which life is given, the immortality of man, and the alternative states of eternity, — themes which have perplexed and bewildered philosophers and sages in every age. The first line of the first page of this blessed book announces Him, whose nature and whose works are the theme of the whole. It unveils in sudden light a glorious One, whose lustre increases through every page; like a morning sun, growing continually in radiant majesty, pouring abroad a flood of unapproachable glory, alone in a starless firmament. When the student of the sacred volume reads, in that first line, the sublime announcement, — "In the beginning, God," — he, atone bound, ascends a height as far above that lofty Olympus where fabled Jove sat enthroned, as the heavens are higher than the earth. Thus, taught the alone eternity of God, the Creator, and the temporary origin of all things else, visible and invisible, be has already gained a sublimity of science, which all the wisdom 51 52 The Elohim Revealed. [chap. i. and research of classic philosophy never attained. Gazing abroad from this mountain pinnacle, — on the one hand is nothing but the eternity of God; on the other is the creation, just launching forth upon cycles, each one of which is the unfolding of a new chapter, in the revelation of the high and lofty One who inhabits that eternity. Before we attempt to trace the operations of his hand, in the works of creation and the scheme of providence, we will briefly and reverently glance at some things, which are made known to us in the Scriptures, in respect to the nature and pur- poses of the Creator. The first point here claiming our notice is, that it is not merely God, but the Triune God, who is announced as the maker of all things. We do not design to enter at large into the argument, in proof of the fact that the name, Elohim, being plural in its form, is a distinct intimation of the plurality which subsists in the unity of the divine essence. Not only does the name itself — commonly, as in this place, used in the plural number, though with a verb in the singular — point to that fundamental fact in the nature of Him whom the creation was designed to proclaim, but, in the 26th verse, we are informed of a conference of the Elohim, in which it is said, "Let us make man, in our image, after our likeness;" and again, when man had fallen, "the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us." — Gen. iii. 22. In the book of Ecclesiastes, the preacher admonishes the young, "Remember now (T?*?13) thy Creators." — Eccl. xii. 1. Says Elihu, "None saith, Where is ('^ nv?x) God my Makers?" — Job xxxv. 10, — thus using the name of God in the singular, whilst the appellative, " Makers," is in the plural. The Psalmist writes, ■ — "Let Israel rejoice (vfetya) in his Makers," — Ps. cxlix. 2; and Isaiah assures his people " (ftVy },L?p) Thy Makers are thy husbands, the Lord of hosts is (intf) his name." — Isa. liv. 5. Not only does the name of the Creator itself announce the work as the production of the Sacred Three, but in the progress of the narrative we have distinct intimation of the presence and several agency of the Three Persons of the Godhead. The first chapter, and down to the fourth verse of the second, is a rapid and com- prehensive sketch of the whole work of creation, prefatory to the sect, i.] The Triune Creator. 53 more particular account of the creation of man, which occupies the remainder of the second chapter. Throughout the first part of the narrative thus divided, the work is, by the name, Elohim, referred to God the Father; that name being in the Scriptures almost exclusively applied to the First Person, as the represent- ative of the Godhead. From the fourth verse of the second chapter, the title is changed; and in the particular narrative there begun it is Jehovah Elohim — the Lord God — who is re- presented as the actor. By this name is designated that glo- rious Jehovah Christ, "by whom God made the worlds!' — Heb. i. 2. That he was meant by the name, Lord God, is demon- strable. On this point we will only pause to cite the testimony of the Son of God himself, in the last chapter of the book of Eevelation, v. 6: — "The Loed God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be done." v. 16: — "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches." Jesus, then, is the Lord God of the Old Testament writers. Here the reader will not fail to recall the account with which John commences his Gospel: — "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him'.' — John i. 1-3. In this connection the fact is very striking, that when, in the midst of that portion of the sacred record in which the title, Lord God, is constantly used, we come to the interview be- tween the tempter and the woman, the style is changed. Satan, aiming to seduce the woman to a forgetfulness of the ever-pre- sent God, ignores that Lord God who was, alike, the creative Mediator to innocent man, as he is the atoning Mediator to man fallen. Thus, putting God afar off, he asks, "Hath God said?" The woman falls into the snare, and replies, "God hath said." But it was not Elohim, God, but the Lord God, who alike gave the command and called the pair to account for disobedience. (Gen. ii. 16, iii. 9.) Nor are we without evidence of the presence and operation of the Third Person of the Godhead. Not only is his agency announced in the second verse of Moses' narrative, — "the 54 The Elohim Revealed. [chap. i. Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the waters," — but in the account of man's creation the Spirit's action is distinctly marked in the statement that God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." — Gen. ii. 7. With this compare the language of Elihu: — "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." — Job xxxiii. 4. Says Job, "By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens ; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent." — Job xxvi. 13. And the Psalmist sings, "Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou re- newest the face of the earth." — Ps. civ. 30. The distinctive characteristics of the several persons of the Godhead are intimated in their names. The Father, the Son, I 2. The Eter- and, the Spirit, — these are the designations habitu- nai genera- q\\j employed in the Scriptures to distinguish the uon. Psalm n. geveraj subsistences which coexist in the unity of the Godhead, in respect to their relation to each other. In entering upon the consideration of the distinctions thus implied, we are to remember that, whereas it were impious to search curiously into the mystery of the divine nature beyond what is written, it is no less impious to refuse to hear, or to regard with indifference, whatever on these subjects God has made known. That the names, Father and Son, indicate relations of the First and Second Persons to each other, which are neces- sary, essential, and eternal — has been the faith of the Church of God in all ages, and is clearly demonstrable from the Scrip- tures. Says the Psalmist: — "I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son ; this day have I be- gotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance," &c. — Ps. ii. 7, 8. Here observe: (1) That the sonship thus announced is not created by the decree; but is expressly asserted to be prior to it, and produced by genera- tion. (2.) "This day" does not define a temporal period when the generation took place. Had such been the design, an ap- preciable date would have been specified, in definite terms. But when, without any such limitation, such a phrase is used by the eternal God, in an address to a coeternal Person, the trans- action is thus referred to his eternity. (3.) The sonship is the sect, ii.] The Triune Creator. 55 declared cause of the decree, and therefore antecedent to it. " The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand." — John iii. 35. (4.) The date of the decree is eternity. It constitutes an element in the provisions of the everlasting covenant, in the terms and conditions of which, everywhere, as well as here, the Son being recognised and dealt with as pos- sessing the filial relation, and as, therefore, invested with the offices assigned to him in the covenant, the conclusion is inevi- table that the sonship is eternal. There is in this Psalm another mode of fixing the date of the whole transaction. The heathen are represented as raging against the Lord and his anointed. "Yet," says God, "have I set ("i?z>Qi inaugurated, installed) my king upon my holy hill of Zion." The date of this inaugu- ration will appear in the next Scripture to which we turn. Prov. viii. 22-31 : — "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up ('fl^Dj in- % 3. Proof augurated) from everlasting, from the beginning, or from Pmo. ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth : while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face of the depth ; when he es- tablished the clouds above ; when he strengthened the fountains of the deep; when he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment; when he appointed the foundations of the earth : then was I by him, as one brought up with him, and was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing in the habitable part of the earth; and my de- lights were with the sons of men." That, under the name of Wisdom, this Scripture describes a personal subsistence, — the Second Person of the Trinity, — ap- pears, from considerations, at some only of which we can at pre- sent glance. The whole style of the discourse, and the force of the several expressions in it, imply a personal subject; and are entirely incompatible with the reference of the language to the 56 The Elohim Revealed. [chap. i. divine attribute of wisdom, or any interpretation which does not recognise the speaker as a distinct personality. Thus he says, "I Wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom : I am understanding; I have strength." — v. 12, 14. With what pre- tence of propriety can we suppose the attribute of wisdom to describe itself, thus, as endowed with counsel, wisdom, under- standing, and strength? "I Wisdom have sound wisdom!" Still more incongruous are the ideas which by this interpreta- tion are brought together in the next clause. "I Wisdom am understanding." Here we are introduced to a most extraordi- nary and perplexing complication of figures. It is supposed that the divine wisdom is figuratively exhibited as a person, addressing her admonitions and instruction to the sons of men. Then the attribute thus personified employs a figure, by which it throws off this personality, and is transformed into a different attribute. The wisdom of God, by prosopopoeia, becomes a speaker; and then, by metaphor, is transformed back again into an attribute; but in the process loses its identity; and is now the divine understanding ! Further, what meaning is supposed to couch in the statement respecting the attribute of God's wisdom, that by it "kings reign, and princes decree justice, princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth"? — v. 15, 16. We understand the apostle, when he speaks of Christ as "the Prince of the kings of the earth," "the King of kings and Lord of lords." — Eev. i. 5, xix. 16. But in any other sense than this, we are unable to see the propriety of the lan- guage here applied as descriptive of Wisdom. In the verses that follow, we find Wisdom represented as existing externally to the person of the Father; who is designated by the name, Lord. v. 22:—" The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old." "The Lord (,Mj5) acquired me." The word expresses, — not that which is immanent in one, as is the attribute of wisdom in God, — but an acquired possession ; and is employed to express the acquisition of children by generation. In the case of the first born of men, typical of all the rest, we are told that Eve bare (|?p) Cain, "saying, (VWR) I have gotten sect, in.] The Triune Creator. 57 a man from the Lord." — Gen. iv. 1. Evidently, such language as is thus used of Wisdom is entirely inappropriate to the attri- bute, which is essential in the nature of God. If it should be objected, that it is equally inappropriate to the Son, as eternal, — this raises a question, which will afterwards be considered, v. 23: — "I was set up (inaugurated) from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." We have seen in the second Psalm an announcement of such an inauguration of the Son. But how can such phraseology be applied to a divine perfection ? Is it not directly opposed to the whole teaching of the Scrip- tures, and to all just conceptions of the nature of God, to sup- pose any one divine attribute exalted above the rest ? Is wisdom preferred to justice, love, mercy, or holiness? v. 30: — "Then was I (p'DN f7i\s) at his side, a cherished child, and I was daily his delight, (n;'-^3 naS nprjfrn) sporting always before him." "This word (v?3$ at his side, by him) signally declares the personality of Wisdom; for in all the places where it occurs, which are sixty-two, there is not one in which it does not designate that manner of vicinity which occurs between two distinct things."* The force of the word which we render, "a cherished child," is illustrated in Num. xi. 12 : — " Have I conceived all this people ? have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom as he, (f?fcn) a nursing father, beareth the sucking child?" The word which we have ren- dered "sporting," does not express mere gladness or joy; but such actions as are designed and calculated to express and impart enjoyment. Thus, it is used to describe the conduct of Samson, when he "made sport" for the Philistines, (Judges xvi. 25, 27;) and to represent the behaviour of David, when he "played" before the ark. (2 Sam. vi. 5, 21.) It is em- ployed by Zechariah, when, speaking of Jerusalem, at that time desolate, he says, "The streets of the city shall yet be full of boys and girls, playing in the streets thereof." — Zech. viii. 5. "Sporting always before him," — that is, as does a child in the presence of the loved parent, striving to elicit a smile. The force of the expression is still further strengthened by what fol- * Gejerus in Poole's Synopsis, on the place. 58 The Eloldm Revealed. [chap. i. lows. v. 31: — "Sporting in the habitable parts of the earth;" — there seeking to give the Father pleasure. Thus speaking, he anticipates, as present to his eternal mind, the course of his life in the flesh; which drew forth the Father's repeated testi- mony, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," — Matt. iii. 17; and respecting which himself declares, "The Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." — John viii. 29. The Lord Jesus Christ asserts a claim to this name of "Wis- dom ; and it is attributed to him by the New Testament writers. ,4 The W{s Said Jesus to the Jews, "Woe unto you! for ye dom of God build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your is Christ. fathers killed them. Therefore also said the Wis- dom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute." — Luke xi. 49. In Matthew we have an account of this same discourse, in which the declarations and warnings which are here predicated of the Wisdom of God, are ascribed to Jesus himself. "Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men." — Matt, xxiii. 34. Even if it be supposed that, in the former place, by the sayings of the Wisdom of God, the Old Testament prophecies are meant, yet is it unquestionable that they are the testimonies of Jesus by his Spirit. "The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy." — Eev. xix. 10. And Peter declares that the prophets knew not, "what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify." — 1 Pet. i. 11. So that, by Wisdom, Christ can here mean no other than himself. Again, the Saviour designates himself in a similar way, in Matt, xi. 19: — "Whereunto shall I liken the men of this generation? For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But Wisdom is justified of her chil- dren." Hence Paul proclaims "Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." — 1 Cor. i. 24. And again, with a mani- fest reference to Him whom we have seen in the second Psalm, and in the place now under discussion, to have been installed sect, ii.] The Triune Creator. 59 from everlasting, he says, "We speak the Wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden Wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory; which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have cruci- fied the Lord of glory." — 1 Cor. ii. 7, 8. Again : the things which, in the book of Proverbs, are spoken of Wisdom, all apply with the most perfect propriety to the Son of God; and some of them can with no tolerable fitness be appropriated in any other way, than to him. Of this, we have already had some evidence. For the rest, we can only glance at a few points. The history and character of Wisdom present a remarkable correspondence with those of Christ. Wisdom was in the be- ginning; she was from everlasting with God; was present at the creation, and was the author of creation. (Prov. viii. 23, 27, 30, iii. 19; with which compare John i. 1-3, and Heb. i. 2.) By her the events of providence are ordered. (Prov. iii. 20, viii. 21; compare Heb. i. 3, Col. i. 16, 17.) By her kings and princes hold their sceptres and power. (Prov. viii. 15, 16; compare Ptev. xix. 16.) Among her most signal characteristics are tender love to men, (Prov. viii. 17, 31, i. 22, 23,) and a high regard to the claims of justice against incorrigible sinners. (Prov. i. 28- 32; compare Luke xiv. 16-24.) She hates "pride, and arro- gancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth." And her distinguishing attributes are counsel, sound wisdom, under- standing, and strength. (Prov. viii. 13, 14; compare Isa. xlv. 24; 1 Cor. i. 30.) Wisdom's attitude towards man is equally descriptive of the Lord Jesus Christ. With what freedom and publicity are her invitations urged ! (Prov. i. 21, viii. 1-4, ix. 3 ; compare John vii. 37, Matt. x. 27.) Her gifts, though free, are to be won by earnestness and importunity in the pursuit. (Prov. ii. 3, 4 ; compare Luke xiii. 24, Matt. xi. 12.) Their value is better than silver and hid treasures, fine gold and rubies. (Prov. ii. 4, iii. 14, 15, viii. 10, 18, 19 ; compare Rev. iii. 18.) And, when we come to hear what these gifts are, we must recognise them as coming from the Son of God, and from no other. She promises 60 The Elolrim Revealed. [chap. i. to introduce us to the knowledge of God, (Prov. ii. 5 ; compare John xvii. 3, 6; xiv. 9, i. 18,) and to pour out upon us the Spirit of God. (Prov. i. 23 ; compare John xvi. 7.) She offers to sin- ners, righteousness, — a gift which in all the treasures of God's universe is only to be found in Christ. (Prov. viii. 18 ; com- pare Jer. xxiii. 6.) She engages to bestow upon her followers safety and tranquillity, (Prov. i. 33 ; compare Matt. xi. 28, 29,) a guardian care and guidance, (Prov. ii. 7, 8, 11-13,) a crown of glory, (Prov. iv. 9 ; compare 2 Tim. iv. 8,) durable riches, (Prov. viii. 18 ; compare Matt. vi. 20, Eev. iii. 18,) and life and the favour of the Lord. (Prov. iii. 16, 18, viii. 35 ; compare Eev. ii. 7, and John vi. 54.) The glance thus taken will, we trust, be sufficient to satisfy the reader, that "Wisdom, who speaks in the book of Proverbs, and particularly in the eighth chapter, is a person distinct from God the Father, and can be no other than his beloved and eter- nal Son. It is he that says, " The Lord acquired me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old." "When there were no depths, I was brought forth." " Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth." " When he appointed the foundations of the earth, then was I at his side, a nourished child." In the 30th chapter of Proverbs there is another signal testi- mony on the subject of our inquiry : — "I neither learned Wisdom z 5 Proverbs nor have the knowledge of (o^f?) the Holy Ones. xxx. 3, 4, and Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended ? Micah v. 2. Wll0 ^th gathered the winds in his fists ? Who hath bound the waters in a garment ? Who hath established all the ends of the earth ? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell?" — Prov. xxx. 3, 4. These are "the words of Agur the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy : the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal." The name, Ithiel, is identical in meaning with Immanuel, the number only being changed,— God with me ; and Ucal signifies, the mighty One. And judicious interpreters have translated the clause, " The man spake concerning God with me, even God with me, the mighty One." But, aside from this interpretation, the pass- sect, iv.] The Triune Creator. 61 age has several things unquestionable and conclusive on the sub- ject of which we treat. 1. His theme, Agur presents as myste- rious and unsearchable. This he declares, in the first place, b)T protestations of his own ignorance, and then by the series of questions which we have quoted. He says, " Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned Wisdom nor have the knowledge of the Holy Ones." 2. His theme is the nature of God, of whom he speaks in the plural number : — the Holy Ones. 3. There is a distinct allusion to the incarnation of the Son of God, in the question, " Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended ?" With this, compare Eph. iv. 8-10. 4. Having asserted the inscrutable nature of God the Creator, in the demand, " What is his name ?" he attributes to him a Son, of nature as myste- rious and unsearchable : — " What is his Son's name, if thou canst tell ?" It is complained that the style of Agur is obscure. His subject is profound. But he distinctly presents the points here stated, which are conclusive on the subject of the sonship of Christ. Micah v. 2 constitutes an additional proof of the doctrine before us : — " But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." That this text has respect to Christ, Matthew ii. 6 renders unquestionable. It does not in terms declare his eternal sonship. Yet is the place none the less effective to our purpose, since it indicates such a characteristic in the nature of the Son of God, as exactly cor- responds with the doctrine of his eternal generation, and is otherwise inexplicable. Says Micah, " His goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." The word translated " goings forth," does not of itself necessarily mean birth or generation. But it does unquestionably express action of some kind, and cannot be applied to mere purpose or plan of future action. In the present case, it defines action which antedates the entire work of creation ; it dates "from of old, from everlast- ing." It has, therefore, respect to some action, which is appro- 62 TJw Elohim Revealed. [chap. i. priate to the relations essentially subsisting between the Per- sons of the Godhead. Further, the word is applicable to gene- ration. This is clearly indicated by the use of the verb, from which the noun here used is derived, in other places. Thus, Gen. xv. 4 : — " He that shall go forth, out of thine own bowels, shall be thine heir." Gen. xxxv. 11 : — " Kings shall go forth out of thy loins." 2 Kings xx. 18 : — " Of thy sons which shall issue from thee." The plural form of the word, is also observ- able:— "His goings forth." By this expression, implying a continual repetition of the action, is indicated its eternity. An act, viewed in the light of human comprehension, is a moment- ary and transient thing. In particular, such is the case with a going forth, or a birth. Hence, no more appropriate form could be used to express such action as, being essential in the nature of God, is entirely free from any thing like transition, origin, or termination, than that here used, expressive of perpe- tual and continuous repetition of the same act. We come next to the evidence unfolded in the New Testa- ment, in respect to which any thing more than a very cursory a 6 Proofs de glance is impossible. The careful reader of the rived from the Gospels cannot fail to recognise therein abundant Gospels. evidence that the name, Son of God, was familiar to the Jews, altogether irrespective of Christ's claim to it. They recognised it as being the distinctive name of a divine Person, who was equal with God the Father. As so understood by them, Jesus asserted this as his proper name. Upon this ground, he was tried before the Sanhedrim, and condemned, on the charge of blasphemy. When he was on the cross, this ac- cusation was urged against him ; with the challenge, that, if he were such as he claimed, he would prove it by coming down. The priests recognised his foretold resurrection as the test of the question ; and therefore sealed the stone, and set the guard. And, when he rose, his disciples proclaimed that fact, as the conclusive proof that he was the Son of God. Let us glance at these several points. In the second Psalm, the Jews had been made familiar with the name of the Son of God. We might further show, were it sect, v.] The Triune Creator. 63 necessary, that they understood the passages in Proverbs, in the sense which we have attributed to them. Nebuchadnezzar, who had been fully instructed, as to the coming and history of Messiah's kingdom, by his own prophetic vision of the image, and the stone cut without hands, as well as by the conversation and history of Daniel, shows his familiarity with this name and its meaning, when, upon occasion of the martyrdom of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, he says, "Did not we cast three men bound, into the midst of the fire ? Lo, I see four men loose, walk- ing in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." — Dan. iii. 25. Hence, when our Saviour came, the Jews, familiar with these Scriptures, at once perceived his claim to the name in question to involve the assertion of divinity. On one occasion, Christ having healed a man on the Sabbath day, he replied to the accusation of Sabbath- breaking, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. There- fore sought the Jews the more to kill him, because he had not only broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God." — John v. 18. Jesus is so far from modifying or explaining the language, as though he had been misunderstood, that he goes on to expatiate at length in similar terms ; and makes various statements as to his preroga- tives and powers, which went to sustain the same claim of divinity. He asserts community of working with the Father, and power to renew and transform the living, to raise the dead, and judge the world; and vindicates these claims by appeal to the testimony of his word and works, of John, of Moses, and of the Father. — John v. 19-45. On occasion of healing a blind man, he asks the man, "Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him ? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I be- lieve. And he worshipped him." — John ix. 35-38. Here, Jesus assumes the man to understand the meaning of this name, — an assumption which his answer fully justified. All he needs is, to be told to whom that dread and glorious title belongs; and, upon being informed, he at once pays him divine worship. 64 The Eloliim Revealed. [chap. i. Again, having excited the rage of the Jews, by calling God his Father, and saying, "I and my Father are one," they charge him with blasphemy; " because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." Jesus, then, alluding to the Scripture in which it is written of Israel, "I said, Ye are gods," proceeds to vin- dicate his claim to that title, in a much higher sense; and de- clares his works to be proof "that the Father is in me, and I in him. Therefore they sought again to take him; but he es- caped out of their hand." — John x. 30-39. This assertion of sonship to God, was the very ground on which he was accused and condemned by the senate of Israel. "The high-priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said : never- theless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high-priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy ; what further need have we of witnesses ? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death." — Matt. xxvi. 63-66. Afterward, when urging Pilate to gratify their malice, one plea is, "He maketh himself a king;" and the other, "By our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." — John xix. 7-12. These were the charges upon which he was condemned; as the inscription on his cross and the scoffs of those who passed by testify. They reviled him, saying, " If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." "If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God ; let him deliver him now, if he will have him : for he said, I am the Son of God." — Matt, xxvii. 40, 42, 43. How directly all this had respect to the language of the second Psalm, we need not point out. Evidently, its declarations were present to the minds of all the actors. So distinctly and publicly was it recognised, that the cpuestion at issue was the divine sonship of Christ, that the Roman centurion, by whom the execution was conducted, overwhelmed by the prodigies which attended the scene, de- sect, vl] The Triune Creator. 65 clared them conclusive proof of the justice of his claim. He exclaims, "Truly this was the Son of God." — Matt, xxvii. 54. Accordingly, when he was risen from the dead, he makes his first announcement of the fact to Mary Magdalene, in terms assert- ing this relation: — "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father." — John xix. 17. The Apostle John closes his narrative, by saying, "These things were written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that be- lieving ye might have life through his name." — John xx. 31. And Paul, in the beginning of the Epistle to the Eomans, de- clares the gospel to be concerning Jesus Christ our Lord, "which was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh, and de- clared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." — Eom. i. 1-4. Now, let it be observed, that, in the whole course of Christ's ministry, there is not a trace of any hesitation on the part of any . one of his hearers, in reference to the meaning of the name, Son of God. "Whether Nathanael at Bethsaida, (John i. 49,) his disciples wondering at his power over winds and waves, (Matt. xiv. 33,) the blind man restored to sight ; devils in terror of him as their final judge, (Matt. viii. 29,) the people abroad, (John v. 18, x. 30,) or the sanhedrim in council, (Matt. xxvi. 63,) whenever that title was used respecting him, or claimed by him, it is re- cognised at once and by all as the well-known and appropriate designation of an incommunicable divine nature. In calling himself, Son of God, they regarded him as claiming equality with God. Knowing them so to understand him, he still con- tinues to employ the name; and when put upon oath before the high-priest, affirms the title, and claims that as such he will be the Judge of quick and dead. Can there be any question that the name so employed and signalized was a name of the divine nature of the Saviour of the world ? We have cursorily cited a scripture, which demands more particular notice. Eom. i. 1-4: — "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the derived from gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his the Epistles. prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his Sou 5 66 The Elohim Revealed. [chap. i. Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh ; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." Here, the apostle draws a contrast between the human and divine nature which were in Christ. His human nature is designated by the phrase, (xard adpxa}) " ac- cording to the flesh;" and his divine nature, by the correspond- ing expression, (xard 7tveu/ua dynoauvrji;,) " according to (or, as to) his holy spiritual nature." Of his human nature, his flesh, the apostle predicates a sonship to David. He was " made of the seed of David as to the flesh." But, as to his holy spiritual nature, he was " declared to be the Son of God with power." It is true, that the word here rendered " de- clared," does sometimes mean, to determine, or decree. But it is also true, that the apostle defines that of which he is speak- ing, in unequivocal terms, as being that in Christ which was in contrast with his human nature, " his holy spiritual nature." "We do not discuss the question of the divinity of Christ ; but assume it as unquestionable. Upon this assumption, it is im- possible to evade the conclusion, that it is the divine nature of Christ of which Paul speaks, under the designation, "holy, spiritual," and it is of this that he predicates sonship; — sonship, too, which, however demonstrated, as we have seen it was, by his resurrection, could not in any way be produced or originated thereby. In short, if as here asserted his sonship belongs to his divine nature, it must be essential and eternal in that nature ; since the nature of God is in every sense unchangeable. The conclusion thus attained, is by Paul presented in its rela- tion to the history of which we have already spoken. When Jesus was on trial, his answer to the demand whether he was the Son of God, was, "I am : and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." — Mark xiv. 62. To this assertion of his joint Godhead and humanity, and of his authority and power, as God-man, to judge the world at the last day, Paul evidently alludes : — " The gospel which I preach is concerning Jesus Christ our Lord, who was the Son of man, for he was as to his sect, vil] The Triune Creator. 67 flesli the son of David ; but lie was also the Son of God, clothed with power as the judge of quick and dead, at whose voice they that sleep in the dust shall rise ; and this he has declared, show- ing himself to be the Son of God with power, by himself rising from the dead." We cannot omit a rapid glance at the testimony of Paul, to the Hebrews. " God, who at sundry times and in divers man- ners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath ap- pointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds ; who, being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they." — Heb. i. 1-4. In respect to this scripture, and the whole argument of the epistle, let these things be observed. 1. The design of the apostle is to signalize to the children of Abraham the pre-eminent glory and excel- lence of the Lord Jesus Christ. 2. Himself an Hebrew of the Hebrews, Paul was fully aware of the fact that his people re- garded the title, Son of God, as a name asserting a supreme and coequal divinity with the Father, as we have already suffi- ciently seen. 3. Knowing this, the apostle in this deliberately written argument, designed to go nakedly forth, to be under- stood according to the accepted meaning of its terms, where any explanations, or cautions as to a particular sense, would be im- possible, describes the Lord Jesus by this title. 4. To him thus designated, he attributes every characteristic of divinity ; and at the same time, in respect to them all, employs terms appro- priate to the filial relation to the Father so indicated. It is as the only begotten that he is Son, having " obtained by inherit- ance" that name which is, by adoption and union with him, con- ferred on the saints. It is as the Son that he is "the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person;" and as Son he is heir and Lord of all things. — Heb. i. 2, iii. 6. By the Son, God " made the worlds." He " upholdeth all things 68 The Elohim Revealed. [chap. i. by the word of his power." In short, to him, as Son, are the title, the dominion and the prerogatives of God emphatically- applied. " Unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom," &c. Again, in the third chapter, the apostle uses an argument, which is alike conclusive to the divinity and the eternal sonship of Christ. " He was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. For every house is builded (otto zcvoz) by some one ; but he that built all things is God. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant; . . . but Christ as a Son, over his own house." — Heb. iii. 3-6. Here the- glory of Christ is displayed, by contrast with Moses, in the argument that, as he was Moses' maker, he must be infinitely more glorious than that great prophet. Furthermore, inasmuch as, not only of Moses, but of all things, he is the maker and upholder, he must be God; since "he that made all things is God." The apostle, then, in a very remarkable way, identifies the sonship and the divinity of Christ. Moses was faithful as a servant ; " but Christ as a Son over his own house." As Son, he was the Father's agent in creating all things ; and, as Son, he is pro- prietor of all things, by a double title : first, as thus by him they were made ; and, second, as he, being Son, is heir to the Father. He, therefore, as Son, exercises a most unquestionable right, when he rules all things; since they are "his own house." Were it necessary, we might insist upon the many passages where the language clearly implies the relation of the Father and Son to have subsisted prior to any of the trans- scriptwai ar- actions in the plan of redemption ; on which it is guments. sometimes attempted to predicate the origination of these names. Thus, when our Saviour says, " God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son. . . . For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world," — John iii. 16, 17, the entire force of the argument in proof of the love of God, turns upon the assumption that he whom he or- dained and sent, was his Son prior to his mission ; — that, in sect, vii.] The Triune Creator. 60 giving him to the world, he was robbing himself of a relation so near and tender. To say that he became the Son of God, by coming into the world, or after his coming, is to deprive the argument of the Saviour of its preciousness and force. A per- son professes special kindness to another. In proof of it, he asserts that, on the other's behalf, he had hazarded the life of his own son. But, on inquiry, it appears that the sonship is only by adoption ; and that its date is subsequent to the trans- action referred to. Who wo aid not condemn the statement as doubly false ? first, in calling him an own son, who was only an adopted child ; and, second, in presenting the relation as an element in an occurrence which took place before the relation had existence ? Yet such is the impeachment to which Christ, in his language to Nicodemus, and his apostles, in many similar places, are exposed, by the interpretation which denies the eter- nal sonship. It is worthy of serious consideration, that the rejection of this doctrine involves principles which utterly impoverish the testimony of the Scriptures, on the subject of the adoption and sonship which belong to the people of God. That adoption does not consist in a mere arbitrary designating and treating of them as sons. But they are sons by virtue of their being the members, the seed, of Christ the only-begotten Son. " Accord- ing to our doctrine, Christ has made us the sons of God, to- gether with himself, by the privilege of a fraternal union, because he is, in our nature, which he assumed, the only- begotten Son of God."* Now, if Christ's sonship be native, we recognise a precious reality in a sonship to God, consequent upon union with him. But, if Christ's own sonship is merely adoptive, the whole conception of our relation to the Father becomes obscure and inane. Then, either are we, by the im- mediate adoption of the Father, as nearly related as is the only- begotten ; or else, Christ being the medium, our relation is that of adoption in the second degree, — adopted sons through him who is but the adopted Son. In short, whenever and however he became so, Christ is not an adopted son, but the only begotten. * Calvin's Institutes, Book II. xiv. 7. 70 The Eloliim Revealed. [chap. i. The attempt is made to evade the force of the abundant ar- guments, at some of which we have glanced, by the sug- 1 9. Objections gestion, that Christ was Son of God, by virtue of his answered. miraculous conception ; or, of his resurrection from the dead. In proof of the former position, appeal is made to the language of the angel to Mary : — " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee : therefore, also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." — Luke i. 35. But, even were we to allow the interpretation which is contended for, it does not involve the conclusion upon which opposers of our doc- trine insist. This same writer, Luke, traces the genealogy of Jesus to Adam, "which was the son of God." — Luke iii. 38. And it is unquestionable that, as Adam was the son of God, by virtue of the immediate agency of God in his creation, so, in a very analogous manner, the second Adam, as to his human nature, was a son of God by virtue of the miraculous mode of his generation, which is spoken of by the angel. But this, so far from precluding the doctrine of the eternal sonship, is en- tirely congruous with it. It would seem eminently becoming, that the eternal Son, in uniting his nature with that of man, should be invested with a humanity sustaining to the Father a relation as nearly filial as man's nature may. We, therefore, readily admit that this was comprehended in the meaning of the angel. But, that it was all which he meant, we most stre- nuously deny ; and if it was all which Mary herself understood, or was intended to understand, — which is by no means to be ad- mitted,— she would but be in the condition in which were the prophets. They were conscious of very inadequate conceptions respecting the things which are now by us clearly understood in their writings. (1 Pet. i. 10-12.) Whilst the man, Christ Jesus, was son of God, by virtue of his miraculous conception ; the mediatorial person was in a much higher sense the Son, the only -begotten, of the Father. He is so, by virtue of the fact, that, in him, the Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God, is one person with the son of Mary. And it is in reference to the typical relation of the first Adam to the second, sect, ix.] The Triune Creator. 71 that the former, although sustaining a relation to God which was only a shadow of that of Christ, is designated, "son of God." The testimony of all the Scriptures is in harmony with this interpretation of the language of the angel; whilst the other is open to several insurmountable objections. It entirely ignores the eternity of the generation, which, as we have seen, the Scriptures elsewhere unequivocally attest. Further, it is the Holy Spirit, and not the Father, to whom the miraculous conception is attributed; and yet Christ is never called the Son of the Spirit. Not only so, but his title, Son of God, as used among the Jews, had manifestly no allusion to the manner of the birth of Jesus. We have not the slightest reason to sup- pose them to have known any thing whatever of the miraculous conception. That they should have imagined the name to have any reference to such a fact, is altogether irreconcilable with the whole tenor of the New Testament on the subject. An illustration of this is seen in the confession of Nathanael. He knew nothing of Jesus, except that he was from Nazareth. Upon this fact, he predicates the inquiry, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" But no sooner does our Saviour evince to this true Israelite his omniscience, by the declaration, " Before that Peter called thee, when thou wast under the fig- tree, I saw thee," then he replies, "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the king of Israel." — John i. 49. To say, that the miraculous conception was the ground of this profession of faith, is to trifle with the subject. All that Nathanael knew of Christ was, that in him was incarnate Omniscience. So, this hypothesis is entirely inconsistent with the fact, that the Jews at large recognised this name as conveying an assertion of equality with God; and that the sense in which the title was claimed by Christ was such as, if false, involved him by their law in the charge of blasphemy. To say, that he used the word in another than the received sense, is, to accuse him of deceit; and involves the conclusion, that he died a martyr to falsehood, rather than a witness to the truth. To pretend that the council understood him, by that name, to mean no more than that he was miraculously born, is folly. 72 The Eloldm Revealed. [chap. i. The most of these objections apply to the theory which sup- poses him to have become the Son of God by the resurrection ; with this in addition : — It involves the falsehood of all his claims to this name; and of all the Father's testimonies to him, prior to his resurrection. He did not say to the Jews, "I will become the Son of God;" but, "I am the Son;" and the Father says, "This is my beloved Son." He was not condemned and cruci- fied upon a charge so absurd, — that he declared that if killed, he would rise again; but because he said, "I am the Son of God;" making himself equal with God. However the relation arose, one thing is unquestionable : — that, alike by his own, the Bap- tist's, and the Father's testimony, he was the Son of God, from the beginning of his ministry. We might appeal to that large class of scriptures, which use this, as the highest title they can apply to Him who " counted it not robbery to be equal with God." Paul can find no stronger terms, in which to describe the condescension and love of God, than, that he "hath spoken to us by his Son." — Heb. i. 2. Nor can he more strongly express the wickedness of those who reject Christ, than by saying that they "have trodden under foot the Son of God." — Heb. x. 29. In other places, the name is used as the peculiar and only proper designation of Christ, in his specific character, as God. Thus, it is in the baptismal ser- vice; wherein, if ever, are indicated the distinctive relations of the Three to each other as revealed for the faith and adoration of men. We might also point to the peculiar manner in which Jesus and his apostles use the title, "the Father," to designate the First Person of the Three. Upon these points we cannot dwell. There are, however, two or three additional arguments, which we may not omit to notice. 1. If these names do not constitute designations, intended to announce the First and Second Persons of the Tri- '., " .. nity, as distinct subsistences of the Godhead, pe- consiaerations. J > ' -t culiarly related to each other, — then there are no such designations. That " there are Three that bear record in heaven," is unquestionable. That their relations to each other must be several and distinctive, is equally unquestionable. sect, ix.] The Triune Creator. 73 That the Holy One has revealed himself to man, in the use of a variety of names, each of which is appropriated to the illustra- tion of some grand characteristic of the divine nature and its relations to man, — and that these names, taken together, serve to proclaim almost every important element in those character- istics,— every one knows, who knows any thing of his Bible. That the Third Person is made known by a name which is pecu- liar to him, and descriptive of his relations to the other Persons, is also incontrovertible. Is it, then, conceivable that the First and Second are left without names equally descriptive and pe- culiar to them, as subsisting in the Godhead and concurring in man's creation and redemption, each in his appropriate mode? Can this be possible, when these are they, as Christ declares, the knowledge of whom, in their several and united divinity, is eternal life? (John xvii. 3.) 2. Still more absurd appears such an assumption, when we find that the Scriptures do actually reveal the names of Father and Son ; and appropriate them in such a way as precisely to fill all the conditions of the case here set forth. In baptism, — that most signal act of homage, in which the recovered mem- bers of a race apostate from God enter anew into his covenant, and consecrate themselves to him, as the object of their worship, and the author of their salvation, the Triune God, — the Persons of the Godhead are announced by the several names, "the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost." Thus is the distinctive name of the Third Person given ; and with it are associated designations of the other Persons, which, thus occurring, we must conclude to be equally appropriate, equally descriptive and divine. This argument is yet further strengthened, by the fact that there is nothing revealed, concerning either the nature or the works of these blessed Persons, which does not find its normal relation to, and exposition in, these names, and the doctrine which they contain. Fully to unfold this argument, would be to write a volume. And our present treatise is designed to set forth, imperfectly, some of the great truths concerning God, in this very aspect. For the present, it is enough to suggest, that if eternal blessedness is attributed to these adorable Ones, it is 74 The Elohim Revealed. [chap. i. as the Son rejoices always before the Father and dwells in his bosom; whilst the Father delights in him, his beloved, his Son. If they are the Creator of all things, it is as the Father forms the plan, and commissions the Son, his appropriate agent, to perform the work. If the plan of salvation is unfolded, it is as the Father devises it, and sends the Son. And the Son, on the other hand, though essentially equal, yet thus relatively as Son subordinate, presents himself, saying, "Lo, I come to do thy will." In short, he who will examine with careful scrutiny the whole revelation, concerning the Persons and works of the Tri- nity, will discover that every thing has its solution in these names ; and the entire scheme acquires congruity and beauty, as its elements cluster around the central truths which are in- volved in their use, and asserted in appropriate description of the things signified by them. In fact, the unavoidable alterna- tive is, practically to ignore the fact of a specific relation be- tween the Persons of the Godhead, and assume that all which is revealed to us respecting them is, that, in some sense, they are three, and, in some other sense, one; or, else, distinctly to recognise the reality and significance of the doctrine of the eternal generation. For, in the Scriptures, every thing which is said by way of particular revelation, on the subject of the divine plurality, is spoken in terms of this doctrine. Every thing tends to present it as one of the essential relations in which the unity, plurality and perfections of God have their solution, and shine forth to bless the creatures. 3. Our last argument the reader will be better prepared to appreciate, when the discussions of this volume are closed. We merely state it ; to be kept in view, as we endeavour to unfold and contemplate the wondrous way of God with man. In the whole doctrine of the Bible concerning God and man, the names and the relations of father and son occupy a position of signal importance. However to be explained, they are used, as we have seen, in a most intimate relation to the nature of God him- self and the creation of all things. In them, we have the terms of the problem respecting the ruin of our race, — Adam our father and his sons. In the plan of redemption, Christ appears sect, x.] The Triune Creator. 75 alternately, Son of man, bearing the curse, — Son of God, tri- umphing over Satan and death, — and father of a seed, who are redeemed by his blood. In the consummation of the work of grace, God proclaims himself our Father; and the full glory of that love and grace of God, which has embraced our world, cul- minates in the adoption of sons, and the privileges and inherit- ance thence resulting, on earth and forever in heaven. To us, these facts, which give the Scriptures all their lustre, and make the love and grace of God to shine in an ineffable light, are utterly irreconcilable with the supposition that the relations, paternal and filial, thus honoured, are relations merely human. Is it conceivable, that the glorious nature of God and Persons of the Godhead, the history of man, and the several steps in the scheme of God's eternal glory and man's unending bliss, all re- volve as satellites around a relation purely human, — a relation limited to the earth, and destined to perish with the passing scenes of time ? This seems especially absurd, when we remem- ber the fact of man's destination to be the image and likeness of God; and the purpose of the whole work of God to be, the revelation and glory, — not of man, but of God. Of all this we shall see more hereafter. z 11. Sim of Brown of Haddington compresses the scriptural the scriptural evidence, as to the eternal generation, into a few argument. brief paragraphs, which are here presented, as a recapitulation of the Bible argument. " He is not the Son of God by his miraculous conception and birth. (1.) The Holy Ghost is never represented as his Father, nor could be, without admitting two fathers in the Godhead. That 'holy thing born' is called the Son of God, because his manhood subsisted in the person of the Son of God. — Luke i. 35. He had the character and relation of Son of God, long before his conception or birth. — Prov. xxx. 4; Psalm ii. 7; Gal. iv. 4; John iii. 16, 17. (2.) According to his human nature or flesh, he is the Son of man, — of Abraham, David, — and not the Son of God. (3.) His being 'made of a woman' was subsequent to his being the Son of God. — Romans viii. 3, 32; Gal. iv. 4. (4.) His extraordinary conception and birth could never render him 'the 76 The Elohim Revealed. [chap. i. only begotten Son of God,' as he is termed, — John i. 14, and iii. 16, 18; 1 John iv. 9; since Adam was his son by creation, and Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Samson, Samuel, and John Baptist, were procreated by extraordinary influence; tho' indeed very differ- ent from that which was exerted in the production of Christ's manhood. " Nor is he called the Son of God, on account of God's raising him from the dead; for (1) He was the Son of God long before. —Matt. iii. 17, xvii. 5; John v. 16, 17, x. 30, 36; Markxiv. 61, 62; Matt. xvi. 15, 16; John vi. 69, i. 49. (2.) If his resurrection had rendered him the Son of God, he would have been his own father, as he raised himself. — John x. 17, 18, ii. 19. (3.) This could not have rendered him 'the only begotten Son of God;' as millions beside have or shall be raised from the dead. — Matt, xxvii. 52, 53; John v. 28, 29; 1 Thess. iv. 14, 16; Eev. xx. 12. Nor doth Acts xiii. 33 import that he became Son of God by his resurrection, but that his sonship was manifested by it, (compare Rom. i. 3, 4 ;) and that his resurrection publicly proved that the word of salvation, particularly that Psalm ii. 7, 8, was then ex- hibited, given, and fulfilled to men. "Nor doth his mediatorial office constitute him the Son of God. (1.) A mission on an errand, or an appointment to service, cannot, in the nature of things, constitute sonship. (2.) His son- ship is represented as prior to his commission to, or execution of, his mediatorial office. — John iii. 16 ; Gal. iv. 4 ; 1 John iv. 9, 10, iii. 8; Heb. v. 8. (3.) His divine sonship puts virtue into his mediatorial office; and so cannot depend on it. — Heb. iv. 14. (4.) His being 'from the Father' in respect to his sonship is ex- pressly distinguished from his being ' sent' to execute his media- torial office. — John vii. 29. " But he is the Son of God by necessary and eternal genera- tion ; — that is, by such necessity, that the divine nature cannot at all exist without subsisting in him, in the form and relation of a Son to the First Person. (1.) In many texts of Scripture, he is simply called the Son of God, and in that character repre- sented as the Most High God, the Lord God of his people, the Lord God, God the Saviour.— Luke i. 16, 17, 32, 35, 46, 47,— as sect, xi.] The Triune Creator. 77 coming from heaven and above all, — John iii. 31; Matt. xi. 27, — and as the object of faith and worship, — John iii. 17, 36, ix. 35-38; Matt. iv. 33, xxvii. 54, — or as the same with God, — Heb. i. 8; 1 John iii. 8, with 1 Tim. iii. 16, — and as equal with his Father. — Matt, xxviii. 19; John v. 21. (2.) God hath given the most solemn and emphatic testimonies to his divine sonship. — Matt. iii. 17, xvii. 5. The first of these texts, literally translated, runs, ' This is that my Son, my beloved one, in whom I am well pleased.' And in the other, we are commanded to 'hear him,' as infinitely superior to Moses and Elias, his then visitants, who had been the most extraordinary of all the Old Testament pro- phets (3.) The Scriptures represent him as God's 'own Son,' his 'proper Son,' his 'Son of himself.' — John i. 14, 18, iii. 16, 18; Bom. viii. 3, 32; 1 John iv. 9, 12. If these expressions do not represent him as the Son by natural generation, what can do it ? (4.) His being the Christ, Messiah, or Mediator is plainly distin- guished from his being the Son of God. — John i. 49, vi. 69 ; Matt, xvi. 16; Heb. v. 8; 1 John iv. 14. (5.) When he was charged with blasphemy in making himself equal with God, by calling himself the Son of God, he plainly acquiesced in their interpre- tation of his words ; and, instead of showing them that his claim of sonship to God, did not infer his claim of equality with God, he took occasion further to assert and demonstrate his supreme Godhead.— John v. 16-29, x. 30-36, xix. 7; Matt. xxvi. 63-65. Nay, perhaps, 'making himself equal with God,' John v. 18, are not the words of the persecuting Jews, but of the inspired evangelist. (6.) It was not from acts properly mediatorial, but from divine acts, that he was concluded to be the Son of God. — Matt. iv. 3, 6, xiv. 33, xxvii. 40, 54; John i. 49. (7.) If the title, Son of man, import his possession of a real manhood, his cha- racter, Son of God, God's proper Son, Son of himself, and only begotten Son of God, must certainly import his possession of the divine nature, — true and supreme Godhead. Now, if he be the Son of God, by nature, he must be his eternal Son, begotten from all eternity; for nothing that is not necessarily eternal in the highest sense, can be natural to God. Nor is there the least impropriety in God's calling his own eternity, 'this Jay,' as 78 The Eloliim Revealed. [chap. i. an unsuccessive eternity is ever present. — Ps. ii. 7, with Isa. xliii. 13; Micali v. 2. Nor is the generation of his Son there repre- sented as an event decreed, but as antecedent to, or fundamental of, God's grant of the Gentiles to him for his mediatorial inhe- ritance."* The evidence at which we have glanced, abundantly esta- blishes the position that the name, Father, is that by which the