'■Ah.^ 
 
 :x7y 
 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 BL 240 .C6 1886 
 Cockburn, Samuel. 
 The laws of nature and the 
 laws of God 
 
 

 4 
 
 T^*-;: 
 
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 M 
 
 
 
THE LAWS OF NATURE AND 
 THE LAWS OF GOD. 
 
THE LAWS OF NATURE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE LAWS OF GOD 
 
 A REPLY TO PROF. DRUMMOND 
 
 SAMUEL COCKBURN, M.D., L.R.C.S.E 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN, LE BAS & I.OWREY. 
 
 PATEENOSTER SQUARE. 
 
 1886. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 Though conscious of many literary de- 
 fects in this Reply, I have a hope that it 
 may to some extent, however limited, 
 neutralise the baneful eifects resulting 
 from the attempt now being made in 
 different quarters to square the teachings 
 of revealed religion with the uncertain 
 findings and ever changing speculations 
 of modern science and philosophy. 
 
 Science and religion belong to two 
 entirely different spheres. Each is culti- 
 vated and advanced by its own special 
 modes and principles ; and each is subject 
 
ii Preface. 
 
 to its own special tests. The one is 
 entirely independent of tlie other, and 
 they ought never to be pitted the one 
 against the other, nor brought into colli- 
 sion. Let the motto in each sphere be — 
 Truth, as we see it ; Truth, as we know it ; 
 Truth, whithersoever it leads. 
 
 The attempt to harmonise science and 
 religion is uncalled for, and totally un- 
 necessary. Science with all its brilliant 
 past and still more brilliant future may 
 be safely left to itself, and its many 
 earnest cultivators are perfectly able to 
 look after themselves. Religion with all 
 its past victories and brilliant achieve- 
 ments in the social, moral, and spiritual 
 culture of the race, and its still more 
 glorious and transcendant future, needs no 
 props, and no patronising support either 
 fr«m science or philosophy, and its many 
 
Preface. m 
 
 representatives are perfectly able to defend 
 themselves. 
 
 The natural laws of the material universe 
 will ever form a rich field for the exercise 
 of man's natural reason and ingenuity, and 
 each worker will be rewarded according to 
 the lines on which he works, and the ability 
 and perseverance with which he conducts 
 that work. But the laws which hold 
 good in the spiritual sphere of a man's 
 being, and in that world where lies his 
 future home, are not the product of man's 
 reason and ingenuity. They must be 
 revealed to him, and he becomes their 
 recipient only according to his individual 
 moral state, and not in virtue of his 
 scientific or philosophical attainments. 
 
 The scope and sphere of the natural 
 laws are in the seen and temporal. The 
 scope and sphere of the spiritual laws are 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 ill tlie unseen and the eternal. Professor 
 Druramond wishes to teach that the hiws 
 of the one sphere are not different and 
 distinct from the laws of the other, but 
 that they are one and the same. And 
 seeing that the natural laws as discovered 
 by man are at best only tentative and ap- 
 proximative, not absolutely true and final, 
 it would be very sad indeed if the laws 
 which hold good in the spiritual sphere 
 were always to be changed and modified 
 according to tlie opinions and ideas which 
 might happen to prevail at any particular 
 time regarding such natural laws. It 
 Avould also be equally sad if the great 
 bulk of Christian men and women who are 
 neither skilled in science nor versed in 
 philosophy were obliged to go to men, 
 many of whom neither believe in a God 
 nor a future life, and receive from them 
 
Preface. v 
 
 the guide to, and the guarantee of the 
 laws which liold good in the spiritual 
 sphere ! 
 
 As a whole, I cannot look upon Drum- 
 mond's book as in any sense an attempt 
 to discover the fixed laws of Nature, and 
 to trace these into the spiritual sphere, 
 which would have been a most interesting 
 and profitable inquiry, but rather as a 
 natural effort to support and perpetuate 
 certain aspects of a sectarian theology 
 on the ground that he could prove that 
 theology to be in perfect accord with 
 modern science and philosophy. And 
 while it is right that every mode, every 
 process, and every part in nature ought 
 as far as possible to be made subser- 
 vient to the teaching and illustration 
 of spiritual truths, Christ liimself having 
 largely done so, I sliould strongly suspect 
 
vi Prejacc. 
 
 and fear any system of theology wliicli in 
 any degree depended upon, or that in 
 its essentials was in perfect harmony 
 with, the laws of modern science and 
 philosophy. 
 
 Sir D. Brewster was an eminent man 
 of science, and a genuine Christian. Fara- 
 day was also a prominent leader in 
 scientific research, and at the same time 
 a man of well-pronounced Christian 
 character. These and many others have 
 been earnest cultivators of science, and at 
 the same time genuine Christians, making 
 no effort to reconcile or harmonise their 
 religious belief with their scientific studies. 
 Why should the wants and the longings 
 of the immortal soul be checked or im- 
 perilled by considerations of science 
 and philosopliy? They required no Hux- 
 ley and no Darwin to explain to them 
 
Preface, vii 
 
 the laws of spiritual life. And they felt 
 no want of a Herbert Spencer to unfold 
 or o'aurantee to them the truthfulness of 
 Christ's doctrine of eternal life, or spiritual 
 Death. They acknowledged one guide, 
 and only one authority, God's word, the 
 sure word of prophecy; and that one 
 guide and one authority will be ours. 
 The Christian religion can never be in- 
 jured by any attack from an external 
 enemy ; but it is, and it always has been, 
 in danger of being seriously injured by 
 professed friends in their endeavour to 
 incorporate into its doctrines the teachings 
 of philosophy falsely so called ! 
 
 SAMUEL COCKBURN, M.D. 
 
 172 Bath St., Glasgow 
 January, 1886. 
 
REPLY TO DRUMMOND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Before entering on a review of Professor 
 Drummond's work entitled "Natural Law 
 in the Spiritual World," we must first 
 give expression to our liigh appreciation 
 of the many excellencies in that book. 
 It is written in a most fiiscinating and 
 charming style, and it manifests all 
 through a thoroughly Christian spirit. 
 It shows that the author lias a very com- 
 plete knowledge of the achievements of 
 modern science; that lie is also thoroughly 
 versed in all the theoretical sociology and 
 
lo Reply to T)rtimmond. 
 
 speculative philosophy of the present day, 
 that he is well versed in the Holy 
 Scriptures, and knows well how to 
 use these in the defence and support of 
 his theories. We cannot, however, con- 
 ceal the conviction that his faith in, and 
 attachment to, modern speculative science 
 and philosophy is much too strong and 
 wholly unwarranted. The history of the 
 past shows that every form of science and 
 philosophy has been advanced only to be 
 demolished in turn by new experiments 
 and more recent speculations, and there 
 is no reason to expect that the one or the 
 other in our day will prove any exception 
 to their predecessors. Finality and per- 
 fection have not yet been reached. And 
 further, it is all but universally conceded 
 that the science and philosophy of the 
 present day are more directly opposed to 
 
Reply to Drnmnwnd. T i 
 
 the teachings and truths of revealed re- 
 ligion than any which have been advanced 
 for half a century before, and that on 
 that account they require to be looked at 
 very carefully and guardedly. No one 
 knows this better than Professor Drum- 
 mond, and it is perfectly possible that 
 his attachment to modern science and 
 philosophy may be more apparent than 
 real, and that the doctrines of modern 
 biology, evolution, and sociology have 
 been adopted because they offer specially 
 suitable media for the dissemination of doc- 
 trines which, if more plainly pronounced 
 and in the ordinary language of men, 
 might be rather unsavoury. In this view 
 of the case he has been most successful. 
 
 It will be quite impossible in the com- 
 pass of a short review to look at the 
 preface and introduction — two most im- 
 
12 Reply to Driimmond. 
 
 portant parts of the work ; nor yet will 
 it 136 possible to take up all the question- 
 able statements contained in the various 
 chapters; we must restrict ourselves to 
 the most prominent features of the work. 
 The first chapter is entitled Biogenises, 
 which treats of the origin of life. The 
 Professor says *' there is no life without 
 life." There can be no life without 
 antecedent life. And on this foundation 
 he raises a ver}^ strange superstructure. 
 The statement apparently means a great 
 deal, but in reality it adds nothing what- 
 ever to the doctrine universally taught 
 and universally accepted all over Chris- 
 tendom. In the Bible we are taught that 
 God is the Source and Origin of all life. 
 And about this there can be no mistake, 
 for there is no ambiguity about tlie 
 lanoruac^e. But the scientific standpoint 
 
Reply to Drum7}wnd. 13 
 
 of "110 life witliuut previous life" is 
 rather 11 slippery foundation to build upon. 
 In tlie grand old Book we have what 
 ]nay be called a condensed summary of 
 the creation of all things. This account 
 starts with God as the Creator, and traces 
 the gradual development of creative work 
 from the lowest forjns of existence up to 
 man, who is the highest manifestation of 
 creative skill and power — a being made 
 in the image and likeness of his great 
 Creator. And it certainly would have 
 been more in keeping with the spiritual 
 culture of the age had Professor Drum- 
 mond started his hiquiry from this basis. 
 But simply to say that there is no life 
 without previous life, is, as we will find, 
 a very ambiguous statement. Conven- 
 tionally speaking, it is acknowledged 
 that all forms of life imply the existence 
 
14 Reply to Drummond. 
 
 of previous life. But scientifically speak- 
 ing, it has no claim to be looked upon as 
 a universal truth. If by the statement 
 that there is no life without previous life 
 is meant that all life now existing has 
 been produced from, or created by, 
 previous life, we must dissent from the 
 statement ; life is never created or pro- 
 duced. It is uncreatable. And yet the 
 statement is capable of covering this. 
 
 The scientific doctrine of Biogenises 
 with its associated doctrine of evolution 
 is intended to dispense with the existence 
 of God as a creator altogether. Life in 
 no form can be produced or created, for 
 God only is life, and has life in Himself, 
 and from Him alone all and every degree 
 of life conies. Modern scientists, in place 
 of starting their investigations from the 
 one great First Cause, start from man 
 
Reply to Dritmmond. \ 5 
 
 and pursue their investigations back- 
 wards, till they come, not to God, but to 
 a glutinous kind of matter which they 
 call protoplasm, as the beginning of all 
 living creatures, and to the mineral which 
 they say is dead. This is all the scientist 
 can give us as the goal of his in- 
 quiries. And strange, these positions are 
 essential to the doctrines which Professor 
 Drummond wishes to inculcate. 
 
 He refers to the three great divisions 
 of nature, namely, the animal, the vege- 
 table, and the mineral, and shows that 
 the mineral has no power to become a 
 plant, and that the plant has no power 
 to become an animal ; that if ever the 
 mineral is to become a plant, the plant 
 must act upon it and mould it into part 
 of its own structure. And so if the plant 
 is ever to^ become an animal the animal 
 
1 6 Reply to Dritimnond. 
 
 must act upon it iiud incorporate it into 
 part of its own organisation. And that 
 exactly the same thing holds good in the 
 spiritual sphere. 
 
 Now the doctrine he wishes to enforce 
 from this is, that a natural man is just as 
 dead spiritually as a crystal — that there 
 is no possibility whatever of a natural 
 man becoming spiritually minded unless 
 some outside power acts upon him in the 
 same way that the plant does upon the 
 mineral, or the animal does upon the 
 plant. We hold that there is no analogy 
 between the two, much less identity. In 
 support and elucidation of his position, 
 he introduces the case of Biogenises 
 versus spontaneous generation ; but here 
 we think he either misapprehends or mis- 
 represents what is essential in the doc- 
 trine of spontaneous generation^ He says 
 
Reply to Dnunmond. i 7 
 
 ^* a thousand modern pulpits are every 
 day preaching the doctrine of spontane- 
 ous generation." But l)y spontaneous 
 generation lie means that somethim^ 
 which is virtually and absolutely dead 
 can of its own accord become livini]^. 
 Now that is perfectly absurd. No one 
 believes anything of the kind. About 
 life in the abstract we know nothino;. 
 Life is omnipresent as God is. Where 
 He is there is life. Life in some form 
 exists everywhere. The forms of life are 
 infinite and everchanging. These forms 
 are determined by surrounding conditions 
 and circumstances, the active agent being 
 their inherent power or force of life, call it 
 what you wid, given l)y God Himself We 
 can predicate of life only from its mani- 
 festations. The chemist cannot precipitate 
 it ; the scientist cannot give it a form. 
 
1 8 Reply to Drttmmond, 
 
 The pliilosoplier in his highest flights 
 cannot catch it. It is everywhere where 
 God is. The chemist can measure and 
 weigh the nitrogen and the oxygen in 
 the atmosphere ; but neither oxygen nor 
 nitrogen are life. And yet the atmo- 
 sphere is full of life. From the food we eat 
 and the water we drink we build up and 
 maintain the structure of our bodies — the 
 house we live in ; but as at the beginning, 
 so now, to a large extent we derive life 
 from the atmosphere through our nostrils. 
 The forms of matter are often deter- 
 mined by conditions under the control of 
 man, and thus in so far as the forms are 
 concerned he becomes a creator in the 
 sense of a potter ; he creates nothing 
 from himself as God does ; but the clay 
 and the life being there, he can determine 
 forms. This marvellous power he has 
 
Reply to Dniminond. 19 
 
 hitherto — consciously or otherwise — ex- 
 ercised to liis shame and loss. There are 
 noxious and destructive forms of matter 
 which in a paradisaical condition could 
 have had no existence, and which never 
 were created by God, and which in a 
 truly regenerated condition could be of 
 no use, and consequently could not exist. 
 We need only mention in this connection 
 all the family of parasites and the wide- 
 spread, destructive germs of disease. 
 AVho can doubt that there are a vast 
 number of organisms of a destructive 
 character directly the product of diverted 
 and perverted forces ? This, no doubt, 
 opens up a very wide subject which 
 we cannot further enter on here. But 
 what we mean is this, that, while God 
 alone is the Creator, man has also a 
 creative power in his own finite degree 
 
20 Reply to Driiiunwnd. 
 
 in so far as he can corrupt and pervert 
 the Divmo order of things, and thereby 
 Lrinc: into existence a vast multitude of 
 evil active forms which otherwise would 
 never have had any existence. 
 
 Given the material, and given the per- 
 verted conditions and circumstances and 
 you have the perverted product. That is 
 all that is essential in the doctrine of 
 spontaneous generation. God did not 
 create the product — man did it — in direct 
 opposition to the Divine order of things. 
 The doctrine of the scientists on whom 
 the professor relies is this, that every 
 existing organism, no matter what it is — 
 a mite or a maggot, a monkey or a man 
 — is the direct offspring of a previous 
 maggot, monkey or man, back ad in- 
 finitum^ or as some of them believe that 
 man is merely the product of the natural 
 
Reply to Druimnond. 2 i 
 
 law of evolution, that at one time lie Avas 
 a monkey, and further hack, only a mite 
 or a maggot, and further hack still, a mere 
 globule of glutinous matter dignified with 
 the high sounding phrase, protoplasm. 
 
 We now come to the spiritual aspect 
 of the subject. The professor holds and 
 repeats over and over again that there is 
 the same difference between a natural 
 man and a spiritual man that there is 
 between the mineral and the plant. On 
 this doctrine he bestows a large amount 
 of skilful argument. It is his funda- 
 mental argument. If this is wrong, all 
 his scientific theories go for nothing. 
 And liere, we consider, lies his funda- 
 mental error. 
 
 The Bible doctrine of spiritual death 
 he completely misrepresents. Science is 
 of no use here. It is a Bible phrase, a 
 
2 2 Reply to T>rtiinmond. 
 
 Bible fact, and a Bible doctrine, and 
 must be settled on Bible testimony and 
 evidence. An appeal to plants and min- 
 erals is outside the subj ect. A natural man 
 is not as dead as a crystal. Spiritual death 
 has no meanmg of this kind. Spiritual 
 death essentially implies that the spiritual 
 part of the man is still existing and active, 
 but perverted and depraved. Directed 
 to selfishness and sensuality, devoted to 
 the service of the devil, the world and the 
 flesh, and consequently actually dead as 
 regards the love and the service of God. 
 A crystal is just what God made it. Very 
 good. A Spiritually dead man is not as 
 God made him. And in place of being 
 very good he is corrupted and very bad. 
 A crystal is not responsible for being 
 what it is, but a spiritually dead man is 
 responsible for being what he is. He is 
 

 Reply to Dniviniond. 
 
 ill no sense like the passive crystal when 
 the active living plant seizes hold of it 
 and moulds it into part of its own hving 
 structure. Nor like the plant when the 
 animal seizes hold of it and incorporates 
 it into its own living organism. Nothing 
 of the kind, but the very reverse. And 
 yet we are asked to believe that the law 
 and the relationship are the same in both. 
 In iDlace of that, the spiritually dead mafi 
 is in arms against God. He is a rebel. 
 He is not passive in any sense. He is 
 the prodigal son — voluntarily leaving his 
 fathers home — voluntarily spending his 
 substance in riotous living. Not dead 
 like the crystal in any sense, but alive to 
 sin though dead to God and goodness. 
 
 During conversion or regeneration, we 
 have the very same activity, not dead and 
 passive like the crystal. The prodigal 
 
24 Reply to Dritinmond, 
 
 thinks — tliiiiks seriously — comes to him- 
 self — yes, to himself; his relationship of 
 sonshijo to a Father in Heaven. Not that 
 he was merely a higher kind of animal. 
 Not dead like a crystal. But a son 
 wandered from his heavenly home. And 
 realising this he determines to give up his 
 riotous living and return to his Father 
 and with all humility and peniteuce, yet 
 with earnestness and alacrity he returns 
 to liis Father. 
 
 The professor teaches that man is 
 merely a higher kind of animal. His 
 words are these — " He is endowed simply 
 with a higher quality of the animal life." 
 We dissent from this. Man is a distinct, 
 separate and liigher creature altogether 
 than any kind of animal. Man lias a dual 
 nature. However debased and degraded, 
 he has besides his merely animal organisa- 
 
c 
 
 Reply to Driiinviond. 25 
 
 tion a spiritual nature wliicli is never lost, 
 here nor liereafter. Logically speaking, 
 it is incorrect to predicate death or dead- 
 ness of a cr)'stal. Inertia is a property 
 of matter, not death. Death can only b 
 predicated of something which has been 
 living. All through this chapter he looks 
 upon man as merely a higher kind of 
 animal. He ignores or denies that man 
 has a spiritual nature quite distinct from 
 the animal. A spiritual nature by which 
 he can consciously be in communion with 
 and realise the presence of God. A nature 
 which can understand and receive spiritual 
 truth, and under tlie influence of which he 
 can again become God-like. 
 
 The scientists whom the professor takes 
 as liis authorities in natural law do not 
 acknowledge God as the creator of man 
 or the universe. God is ousted from the 
 
2 6 Reply to Drummond. 
 
 world lie has made, and something called 
 Force associated with matter put in His 
 place. In a spiritual point of view this 
 is destructive to all just inquiry. God is 
 not only the creator of the universe, but 
 he is the maintainer and constant sustainer 
 of all that he created. Nothing has an 
 independent life in, or of, itself. The 
 life of all and each is continuously from 
 God. God does not measure out a cer- 
 tain quantity of life to each and go away 
 and leave it. Life comes continuously 
 from Him. He alone is life. This is not 
 only true of j)lants and animals, but of' 
 minerals as well. The integrity of these 
 latter — their very existence depends upon 
 what scientists call, not by the name of life, 
 but by the term forces, namely, chemical 
 affinity, cohesion, gravity. But these forces 
 are not self-existing — not self-created — 
 
Reply to Dritmniond. 27 
 
 tliey are from God, and are in reality 
 only another name for life. The professor 
 says they are dead, but all scientists say 
 they contain or embody forces, and the 
 word force is only another name for life. 
 All that God created is filled with life 
 according to the ends and uses it was 
 intended to serve. 
 
 In proving his argument about the 
 natural man being dead, the Professor 
 takes advantage of mere verbal expres- 
 sions without any due consideration or 
 reference to their intrinsic meaning. 
 Thus, " he that hath the Son hath life : " 
 "he that hath not the Son hath not life;" 
 and from this he assumes that Christ as a 
 person enters into the man. Now there 
 are two fallacies here. Seeing that he 
 does not recognise the existence naturally 
 in any human being of a spiritual nature, 
 
28 Reply to Dj^nninond. 
 
 it follows that, if Christ is to enter and 
 dwell in the man, it must be that he 
 enters into the natural man, or what he 
 calls the merely higher animal, and dwells 
 there. Who can believe this ? The 
 merely annual part of our nature con- 
 tinues even in the reo-enerated man an 
 animal nature still. The animal nature 
 is never converted for the simple reason 
 that the animal nature was not the trans- 
 gressor. The first condition imposed 
 upon Adam and that still applies to all 
 his descendants w^as this — '' the soul that 
 sinneth it shall die" — not the annual 
 nature that sinneth. It is the sj)iritual, 
 the soul part of the man that is converted 
 and regenerated, and through that the 
 merely higher animal part is to be guided, 
 governed, and kept in its proper place. 
 At page 74 lie says, ''Life depends u2)on 
 
Reply to Drummond. 29 
 
 contact witli life.'' Tliis, in the natural 
 plane, is true, but it does not fairly repre- 
 sent the spiritual truth. Spiritual life 
 involves quality besides mere life. A 
 man niidit be in contact with life, true 
 life, and yet he himself be practically a 
 dead man. Man has the power of per- 
 vertinir what he receives from God. The 
 life-giving power of the natural sun, as it 
 falls on the mass of decomposing matter, 
 is the same which Mis on the rose or the 
 sweet violet, but how different are the 
 results. From the one we liave hateful 
 odours and destructive malaria ; from the 
 other delightful and refreshing fragrance. 
 The life is the same in hoth — the source 
 the same. But how different the out- 
 come ! The recipient must be changed 
 — not the life. And then he refers to 
 Nicodemus in support of this theory. 
 
30 Reply to Drinnmond. 
 
 But the fact is, Nicodemus's case is dead 
 against the theory. Christ's reply to the 
 ruler was, not that he should get into 
 contact with life, but that he, the man 
 himself, must be changed. ^*Ye must 
 be born again." Nicodemus was a very 
 learned man, but his learning, no matter 
 how correct and varied, was of no use to 
 him here. Neither he. then, nor can any 
 scientific man now, bj^ his scientific learn- 
 ing understand how a man when he was 
 old could be born again. It was a bio- 
 logical puzzle to Nicodemus then, as it is 
 a 'Mjiological conceit" to scientists now. 
 But there is no help for it. He, the man 
 Nicodemus, must be born again before he 
 could enter the kingdom of Heaven. 
 Not that the mere corporeal body, the 
 higher animal, was to be born again — 
 that was impossible — but the conscious, 
 
Reply to Dntinmoiid. 31 
 
 rational, tliinking man dwelling within 
 that borly, that was to be born again. 
 The change was an interior one, and such 
 as is often referred to as a chano-e of 
 heart. 
 
 In further proof of the assertion that 
 Christ personally enters into the man, he 
 gives the case of Paul, who was converted 
 when on his way to Damascus. But 
 here, too, Christ did not in any sense 
 enter into Paul, but His word did — the 
 truth did. And that truth was like a 
 two-edged sword. Divine truth is the 
 voice, the word of God, and that con- 
 victs, converts, and saves. 
 
 It is no valid objection to say that God 
 must be present to convict and convert ; 
 God is always present. He leaves no 
 one, no, not for an instant. But for the 
 presence, the life-giving and life-sustain- 
 
32 Reply to Druiniiwiid. 
 
 ing presence of God, no one could con- 
 tinue to exist. In the lowest conditions 
 of ignorance, depravity, and degradation, 
 God is ever with His creatures, with them 
 for their good. But wliile this is so, we 
 liave all naturally false and perverted 
 ideas about God and divine things, and 
 until the truth as it is revealed and em- 
 bodied in Christ comes home to us, we 
 are dead to God and all tliat is Godlike. 
 But when the truth does come home to 
 us, the man becomes a new man. The 
 persecuting Saul of Tarsus becomes Paul 
 the living apostle ; and men are con- 
 demned not because Christ does not come 
 into them, but because they voluntarily 
 and persistently resist the truth which 
 the Spirit of God is ever using to convert 
 and save them. Besides stifling and re- 
 jecting these more personal and interior 
 
Reply to Drmnmoncl. 33 
 
 strivings and drawings of the Spirit, wliicli 
 every man in tlie secret of liis own soul 
 has at some time or other been conscious 
 of, Christ dwells in the Christian in the 
 same way as the Christian dwells in 
 Christ — not personally. Christ dwells in 
 the Christian when His truth dwells in 
 the heart and changes that heart into His 
 own glorious image, making him Christ- 
 like, and in no other way. 
 
 The two points this chapter was in- 
 tended to establish — namely, that a 
 natural man as regards all spiritual life 
 is as dead as a crystal, and that man is 
 merely a higher kind of animal, it has en- 
 tirely failed to do. 
 
 Speak to a crystal or a plant, a monkey 
 or an elephant, on any spiritual subject, 
 and you may try till doomsday, but you 
 will get no response. Speak to any of 
 
34 Reply to Dritmmond. 
 
 the higher anmials of God of a future 
 life, of a judgment day, of heaven, and 
 what response will you get ? None ! 
 No, man is essentially a different being 
 altogether from any other creature ; he 
 is a spiritual being, and by virtue of that 
 he can apprehend and understand some- 
 thing about a spiritual world, and some- 
 thing about "spiritual truths; he is an 
 immortal being, and by virtue of that he 
 can apprehend and understand something 
 about an immortal life beyond the grave. 
 No crystal, no plant, no mere higher 
 animal can do this. This immortal soul 
 is degraded and depraved to a terrible 
 degree ; but it is still there. The image 
 of God can never be entirely lost or 
 effaced ; and to that depraved soul God 
 in His word is ever making the appeal, 
 'Awake thou that sleepest, arise from 
 
Reply to Drummond. 35 
 
 the dead, and Christ shall give thee 
 light." 
 
 EPITOME. 
 
 The law of Biogenises in the natural 
 sphere is directly opposed to the law of 
 Biogenises hi the spiritual sphere in the 
 following three essentials : 
 
 First. The crystal is just what God 
 made it and intended it to be. In direct 
 opposition to this, the man spiritually 
 dead is not what God made him, and 
 not what God intended him to be. 
 
 Second. The crystal is not conscious of 
 any want of any kind. In opposition to 
 this, the dead soul, even according to 
 Drummond, misses God, longs, yearns, 
 and pines for God. This is very unlike 
 the crystal. 
 
 Third. The crystal receives no life 
 
;^6 Reply to Drtunmond, 
 
 whatever from tlie plant. In place of 
 that, the plant cannot live without the 
 crystal ; its very existence depends upon 
 it. In oj)position to this, the dead soul 
 does receive life from God, and depends 
 entirely upon God for its very existence. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 DEGENERATION. 
 
 This chapter undoubtedly contains some 
 liiglily instructive lessons. Its tendency, 
 however, if not its legitimate outcome, is to 
 support the doctrine of the final annihila- 
 tion of the unsaved. 
 
 The natural law the professor wislies 
 to carry into the spiritual sphere is 
 simply this — that organs which are not 
 exercised gradually Avaste away, and 
 ultimately become extinct; and this in 
 the spiritual sphere means, that if the 
 soul's salvation is neglected, it will also 
 shrivel and shrink, till it is lost altogether. 
 Now at the outset here, we have the same 
 
38 Reply to Drummond. 
 
 fallacy we had in the former chapter, and 
 when this is clearly seen, the fallacy all 
 through will be easily detected. The 
 mere fact that a person utterly and en- 
 tirely neglects his soul's salvation, is no 
 reason nor proof that his soul will shrink 
 and waste away. Nothing of the kind. 
 In place of that, by neglecting the soul's 
 salvation, the soul itself may be develop- 
 ing into fiendish proportions. He ignores 
 all through the fact that the unregenerated 
 man is constantly exercising his soul. 
 As to its wasting away and becoming 
 smaller is nonsense. Size, as applied to 
 a soul, has no rational meaning. The 
 soul is determined by quality, not size. 
 As an illustration of the natural law in 
 the case he gives as instances the mole, 
 and certain subterranean fishes, which 
 have entirely lost their eyes by neglecting 
 
Reply to Dricmmond. 39 
 
 to use tliera. If tlie same thing takes 
 place in the afterlife with the soul be- 
 cause it has not been exercised, then the 
 person must cease to exist. We see no way 
 of escaping this conclusion, and we know 
 that many who have carefully read this 
 chapter have been led to conclude that it 
 either supports or is intended to teach 
 the doctrine of the annihilation of the 
 unsaved. 
 
 As another illustration of the process 
 of degeneracy leading to the final catas- 
 trophe, he gives the case of a man who 
 is seen to fall from a five-storey building. 
 The moment we see him fall we say he is 
 lost — ^lost before he gets to the ground. 
 And the same he holds is true in regard 
 to a natural man ; whether he knows it or 
 not, he is lost. Now, here the cases are 
 not at all analogous. In the case of the 
 
40 Reply to Drtnuviond. 
 
 man falling from the house-top, the mo- 
 ment he begins to fall, his death is certain 
 — the final result is inevitable. The man 
 is lost, and more than that, cannot be again 
 restored to life. In the sj^iritual realm 
 this is not the case. Neither is there 
 anything like it. Though immediately 
 on the first transgression man fell, and 
 thereby became essentially spiritually 
 dead, the final result was not inevitable. 
 It was not inevitable in the case of the first 
 man — neither is it inevitable in the case 
 of any man who is Avithin the sound of 
 the Gospel message. The first man we 
 have no doubt was cauo;ht in his fallino- 
 and saved, and is now alive in gior}-. 
 And thank God a multitude that no man 
 can number — many of whom had fallen 
 low, very low— have been caught in their 
 downwfird course and are now amona^st the 
 
Reply to Driinimond. 41 
 
 saved, trophies of redeeming grace. Tlie 
 Gospel call to all is not simply and only 
 a call. It is a call based upon and in- 
 volving a fact that there is salvation with- 
 in the reach of, and intended for, all. 
 The law in the natural world does not 
 hold good in the spiritual ; for the fall- 
 ing man in the spiritual sphere may be 
 stopped in his fall, and may live and not die. 
 
 Further on he says, " By the sheer 
 action of a natural law," a man sinks into 
 hell. This is a harsh statement, and en- 
 tirely untrue. A man may sink into hell 
 according to a natural law ; but no man 
 will ever sink into hell hy the sheer action 
 of a natural law. In the one case, the 
 man is his own destroyer ; in the other, he 
 is the unfortunate victim of the action of a 
 natural law, which is a very different thing. 
 
 That man is fallen, depraved and cor- 
 
42 Reply to Dritminond. 
 
 rupted, is certain, universally so, certain, 
 but the way in wliicli the doctrine is put 
 by Drummond is erroneous and very mis- 
 leading. He simply substantiates the 
 doctrine of the materialist which says 
 that man is the creature of his organiza- 
 tion, and consequently, not responsible 
 for what he does. 
 
 We hold that man is not the creature 
 of his organization, and that he does not 
 sin by virtue of any innate law of his 
 being to do so, but just the very reverse. 
 We hold that the man is the head and the 
 superior over all his faculties and mem- 
 bers, and that it is the will of God that 
 the man should make all the powers 
 of his being subservient to the service 
 and glory of his Creator, and that God 
 has fitted and adapted him for this, and 
 given him all the means of doing it. 
 
Reply to Dnnnmond. 43 
 
 Were tins not the case no man could ever 
 blame himself for domg what was wrong. 
 It is this adaptation and fitness to do 
 what is right which lies at the foundation 
 of the very idea of wrong. Without this 
 there could be no individual responsibility. 
 
 In the same chapter he says— " We 
 are apt to imagine that nature is full of 
 life ; in reality it is full of death. One 
 cannot say it is natural for a plant to live. 
 Air is not life, but corruption; so literally 
 corruption that the only way to keep out 
 corruption when life has closed is to keep 
 out air." Nature, we hold, \^ full of life, 
 notwithstanding this deliverance — full of 
 it. Indeed, as a substantive existence 
 there is no such thing as Death. We 
 should like to see any one try to prove 
 its existence. 
 
 We often speak of death ; but we 
 
44 Reply to Dintmmond. 
 
 mean tliereby merely the qualitative state 
 of deadness or the absence of all vital 
 phenomena — never of it as an entity. 
 With life it is quite different. God is 
 everywhere and in everything, and God 
 is essentially life. The change wliich 
 comes over plants and animals which we 
 call death is a mere change in form. 
 
 The substance enters into new forms, 
 and manifests life in these new forms. 
 
 Air is an essential to all and every 
 form of life both in plants and animals. 
 The exclusion of air at once arrests that life, 
 and the exclusion of air from a plant which 
 has produced its seed and served its pur- 
 pose, does not preserve that plant from 
 death, as is alleged ; but in reality pre- 
 vents the plant from entering into new 
 and more extended forms of life. Every 
 one knows this. Take the seed of any 
 
Reply to Drummond. 45 
 
 plant or fruit, and seal it up from the 
 action of the air, and it rcmahis in a state 
 of deadness. But put the same seed into 
 the ground, supply it with air and mois- 
 ture, and it soon springs up into new and 
 varied forms of life. Life is everywhere. 
 
 At page 108, the spiritual cure for de- 
 generacy, he says, is — "To take resolute 
 hold of the upward power, and be brought 
 by it to the upward goal." This may be 
 scientific language, but it is scarcely 
 scriptural. With all due deference to the 
 solemnity of the subject, it forcibly re- 
 minds one of the idea of being taken u 
 to heaven in a balloon. 
 
 On to the end of the chapter he con- 
 founds the truth which saves with the 
 organ or power which apprehends or 
 takes hold of the truth ; and draws the 
 conclusion that as moles and certahi fish 
 
46 Reply to Drummona, 
 
 have neglected to use their eyes, nature 
 has avenged herself by taking away the 
 eyes altogether. And so in the same 
 way will men, who have neglected the 
 great salvation, lose their souls. As an 
 illustration of this he gives the case of the 
 man with the one talent. But in place 
 of supporting the theory, this case exposes 
 its fallacy. Though a man neglects the 
 great salvation, God never takes his soul 
 away, nor destroys it in any sense what- 
 ever, as nature takes away the eyes of 
 the moles or fishes. The one talent given 
 to the^ man was such a form of truth 
 or knowledge, which, if honestly and 
 faithfully applied to practical life, would 
 have ennobled the man, and glorified his 
 God ; but by rolling it in a napkin and 
 burying it, it was abused and rendered 
 useless. And at last it, the talent, was 
 
Reply to Drummond. 47 
 
 taken away from him altogether. And 
 so at last will it be with every one. 
 Whatever knowledge a man may possess 
 here of the way of life, of the Will of 
 God, of the great salvation, if that has 
 been rolled in a napkin and buried, in 
 place of being used for the purification 
 and sanctification of the whole man and 
 also for the good of others — all such 
 knowledge will be taken away from hhn 
 altogether. God did not take away the 
 soul from the man who had abused his 
 one talent. That soul, though degenerat- 
 ing, was not wasting away, but was grow- 
 ing in worldliness, meanness and selfish- 
 ness. 
 
 EPITOME. 
 
 The liaw of Degeneracy in the natural 
 sphere is opposed to the Law of Degene- 
 
48 Reply to DrttimuGnd. 
 
 racy in the spiritual sphere hi the three 
 following particulars : 
 
 First. In the natural sphere, the un- 
 used organ shrinks and shrivels. Where- 
 as, in the spiritual sphere, the spiritual 
 organs are never unused, and never shrink 
 nor shrivel. 
 
 Second. In the natural sphere, an un- 
 used organ becomes feeble and decays. 
 Whereas, in the spiritual sphere, a soul 
 not used in the service of God may be 
 growing and developing into terrible forms 
 of moral and spiritual depravity. 
 
 Third. In the natural sphere an unused 
 organ ultunately disappears altogether. 
 In the spiritual sphere, the soul, though 
 lost to God and all that is good, is never 
 taken away. If the soul is to be taken 
 away, like the unused organ, then an- 
 nihilation is the doctrine. 
 
CHAPTER ITT. 
 
 GROWTH. 
 
 This is a charming chapter to read. It 
 is so simple, so natural like. In its de- 
 tails of modes and processes it is most 
 instructive, but in principle, we think, it 
 is wrong. *' Consider the lilies how they 
 grow, they toil not, they spin not ; And 
 yet Solomon in all his glory was not 
 arrayed like one of these." 
 
 The general idea throughout is simply 
 this, that as the lilies neither toil nor spin, 
 yet they grow; therefore a Christian 
 should not strive nor make any special 
 effort to grow in grace, God will do it all 
 
 D 
 
50 Reply to Drmnmond. 
 
 for him. The lilies grow automatically 
 and spontaneously; so should the Christian 
 grow in grace, without tr3^ing to do so. 
 Such is the line of teaching. The principle 
 involved in this, we think, is wrong — there 
 is no analogy between the growth of a 
 soul in grace and the growth of a plant. 
 A cabbage or a turnip grow without any 
 effort ; that is true, but, not only so, 
 they have no control whatever over their 
 growth. Surely no one can imagine that 
 a Christian man can grow in grace, and 
 make no more effort to do so than the 
 cabbage does ? No one can say that a 
 Christian man has no control for or 
 against his growth in grace. Plants grow 
 naturally and in order with no effort. A 
 man's body grows in the same way, and 
 for the same reason. They are devoid of 
 volition — plants grow without volition, 
 
Reply to Drttmnwnd. 51 
 
 spontaneously — no Cliristian can grow 
 without volition and determination. 
 
 The growth of a plant and the growth 
 of a soul in grace are very different. True, 
 growth is growth wherever we find it, 
 whether in the mineral, the vegetable, or 
 the animal, but the principles and con- 
 ditions on which growth depends are very 
 different in the different spheres. Growtli 
 in all depends upon life; all life comes from 
 God ; therefore the power of growth, or 
 the power to grow, must in all cases come 
 from God. The lilies have no inherent 
 power to thwart the Divine operation in 
 developing their growth and lovely adorn- 
 ment. Man has this power, that is un- 
 doubted, and uses it to his own loss and 
 destruction. 
 
 God is ever seeking to gain admittance 
 into the man's heart, and when the door 
 
52 Reply to Dridumovd. 
 
 is opened, and God in the form of Divine 
 Truth enters, the man does not then 
 quietly fold his arms and wait till God 
 makes him a new creature. God calls 
 him to devote all the faculties and powers 
 of his being to the new service. That 
 while formerly he was in the service of 
 the Devil, he must now be God's servant, 
 by a faithful obedience to the commands 
 of Christ. And the three great elements 
 involved in this service are self-denial, 
 carrpng the cross, and following Christ ; 
 all of which require the continuous, active 
 exercise of volition and fixed deter- 
 mination. And just in proportion as 
 these are faithfully carried out, just in that 
 proportion do we grow spiritually, and in 
 no other way. Every sin resisted, every 
 evil overcome, every act of self-denial for 
 Christ's sake has its corresponding growth 
 
Reply to Drummond. 53 
 
 in grace. Every good and charitable act 
 done for the good of others has its reward 
 in the form of spiritual growth. This 
 growth, like the kingdom of heaven, comes 
 not by observation — it is within. The 
 source of it also, like the wind which 
 blows as it listeth, is not seen by obser- 
 vation ; it, too, is within. You cannot tell 
 whence it conieth, nor whither it goeth. 
 But it is real, the kingdom of heaven is 
 within. The parable of the lilies occurs 
 both in Matthew and Luke, and in both 
 cases essentially in the same connection, 
 the difference in relationship being one 
 of form only. In Matthew it is associated 
 with the counsel to the disciples, " Lay 
 not up to yourselves treasures upon earth, 
 but lay up to yourselves treasures in 
 heaven." And hi Luke with the case of 
 the rich man whose barns were full of 
 
54 Reply to Driiuimond. 
 
 goods, and who had made up his mind to 
 eat, to drink, and to be merry — the con- 
 ditions in both cases involving a life full 
 of activity in the service of the Devil, the 
 world, and the flesh. And the spiritual 
 counsel in both cases involving the fullest 
 exercise of all the faculties of our being 
 to lay up the heavenly treasures, to be 
 rich spiritually. This spiritual richness 
 is spiritual growth. There can be no 
 growth in grace whatever, without earnest 
 persevering effort. Even to "be still " 
 in the face of injury, provocation, or per- 
 secution, requires the exercise of the 
 highest spiritual effort. The lilies toil 
 not, they spin not; they require to do 
 neither. They are perfect as God made 
 them. They require no conversion, no 
 regeneration, no struggle, no conflict. 
 He>Av different with man. " Seek ve first 
 
Reply to Dritmmond. 55 
 
 the kingdom," '' Strive ye to enter," 
 '^ Fight the good fight," " Press forward," 
 " Labour not for the meat that perisheth, 
 but labour to enter unto that rest," '' Run 
 the race." Thus, and thus only, will the 
 Christian grow in grace, until he becomes 
 clothed in robes more resplendent and 
 beautiful than the adornments of the lily. 
 Around the throne in heaven stand the 
 faithful who have come through manifold 
 temptations down here. And as we ask, 
 "Who are these who stand clothed in 
 bright array ? " we learn that these are 
 they who have come through manifold 
 tribulations and have washed their robes 
 and made them white in the blood of the 
 Lamb. Here and now, we are in the 
 midst of these tribulations. Here and 
 now we are washing our robes. What a 
 labour, what an effort all this involves ! 
 
56 Reply to Drummo7id. 
 
 Not passively and automatically growing 
 like mere plants, but fighting the good 
 fight, bearing the cross, denying self. 
 
 In many parts of this Book, the idea 
 that man is a mere automaton, or puppet, 
 performing certain acts through strings 
 in the hands of another is strongly in- 
 dicated. In this chapter it is proininently 
 seen. The professor says that in con- 
 version there is a new principle introduced 
 into the man; as he calls it a ''living 
 germ," and that this being " a germ of 
 the Christ life must unfold into a Christ." 
 This also may be a statement in harmony 
 with scientific nomenclature : but it is 
 decidedly misleading. If lie really and 
 truly means that a new principle, '' a 
 germ," is introduced into the person, and 
 that that germ grows into a Christ, then 
 the man himself has nothing to do in the 
 
Reply to Dnnmnond. 57 
 
 matter. It is the germ that is to grow in 
 grace and ultimately go to heaven ; not 
 the num. The man is nowhere, scarcely 
 even an automaton. But the real question, 
 and the only question to be answered, 
 wag — how was a man, a real man, to grow 
 in grace ? and the answer was, lie was to 
 grow as the lilies did. But now the 
 subject is changed, and in place of the 
 man growing, it is only a foreign germ 
 introduced within him that grows. 
 
 Well, this might have been relevant 
 enough, had it been shown that the lilies 
 also grow by virtue of a germ introduced 
 into their structure. Had this been done, it 
 still might have been objected that in such 
 a case, that the lilies did not grow, but 
 only the introduced germ. Natural science 
 when introduced into the spiritual sphere, 
 often leads sadly astray. We know of 
 
58 Reply to Dmmmond. 
 
 no germs whicli grow in tlie man, but the 
 germs of parasites. The man himself — 
 the immortal soul under the guidance of 
 God's truth — grows in grace, grows in 
 goodness and wisdom, grows God- 
 like. 
 
 A number of valuable and interesting 
 lessons are involved in this pictorial par- 
 able of the lilies which we cannot touch 
 upon here. Christ did not explain liow 
 the lilies grow, for the sunple reason that 
 it was not a subject of lily culture. But 
 the general lesson involved in it is simply 
 this : do what is right under all circum- 
 stances, regardless of consequences, with 
 a perfect assurance that all will ultimately 
 be right. The disciples specially needed 
 this counsel ; so do we. They were 
 called from their usual duties and avoca- 
 tions to a new work — a work whicli 
 
Reply to Di'unnnond. 59 
 
 secured for tliem no monetary rcAvard. 
 And their prosjiect of subsistence must 
 have been anything but bright or assur- 
 ing. Food and raiment were absolutely 
 essential for their bare existence, and how 
 were these to be got ? The illustration 
 gives the answer, and contains the uni- 
 versal principle. The Divine call comes ; 
 let it be obeyed. No fears, no excuses. 
 Follow me,[is the command. Let nothing 
 stand in the way. Let the dead bury 
 their dead. Take no thouglit ; the Lord 
 will provide. " Seek ye first the kingdom 
 of God and his righteousness," and all 
 else necessary will be added. Consider 
 the lilies. See that ye are in your right 
 place, and be faithful. No anxiety, no 
 worrying ; growth, progress, and final 
 reward are yours. 
 
6o Reply to Dritn*inond. 
 
 EPITOME. 
 
 The law wliicli rules plant life in tlie 
 natural sphere is entirely different from 
 that which holds good in the spiritual 
 sphere in growing in grace, for the three 
 following reasons : 
 
 First The plant always develops its 
 own inherent ideal or character. In 
 oi3position to this, the Christian does 
 not develop his own inherent char- 
 acter or ideal, but another and a very 
 different character. 
 
 Second. The plant grows spontaneously. 
 It takes no thought, makes no effort. In 
 opposition to this, the Christian does take 
 thought, earnest, serious thought, and is 
 counselled and commanded to make 
 effort. To work while it is day, to fight, 
 to run, to lay up treasure. 
 
Reply to Dritmiuond. 6i 
 
 Third. The flower and fruit of tlie 
 natural plant appeals to the senses, and 
 is here and now. In opposition to this, 
 the flower and fruit of the Christian life 
 is not sensuous, and is not here and now. 
 The harvest is in heaven ; the sheaves 
 will all be seen there. 
 
CHAPTER lY. 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 In this cliapter tlie professor labours 
 under very considerable difficulties, no 
 natural law of death having yet been dis- 
 covered. But, in the absence of any 
 natural law, he at once substitutes a mere 
 verbal definition supplied by Herbert 
 Spencer. The definition is a very hypo- 
 thetical and a very abstruse one. In a 
 condensed form, he says that life is " the 
 continuous adjustment of internal re- 
 lations to external relations," or, to be '4n 
 correspondence with its environments." 
 Death, therefore, must be the reverse of 
 this, namely, the want of adjustment of 
 
Reply to Driunmond. 63 
 
 tlie internal to the external relations, or 
 wlien an organism is not in correspond- 
 ence with its environments. 
 
 After a number of illustrations of partial 
 or complete want of correspondence, or 
 partial or com]3lete death in the natural 
 plane, he proceeds to apply the same 
 principle to the spiritual sphere. He 
 shows, or assumes, that man is not in 
 correspondence with the spiritual environ- 
 ment, and, taking that environment to 
 mean God, that he is therefore not in 
 correspondence with God. And this 
 want of correspondence is spiritual death. 
 In point of merit, we look upon this 
 chapter as being weak compared to the 
 others, and contains little that is in any 
 way instructive. We shall therefore not 
 dwell long over it. 
 
 Assuming that Spencer's defmition of 
 
64 Reply to DriLviiuond. 
 
 death is correct, the issues from that 
 doctrine are altogether irrelevant. Man 
 stands in a certain relationship to the 
 world without, by virtue of the peculiar 
 structure of his organisation. He hears 
 sound by virtue of an organ of hearing. He 
 sees, tastes, and feels by virtue of organs 
 fitted and adajDted for these purposes. If 
 by accident, or disease, his organ of hearing 
 becomes impaired and the hearing is gone, 
 we say the organ is dead, practically dead. 
 But it would be perfectly absurd to say that 
 the man was dead, and so of all his organs 
 internal and external. When any organ 
 ceases entirely to perform its functions 
 we say it is dead, and this is exactly in 
 keeping with what we have stated, namely, 
 that we can predicate deadness only of 
 something which exists, and which had 
 been living, and not of something which 
 
Reply to Drmmnond. 65 
 
 had no existence, which would be 
 an absurdity. Drummond wants to 
 teach quite a different doctrhie. He 
 says in effect, that because a tree does 
 not hear the singing of birds, nor sees 
 the insects upon its branches, therefore, 
 the tree is dead to these surroundinijs. 
 This is an unwarranted use of the word. 
 The tree never had any hfe in regard to 
 seeing or hearing, and therefore, it never 
 can be said to be dead in regard to these. 
 And further, because the bird is uncon- 
 scious of many things which man is con- 
 scious of and alive to, therefore it is dead 
 to these. And further, that because a 
 natural man is not in correspondence with 
 the sphere above nature, namely, the 
 spiritual sphere, he is therefore dead. 
 Now really, though the language in which 
 the professor clothes his ideas is most 
 
66 Reply to Drummond. 
 
 exact and scientific, tliere is in reality no 
 analogy whatever, and no cohesion be- 
 tween the subjects. The tree never had 
 any organ of seeing or hearing. The 
 bird never had any organ for science or 
 rationality, such as man has, and there- 
 fore in these respects they cannot l)e held 
 to be dead in any sense. But man has a 
 spiritual nature, and, at one time, that 
 spiritual nature was in perfect correspond- 
 ence with its spiritual environment, but, 
 in the exercise of his freedom of will, he 
 lost that correspondence, and as a conse- 
 quence the whole of his spiritual fiiculties 
 became disordered, and foiled to dis- 
 charge their intended functions. And it 
 is this disordered and perverted state that 
 is called spiritual death. The spiritual 
 fliculty however is there still, and may be 
 restored to its proper use — made alive 
 
Reply to Drtunmofid, 67 
 
 again. But no tree can ever be made to 
 hear and see. There is no analogy be- 
 tAveen the two. 
 
 In the abstract, the jjrofessor seems to 
 realise the terrible reality of spiritual 
 death with its consequences, as taught in 
 the Word ; but, when the great reality is 
 made to aj^jily to unregenerated men of 
 science, it is toned down to a very small 
 thing indeed— a mere negation. Speak- 
 ing of the word Death, he says it has 
 "grown weak." "It carries with it no 
 weight^ no terror, it is ethically dead." 
 No doubt, from a scientific point of view, 
 it is dead. And so long as spiritual reali- 
 ties are looked at from a purely scientific 
 point of view, so long will they be power- 
 less. The tree is said to be dead as 
 regards the environment of the bird, and 
 the bird dead as regards the environment 
 
68 Reply to Driimmoiid. 
 
 of the man, but neither the bird nor the 
 tree can be blamed for that. It can be 
 pronounced of them now, as at first — 
 thev are '' very 2:ood." But the man, 
 while out of harmony with God, is to 
 blame for that, and it cannot be said of 
 him now, that he is " very good." There 
 is no analogy between the two. 
 
 The professor says: "We do not call 
 the tree, nor the bird, a monster, because 
 they are not in harmony with tlie envir- 
 onment above them," and for the same 
 reason, he says, he would not call a man a 
 monster, because he was out of harmony 
 with the sphere above him — out of 
 harmony with God, and while out of 
 harmony, at direct antagonism with God, 
 and all spiritual good. He tones down 
 the solemn truth in a remarkable manner. 
 The unregenerated scientific man is not a 
 
Reply to Drummond. 69 
 
 monster, but the professor says lie may 
 become "a dwarf." Is it possible that 
 this is all the meaning that is involved as 
 the outcome of spiritual death? That 
 the man may become in the after life '' a 
 dwarf." The mole, doubtless, is quite 
 happy without its eyes; and so are the 
 fishes in the subterranean rivers — wh}- 
 may not the future dwarf? No wonder 
 the word Death has lost its influence ; 
 who would fear to become a happy 
 dwarf? But what does the Bible say: 
 " The carnal mind is enmity against God," 
 not a mere negation, but in direct antag- 
 onism against God. The unregenerated 
 scientific man may not be a monster, but 
 he certainly cannot be an angel. The 
 Apostle John says : "In this the children 
 of God are manifest, and the children of 
 the Devil." A man becomino^ a child of 
 
70 Reply to D ninimond. 
 
 the Devil is something like a mon- 
 strosity. 
 
 We regret exceedingly that the pro- 
 fessor should have tried to square 
 Christianity with Spencer's hypothetical 
 reasonings. The whole of Spencer's 
 system of sociology is a human invention. 
 It ignores the necessity of revelation. It 
 ignores the doctrine of the fall, of con- 
 version and regeneration. It ignores 
 man's dual nature, the natural and the 
 spiritual, as well as all the solemn realities 
 of the spiritual world. How can God's 
 truth be made to harmonise with such a 
 system, or any part of it? 
 
 EPITOME. 
 
 The law of Death, which holds good 
 in the natural sphere, is entirely different 
 from that which holds ofood in the 
 
Reply to Drurmnond. 71 
 
 spiritual sphere, in the three following 
 particulars : 
 
 First. The natural organism which 
 dies can never afterwards be made to 
 live again. Opposed to this, we have 
 the established truth, that a soul, though 
 spiritually dead, can be made to live 
 
 agam. 
 
 Second. The natural organism after 
 death becomes decomposed and resolved 
 into its primary organic elements, and is 
 forever annihilated as a natural organism. 
 Opposed to this, we have the fact that 
 the spiritual part of man, though perver- 
 ted and depraved, is never decomposed 
 in any sense, neither is it resolved into its 
 primary elements. 
 
 Third. In natural death the organic 
 functions cease entirely. Opposed to 
 this, we have the sad fact that a soul. 
 
72 Reply to Drtunmond, 
 
 though spiritually dead, is still alive to 
 sin, and in a state of active enmity against 
 God. We therefore hold, that it is a 
 fallacy to say that the same law applies 
 to both ; they are as opposite as day is to 
 night. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MORTIFICATION. 
 
 The subject taken up in this chapter is 
 closely affiliated to the one now finished, 
 only, instead of Death absolutely, this has 
 to do with killing or making to die. It 
 forms a very interesting, and in many re- 
 spects a very profitable, chapter to read. 
 It contains, however, what we believe to 
 be very serious errors, and starts from a 
 very unsatisfactory basis. The scientific 
 definition is from Herbert Spencer again, 
 and the same as we had in the previous 
 chapter — namely, that Death consists in 
 *' a falling out of correspondence with en- 
 vironment," which, in other words, simply 
 
y4 Reply to Druminond. 
 
 means a man's organism not being suited 
 to liis surroundings; when this is the case, 
 sooner or later the organism must go, 
 must die ; and this, as will be seen, con- 
 stitutes the basis of the doctrine of morti- 
 fication. In effect it teaches this : when the 
 man becomes a Christian — becomes the 
 recipient of eternal life — he finds that he 
 must not any longer lead a selfish and a 
 sinful life, but in place of that, one of 
 self-denial and self-sacrifice, one of 
 earnest and severe struggling and fighting 
 against outward and internal temptations. 
 But according to the professor, the man 
 says, in place of being at all this pain and 
 trouble, the best thing to do would be to 
 die and go right off to heaven. The 
 teaching in this connection is not perfectly 
 clear, and being anxious not to misrepre- 
 sent the author, we give his own words. 
 
Reply to Druimnond. 75 
 
 He says, "The moment tlie new life is 
 begun there comes a genuine anxiety to 
 break with the world." But the old re- 
 fuses its dismissal. And as "it is clear 
 that no man can attempt to live both 
 lives," what is to be done in such an 
 emergency? "A ready solution of this 
 difficulty would be to die. But this alter- 
 native, fortunately or unfortunately, is not 
 open. The detention here of body and 
 spirit, for a given period, is determined 
 for us, and we are morally bound to 
 accept the situation." He says, " Bound 
 to do it, willing or unwilling." But the 
 ready solution would be to die and go to 
 heaven. This appears to us to be minis- 
 tering to a very prevalent, no doubt, but 
 yet a very selfish, element in human nature. 
 The universal desire is to get to heaven 
 when we die. And the universal crv is. 
 
76 Reply to Di'unimond, 
 
 " that we could get some assurance 
 that we would get to heaven after death." 
 With such an assurance we would be 
 quite happy. The desire to reach heaven 
 is both the product of enlightened reason 
 and the deepest instinct of our nature. 
 It is also the will and purpose of God 
 that we should, and therefore it is right. 
 But the desire to go to heaven in order to 
 avoid the discipline of life, with all its 
 cares and struggles, is the product of 
 moral cowardice. To all such, the assur- 
 ance of getting to heaven rarely comes. 
 Their hopes have no stable foundation to 
 rest upon, hence they are always full of 
 doubts and fears. There is no fear of 
 any such, on reading this chapter, being 
 tempted to commit real suicide in order 
 to get at once to heaven. The fatal error 
 here lies in looking j)erpetually for some 
 
Reply to Dntm'iiond. jy 
 
 outward heaven, and having no concern 
 
 about the Christian's heaven, which must 
 
 first be formed in the souL It is a purely 
 
 sensuous, not a sph'itual, idea. It is lilce 
 
 the delicate mvahd, always suffering from 
 
 external cold in his native country, think- 
 
 ino: about some warm climate and anxious 
 
 to get there to be warm — purely sensuous. 
 
 This dvino; ridit off and o-oincr to heaven 
 
 is a fallacy. No one can enter the gates 
 
 of the holy city without being fitted and 
 
 prepared for the holy companionship, and 
 
 the holy life. Heaven must be begun 
 
 here. Hence, in place of desiring to die 
 
 right off, the desire ought to be all the 
 
 other way. A desire to live to glorify 
 
 God, to spend and be spent in his service, 
 
 and to be of use to others, to testify 
 
 and Avitness for Christ in the world. It 
 
 is a deep delusion of our cominon enemy 
 
yS Reply to Dr^immond, 
 
 to imagine that, after serving the devil 
 and the flesh during the best of our days, 
 we may at hist get into heaven without 
 undergoing any spiritual change, without 
 regeneration. 
 
 He then goes on to say that " Seeing 
 we cannot die right off, the next best 
 thing is to die piecemeal." This kind of 
 dying we have presented to us under 
 three heads — namely, suicide, mortifica- 
 tion, and limitation. In each of these we 
 think there is too much prominence given 
 to the external act, and too little to the 
 internal source of all sin. All the cate- 
 gory of the sins of the flesh have their 
 source in the depraved human heart — 
 *^ Out of the heart proceed," — and while 
 it is of the greatest importance to avoid 
 as far as possible all those external condi- 
 tions which "would in any way awaken 
 
Reply to Drimwiond. 79 
 
 latent depravity, still there is no securit}^ 
 against outward transgression, no triumph 
 over evil until the internal victory is 
 acliieved. Depravity is in the heart, and 
 all regeneration must begin there. Make 
 tlie fountain clean, and all tiie streams 
 will be pure. He refers especially to the 
 case of the drunkard, and gives this as a 
 special instance where the cure lies ex- 
 ternal to the person — namely, as he puts 
 it, by altering his environment. But wo 
 hold that unless there is first an internal 
 break — namely, a break in the corres- 
 pondence, all outward change will be a 
 mere sham, and, like all other shams, 
 soon come to an end. Eecovery here, as 
 in all other cases, must begin within and 
 work outwards. 
 
 Under the head of Limitation, he takes 
 up the evil of the love of money, and 
 
8o Reply to Driunrnoiid, 
 
 tones down that terrible curse in a very 
 remarkable way. He says, " The love of 
 money up to a certain point is a necessity ; 
 at what point, however, it must cease, 
 each man has to determine for himself." 
 Even so, and it is just because each man 
 does determine this for himself, and to 
 suit his own selfish ends, that the sin is so 
 deep rooted and so wide spread. The 
 love of money is a terrible evil To what 
 fearful depths of depravity has it not led ! 
 Every sin in the decalogue has been com- 
 mitted in order to satisfy the desire for 
 money. Make money by fair means or 
 foul, but make it. God says, the love of 
 money is the root of all evil. We believe 
 and accept that statement as one abund- 
 antly verified by fact. But a man's love 
 of money is not to be measured by the 
 amount of his possessions. In this race, 
 
Reply to Dricmmond. 8i 
 
 love, though strong and ever ruling, is 
 ofttimes blighted and its labour lost. A 
 man may have much of this world's riches, 
 and love them little; he may also have 
 very little money, and love it very much. 
 To work for money, not to love it, but to 
 work for it, in order to purchase the 
 necessaries of life, is a necessity binding 
 upon all who are able. To work for 
 money to support ourselves, and those de- 
 pendent on us, is a binding Christian duty. 
 And to work for money not only to sup- 
 port ourselves and those dependent upon 
 us, but to assist in many ways those 
 around us, is both a duty and a privilege. 
 The love of money, drunkenness, and 
 bad temper to which he also refers, as 
 well as all the other depravities, have 
 their origin in the heart, and their basis 
 in selfishness. The mere physical organiz- 
 
82 Reply to Dritmtnond. 
 
 ation and its surroundings have very little 
 to do in the matter. And yet in this 
 chapter the professor puts it as if these 
 were the all in all. He says, physi- 
 cal death "means the final stoppage 
 of all correspondence with this sinful 
 world." But as our life here is "deter- 
 mined for us," we must submit, and do 
 the next best thing — namely, "if we can- 
 not die altogether, the most we can do is 
 to die as much as we can." We cannot 
 admit this position. To say that mere 
 physical death would put a stop to all our 
 sinful correspondence is going too far. 
 Living in the outer world does not in any 
 sense constitute a sinful correspondence. 
 The air we breathe, the ground we tread 
 upon, and the sun which shines upon us 
 are not sinful correspondences. Sin is a 
 thino; of the heart. A man's foes are 
 
Reply to T)r2imvwnd. Z^^ 
 
 those of his own household, and so long 
 as these are there, mere physical death 
 would not improve his correspondence. 
 
 A man becomes dead to sin and exter- 
 nal evil, when he does not respond to its 
 temptations. Not by committing suicide, 
 not by mutilating his members, not by 
 dying piecemeal. He dies by refusing to 
 be led away by the sinful temptations of 
 the flesh. The internal natural desires are 
 not any more his masters. He brings all 
 under the authority of Christ. He re- 
 presses some, elevates others, regulates all, 
 is the servant of none. 
 
 Then again, we do not admit that God 
 determines the day of our death. God 
 knows it, but He does not determine it. 
 He does the very reverse. He gives 
 us an organization fitted, adapted, and in- 
 tended to do good and useful work ; but 
 
84 Reply to Drummond. 
 
 man, as a rule, by his sin and folly short- 
 ens his days, and dies prematurely. He 
 does it. The wicked do not live half 
 their days, and the very best men cer- 
 tainly not their full complement. God 
 does not determine the day of our death. 
 We do it. Neither does God determine 
 our spiritual death. We do it. Man- 
 made creeds may teach another doctrine. 
 We take God's everlasting testimony 
 when He says, " Behold I set before you 
 the way of life, and the way of death." 
 Our choice, and ours alone, determines 
 our fate. 
 
CHAPTER Vr. 
 
 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 The all important subject of eternal life 
 treated of in tliis chapter is based upon 
 another of Herbert Spencer's definitions. 
 How the professor passes these defini- 
 tions off as if they were laws, is a marvel. 
 They have no claim whatever to be called 
 ^^ laws." The definition is this : '* Perfect 
 correspondence would be perfect life. 
 Were there no changes in the environ- 
 ment but such as the organism had 
 adapted changes to meet, and were it 
 never to fail in the efficiency with which 
 it met them, there would be eternal exist- 
 ence and eternal knowledge." And from 
 
86 Reply to Drummond. 
 
 tliis he endeavours to substantiate the 
 doctrine that the man, having received 
 the gift of eternal life, is thereby in har- 
 mony with the spiritual environment, and 
 must live for ever. Of course he contends 
 that this living for ever includes something 
 more, nam3ly, the quality of the source 
 of the eternal life. He speaks of Spencer's 
 definition as a ^'startling achievement," 
 something for which the world should be 
 profoundly thankful; as if it had 1)een 
 something substantial that had been dis- 
 covered, something that was to benefit 
 the race. In place of that, it never can 
 be of the slightest value to any human 
 being whatever. The definition helps to 
 nothing — -gives nothing. Referring to 
 Christ's doctrine of eternal life, he says : 
 '' Apart from revelation, this great truth 
 was unguaranteed." But now he says : 
 
Reply to Drummond. 87 
 
 ''Here at last comes, and comes unbidden, 
 an opportunity of testing the most vital 
 point of the Christian system." This is 
 an extraordinary position in which to put 
 Christ's doctrine of eternal life. As if, 
 forsooth, the guarantee of its truthfulness 
 rested upon its harmonising with Herbert 
 Spencer's definition ! This is rather 
 humiliating, to say the least of it. We 
 see nothing in Spencer's definition to call 
 forth either admiration or gratitude. It 
 is a mere verbal definition — nothing 
 more. A hungry soul wants food^ not a 
 definition of digestion or assimilation. 
 
 We cannot admit Spencer's definition 
 of eternal life in any sense as a test of 
 the ''vital point" in our religion. The 
 actual experience only of those who have 
 come under its power is of any value as a 
 test — not that of Herbert Spencer, who 
 
88 Reply to Drmnmond, 
 
 denies the whole fahric of Christianity. 
 In every nation, in every rank and station 
 in life, individual Christians have had the 
 test and witness of the vital point in 
 Christianity in their own experience. As 
 a test of a speculative system of theology, 
 Spencer's definition may be applied ; but 
 it bears no relationship whatever to prac- 
 tical Christianity. 
 
 At page 215, he says, "To know God 
 is to correspond with God." This is one 
 of the professor's bold statements, which, 
 by its very boldness, evades criticism. 
 We cannot grant this. To know God is 
 not necessarily to correspond with God. 
 Far from it. To kno\^ God implies 
 something in our constitution in some 
 way affiliated to God. This affiliation 
 lies in the still existing remains of the 
 Divine image and likeness in every one. 
 
Reply to Drummond. 89 
 
 But for this there couhi be no knowledge 
 of God whatever. The mere higher 
 animal could never be made to know 
 God. And as this constitutes the power 
 by which we can know God, it is evident 
 that it must be there before the know- 
 ledge, and that therefore it is not a 
 product of that knowledge. The first 
 effect of this knowledge is not only not 
 to correspond with God, but to enable us 
 to see and reahse to what a terrible ex- 
 tent we do not correspond. And it is a 
 matter of fact now, and in all past ages 
 of the Church of Christ, that thousands 
 of the best and truest Christians that ever 
 lived have had this realisation more or 
 less to the end of their life on earth. 
 This is a trutli of experience. The pro- 
 fessor's statement is a mere scientific 
 inference. 
 
90 Reply to Dj^ttmmond. 
 
 Another of these sweeping statements 
 is found. at page 215, where, after refer- 
 ring to the artist and the musician, he 
 says, '* To find a new environment again 
 and cultivate it, is to find a new life." 
 This really is reducing a solemn subject 
 to a mere flower of speech. Such a 
 person finds no new life, but a new 
 channel or field for the life he already 
 had. In several parts of this chapter we 
 think the non-immortality of the wicked 
 is clearly indicated, though he is careful 
 not to commit himself to the doctrine. 
 He says the gift of eternal life " includes 
 everlastingness." If this is so, then the 
 absence of it must necessarily exclude it. 
 There would be no need for includine^ 
 everlastingness in the gift, if the recipient 
 had it naturally. Speaking of the spirit 
 of Sonship, he says, '' This is not an 
 
Reply to Dj'ummond. 91 
 
 organic, but a spiritual correspondence." 
 This is a very feeble and unmeaning dis- 
 tinction. If the spiritual correspondence 
 is genuine, it must be organic. It cannot 
 be merely ideal or one of implication. 
 It must be actual. And as he says at 
 page 239 that, "- the soul is a living or- 
 ganism," surely the transformation which 
 makes a dead organism a living organism 
 must be organic 
 
 After showing that tlie new spiritual 
 environment is eternal life, he says, " Tliis 
 is a correspondence which at once satisfies 
 the demands of science and religion." If 
 this is so, if the demands of science are 
 so thoroughly satisfied, and the whole 
 spiritual system so scientifically demon- 
 strated, how does he account for the fact 
 that scientific men still reject it in toto 
 and call it a bioloi^ical conceit. 
 
92 Reply to Dj^zmzmond, 
 
 EPITOME. 
 
 The natural view of eternal life, as laid 
 down by Herl3ert Spencer and adopted 
 by Professor Drummond, is entirely dif- 
 ferent from the view of eternal life as 
 taught in God's Word. You remember 
 Spencer's definition — namely, that un- 
 failing ability to alter one's condition, or 
 the correspondence to meet every possible 
 change in the environment. 
 
 First. In Heaven character is fixed, 
 and can undergo no change in quality, 
 therefore the correspondence can undergo 
 no spiritual change. It can only pro- 
 gress. 
 
 Second. As God is unchangeable, the 
 environment as represented by Him can 
 undergo no change. He can only unfold 
 or reveal Himself more fully. 
 
Reply to Drmnmond. 93 
 
 Jliird, As the relationship between the 
 correspondence and the environment is 
 one of fixed harmony, there can be no 
 necessity for any mifailing power to meet 
 the changes in the environment by a 
 similar change in the correspondence. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 The cliief object aimed at in this chapter 
 is to prove that a man's character is de- 
 cided by his organisation and his sur- 
 roundings. This is the favourite stand- 
 point of the materialist. Drummond says, 
 "heredity and environment are the master 
 influences of the organic world. Heredity 
 and environment have made us what we 
 are. In the spiritual world also, the 
 subtle influences which form and trans- 
 form the soul are heredity and environ- 
 ment." So that a man spiritually is just 
 the creature of his organisation, which he 
 derives from his parents, modified by 
 
Reply to Drtimmond. 95 
 
 surroundings. This is his creed ; and 
 there can be no doubt that he is in this 
 respect perfectly at one with all the 
 materialistic men of the age. They all 
 hold this doctrine. The professor's cure 
 for all the spiritual evils in life is to change 
 our environment. This is all we can do. 
 For, he holds that the heredity evil we 
 have no control over. In detail, he says, 
 " The cardinal error in the religious life 
 is to attempt to live without an environ- 
 ment. What is the spiritual environment ? 
 It is God." And further, that we receive 
 from this environment all we need for 
 living a true and perfect life, and that 
 our receptivity depends upon a simple 
 union between the organism and the en- 
 vironment. 
 
 The fundamental principle running 
 through the whole chapter is, that our 
 
96 Reply to Drttmmond. 
 
 only business is to change the environ- 
 ment. That is to say, that the change 
 which is to transform a non-Christian into 
 a Christian — an unbeliever into a believer 
 — a bad man into a good man — is an out- 
 side change. From this we must dissent. 
 On the natural plane it is true that this is 
 all that can be done in improving the 
 breed and condition of animals. And 
 great changes have been effected in this 
 way. You must alter their surroundings. 
 Spiritually it is just the reverse. It is 
 the person that must be changed — or, in 
 the language of science, the corres- 
 pondence. It is in the correspondence 
 alone that the change must take place if 
 ever a sinner is to become a saint, or a 
 non- Christian, a Christian. The environ- 
 ment may, as a rule, be safely left alone. 
 The natural man is blind to spiritual 
 
Reply to Bnimmond, 97 
 
 things, and his eyes must be opened. 
 He is deaf to spiritual things, and his 
 ears must be unstopped. The spirit of 
 conversion is that the man is changed. 
 Tliere is no use in objecting to this by 
 saying that God must^r^^^ come, and that 
 He v[i\\sX first act. He is always doing so. 
 There is no use in trying to put the blame 
 on the environment. The universal en- 
 vironment is God, and from this there is 
 no escaping — neither here nor hereafter. 
 The fool hath said in his heart, and many 
 others have tried to say in their reason, 
 no God. But consciously or unconsciously 
 he environs everyone. The blame and 
 the whole blame is man's. 
 
 It may be contested that all this is in- 
 volved in man's power to change his en- 
 vironment; but our answer to that is that 
 in changing his environment, he must turn 
 
98 Reply to Dritmmond. 
 
 to the spiritual environment. He must 
 look to the source and fountain of life 
 and light, formerly he was looking 
 away from, formerly he was turned the 
 other way. This turning to is a change 
 of correspondence spiritually. '' Turn 
 ye, turn ye, why will ye die ? " It is 
 spiritually the very same principle as was 
 involved in the case of the drunkard. 
 He never can alter the environment — 
 break off the habit — until he personally 
 internally has undergone a change, which 
 really is a change of correspondence. 
 
 Drunmiond allows that man has the 
 power to change his environment, but 
 this is all the power he does allow. But 
 it is absurd to say that a man can pos- 
 sibly choose the service of God, until his 
 mind is first made up to break with the 
 world. Tlie reason and the only reason 
 
Reply to Dntmmond. 99 
 
 why a converted man wishes to change 
 his environment is, because his correspon- 
 dence is entirely changed ; and that 
 therefore the old environment will not 
 now suit. But not only so, after the corres- 
 pondence has been changed, and the en- 
 vironment changed to suit that ; the new 
 born Christian will find that the new en- 
 vironment, though consciously new to 
 him now, had ever l^een about him, ever 
 present with him and active. Not like 
 the singing of the bird to the tree, for 
 the singing of the bird had no influence 
 whatever on the tree : but active, operat- 
 ing and controlling. He will see and 
 realize numberless instances in which God 
 had led, sustained, and delivered him. 
 He did not then know it, but it was real 
 and true for all that. Xot like the poor 
 consumptive going to a far distant land 
 
lOO Reply to Di^tcmniond, 
 
 for a more genial climate — no, nothing 
 like that. God had always been with 
 him. That environment had always been 
 about him. 
 
 In the course of this chapter, he refers 
 to the clay and the potter, and says that 
 there are as many potters as there are 
 forms of life. Correctly speaking, this 
 is not so. There is only one Potter — 
 only one Creator. And of all vessels 
 which God has made and into which he 
 has breathed life only one — namely 
 man — has had the power to blurr and 
 vitiate his workmanship, and even to 
 turn round and ask the Potter, why hast 
 thou made me thus ? — man has a power 
 which no other creature has. 
 
 He also takes up the subject of 
 heredity influence. But this opens up 
 too large a subject to treat of here. We 
 
Reply to Drummond. loi 
 
 would just say this much, that heredity 
 does not supersede or destroy our respon- 
 sibility. A man is not the creature of 
 his physical organisation. The organisa- 
 tion has its influence on the manifestation 
 of character — that is undoubted. But 
 the man himself is above his organisation. 
 The philosophy underlying this important 
 subject is to be found in this direction. 
 We derive the natural part of our being 
 from our parents, and that has capabilities 
 or tendencies to evil. But we ixet the 
 soul from God, not from our parents. 
 And the soul or spiritual part of our be- 
 ing has the determining choice of folloAV- 
 ing after the tendencies of the lower 
 nature, ''the law in the members," or, of 
 resisting it. And the soul, being the 
 real man^ is responsible for the choice he 
 makes. Let us ever hold by this — that 
 
T02 Repty to Dmnimond. 
 
 God made the you and the me^ as really 
 and truly as he made Adam. Our par- 
 ents do not make us. But they have all 
 to do with our bodies, and that is a great 
 deal. The proclivities we inherit, exist as 
 organic capabilities ; but their outgrowth 
 does not take place with the certainty of 
 a natural law. NothiuG^ like that. 
 When it does take place, the flict is 
 specially noticed. The tendency to 
 drunkenness has been adduced in this con- 
 nection ; but we often, very often, find 
 that parents who have been given to ex- 
 cess, have been succeeded by children 
 who are total abstainers. True, it has 
 been said that this is brought about by a 
 moral revulsion on the part of the chil- 
 dren. But we do not find that physical 
 heredity taints, such as scrofula, cancer, 
 or consumption, are ever arrested or cured 
 
Reply to Bntmmond. 103 
 
 by corresponding pliysical revulsions in 
 the experience of those who have been so 
 unfortunate as to inherit such taints. 
 Natural laws are very unbending, very 
 exacting^. It would be dreadful to think 
 that anything approaching to this could 
 hold good in the spiritual sphere. Thank 
 God it is not so. 
 
 Man is not only not the creature of 
 his organisation, but he is something far 
 above it. Though the body is beautifully 
 and wonderfully suited to man's wants 
 and uses in this world, its organic cap- 
 acities by no means adequately represent, 
 nor do they fully satisfy, the capacities of 
 the soul. In every direction man feels 
 that his spiritual aspirations far transcend 
 the actual capacities of his organisation. 
 And this of itself proves that these aspir- 
 ations and desires cannot be the product 
 
I04 Reply to Dnumnond, 
 
 of tliat organisation. Look at the organ 
 of vision alone as an example. Wonder- 
 ful, extensive and varied as that organ is, 
 yet how very imperfectly does it of itself 
 fulfil our desires and lonoine^s. And to 
 what a vast extent have we been able by 
 scientific skill and ingenuity to supple- 
 ment that organ by optical instruments — 
 the telescope and the microscope. And 
 marvellous as are these aids, we are not yet 
 satisfied, we want something more power- 
 ful still. 
 
 Look also at our organic powers of 
 locomotion. How simple, hovr varied, 
 and how nimble these often are ; and yet 
 how very inadequately do they meet and 
 satisfy our w^ants. The felt need, the 
 felt craving for something far greater, far 
 more powerful than our mere organic 
 powers are capable of, has led us to sup- 
 
Reply to Druinmond. 105 
 
 plement these limitations, l^y means of 
 steam sliips and locomotive engines, 
 besides many other forms of machinery, 
 to do work for which our natural organic 
 powers are altogether unfitted. And yet, 
 we want more power, and greater speed. 
 Look also at the telephone, to supple- 
 ment our organ of hearing, and the print- 
 ing press to supplement our powers of 
 writing. 
 
 Tlie same is true of our spiritual visions 
 and aspirations. Our natural organic 
 faculties do not, by any means, fully 
 meet and satisfy these. Man is limited, 
 restricted by his organisation, ''cribbed, 
 cabined, and confined." And it is only 
 when that organisation is put off, tliat he 
 can ever find a full scope for, and a 
 perfect realisation of, all his spiritual 
 desires. The instinctive wants and capa 
 
io6 Reply to Dricmmond. 
 
 bilities of tlio animal creation are the 
 product of tlieir organisation, and con- 
 sequently tlieir wants and capacities are 
 perfectly fulfilled by that organisation. 
 They have no upward, onward, progres- 
 sive aspirations such as man has. One 
 race makes no advance or improvement 
 on the attainments of its predecessors. 
 How very different to this is the history 
 of the human race, and who can doubt 
 that it was intended by our Creator, that 
 all these spiritual aspirations and capa- 
 cities were not only to be duly cultivated, 
 but ultimately to be fully satisfied. And 
 still farther, we must conclude that just 
 in so fiir as we follow the Divine order, 
 the Divine plan, to that extent will these 
 aspirations be realised, and give some fore- 
 taste and fore-shadowing of what will be 
 in the coming future, when this mortal 
 
Reply to Dnimmond. 107 
 
 organisation sliall have been put off, and 
 we are clothed with our spiritual 
 body. Scientists may say that man is 
 the creature of his physical organisation. 
 We hold he is flxr above it. 
 
 This chapter is closed with the foUow- 
 ino; statement: "Where do or2;anisation 
 and environment meet ? How does that 
 which is becoming perfect avail itself of 
 its perfecting environment, and the 
 answer is just as in nature. The condi- 
 tion is simple receptivity : and yet this is 
 perhaps the most simple of all conditions. 
 It is so simple that we will not act upon 
 it." There are a great many euphonistic 
 utterances throughout the book. This 
 is one of them. When he says that, 
 " We will not act upon it." One feels in 
 a doubt as to whether anybody acts upon 
 it at all; or if it is only a certain class 
 
io8 Reply to Driimmond, 
 
 of joGople who will not act upon it. 
 What he really means by receptivity in 
 the spiritual sphere, he does not conde- 
 scend to explain. But, if it has just the 
 same significance as receptivity in the 
 natural sphere, then it can have no 
 moral quality whatever. He adds : 
 " Christ has condensed the whole truth 
 into one memorable sentence, namely 
 this, ' As the branch cannot bear fruit of 
 itself except it abide in the vine ; no 
 more can ye except ye abide in Me. He 
 that abideth in me, the same bringeth 
 forth much fruit.'" In this beautiful 
 quotation there is apparently the element 
 of receptivity coupled with passivity, but 
 it is only apparent. The entire passage 
 involves the highest exercise of the will 
 and affection of the spiritual man; and 
 this is more forciblv brouixht out in a 
 
Reply to Dmmrnond. 109 
 
 verse further clown tlie chapter, which 
 the professor conveniently does not 
 quote, namely an explanation how they 
 were to abide in the vine ; and this 
 abiding in the vine Avas the vital point. 
 How was this to be secured? "If ye 
 keep My commandments, ye will abide 
 in Me." Here lies the secret of the 
 difficulty; and the reason why we will 
 not act upon it — Simple receptivity ? No^ 
 no ; earnest, continuous effort, self-denial, 
 cross-bearing. 
 
 EPITOME. 
 
 The hiAV of heredity and environment, 
 which holds good in the natural sphere, 
 does not hold good in the spiritual 
 sphere, in tlie three following particulars : 
 
 First. In the case of Adam, tliere was 
 a perfect heredity and a perfect environ- 
 
I lo Reply to Drtimmond. 
 
 ment, and yet, by the exercise of his 
 freedom of will, he fell — stained his 
 character. 
 
 Second. Every man is conscious, in 
 view of his surroundings — his environ- 
 ment — and also in view of his own 
 capacities, his heredity — of having done 
 wrong. Every man, the most depraved 
 and most perverted, does blame himself 
 for havino' done what he knows he should 
 not have done. That is to say that he 
 had the power, and ought to have done 
 otherwise. 
 
 Third. That under the w^orst heredity, 
 and under the worst environment, men 
 have turned to God and become new 
 creatures. Heredity and environment do 
 not make the man. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 The great object tlie professor lias in view 
 ill this chapter, is to show that like pro- 
 duces its like by virtue of a natural law 
 which has received this title — Conformity 
 to Type. According to this law, " every- 
 tliing which comes into this world is 
 compelled to stamp upon its ofPspring the 
 image of itself" And this law, he says, 
 holds good in the spiritual sphere, and is 
 proved in the fact that the living Christ 
 enters the human soul and works there, 
 producing His own image, and thereby 
 conformity to Christ's type. Throughout 
 the whole of this chapter we have strongly 
 
1 1 2 Reply to Drumjnond, 
 
 marked one of the most saddening ele- 
 ments of the Calvinistic theology, namely, 
 that man has nothing to do in the work- 
 ing out of his Christian life and character; 
 that Christ in the man does it all for him. 
 We need not go over in detail all the 
 arguments in this chapter. They have 
 been already discussed. It contains no- 
 thing new. 
 
 God made man for His own glory, and 
 that he as a creature should in his finite 
 capacity be a partaker of the Divine 
 character, and, as a consequence, be 
 happy. The nature and constitution of 
 his being fitted him for this purpose. 
 All his powers were God-given, given to 
 be used as his own, yet not self- originated, 
 given and constantly sustained by his 
 God. By the exercise of his freedom of 
 will he misused his God-given faculties 
 
Reply to Dritmmond, 1 1 3 
 
 and marred tlie Divine purpose, tlie result 
 being moral depravity, physical disease 
 and suffering, estrangement from God. 
 Still God never changed His purpose, but 
 continued to manifest His Fatherly love 
 and care for His children, manifesting 
 Himself in ways and forms adapted to 
 man's special wants to restore him to his 
 right allegiance. Every means which 
 love and wisdom could devise, consistent 
 with man's moral nature, have been used 
 for this purpose at sundry times and in 
 divers manners, culminating in the fullest 
 and last manifestation or revelation of 
 His will and purpose in the Divine In- 
 carnation. 
 
 In all these manifestations, God has 
 ever recognised man's ability to know, to 
 love, and to obey his God. For, though 
 man had abused and perverted his God- 
 
 H 
 
114 Reply to T>nnninond. 
 
 given faculties, yet God had never taken 
 these from him ; and now as a Father, a 
 Friend, and a Brother, He is striving with 
 the race to redeem and to save it. He 
 stands at the door of every heart knock- 
 ing for admittance. He entreats. He 
 pleads with His creatures to turn from 
 the evil of their ways, to come and re- 
 ceive a Father's forgiveness and a Father's 
 blessing, and again enter into His love 
 and service. Every means are used, 
 every help given, and it is at the in- 
 dividual's own peril that he turns a deaf 
 ear. And to those who do obey His call» 
 He gives special help and strength to 
 hoht ao-ainst and overcome all their 
 spiritual enemies, and to live to His 
 glory. And, thank God, many have in 
 all ages obeyed the call and returned to 
 a Father's home. And while, on the 
 
Reply to Dntnimond. 1 1 5 
 
 great day of accounts, all will joyfully 
 acknowledge 'that there was no merit 
 whatever in anything they liad done — no 
 merit in doingj wliat it was their hio;hest 
 duty and privilege to do — God Himself 
 will pronounce upon them the most 
 precious of all rewards : *' Well done, 
 good and flxithful servant, enter thou into 
 the joy of thy Lord." 
 
 In teaching; the doctrine of man's in- 
 abihty to turn to God and serve Him, 
 the professor refers to the case of tlie 
 potter and the clay, and shows that as 
 the clay does not make the vessel, but 
 that God does, therefore God. makes the 
 Christian in the same way as the potter 
 makes the vessel. Now, just mark the 
 captious and misleading way in whicli 
 this argument is put. There is no dispute 
 about God being the Potter, nor as to the 
 
ii6 Reply to Briunmond. 
 
 fact of His making all vessels ; but a 
 Christian and a vessel are by no means 
 convertible terms, and yet tlie professor 
 uses tliem as sucli. A Christian man is a 
 vessel having a special quality of char- 
 acter, and Ave hold that he makes, and 
 that he alone is responsible for the making 
 of, that character. With the vessel he 
 has nothing to do — with the character he 
 has everything to do. God made all the 
 vessels in heaven and in hell ; but He did 
 not make their characters in the same 
 way as the potter makes the clay into 
 vessels. A man becomes a child of the 
 Evil one by disobeying God and volun- 
 tarily choosing the service of the Devil. 
 He becomes a Christian, a child of God, 
 by obeying God and voluntarily choosing 
 and faithfully following his master Christ, 
 and in no other way. 
 
Reply to Brttnwiond. 1 1 7 
 
 One of the worst features of all re- 
 ligious controversies is that of adducing 
 one part of Scripture to defeat or overturn 
 another, and not for the purpose of elu- 
 cidation. We have a marked example 
 of this in connection with this subject in 
 his quotation of that well known verse, 
 '' Work out your o^vn salvation with fear 
 and trembling, for it is God that worketh 
 in you." The professor affirms that the 
 latter clause of the verse was added in 
 order to prevent any ^' misconception," to 
 prevent any one from thinking that he 
 liad any power to work out his own sal- 
 vation, for he has none. God alone has 
 the power. Now, in place of the second 
 clause being added to prevent any mis- 
 conception, surely every unprejudiced 
 reader will see that it was given for an 
 entirely different purpose : namely, as tlie 
 
ii8 Reply to Driivimond, 
 
 strongest inducement, the highest en- 
 couragement, to work ; that in this great 
 work he was not alone, but that he had 
 God on his side, the Spirit of God within 
 him, and, with that, to have perfect as- 
 surance that his work would be crowned 
 with success. 
 
 Again, the professor tries to establish 
 the doctrine that man is a mere automaton 
 by referring to various functions of his 
 natural body over wliich he has no con- 
 trol, and holds that the same is true in 
 the spiritual spliere. His illustrations are 
 very misleading and not true. He says 
 man has "no control over the action of 
 the heart, his breathing, his digestion," 
 &c. We hold that he has most distinctly, 
 and just in the same way that he has had 
 control over his spiritual functions. These 
 functions he cannot create — that is un- 
 
Reply to Drtimmond, 1 1 9 
 
 doubted ; but he can pervert and vitiate 
 every one of tlieni. Every organ and every 
 function in his body man has brought into 
 a diseased condition. From the crown of 
 his head to the sole of his foot he is 
 diseased. Every individual man has not 
 every disease, but the race has been and 
 is so diseased. We cannot make the 
 power which animates those organs ; but 
 by breaking the laws of our being, we 
 pervert the functions and alter the organs. 
 An automaton has no such power as this 
 — none. And God holds every man re- 
 sponsible for the use he makes of this 
 power. Man is not a mere automaton in 
 any sense, but a free and responsible 
 agent. God made him such, and God 
 deals with him as such always. Every 
 one is endowed with certain faculties, and 
 these he can use or not, just as he chooses. 
 
I20 Reply to Drummoiid. 
 
 This is a practical fact everyone knows to 
 be true. 
 
 Every man has certain desires or 
 Avishes, and he wills to act, and in the 
 great majority of cases does act, in view 
 of these desires. It is true that circum- 
 stances may be against him — dead against 
 him — and he sees that it would be hope- 
 less to attempt anything. But it is just 
 in these very cases where his liberty and 
 freedom of choice is seen most conspicu- 
 ously, and he feels that, but for the special 
 hindrance, his conduct would certainly 
 be in such a particular way. The experi- 
 ence of every man, woman, and child, 
 proves that we are all free agents. Every 
 one has been in doubt and difficulty as to 
 what should be done. Most of us have 
 passed through, not only difficulty, but 
 severe conflict, in view of dut}-. No 
 
Reply to D] iivi77iond. 121 
 
 mere automaton, no mere passive agent, 
 could ever experience anything of this 
 kind. 
 
 It is in this personal freedom or con- 
 scious selfhood of the man that we have 
 the seat and the source of all sin. With- 
 out this there could be no consciousness 
 of sin— none. And it is just in proportion 
 as a person realises this perfect freedom, 
 this personal, individual ownership of all 
 his faculties, that he ever can have any 
 realisation of personal sinfulness, and con- 
 sequently be in the very first stage a 
 recipient of Divine grace. Conviction of 
 sin is the first effect of tlie Divine opera- 
 tion ; but without the inherent freedom 
 and the conscious power to have acted 
 otherAvise, conviction of sin would be an 
 impossibility. And the great struggle ui 
 life with every Christian is to subdue and 
 
122 Reply to Driunmond. 
 
 gain the victory over this terrible power 
 of freedom to feel and do for self. And 
 the final victory of every Christian is 
 when, by the grace of God, under the 
 influence of Divine truth, he succeeds in 
 substituting God's will in place of his 
 OAvn will But a perfect surrender of 
 self to the will of God is only possible 
 when self has been fully realised as a 
 living rebel against God, and this self- 
 surrender in every case implies the highest 
 exercise of the will. This will is never 
 taken away ; but, in a perfectly regener- 
 ated state, in a heavenly state, it must 
 ever yield a loyal obedience to the will 
 of God. 
 
 EPITOME. 
 
 The natural law of conformity to type, 
 by Avliich every living thing is '' compelled 
 
Repy to Driimmond. 123 
 
 to stamp upon its offspring the image of 
 itself," does not hold good in the spiritual 
 sphere for the following three reasons : 
 
 First. Both the protoplasm* and the 
 vital force which determine the future 
 animal are the immediate and the direct 
 product of the parents of that animal. 
 In direct opposition to this, the proto- 
 plasm in the man — as described by Drum- 
 mond, into which Christ enters, and on 
 which He operates, is a product of the 
 man himself, and not of God. 
 
 Second. The protoplasm of the animal 
 has not only no power to desire and cry 
 for the animal life, but it has no power 
 
 ■^ The intro luction of the word protoplasm, which 
 is purely speculative in its character, into the realm 
 of spiritual things, wo cannot but look upon as a 
 dangerous innovation, and one not at all calculated 
 to throw any light on any spiritual truth, but only 
 to mystify and darken it. 
 
1 24 Reply to Drmnmond. 
 
 to resist. The very reverse of this is true 
 spiritually. The man has the power to 
 cry for, and also the power to resist. 
 
 Third. While the animal is " com- 
 pelled" to stamp its image on its off- 
 spring, the very reverse is true in the 
 spiritual sphere. God comes to us in 
 love, pure love. He operates in and on 
 us, not by compulsion, but as an act of 
 pure free grace. There are other obvious 
 reasons, but these, we consider, are suffi- 
 cient to destroy all analogy or identity. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SEMIPARASITISM AND PARASITISM. 
 
 The two chapters under these respec- 
 tive headhigs, are in some respects 
 the best in the whole book, and cannot 
 fail to be read with the greatest interest. 
 Parasites in the vec^etable and animal 
 world have this element in common, get 
 a place of safety, a place to live in, and 
 sustenance, without doing anything for 
 either, safety and support at the ex- 
 pense of others. This principle also 
 holds good in the spiritual sphere. And 
 although the professor condemns the 
 doctrine in very strong terms as a 
 doctrine, he very innocently ignores the 
 
126 Reply to Druimnond. 
 
 fact that lie himself had laid the found- 
 ation for the doctrine, and taught it in 
 the chapter on conformity to type, and. 
 indeed, all through the hook this doctrine 
 is specially taught. The general tenor is 
 this — Man can do nothing in the matter 
 of his soul's salvation — God does not re- 
 quire him to do anything. Christ makes 
 the Christian, as the potter makes vessels 
 out of the dead, passive clay. Only get 
 hold of Christ, and he will do all for us. 
 We are to '' permit " Christ to do all for us 
 — passively to " submit " to be made like 
 Christ. True, he admits that man has 
 something to do in the initial stage, but no 
 more. Now this is just the character of 
 the parasite all through. The parasite 
 does something at first — the initial act is 
 by it. It gets hold of the shell of the 
 whelk, which was not its own, and like a 
 
Reply to Drumniond. 127 
 
 mean poltroon is content with that. And 
 in this shell it neither works for food nor 
 anything. The mistletoe also takes the 
 initiative by seizing hold of the tree, and 
 there it lives on the fruit of another's 
 labour for its support. It does nothing. 
 The professor says that our Churches 
 are " overflowing with parasites." That 
 may be true in his experience ; we can- 
 not endorse it. The mere fact that a con- 
 gregation imbibes the truths which have 
 been eliminated by the toil and study of 
 the minister, and to which they have con- 
 tributed nothing, does not by any means 
 constitute the members of that congrega- 
 tion parasites. In every department of 
 science, of literature and art, if ever we 
 are to learn anything at all, we must be 
 dependent on the labours of others. No 
 one is born with any kind of knoAvledge, 
 
128 Reply to Drummond. 
 
 and whatever branch of study we turn tn, 
 we must, in the first place, be entirely de- 
 pendent upon the labours of others. This 
 is also true of man as a human being. The 
 infant can do nothing but imbibe that for 
 which it has not laboured, and it must for 
 years be entirely dependent upon the 
 labour of others for the supply of its 
 needs. But we never think of calling 
 children parasites for all that. 
 
 It is in the very nature of the parasite 
 to be what it is. We take it that the 
 professor's definition of a parasite is 
 defective. The essential element in the 
 character of the parasite is that while it 
 imbibes nourishment for which it has not 
 laboured, it consumes that upon its own 
 being, and gives out nothing in return. 
 This giving out nothing in return is the 
 essence of the parasite. That there are 
 
Reply to Druininond. 129 
 
 moral and spiritual parasites, we have no 
 doubt whatever; but that our churches 
 are overflowing with such we do not 
 believe. Few if any members of our 
 churches act fully up to their duty. God 
 only knows the true state of every man. 
 A truly Christian life consists in a ixivino- 
 out, and embodying hi the daily walk 
 and conversation, that life of purity, up- 
 rightness and charity which makes a man 
 Christ-like. It is not a matter of intel- 
 lectual notions about religion — nor of 
 literary or scientific attainments. 
 
 The whole of this subject is a severe 
 satire on our ministers, our church mem- 
 bers, and our theology. He distinctlv 
 says that "many churches exist for the 
 very purpose of making and collecting 
 spiritual parasites." We do not believe 
 this to be true. And while he admits 
 
130 Reply to Drinnnwnd. 
 
 tliat a very few members get benefit in 
 churches, he says churches overflow with 
 members whose only interest in religion 
 is parasitic. Where spiritual parasites go 
 to in the after life lie does not say. The 
 satire is much too severe, and altogether 
 unwarranted. Werp it at all justifiable, 
 the right thing to do would be to burn 
 all our theological books, disband our 
 ministers, and close our church doors. 
 
 The professor is very severe in his con- 
 demnation of all kinds of theological 
 formulae, because these profess to give a 
 systematic and concise view of theology. 
 What he says would be equally appli- 
 cable to the most concise and condensed 
 formula we have, as given in the Lord's 
 Prayer, or in the Sermon on the Mount. 
 He says, theological formula lead to 
 '* spiritual paralysis," but the form in 
 
Reply to Drimwiond. 131 
 
 wliicli truth is presented in the Bible pre- 
 vents any possibility of this. " Truth in 
 the Bible is a fountain." We question 
 the correctness of the similitude. No 
 three individuals could go to the same 
 fountain, and draw three different kinds 
 of water ; but thirty different individuals 
 will go to the Bible and bring away 
 thirty different kinds of creeds. It is not 
 like a fountain, but it is very like an im- 
 mense quarry, many of the stones in whicli 
 are precious and valuable, and the rule is 
 that every man who wants a spiritual 
 house goes to that quarry and. digs, 
 chisels, and hews stones suitable to tlie 
 kind of house he wants to build. And 
 of these stones, out of that one quarry, 
 what a variety of houses are built ! What 
 grotesque and strange structures are 
 erected ! 
 
T32 Reply to DrummGud. 
 
 EPITOME. 
 
 The law of parasites in the natural 
 sphere is entirely different from the law 
 of parasites in the spiritual sphere in the 
 three following particulars : 
 
 First. In the natural sphere, once a 
 parasite, ever a parasite. In opposition 
 to this, a spiritual parasite may change. 
 
 Second. In the natural sphere a parasite 
 is such from necessity. In the spiritual 
 sphere a man is so from deliberate choice 
 — very much so. 
 
 Third. In the natural sphere a parasite 
 is so, for a present and an immediate good. 
 In opposition to this, the spiritual parasite 
 is so, in prospect of a future good. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 Tins is by far tlie most laboured and un- 
 satisfactory part of the book, while at 
 the same time it deals with subjects of 
 the very highest importance. At the 
 outset the professor wishes to show 
 the radical distinction between a Chris- 
 tian and a non-Christian, and applies 
 as his test the same law which he 
 laid down in the natural sphere — namely, 
 that the mineral Avas separated from the 
 vegetable by a sharp and impassable line 
 of demarcation ; and these two were also 
 separated from the anhnal by a line 
 equally well marked, by reason of which 
 
I3^f Reply to Drttminoud. 
 
 tlie one could never become the other. 
 The same law holds good, he says, in the 
 spiritual sphere. 
 
 The three o;reat divisions under which 
 the whole creation is arrang-ed is decided 
 by what the professor calls classification, 
 and each division has its separate sphere 
 and function in life. The properties 
 which it possesses, and the phenomena 
 which it is capable of manifesting, are 
 determined by the class to which it 
 belongs. In other words, the classifica- 
 tion determines its character. We dissent 
 from this altogether. 
 
 To start with, he takes two specimens 
 of earth ; the one from the Island of 
 Arran, and the other from tlie Island of 
 Barbadoes. The one consists of fine 
 crystals of silica ; the other of fine shells 
 or urns, the product of a small animal. 
 
Reply to Dritimnond. 135 
 
 Botli of these, tlie crystals and tlie shells, 
 are very beautiful when carefully ex- 
 amined under the microscope ; so much 
 so, that it is difficult to say which of the 
 two is most to be admired. But, he says, 
 there is this essential difference between 
 the two, the shell is the product of life, 
 the other is dead ; and for this reason 
 they represent two different classes — the 
 living and the dead ; and the beauty of 
 the one is therefore separated from the 
 beauty of the other by a line of demarca- 
 tion as distinct as that which separates the 
 living from the dead. The reasoning on 
 this point is exceedingly weak. The shells 
 were the product of life ; but where, we 
 ask, did the crystals come from ? What 
 made them ? Did they make themselves, 
 or did death make them ? We say they 
 were the product of life. God made the 
 
136 Reply to Driniiinond. 
 
 crystals. Tlie animals only moulded tlie 
 shells out of material made by God. 
 
 He speaks about the law of crystallisa- 
 tion in contradistinction to the law of 
 life. But what is the law of crystallisa- 
 tion but just the mode and manner of the 
 Divine operation in these particles of 
 matter? The silica has no determining 
 power of its own to assume any particular 
 form. None. Its power is fixed and de- 
 termined by God., He speaks about 
 chemistry making crystals and of repro- 
 ducing crystals. That is not so. The 
 simple fact is, you cannot prevent the 
 crystals forming; and that property or 
 power by which the silica always takes on 
 its special crystalline form is its life. 
 
 In connection with classification, he 
 draws a clear distinction between the 
 Christian and the not-a-Christian, on the 
 
Reply to Dr^inimoiid. 137 
 
 ground of tlie spiritual difference between 
 what he calls, " Moral and Spiritual 
 Beauty." Now really, moral and spirit- 
 ual beauty are very vague and flexible 
 terms. Beauty is not a property or 
 quality of anything, but rather a senti- 
 ment called up in the mind of an observer 
 by certain qualities or attributes in some- 
 thing observed. To have made the 
 subject tangible and definite, he should 
 have stated the qualities or attributes 
 v/hich were beautiful; but this he has 
 not done. And yet he looks upon the 
 distinction between moral and spiritual 
 beauty as being a vital one. He says, 
 " Moral beauty is the product of the 
 natural man — spiritual beauty the pro- 
 duct of the spiritual man ; and these two, 
 according to the law of Biogenises, are 
 separated from one another by the deep- 
 
138 Reply to Drummond, 
 
 est line known to science." His distinc- 
 tion between moral and spiritual beauty is 
 a fallacy, and clearly necessitated by the de- 
 mands of materialistic science. All throus^h, 
 the professor denies tlie spiritual part of 
 humanity; but this we must defend. 
 And from this point of view we would 
 say that moral beauty is the operation 
 and manifestation of the inner man in 
 the outer life. And spiritual beauty is 
 the operation which takes place within 
 the man, known and recognised as the mo- 
 tives and principles from which the outer 
 act proceeds. The real quality of the man, 
 and the quality of the act, depend entirely 
 upon the nature of the interior motives. 
 
 It is sad to think that the professor so 
 persistently ignores man's spiritual natm'e. 
 The whole of God's Word is addressed 
 not only to man as a spiritual being, but it is 
 
Reply to Drummond. 139 
 
 addressed to, and can be apprehended and 
 understood only by, the spiritual part of 
 his being. A material organisation can 
 realise and apprehend only material 
 things. All the functions of our material 
 organisation are bounded by the wants 
 of the organisation ; and these wants are 
 only material — God, Heaven, Eternity 
 and the Judgment, have no meaning to a 
 being that is only material. A material 
 organisation has no hope, no thought of 
 anything beyond the grave. The Bible 
 everywhere appeals to the heart and 
 conscience. It has special regard to the 
 inner motives of our life, and recognises 
 in these motives the true quality of all 
 character — these motives are the activities 
 of the spiritual being, not of the brain. 
 
 Following out his theory of natural law 
 in the spiritual W(jrhl, the professor in 
 
140 Reply to Drmnmond. 
 
 this chapter comes to the conclusion that 
 the Heavenly Kingdom is to be the 
 smallest of all other kingdoms. At page 
 410 he says: ''The broad impression 
 gathered from the utterance of the 
 Founder of the spiritual kingdom is that 
 the number of organisms to be included 
 in it is to be comparatively small — 
 " Quantity decreases as quality increases.'' 
 Can this really be so ? Is the spiritual 
 kingdom, the kingdom of tlie saved, the 
 redeemed, the blest and the happy, to be 
 the smallest of all the other kingdoms ? Is 
 such an idea consistent with the known 
 character and attributes of God — a God 
 of infinite love, and of infinite resources ? 
 We cannot believe it. No, rather perish 
 every form of natural science and philo- 
 sophy than lead us to such a conclusion 
 as this. 
 
Reply to Drnmrnona. 141 
 
 The yearnings and the strivings of the 
 good and the true in all ages, have been 
 to brhig about the greatest amount of 
 good to the greatest number ; and men 
 have failed hitherto, and do still fail, be- 
 cause they have not the power to give 
 effect to their desires, and because they 
 have not the knowledge of the right ways 
 and means by which to accomplish these 
 desires. Ignorance, selfishness, and de- 
 pravity still predominate ; pain, suffering 
 and sorrow are still the prevailing hjt 
 of the race. But God's Word gives us 
 sure grounds for believing that there is 
 still a good time in store for the race. 
 '* Thy kingdom come," is not simply a 
 prayer taught, it is the expression of a 
 want engraven in the depths of our 
 being, and, until that kingdom does 
 come, that want must still be there, and 
 
142 Reply to Drummond. 
 
 be felt, tliougli men may not understand 
 its true meaning. 
 
 Political reformers with hiQ;li soundins; 
 phrases, and large promises, have been 
 and are still, trying to fill up the want by 
 trying to introduce their form of kingdom. 
 Men of science are trying their systems of 
 natural evolution and gradual develop- 
 ment. Philosophical sociology, with its 
 ignoring of God and denial of revelation, 
 is also, after its fashion, aiming at the 
 same end. But all these must fail. So- 
 ciety will never, by any nor all of these 
 means, become better, but worse. And 
 whenever the Christian system becomes 
 affiliated to and identified with these 
 human systems, we may look for a more 
 wide-spread development of selfishness, 
 sensuality, and spiritual blindness. But 
 even then, and just then, new light will 
 
Reply to Dmniviond. 143 
 
 come, a liigher, a fuller, and more perfect 
 revelation from God will come, which 
 will lead on to a full realisation and fulfil- 
 ment of the prayer, "Thy kingdom come." 
 Already foreshadowings and foregleams 
 of that golden age are piercing and cleav- 
 ing through the thick darkness and enter- 
 ing human hearts. The dawn of that 
 glorious morn is drawing near, though the 
 full and perfect day must be far in the 
 future. Still we shall pray, '' Thy king- 
 dom come." 
 
 Moral, spiritual, and intellectual dark- 
 ness have long reigned, and do still reign, 
 over a large portion of our globe, but we 
 have the assurance in God's word that the 
 earth '* shall be filled with the knowledge 
 of the glory of the Lord, as the waters 
 cover the sea." .Yes, on this present 
 earth ; and there shall be no exception, 
 
144 Reply to DriLviinond. 
 
 for, " All tlie ends of the world sliall re- 
 member and turn unto the Lord ; and all 
 the kindreds of the nations shall worship 
 before Thee," and, "All the ends of the 
 earth shall see the salvation of our God/' 
 Horrid cruelty, wicked wars and cruel op- 
 pression, have long prevailed in the world, 
 and they still prevail; but the time must 
 come when men, " Shall beat their swords 
 into ploughshares, and their spears into 
 pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up 
 a sword against nation, neither shall they 
 learn war any more." And this will not 
 be brought about by any human exped- 
 ient or device which may be made one 
 day and broken the next — it will be of 
 Divme origin, stable and permanent in its 
 duration. " He shall have dominion also 
 from sea to sea, and from the river unto 
 the ends of the earth. His name shall 
 
Reply to Drummond. 145 
 
 endure for ever. His name shall be con- 
 tinued as long as the sun." And that 
 shall be a happy, a peaceful, and a pros- 
 perous time, for all men will be holy. 
 " The meek shall inherit the earth.'' '' I 
 will make thy officers peace, and thine 
 executors righteousness. Violence shall 
 no more be heard in thy land, wasting 
 nor destruction within thy borders ; but 
 thou shalt call thy walls salvation, and 
 thy gates praise." '' In that day shall 
 there be upon the bells of the horses, 
 ' Holiness unto the Lord. ' " "In his 
 days shall the righteous flourish, and 
 abundance of peace so long as the moon 
 endureth." 
 
 Then shall be realised the song of the 
 angels " on earth peace, good- will among 
 men." For this God veiled His glory and 
 took upon himself our nature and lived as 
 
146 Reply to Drwnmond. 
 
 a man among men. For this he bore the 
 sins of the world, submitted to the buffet- 
 ing, the reproaches, and the scourgings of 
 wicked men ; and at last died an igno- 
 minious death on the cross. For this, 
 bards have sung, prophets taught, saints 
 and martyrs suffered and bled. For this 
 ten thousand prayers ascend every day to 
 the throne in the heavens ; and for this 
 the whole creation groans and travails, 
 " Thy kingdom come." And as this shall 
 be an everlasting kingdom — because the 
 only kingdom which can adequately and 
 intelligently embody and reflect the im- 
 age and likeness of its Kmg and Founder — 
 the numbers which shall be gathered in 
 from it to the upper Spiritual Kingdom in 
 the heavens, will, as the countless ages 
 roll on, be such as vastly to transcend in 
 greatness all other kingdoms which have 
 
Reply to Dritmmond. 147 
 
 ever existed. With this faith and this 
 hope we shall ever pray, '' Thy kingdom 
 come." 
 
 At the close of this chapter, referring 
 to that " supreme law " which has been 
 moulding the universe and all it contains 
 at will, he describes it as directing the 
 evolutions of those million peopled worlds 
 as if they were simple " cells or organ- 
 isms," and further that man's "organism" 
 must pass through all the stages of differ- 
 entiation and integration, growing in per- 
 fectness and beauty under the wider, the 
 unfoldino; of the hisrher evolution until it 
 reaches the " Infinite complexity — the In- 
 finite sensibility." This is the goal to 
 which Drummond's Natural Law in the 
 Spiritual world is to lead us. What that 
 goal means in reality we must leave others 
 to judge. We can know something of 
 
14S Reply to Drummond. 
 
 the Divine man, the man, Christ Jesus — 
 the Elder Brother ; but of the Infinite 
 complexity and the Infinite sensibility we 
 know nothing. We can love our Father 
 in Heaven, but to love the Infinite com- 
 plexity or the Infinite sensibility is to 
 talk nonsense. 
 
 EPITOME. 
 
 The Law of Classification, as deter- 
 mining character in the Natural sphere, 
 does not hold good in the spiritual sphere 
 in the three following essential elements : 
 
 First. The Classification of man does 
 not determine his character, not in the 
 least — God made man in his own image and 
 likeness, and thereby classified him for 
 Heaven. All the elements in his beins^ — 
 all the capabilities of his organisation, 
 were such as would make him capable of 
 
Reply to Drumvwnd. 149 
 
 being fitted and prepared for a heavenly 
 home. But that classification did not 
 determine his character. 
 
 Second. Reason and revelation alike 
 warrant us in saying that in opposition to 
 the Divine classification, man made his 
 own character — what that character has 
 been we all know. In the natural sphere 
 no animal determines its own character. 
 
 Third. Man has still the power to re- 
 determine his character, and it is the 
 whole purpose and scope of revelation 
 that he should do so. And God holds 
 him guilty if he does not. There is 
 nothing like this in the natural sphere. 
 
 We have now got to the end of Pro- 
 fessor Drummond's Natural Law in the 
 Spiritual World, and would in conclusion 
 only add one or two sentences. 
 
 The radical error occurs in the first 
 
150 Reply to Drinnniond. 
 
 chapter. When the plant seizes hold of 
 the mineral, and the animal seizes hold of 
 the plant, that is not done with the object 
 of making the mineral to live, nor yet to 
 give the plant a higher form of life — bnt 
 solely to support their own life and to 
 maintain their own existence. The plant 
 could not continue to exist without the 
 mineral, and the animal could not con- 
 tinue to exist without the plant. These 
 are their chief and indispensable sources 
 of life. And then, when the mineral is 
 incorporated into the structure of the 
 plant, and the plant is incorporated into 
 the organism of the anhnal, the identity 
 of the mineral and the plant is lost — 
 gone. If anything corresponding to this 
 liolds good in the spiritual sphere, then 
 when the Spirit of God seizes hold of the 
 dead soul, that soul ous^ht to lose all in- 
 
Reply to Dr7t7nmo7id. 151 
 
 dividuality, and bo incorpjmted into the 
 Universal Spirit; which in other words 
 is pantheism. 
 
 In the three kingdoms of nature—tlie 
 mineral, the vegetable and the animal- 
 man stands at the head. The two below 
 exist for his use, and his l3asis is in the 
 mineral. Man's physical organisation is 
 essentially made of the mineral— the dust 
 of the ground. The plant is the inter- 
 mediary agent through which this is 
 effected. The plant seizes hold of the 
 mineral, not to give the mineral life, but 
 like a hungry man does so merely to 
 satisfy its own wants, and maintain its 
 own existence. No cliange takes place 
 upon the mineral, further than that its 
 molecular arrangement is altered, and it 
 becomes moulded into a new form. In 
 essence, the mineral is alwavs the same 
 
152 Reply to DrtLinmond. 
 
 whether in the body or out of the 
 body. 
 
 In the same way the animal acts upon 
 tlie phxnt, and in its own complex labora- 
 tory moulds that into part of a new and 
 higher organic structure — not by giving 
 it any new kind of life — not by altering 
 its constitution in any way ; for its sugar 
 and its starch, its gluten and its minerals, 
 are just the same as ever they were. But 
 they are now arranged into an entirely 
 new form, and made to subserve a new 
 and a higher purpose. Thus, the mineral 
 becomes the plant, and the plant becomes 
 the animal — man lives on botli. The 
 origin is the mineral. " Dust thou art, 
 and unto dust thou shalt return." The 
 physical organism is only dust. 
 
 But man is more than a mineral or a 
 plant, and he is also more than a mere 
 
Reply to Dntimiiond, \ c x 
 
 animal. In so far as his physical organ- 
 isation is concerned he is merely a hic^her 
 kind of animal. 
 
 But the being created in the image 
 and likeness of God is above and entirely 
 different from all kinds of animals. He 
 has a body, but he is essentially a spiritual 
 being and has an immortal soul. 
 
 Revelation" teaches, and reason corro- 
 borates the fact that man consists of soul, 
 body, and spirit. Ihe visible body is 
 the tabernacle in which he dwells and 
 acts in this visible world. The spiritual 
 part of the man is the intermediate link 
 between the lower creation and God. 
 God speaks to this spiritual being, mani- 
 fests himself to him, and has communion 
 with him. There is no such intercourse 
 or communion between God and any of 
 the animal creation. This spiritual he'mcr 
 
154 Reply to Drvtmmond, 
 
 can reflect and reason about liis orio-in, 
 and about tlie constitution of his beinof. 
 1^0 mere animal can do tliis. The re- 
 generated man can do more than this^ 
 
 Realising his true relationship to God 
 as a son to a Father — realisino^ tlie true 
 end and object of his being — living in 
 God and livins: to God — he consecrates 
 himself, and the world around him, made 
 for his use, the mineral, the vegetable, 
 and the lower animal, in an organic form, 
 the house he dwells in as a temple for 
 His service; and thus all nature is made 
 to reflect back the glory of God. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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