# , ; ; ; ; ; , ;
ºil itſ
& "
, s , , ; };
$4 4 ºf
º
tº.
&
Sº, º
AºS ºr A: A' 2's *{ - ..ºr Zº
; ; ; | º
# , , ,
ºrºzºvº-º-º-º-º-º-º-º: -
A 584,778
*T3
ºf A
y
tº in an a
R its an o A.A. H. G D G :
W i T -
S
* A S
A s p T A E L E T A 1. K.
O P.
Ho D G E r a E YOU N G E R
feº, J.A. §a
:
2CZ
monº, jià...A.

iX2
• 2. (as - - ~~~~ --
|WINE.I. #4 fºWJJJJſſi
OF THE
:
%-
j
-
#
§
º sº. *** **,'
- 7- - sº
:^^Nº. §§ -
fºci Rcu MspICE Sº-SNº.
sº
#
E§
º
U.K. V. C." JACP V Jº
Kºº sº.
& º º
TIII ºf IITIIIHIIIHTTTT
F
ºw-
Fl
III]
ſilſ
l
TH

\ \)
*Go G,
• \\ G?
$2
PRINCE TO N IA N A.

AA’ /AWCAE 7"O AV / 4 AVA.
is &
#. $
. º
‘.
CHARLES & A: A HODGE:
WITH
CLASS AND TABLE TALK
OF
HODGE THE YOUNGER,
BY
A SCOTTISH PRINCETONIAN.
(REV. C. A. SALMOND, M.A.)
Tt yöp Tarpós 6a)\\ovros evićAétas Tékuous āya)\ga peſov, # Tt Trpès Trºvãov
tratpi ;—(Sophoc. Antig.)
EDINBURGH :
O LI PHANT, AND E R SON & F ERRIER.
LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO.
I888.
All rights reserved.
TO
PROF. WILLIAM HENRY GREEN, D.D., LL.D.,
AND
HIS COLLEAGUES IN PRINCETON SEMINARY,
THIS TRIBUTE TO GRATEFUI, MEMORIES
IS WITH MUCH RESPECT INSCRIBED
BY
AN OLD ALUMNUS.
“Optima autem hereditas, gloria virtutis rerumque gestarum. . .
Quod enim munus reipublicae afferre majus meliusve possumus, quam
si docenus atque erudimus juventutem.” (Cic.)
| 574.49
P R E F A C E.
HIS volume consists, as will be seen, of two parts.
In the first part, which is biographical, I have
sought briefly but clearly to delineate in character
and life two of the greatest and best men it has been
my happiness anywhere to meet. In the second
part, I have undertaken the humbler, but perhaps
more important task of conveying Some impressions
of a singularly gifted teacher, whose help was valued
and whose memory is loved, through the simple
report of things he uttered in my hearing.
In the first division, I have made free use of former
contributions by myself to magazines * and various
newspapers, and have also freely availed myself of
“The Life of Charles Hodge,” written by his son, and
of the “Funeral Address" and “Memorial Discourse,”
written, respectively, with reference to that son, by
Prof. William M. Paxton, D.D., formerly of New
York, now of Princeton, and Prof. F. L. Patton, D.D.,
LL.D., formerly of Chicago, now likewise of Prince-
ton. In the second division, my one source of in-
formation has been my old Princeton notebook, in
which I took jottings, at the time they were uttered,
of the sayings now for the first time printed here.
* Viz.: 7%e Sunday at Home (April, 1879), 7%e Catholic Presby-
ſeriazz (January, 1881), and 7%e Christian (August, 1887).
8 : PREFACE.
Friends well competent to judge have encouraged
me in the belief that this little book may have its
use. To those already acquainted with the father
and the son of whom it treats, it may be a welcome
memento of men they would not willingly forget.
To those who, as yet, are acquainted only by name
with either the older or the younger Hodge, it may
serve as a somewhat fuller introduction to two of
God's servants, to either of whom, in his place, old
Chaucer's delineation of the “good man of religion "
might be very justly applied—
“But Christes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taught, but first he folowed it himselve.”
To theologians,—including laymen with a fondness
for theological study, the book, it is hoped, will have
an additional interest, as a presentation in the Con-
crete of some of the elements of influence in that
school of Christian thought, which, according to the
judgment of a penetrating cis-Atlantic critic, “more
and more manifestly is destined to be the dominant
thought of Christian America.”
C. A. S.
ROTHESAY, ISLE OF BUTE,
january, I888.
c O N T E N T S.
BIOGRAPHY_
III.
IV.
. THE ZENITH REACHED : AND THE DAY OF
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
... BIRTH AND BOYHOOD OF A. A. HODGE
XI.
. PRINCETON AND ITS INSTITUTIONS
. CHARLES HODGE'S PARENTAGE, YOUTH,
AND EDUCATION
ORDINATION, MARRIAGE, EDITORSHIP
LEHRJAHRE IN EUROPE
JUBILEE
THE EVENING TIME : AND THE NEW DAY'S
DAWN e º tº & ge
DR CHARLES HODGE AS TFACHER, CHURCH-
MAN, AND THEOLOGIAN.
HODGE THE YOUNGER CONTRASTED WITH
HIS FATHER
SEA-SICKNESS : BUT NOT IN THEOLOGY
HIS STUDENT DAYS, AND DEPARTURE FOR
INDIA tº
A. A. HODGE AS MISSIONARY
PASTOR, PREACHER, AND PLURALIST PRO-
FESSOR . e *
A TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION
PAGE
I I
. I 5
2O
24
3 I
4O
44
56
59
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
63
68
73
78
IO
CONTENTS.
XV. THE PRINCETON SCHOOL, AND A. A.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
HODGE'S PLACE IN IT
VARIED GLIMPSES OF THE YOUNGER HODGE
RIPENED IN USEFULNESS, AND RIPE FOR
GLORY
DR. A. A. HODGE AMONG HIS STUDENTS .
BREVIA THEOLOGICA—
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
OBITER DICTA
REASON AND REVELATION
THE UNIVERSE
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
THE HOLY TRINITY .
SovKREIGNTY, FREE-WILL, AND SALVATION
PROVIDENCE, ORDINARY AND MIRACULOUS
MAN AS MAN
MAN AS SINNER
GOD'S LAW AND MAN’S DUTY
DEATH AND AFTER DEATH
PAGE
87
92
99
IO4.
II 3
I23
I 37
I 52
I62
I68
I79
187
I93
2 I 3
229
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
I.
PRINCETON AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
“An old University town . . .
Kirk and College keeping time,
Faith and Learning, chime for chime.”
BORLAND HALL.
RINCETON is a pleasant little town of fully
six thousand inhabitants. It is situated on
the slopes of New Jersey, half-way between New
York and Philadelphia, being about forty miles, or
two hours by rail, from each. Its population is mixed,
including perhaps one thousand or more of coloured
people. The country round is fertile, but somewhat
flat. In the neighbourhood is the scene of a decisive
battle in the War of Independence; and a patent
proof of the fate which befell the “Britishers” there
is still found in the presence of some British cannon
within the College grounds,-not to speak of a picture
in the Museum, whose frame now environs the
immortal Washington, in place of the visage of
infatuated King George.
“The Kingdom of Jersey,
santly call the state to which the little town belongs,
y
as Americans plea-
is noted for three things: its fruit, its legislation, and
I 2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
its theology. The last it gets from Princeton : and
throughout the United States “Princeton theology”
has long been regarded as a synonym for orthodoxy.
The village has an unmistakably academic look,
clustering as it does about its seats of learning.
These are two-the College and the Theological
Seminary. The College, which counts on its roll
of presidents the names of Witherspoon, Jonathan
Edwards, and M'Cosh, has risen to front rank among
the many colleges of America, alongside of Harvard
and Yale. The Seminary has for a long period held
a unique place of influence among the similar institu-
tions of the United States, owing to the remarkably
gifted and devoted men who, up to and including the
present, have composed its professorial staff. Con-
spicuous among these have been two names of quite
Outstanding lustre, each name Suggestive of a
binary star in the Princeton firmament—the names
of Alexander and Hodge.
Of the two Alexanders, much that is interesting
might be told. It will be a long time before the
savour evaporates which still hangs about their name
in Princeton. But it is not my present purpose to
speak about them. Nor shall I say anything of the
living : else one who still worthily maintains the
family name within the Seminary professoriate might
have been included in this sketch—Dr Caspar Wistar
Hodge, the accomplished successor of his father in
the chair of New Testament exegesis. The design
of this little volume is to offer a humble contribution

PRINCETON AND ITS INSTITUTIONS. I 3
to the elucidation of Princeton dogmatics: and the
purpose of the present brief memoir will be served if
it conveys some living impression of the character-
istics, as man and teacher, of each of the two Hodges,
father and son, who in succession occupied, with such
distinction to themselves and such advantage to the
Christian cause, the chair of Systematic Theology in
Princeton, from 1840 to 1886.
It was in the autumn of 1877 that, having previously
enjoyed a session at Göttingen under Ritschl and
others, I was led to spend a year at Princeton, N.J.
I attended and greatly relished the post-graduate
course in contemporary philosophy taught by Presi-
dent M'Cosh in the College—an institution for which,
and in connection with which, he has rendered such
signal service during the trans-Atlantic chapter of
his distinguished career. Hut my main purpose
was to settle for a year within the Theological
Seminary there—that ancient Seminary, as antiquity
is measured in America, one of whose leading
boasts it is, that no novelty in theology ever
emanated from within its walls.” And certainly
I have seen no reason to regret the step. The
late Dr William Cunningham, Principal of the New
College, Edinburgh, being once asked by a student,
whether a year under Hodge in Princeton would
count for a session in the home curriculum, replied
—“Count undoubtedly; the only question is,
* Dr Charles Hodge at his jubilee, in 1872, declared—“I am not
afraid to say, that a new idea never originated in this Seminary”
(Zife, p. 521). In what sense this was true, the present volume may
help to shew.
I 4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
ought it not to count for two P” Modesty may
have somewhat coloured this estimate by the Scot-
tish divine, who considered Dr Charles Hodge the
greatest of living theologians, and who, in turn, was
regarded at Princeton as “beyond question the
greatest logician, polemic, and theologian of the
second heroic age of the Church of Christ in
Scotland.” But the opinion may be hazarded
that young “divinities” who think of having a
session abroad, and who perhaps covet the dis-
tinction of coming back from Germany with a
sufficient soupçon of neology about them to make
them interesting rather than dangerous, would do
unquestionably well to cross the Atlantic Ocean as
well as the German Sea. Not only would such
find a corrective for incipient erraticism in the New
World's old theology: they would benefit in various
ways by mingling for a time in American Society.
A number of the leading preachers of Philadelphia
and New York, for example, visit Princeton during
the session—to listen to whom is itself no mean
educational advantage for a future preacher. Prac-
tical hints in church organisation also may be readily
acquired from our eminently practical trans-Atlantic
cousins, to be afterwards turned to good account by
the future pastor. And, better still, the student can
hardly fail to be impressed and personally stimulated
by contact with the earnest religious life of Christian
America, which is a kind of thing that German
theology, whatever its excellences are, seems little
calculated to produce or foster.
II.
CHARLES HODGE's PARENTAGE, YOUTH, AND
EDUCATION.
“The son of parents passed into the skies.”
COWPER.
“Heaven lies about us in our infancy.”
WORDSWORTH.
“Deeper, deeper let us toil
In the mines of knowledge;
Nature's wealth and learning’s spoil
Win from school and college;
Delve we there for richer gems
Than the stars of diadems.”
MONTGOMERY.
N the year 1730 there emigrated from the north
of Ireland three young men whose parents had
recently died—William, Andrew, and Hugh Hodge.
America was their destination, and Philadelphia
became their home. All the three prospered ; and
Andrew, the second of the brothers, besides being a
successful merchant, became in due time an active
churchman, and the respected parent of fifteen
children. The eighth of these, Hugh by name, who
was born in 1755, and who followed the medical
I 6 BIOGRAPIIICAL SKETCH.
profession, was Charles Hodge's father. He was a
man highly esteemed for character and intelligence.
His wife, a lady of Huguenot extraction, was “the
beautiful Mary Blanchard of Boston,” whom he
married in 1790. Of their children, the first three
died in infancy; the fourth was Hugh, afterwards a
distinguished Philadelphia physician ; the fifth and
last was Charles—born on the 28th December 1797
—of whom we are now to speak.
Six months after the birth of her youngest son,
Mrs Hodge was left a widow. She seems to have
been a lady of strong character, as well as of sincere
piety and active benevolence. Her income from the
property left by her husband was more limited than
it might otherwise have been, owing to the troubled
state of the country; but by keeping boarders and
exercising a self-denying economy, she was enabled
to accomplish her cherished wish of providing
both her boys with a first-class education. They in
turn recognised that “to their mother, under God,
they owed everything,” and they regarded her with
a beautiful devotion till her death in 1832. How
early and successfully she had imbued the minds of
her children with religious principles may be gathered
from the following interesting extract from Dr
Hodge's autobiographic record:—
“There has never been anything remarkable in
my religious experience, unless it be that it began
very early. I think that in my childhood I came
nearer to conforming to the apostle's injunction,
PARENTAGE, YOUTH, AND EDUCATION. 17
‘Pray without ceasing,' than in any other period of
my life. As far back as I can remember, I had the
habit of thanking God for everything I received,
and asking him for everything I wanted. If I lost a
book, or any of my playthings, I prayed that I might
find it. I prayed walking along the streets, in School
and out of school, whether playing or studying. I
did not do this in obedience to any prescribed rule.
It seemed natural. I thought of God as an every-
where-present Being, full of kindness and love, who
would not be offended if children talked to Him. I
knew he cared for sparrows. I was as cheerful and
happy as the birds, and acted as they did.”
After attending primary schools in Philadelphia
and elsewhere, Charles Hodge entered Princeton
Academy in 1812, which happened to be the year in
which the Theological Seminary there was founded.
He always retained a lively recollection of lying on
the rail of the gallery in the old Presbyterian Church,
listening to the inaugural address of his future men-
tor, Dr Archibald Alexander, to whom he was intro-
duced the same Summer, when Dr Alexander walked
into the Schoolroom One day and found him stam-
mering over a verse in the Greek Testament. In
September of that year, he entered Princeton College,
then under the presidency of Dr Ashbel Green. His
opportunities in some branches cannot have been
first-rate, judging from what he tells of one professor
who “ had a favourite idea that civilisation had
reached its highest stage before the deluge,” and who
B
I 8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
had a pleasant way of enforcing duty, by telling his
pupils that “one of the best preparations for death
was a thorough knowledge of the Greek Grammar !”
Yet his acquisitions were considerable by the time
he graduated in September 1815, as was shown by
his sharing the second highest honour, and being
chosen to deliver the valedictory address on behalf
of his class.
Meanwhile, his religious life had been advancing.
In January 1815, the news went round in student
circles that “Hodge had enlisted.” This was soon
discovered to mean, not that he had sworn to fight
the British, but that he had enlisted under the banner
of Christ, by making an open profession of faith in
Him. These were blessed days for Princeton, to
which, long years afterwards, the old man sometimes
referred with deep emotion. His companions, Johns
and M'Ilvaine, and many others, afterwards eminent
for ability and godliness, came under the influence
of that revival, and helped, along with him, to
extend it.*
After the close of his college course Charles Hodge
had to spend a year in general reading, in order to
recruit his overtaxed physical strength; but he never
wavered in his choice of a profession, and was eager to
enter on definite preparation for the ministry. It was
* The writer can fully endorse a recent remark of Professor Drum-
mond’s, that the atmosphere of American colleges is still, at least in
certain instances, including Princeton, to a noteworthy extent a
religious atmosphere.

PARENTAGE, YOUTH, AND EDUCATION. I 9
with intense satisfaction, therefore, that he enrolled his
name, on 9th November, 1816, as one of the twenty-
six students attending Princeton Seminary that year.
He soon showed himself an earnest and successful
student—diligent at his books, ardently devoted to
his professors (then only two in number), and warmly
attached to his comrades. His friendship for John
Johns (afterwards Bishop of Virginia), already begun
at college, here grew into an intimacy of mutual
affection, that seemed steadily to deepen during the
fifty years and more that followed. There are many
beautiful glimpses of this life-long attachment scat-
tered through his biography; and nothing, indeed,
was more characteristic of Dr Hodge than the ten-
derness and tenacity of his friendships.
On 28th September, 1819, he graduated from
Princeton Seminary; and, a month later, the presby-
tery of Philadelphia licensed him to preach the
Gospel. -
III.
ORDINATION, MARRIAGE, EDITORSHIP.
“Onward, onward may we press
Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness,
Excellence true beauty. -
Minds are of celestial birth ;
Make we, then, a heaven of earth.”
MONTGOMERY.
HOUGH Hodge, apart from occasional bursts
of eloquence, was never to become an eminent
preacher, the quiet but deep enthusiasm with which
he regarded the work of the ministry was abundantly
evinced both in his missionary labours at this time,
and in the view he took of a proposal already mooted,
that he should be assumed as assistant-teacher of
Biblical literature and exegesis in Princeton Semin-
ary. We find him writing: “Did the duties of the
contemplated Office require me to give up the pros-
pect of preaching altogether, I think I should not
hesitate in declining it; for I believe that preaching
the Gospel is a privilege superior to any other
entrusted to men ; ” and again : “I would give the
world, were my desire of honouring Christ and of
ORDINATION, MARRIAGE, AND EDITORSHIP. 2 I
saving souls so strong that I should be indifferent to
what related merely to myself.”
He accepted his appointment to the Seminary
assistantship in 182O, at the munificent salary of £80
(4OO dols.) a-year; and so well did he acquit himself
in it during the two following sessions, that his two
senior professors—Dr Alexander and Dr Samuel
Miller—resolved to ask the Assembly to elevate him
to a regular professorial chair. Here is how he him-
self viewed the proposal : “I believe that I would
rather be homeless and penniless through life, than
in any way whatever enter such an office unsent of
God.” At the same time, he confesses that the
fondest wishes of his heart would be accomplished
in being called to such a post, which he would prefer
to any other situation with the largest salary in the
country. This disregard for pecuniary emolument
was another distinguishing mark of his whole Subse-
quent career. •'
Happily, the £80 were increased to £2OO, when,
in May 1822, he was actually made Professor of
Oriental and Biblical Literature ; otherwise, the step
he took a month later would hardly have been
possible. This was his marriage to Sarah Bache,
great-grand-daughter of Benjamin Franklin, a young
lady of unusual beauty both of person and character,
whom he had met, for the first time, nine years
before, in his mother's house at Philadelphia. She
always attributed her religious life to his instru-
mentality; and the following, written by her on
22 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
4th August 182O, may be taken as a specimen of
the serious “love-letters ” that passed between
them—
“I love to feel myself bound to you by indis-
soluble ties that not even the grave can change
—to feel that after being cherished and guided by
you through time, I shall, through your instru-
mentality, stand by you, purified, before the throne
of our Heavenly Father when time shall be no
more. Can any conception comprehend the ecstacy
of Such a moment, or any earthly happiness equal it 2
Am I guilty of detracting from the true source and
first cause of all happiness, when I suppose that
even in heaven it may be augmented by the reflec-
tion that a beloved partner was the means of our
attaining it 2 ”
After living for a short time in apartments at
Princeton, the young pair “began housekeeping ”
on 1st January 1825, in the new house built for
them close to the Seminary—that familiar home
where Dr Hodge lived, and loved, and laboured for
more than half a century to come. There his eight
children, except the eldest, were born, and there
his loved partner was reft from him by death in
1849. As the trees grew up which his own hands
had planted, and the walls turned old which were
then so new, and every familiar object became
entwined with the dearest associations, we cannot
wonder that he came to feel as though the place
were almost part of himself. His biographer in-
ORDINATION, MARRIAGE, AND EDITORSHIP. 23
stances, as a characteristic trait of conservatism,
that he went on “for forty-five years reclining and
sitting, reading, writing, praying, and talking in one
Spot of one room ; ” and that he said pathetically a
few years before he died, “This chair and I for
forty years have been growing to each other very
closely.” It is also mentioned that he could never
be induced to have his clothes made anywhere else
than at the same old shop which he had patronised
from the first ; for “there was no element of his
nature inclined to new measures any more than to
new doctrines.” It Ought, however, to be added,
that to the very last the outlook from this home
of many years was keenly observant and warmly
sympathetic. He continued to be intelligently
alive to all the movements of the day, and brought
to bear on the most distant of them a telescopic
interest that made the remote near and then
Surveyed it with honest appreciation. -
We may regard as the closing event of this first
period of his life, his inauguration, in 1825, of the
Bzó/ical Repertory. It was at first a mere reprint
of foreign articles; but it assumed an original
character four years later, and afterwards developed
into the well-known Princeſſon Reviezv, which, for
forty-three years in all, Dr Hodge made the medium
of exerting an untold influence in his own country
On the great religious and social questions of the
day.
IV.
LEHRJAHRE IN EUROPE.
“One who of such a height hath built his mind,
And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,
As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame
Of his resolvéd powers.”
SAMUEL DANIEL.
T was a somewhat startling announcement for
Hugh Hodge to receive from his steady-going
brother Charles in 1826: “I want to leave you all
for two years, wife and child, mother and brother.”
This desire was prompted by the experience already
gained in his brief professoriate, which, as it had
raised his ideal of the work, had served at the same
time to convince him of the necessity for a fuller
personal equipment for it, by a period of private
and uninterrupted study under the most eminent
living teachers of Biblical science. His proposal
was cordially taken up by the senior professors, and,
on their recommendation, agreed to by the Board
of Directors ; so that, in October, 1826, he sailed
for Havre, leaving his wife and young family at his
mother's home in Philadelphia.
While he was away, his “paternal professors ”
bore him constantly and anxiously on their hearts ;
LEHRJAHRE IN EUROPE. 25
but they had in him a confidence which, as his after-
life showed, was in no way misplaced. Dr Alex-
ander's letters show only a natural and becoming
solicitude when he writes:–
“Remember that you breathe a poisoned atmos-
phere. If you lose the lively and deep impression
of Divine truth—if you fall into scepticism or even
into coldness—you will lose more than you gain
from all the German professors and libraries . . .
The air which you breathe in Germany will either
have a deleterious effect on your moral constitution,
or else, by the strength of faith required to resist
its effects, your spiritual health will be confirmed.”
His prayer, that his young colleague “might be
kept from the poison of neology,” was certainly
fulfilled ; and there cannot be a doubt that Hodge's
stay in Europe had an expanding and consolidating
influence on his mind, which impressed itself after-
wards on all his work.
He first spent three months in Paris, studying
French, Arabic, and Syriac with De Sacy, keenly
observing Old World institutions, and preaching
occasionally in the English Chapel, where he had
Thomas Guthrie one day as an appreciative hearer.
Then he proceeded to Germany, where he had first
seven months in Halle, and then nearly a year in
Berlin. His journal and letters at this time abound
in interesting references to the state of religious and
philosophical opinion then prevalent in the country,
and also in lively personal impressions of the dif-
26 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
ferent men of the day. His German tutor in Halle
was George Müller, afterwards of Bristol. There he
became acquainted with Gesenius, Jacob, Niemeyer,
and, above all, with Tholuck, between whom and
himself a lifelong friendship sprang up. His descrip-
tion of Gesenius—afterwards modified, however, on
hearing his clear and animated prelections in the
class-room—is somewhat amusing:—
“When viewed from the other side of the Atlantic,
these men seemed something out of the ordinary
course of things, but here, whatever their minds
may be, their bodies are made of very vulgar clay.
I have never been so disappointed in my life as in
the appearance of Gesenius, who is the first Hebrew
scholar probably in the world. He is not more
than forty years old, frivolous, and, what is a
wonder here, rather foppish in his appearance. He
has a silly laugh for everything he says, and is in
short the last man I should have selected from ten
thousand as a distinguished philologist.”
Hodge's regard for Tholuck was strong from the
first, and it was thoroughly reciprocated. They were
both young men, under thirty, and in their long
discussions and frequent walks together, found much
that they held in common, and not a little that they
could learn from one another. Tholuck, being from
his evangelical piety a kind of rara avis, and even
an object of suspicion and talebearing in Halle, was
glad to find in the young American a congenial
spirit. He afterwards writes to Hodge in Berlin —
LEHRJAHRE IN EUROPE. 27
“You have been sent to me through God's mercy as
a messenger of glad tidings, as a comforter in cheer-
less hours, as an elder brother to show me the simple
way to heaven.” And as late as I 877, Tholuck sent
his friend a copy of his own photograph, with warm
expressions of undying love.
Hodge came more or less into contact with such
men as Twesten, Ritter, Baumgarten - Crusius,
Schleusner, Heubner, Blumenbach, Lücke, Nitzsch,
and Krummacher, his references to whom are inter-
esting, but cannot here be instanced. In Berlin he
heard Hengstenberg, Schleiermacher, Marheinecke,
Baron Humboldt, and others. But there he especially
came under the influence of Neander, that prince of
German theologians, who not only valued him as a
pupil, but received him warmly as a personal friend.
Tholuck was for a time in Berlin, and the three
used to have long and animated discussions on
questions such as inspiration and predestination,
after which Neander would say kindly to Tholuck,
at parting—“Tell our friend Hodge that though we
dispute with him, we belong to the same Lord, and
are one at heart.” Here is how Neander outwardly
impressed Hodge the first time he saw him :—
“He is rather an old-looking man for thirty-five,
has much of the Jewish countenance, and his man-
ners, though peculiar and awkward, are exceedingly
kind. The poor man has studied himself almost to
death.” -
Tholuck had introduced Hodge to Otto v. Gerlach,
28 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
“ the Wesley of Berlin,” and other leaders of the
revival movement which about that time was stirring
in parts of Germany. Hodge's sympathies were, of
course, entirely with the movement, while he was
quite alive to its dangers. These he describes, in
connection with a sermon he heard by Krummacher,
as being twofold—first, a tendency among some few
of the preachers to Antinomian principles; and
second, a fondness for extravagant allegorical inter-
pretations of the Old Testament.
He did what he could to advance the cause of
true religion while in Berlin. In this endeavour he
had the warm co-operation of his house-companion,
Monod of Paris, and the cordial approval of Heng-
Stenberg, who felt closely drawn to the young
American from his “simplicity, modesty, and sin-
cerity,” and made a personal friend of him in spite
of the fact that there were “the wildest and most
wonderful stories about Hodge and Monod” circulat-
ing among their fellow-students.
But the time came for leaving Berlin. How much
his residence there had been appreciated we learn
from Hodge's own words—“When I bade my friends
farewell, I cried like a child. Neander's farewell I
shall never forget.” He took with him, and left
behind him, many happy memories. On his home-
ward way he visited Göttingen and Bonn. In the
former he saw, among others, Lücke and Ewald. Of
the latter he writes:—“I regard him as one of the
most remarkable men I have seen in Europe. He is
LEHRJAHRE IN EUROPE. - 29
about twenty-four, looks much younger, is modest in
his manner even to bashfulness, though confident
even to arrogance in his writings.” At Bonn, then a
university of about only ten years' standing, he heard
Schlegel lecture, but was disappointed in his appear-
ance and manner.
Before returning to America, Hodge paid his Only
visit to England. “With a swelling heart,” he says,
“I trod upon the soil of the mother-country, which,
with all her faults, is the most wonderful and admir-
able the world has ever seen.” This is exactly in
accord with the frequently-expressed sentiments
of his mature life, and falls in with what his bio-
grapher afterwards says of his attitude to “the old
country: ”— .
“Although heartily and conscientiously an Ameri-
can patriot, maintaining that the United States is a
nation, and loving it and admiring its institutions as
more excellent than those of any other, he was ever
proud of his part in the inheritance of Anglo-Saxon
traditions and glories. Great Britain was loved and
honoured as the mother-country, and her history and
prestige were sacred to him. Above all was he a
life-long admirer of the Duke of Wellington, and the
history of all his campaigns and battles was known
to him in all its various versions and critical details.”
His stay in Britain was unfortunately brief. He
had time to see a little of London and of the English
universities, and to hear a debate in the House of
Commons; but British parliamentary eloquence does
3O BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
not appear to have impressed him very favourably,
for he says he “never heard so much poor speaking
in his life.” Edinburgh he rapidly visited, before his
vessel sailed from Liverpool; but not a line of record
concerning that visit survives, and unfortunately it
was never to be repeated. About fifty years later, he
would fain have been back in the Scottish capital, in
order to be present at the first General Presbyterian
Council, held at Edinburgh in July 1877; but failing
health by that time prevented the fulfilment of his
wish.
On 18th September 1828, he reached his home in
Princeton, where family and friends were met to give
him their heartiest greeting. In his introductory
lecture, the following winter, he enforced three con-
siderations which his stay in Europe had impressed
upon himself. These were, the value of civil and
religious liberty, the importance of religious instruc-
tion in the public schools, and the intimate con-
nection between speculative opinion and moral
character. Under the last head, he bore the
following decided testimony:-“Whenever you find
vital piety — that is, penitence and a devotional
spirit—there you find the doctrines of the fall, of
depravity, of regeneration, of atonement, and of the
Deity of Christ. I never saw or heard of a single
individual, exhibiting a spirit of piety, who rejected
any one of these doctrines.”
V.
THE ZENITH REACHED : AND THE DAY OF JUBILEE.
“Why grieve that time has brought so soon
The sober age of manhood on ?
As idly should I weep at noon,
To see the blush of morning gone.”
BRYANT.
HE third period of Hodge's life (1829-40) now
began. Into the details of it and of those
which follow, we cannot and need not enter at any
length. It was a time of considerable literary
activity, carried on under Serious physical disad-
vantages—a protracted malady in One of his limbs
keeping him repeatedly, for months together, on his
couch. His students had to assemble in his study :
and his well-known commentary on “Romans” had
to be written, for the most part, as he lay on his
back with his leg in a splint.
His fame both as a writer and as a teacher now
steadily increased. In 1834, he received the title of
Doctor of Divinity from Rutgers College, New
Jersey; and he soon began to earn an European
reputation, as a Sound theologian and able contro-
versialist. He took his due share in politics as an
32 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
old Whig, while that party lasted, and then as a
Republican—believing that, “when connected with
morality and the character and interest of a
Country, politics is a subject second only to religion
in importance.”
He likewise put forth his full influence in the eccle-
siastical domain, in order to guide the Church through
the fierce storms of the Disruption controversy. Dr
Hodge led the Princeton wing of the Old School
party, which took such a temperate view of the
question at issue as to fall under the displeasure
of the opposing extremes. While thoroughly Old
School in sympathy, they were not in favour of the
Disruption policy of some of the leaders ; and per-
haps the best vindication of the position they then
took up has since been given in the reunion of 1870.
At this later date, Hodge dared to repeat the same
policy of independence ; because, while he would not
divide the Church, he saw no sufficient reason then
for uniting the actually and long-divided branches,
and thereby sinking what he had come to regard as
the peculiar and valuable testimony of the Old School
Presbyterian Church for strict Calvinistic doctrine.
In all his controversies, he was, however emphatic,
consistently impersonal and even generous towards
his opponents. Strife was certainly not congenial to
his nature. He could not, and would not, shun con-
troversy ; but he always engaged in it as a means,
not as an end. The glimpses we have into his home
life during this period are of the most attractive
THE ZENITH REACHED. . 33
kind. The supposed grim Calvinist there softens
into the most lovable of men. His study is the
home of his wife, and not only the gathering place
of the entire family but the highway of the children
between the outside world and the other apartments
of the house. As was remarked by the editor of the
Sunday at Home, to whose pages the writer sent
Some Princeton reminiscences a few years ago—
“I have Seldom seen a man more genial and attrac-
tive than this representative of the American
Presbyterians. Clear light did not interfere with
warm love in good old Dr Hodge ; and I remember
his parlour-study as one of the cheeriest glimpses
I had of an American interior.”
It may be here parenthetically remarked, that
they in truth greatly err, who think or speak of Dr
Hodge as a “hard and dry Calvinist.” In him it
was conspicuously seen, how warm and loving a
heart may beat beneath what Some would regard as
the cold steel of a Calvinistic coat of mail. A Cal-
vinist, indeed, he was to the backbone—no member
of the genus invertebrata f/heologica , but he was
neither hard nor dry. This sufficiently appears in
his writings to all candid minds. Of them it is
true that “while there is not one point of the Cal-
vinistic system that he obscures, he lets in upon it
the full light of God’s love and mercy, till the
heart melts into submission to His sovereignty.”
But only those who knew him personally could
appreciate the man. While he did not seek to
C
34 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
minimise truth or explain it away, he certainly did
not revel in what some consider the obnoxious doc-
trines of the Calvinistic system. These he pro-
pounded with all humility, and with infinite tender-
ness. His senior colleague, Dr Archibald Alexan-
der, once aptly said, that the mental constitution of
Dr Hodge was “like that of John Calvin without
his severity.”
His biographer records, that Dr Hodge wrote in
pencil, with trembling lines, on one of his Conſer-
ence Papers, shortly before his death, that he
believed the vast majority of the human race were
to share the beatitudes and glories of his Lord's
redemption.* Certainly the haters of Calvinistic
theology, who wrongly deem narrowness and acer-
bity its necessary accompaniments, were never
further from the mark than in assuming that “the
pontifex maximus of this creed" was “the incarna-
tion of these amiable qualities.” The very reverse
was the case. The mention of the love. of Christ
would sometimes, even in the class-room, affect him
to tears ; and it is in no spirit of exaggeration
that Dr Boardman of Philadelphia, his life-long
friend, declares—“Not Rutherford himself was more
absorbed with the love of Christ.” His students
know, on the other hand, how touching it was to
hear him treat of a subject so affectingly solemn as
* The salvation, through the merit of the Redeemer, of all children
dying in infancy was one of the “recurring fervours” of Dr Hodge
in his theological teaching.
THE ZENITH REACHED. 35
the reprobation of the finally impenitent. They
could not fail to see in their teacher a true disciple
of Him who wept over lost Jerusalem.
During what may be called the fourth section of
his life (1840–72), Dr Hodge was at his best. Like
the grandest trees, he was slow in reaching his fullest
development. In 1847, though he had already
achieved no mean reputation on both sides of the
ocean, he himself writes:—“I feel that almost all
the usefulness of my life is to be crowded into the
coming ten years, should I live so long.”
The events of this period in the Princeton calendar
are easily told, but the importance of some of them
is not so easily measured. In 1840, much against
his own wish at first, Dr Hodge was transferred
to the Chair of Exegetical and Didactic Theology,
which subsequent experience proved to be his proper
sphere, and for which the previous twenty years of
linguistic and exegetical study and practice had been
a most valuable preparation. In 1841, his “Way of
Life” appeared. Then came numerous papers in
the Princeton Review, to which he contributed one
hundred and forty-two articles in all, and through
whose pages, as already hinted, he continued for
about half a century, from first to last, to mould the
current opinions of his Church and Country—and
that in the face of opposition from very diverse
quarters. His articles embraced a great variety of
theological and ecclesiastical problems and relations:
and the independence of his judgment often received
36 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
striking testimony from the very contrariety of the
Criticisms he had to encounter. His work in the
Princeton Review alone would justify the public
declaration of Dr Shedd, that “Dr Hodge has done
more for Calvinism than any other man in America.”
A specimen of the influence his papers wielded was
seen in the eager absorption, by thousands of copies,
of his article on “The State of the Country during
the War;” and at more than one crisis it was found
that the single pen of Dr Hodge, in his Review—
like that of Hugh Miller in Zhe Witness—could
outbid the Babel of a thousand tongues in its influ-
ence on public opinion and even on public policy.
As early as the year 1846, his Church conferred
on him a high token of its respect and confidence by
choosing him moderator of the Assembly, held
that year in Philadelphia.
In 1849, his wife died. She was followed by his
colleagues, Dr Samuel Miller, in 1850, and Dr Archi-
bald Alexander, in 185 I. These successive bereave-
ments Dr Hodge felt most keenly. Returning from his
last interview with Dr Alexander, he exclaimed to his
son in an agony of weeping—" It is all past; the
glory of our Seminary has departed.” This feeling
was natural for him at such a moment, though others
even then were comforted by the thought which was
afterwards fittingly expressed, that if their Elijah had
ascended, Elisha still remained with his mantle and
a double portion of his spirit. In 1852, Dr Hodge
married Mrs Stockton, a noble Christian lady, who
THE ZENITH REACHED. 37
became a true mother to his children as well as an
admirable helpmeet for all his later life.
In 1856-7, he wrote his commentaries on “Ephe-
sians” and “Corinthians.” In 1860, came what he
regarded as the second greatest sorrow of his life,
the unexpected death of Dr Joseph Addison Alex-
ander, who had been appointed to his former Chair of
Oriental and Biblical Literature twenty years before,
and during all that time had been to him a kind of
second self.
On the events of his public life it is unnecessary
to dwell. There are few more impressive scenes
in it than the occasion when, in the National Presby-
terian Convention held in Philadelphia, November
I867, he was brought forward to respond, in the
name of all, to the Episcopalian delegation which
was headed by Bishop MºIlvaine, of Ohio, his old
school and college friend. His closing words breathe
the true eloquence of a loving and catholic spirit,
and were delivered with such feeling that “there was
scarcely a dry eye in the house.” We may be par-
doned for adding them, as one more quotation —
“And now, sir, after these fifty odd years, here we
stand, grey-headed, side by side, for the moment
representatives of these two great bodies of organised
Christians, feeling for each other the same intimate
cordial love, and mutual confidence; looking, not
backward, not downward to the grave beneath
Our very feet, but onward to the coming glory.
Brethren, pardon this personal allusion, but is there
38 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
not something that may be regarded as symbolical
in this 2 Has not your Church and our Church
been rocked in the same cradle * Did they not pass
through the same Red Sea, receiving the same bap-
tism of the Spirit, and of fire 2 Have they not
uttered, from those days of the Reformation to the
present time, the same great testimony for Christ
and His Gospel ? What difference, sir, is there
between your Thirty-nine Articles and our Con-
fession of Faith, other than the difference between
One part and another of the same great cathedral
anthem rising to the skies 2 Does it not seem to
indicate that these Churches are coming together ?
We stand here, sir, to say to the whole world, that
we are one in faith, one in baptism, one in life, and
One in allegiance to our common Lord.”
Dr Hodge's own jubilee celebration furnished the
most unique evidence of the high place he held in
the esteem and affection of all the Churches. It was
the most Oecumenical affair of its kind, perhaps,
that has occurred in the individual annals of Pro-
testant Christendom, Though, as everybody knew,
Dr Hodge was both a staunch Calvinist and a loyal
Presbyterian, it was appropriately recognised that he
was a man belonging to the universal Church rather
than to any particular sect ; and hence Lutherans as
well as Calvinists—Episcopalians, Methodists, Bap-
tists, and Independents, as well as Presbyterians—
vied with each other in showing the value they set
upon such a life.
THE ZENITH REACHED. 39
-*
During most of the congratulatory addresses, he
was reclining, out of sight, in the pulpit sofa behind
the stage. When a friend asked him, as they closed
—“How did you stand all that 2 ” “Why,” said he,
with a pleasant smile, “very quietly ; it did not
seem at all to be me they were talking about. I
heard it all as of some other man.” It was the
testimony that day borne to the unity of the faith,
and to the common love of all for the same Gospel
and the same Lord, that he was thinking about.
His humility was of the most deep and unaffected
kind. When one was saying to him, “You Ought to
be a very happy man, considering what you have
accomplished, and the universal feeling toward
you ” “Now, stop !” said he, with a wave of
the hand ; “all that can be said is, that God has
been pleased to take up a poor little sticé and do
something with it. What I have done is as nothing
compared with what is done by a man who goes to
Africa, and labours among a heathen tribe, and
reduces their language to writing. I am not worthy
to stoop down and unloose the shoes of such a man.”
His sympathy with foreign missions, here indicated,
was intense all through his life.
VI.
THE EVENING TIME, AND THE NEW DAY'S DAWN.
“But an old age, serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.”
WORDSWORTH.
“Hast thou not glimpses in the twilight here
Of mountains where immortal morn prevails P
Comes there not through the silence to thine ear
A gentle rustling of the morning gales?”
BRYANT.
HARLES HODGE'S closing years were singu-
larly beautiful. The reviewer had laid down
his pen, the controversialist had put aside his armour;
there was the calm of evening and the mellowness of
autumn all about his life. The writer, who was a
member of his last class in 1878, can testify that his
outward form was even at that time still erect, his
intellect vigorous and clear, his emotional nature un-
blunted by age. Only his body was growing weary,
and there was an evident ripening for rest and for
glory. There was in his face an incomparable
blending of Sweetness and strength. If the massive
brow, the keen eye, and the firm-set mouth bespoke
the theologian, there was a tender softening radi-
EVENING TIME, AND THE NEW DAY's DAWN. 4. I
ance, an indescribable something about the natural
expression of the face which as clearly bespoke the
mellowed saint. Stedfast on behalf of the truth, he
was, in the view of his students, so meek, and
gentle, and blameless in life, as almost to seem to
belie the doctrine of universal depravity, which was
a fundamental tenet of his creed.
He had many of the characteristics of “the disciple
whom Jesus loved ; ” and as we knew him in his ripe
old age, he seemed already to live more than half in
heaven. Yet, as before stated, he took a lively
interest still in everything which concerned the pro-
gress of Christ's Church on earth, and he looked
abroad upon the world with a hopeful, though some-
times anxious eye. We find him writing to a friend
toward the close of his life:–“I am not inclined to
be a ſaudator temporis acti, for I really believe that
the world, on the whole, is getting better, and that
the cause of Christ is on the advance. Yet, at times,
I am somewhat startled at the decay of faith, or the
prevalence of broad churchism among all denomina-
tions, and of scepticism among men of the world.
Among the masses, speculative faith seemed a few
years ago to be the rule. I fear the reverse is true
now.” As for himself, he was increasingly absorbed
in holy contemplation on the things unseen, and
especially on the character of Him whom he con-
stantly followed, and whose spirit, in the eyes of
Others, though not his own, he so beautifully mirrored.
“I have never had a harsh word from one of my
42 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
students,” Dr Hodge could say, after more than fifty
years among them. And what wonder, since he won
from them a filial regard, in which reverence itself
was Swallowed up of love | The kindly humanity
that beamed habitually in his face was a true
and influential yoke-fellow to the integrity and
piety which exhaled from his character and life.
His very presence seemed to bring a benison. Who
among his pupils does not remember still the glance
he was wont to cast upon the class as he entered
the class-room in the morning and took his seat
upon the chair—“a glance,” as one of even his earlier
pupils well says, “ of such beaming benevolence,
mingled with such quiet peace, that we all felt he
had come in the spirit of the apostle John to teach
us, Out of his own deep spiritual intuitions, the
mystery of the Kingdom of God.” -
And, while his closing years were spent in almost
unbroken calm—tranquil in that faith which is the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen—the end, when it came, was perfect peace.
The aged patriarch gently passed, on the 19th of
June 1878, from the midst of those he loved on
earth to the bosom of his Lord. His last consecu-
tive utterance, designed to comfort a weeping rela-
tive, was worthy of the expiring moments of the
Saintly logician —“To be absent from the body is
to be present with the Lord ; to be present with the
Lord is to see Him ; to see Him is to be like
Him.” Likeness to Christ was what he sought in
EVENING TIME, AND THE NEW DAY's DAWN. 43
life, and death itself was made his (I Cor. iii. 22) to
further that blessed end. To him, if to any man, the
words of his country's poet might be fittingly ap-
plied—
“This is not Death ! What seems so is transition ;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.”
VII.
IDR CHARLES HODGE AS TEACHER, CHURCHMAN,
AIND THEOLOGIAN.
“Man goeth forth unto his work, and to his labour until the even-
ing.—PSALM civ. 23.
‘‘ Life is too short to waste
In critic peep or cynic bark,
Quarrel or reprimand ;
'Twill soon be dark ;
Ay, mind thine own aim, and
God speed the mark.”
EMERSON.
FEW words may be added upon Dr Hodge
as a teacher. Multifarious as his duties were,
it may be truly said that his professorial work was
never pushed by him into a corner, but took with
him the precedence of all his other work. Through-
out his long career he was, first of all, and all through,
a teacher ; and certainly his fifty years of patient
and enthusiastic labour in this capacity, among the
three thousand or more students who came under his
personal influence, will continue to be productive
long after the din of the controversies, which now
and again perforce engaged him, has been not only
hushed but quite forgotten.
In his class, where his work on Systematic The-
As TEACHER, CHURCHMAN, THEOLOGIAN. 45
ology was latterly used as a text-book, Dr Hodge
conducted the teaching with weight, zeal, and pre-
cision to the very last. He was always ready to
answer questions and to face reasonable difficulties
presented by the students. His mind was stored
with interesting reminiscences of notable men and
remarkable scenes and episodes; and he had a
peculiar delight in recalling the experiences of those
early days which he spent in Germany with men
like Tholuck and Scheiermacher, and in company
with such fellow-students as Julius Müller, who died
about the same time as himself at Halle.
Professor Benjamin B. Warfield, now himself the
honoured occupant of Dr Hodge's theological chair,
gives an apt description of his mode of teaching
exegesis, which, with necessary modifications arising
out of the nature of the subject, very vividly recalls
his style in the class of Didactic Theology as well:—
“After his always strikingly appropriate prayer had
been offered, and we were settled back into our seats,
he would open his well-thumbed Greek Testament—
on which it was plain that there was not a single
marginal note—look at the passage for a second, and
then, throwing his head back and closing his eyes,
begin his exposition. He scarcely again glanced
at the Testament during the hour : the text was
evidently before his mind, verbally, and the matter of
his exposition thoroughly at his command. In an
unbroken stream it flowed from Subject to subject,
simple, clear, cogent, unfailingly reverent. Now and
46 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
then he would pause a moment, to insert an illustra-
tive anecdote—now and then lean forward suddenly
with tearful, wide-open eyes to press home a quick-
risen inference of the love of God to lost sinners.
But the web of his discourse—for discourse it really
was—was calm, critical, and argumentative. We
were expected to take notes upon it, and to recite on
them at our next meeting.”
Always earnest in the class-room, he was never
morose. His powerful face wore a habitual expres-
sion of refined geniality, which at times would relax
into a smile, as a student recalled unwittingly some
incident of the past. The writer, for instance, who
happens to be a Scotchman, was being examined one
day on the Sacraments. He was asked to give the
Shorter Catechism definition of baptism, and had
proceeded a little way, when, under the impression
that he had begun the wrong answer, he stopped
short. Doctor Hodge, with a naïve Smile, remarked
—“You are the first Scotchman I ever caught !”
But by this time the student had got on the rails
again, and glided swiftly to the end, without further
let or hindrance, to the amusement of the class.
“That reminds me,” said the Doctor quietly, “of a
Scotch lady I once knew, who, when asked to repeat
the sixth commandment, replied : “I’ll soon do that,
if you’ll only start me.’” It is related that, on
another occasion, he asked a student what the
Apostle Paul meant by the expression—“I am sold
under sin.” “That he was taken in or deceived by
AS TEACHER, CHURCHMAN, THEOLOGIAN. 47
sin,” said the student. “Oh no,” replied the Doctor,
with a quiet twinkle in his eye—“Paul wasn't a
Yankee.” ”
The professors and students of Princeton Semin-
ary are wont, on Sunday afternoons, to hold a Con-
ference together on some religious theme. In these
meetings it was fully seen that Dr Hodge's theology
had, at all points, a warm living religion correspond-
ing with it. And there it was, as nowhere else
perhaps, that the “old Doctor” made his power felt,
as, with glistening eye and quivering lip, he bent
forward to press home some practical truth that had
a powerful hold on his own inner experience. He
seemed to yearn over his young disciples as Paul did
Over Timothy ; and every week he spoke as ear-
nestly and tenderly as though it might be his last.
It is no part of the object of this paper to gauge,
in any judicial sense, the general worth of the elder
Hodge. The language of eulogy rises so naturally
to the lips of every pupil of the venerated Princeton
divine, as to require distinct repression in Speaking
of him to those who did not come under the spell of
his personality. Enough, if this sketch serve to
focus some of the leading outlines of the character
and influence of one whom it is a joy unspeakable to
have known and loved. .
Nor is it sought to give a formal estimate here of
his place either as a churchman or as a theologian.
Those desirous to study Hodge in the former
* See note, p. I 18.
48 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
capacity cannot do better than turn to the volume
on “The Church and its Polity,” which, though
published after his death, was compiled during
Dr Hodge's lifetime, and with his cordial approval,
chiefly from the long series of “Assembly Articles”
contributed by him to the Princeton Review between
the years 1835 and 1867. It is in a sense the com-
plement to his “Systematic Theology”—to which
the author, but for the infirmities of age, would him-
self have appended a fourth volume on Ecclesiology.
To some minds the work as it stands may present
even certain advantages over a more fully rounded
and ostensibly complete treatise on so large a theme.
The first part, indeed, deals in a systematic way
with Preliminary Principles—discussing such themes
as the idea of the Church, its visibility, perpetuity,
and relations. But the volume is chiefly occupied
with the Application of Principles, and exhibits the
author as he thought and acted in the various stages
of his long ecclesiastical career. It presents him,
not as the abstract systematizer, but as the keen and
influential churchman — face to face with living
questions and causes célèbres, the principles underly-
ing which it was his business to elucidate, for the
guidance of minds less calm, or less penetrative and
far-reaching than his own. The whole structure of
Dr Hodge's mind not only enabled but impelled him
to disentangle the permanent and guiding element
in such cases from its temporary, circumstantial
setting ; but the circumstances serve to give a
AS TEACHER, CHURCHMAN, THEOLOGIAN. 49
historic root to the discussion, and a human interest
and verve to the style, which make the book a highly
acceptable as well as valuable legacy of practical
wisdom to the churches. & -
As regards Dr Hodge's place as a theologian, the
Opinion may be simply recorded that, confining our
view even to one of his works—his magnum opus
on “Systematic Theology”—the name of Charles
Hodge is not likely to be dimmed for many a decade
by the name of any other English-speaking authority
On the great subject he so comprehensively and
learnedly treats. We once heard a young gentle-
man, of the twentieth Century school, declare, that
Hodge was the greatest incubus on theological
“progress” that this century has seen. Even here
there was an unintended tribute to the strong quali-
ties and sterling services of the Princeton divine,
and a sincere, albeit rather petulant, acknowledg-
ment of his wide and lasting influence.
The testimony of a man like Prof. C. P. Krauth—
the greatest Lutheran authority in the English
language—to the ability and fairness of Dr Hodge's
great work, is worth more than an infinite number of
such verdicts as the one just quoted. After praising
its luminous style, in opposition to “those who think
that nothing is deep but what is unintelligible,” and
commenting on the evidences of enormous yet reflec-
tive reading with which the work abounds—“read-
ing among the best books and the worst books: a
gathering of honey for stores and of poisons for the
D
5O BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
y
study of antidotes”—he gives expression without
stint to his deep sense of “the value of Dr Hodge's
book to our common Christianity, nay, in a wide
sense, to religion, on that broader definition in which
the believing Jew has a common interest with the
Christian.” Its prevailing character, according to
this discriminating critic, is “mild, quiet, firm,
judicious,” while its general tone is “profoundly
devout.” Then he adds: “Its solid judgment and
learning will mark it to scholars as the ablest work
in its department in English literature; but it is more
than this, better than this. The graces of Christian
life are not repressed in it, as they have often been
in the arid formulating of systems. . . . In Dr
Hodge's body of Divinity there is a heart whose
beat is that of the fullest health—and you can touch
the system nowhere without feeling a pulse. It is a
book for the affections.” Especially noteworthy is
the attribution to Dr Hodge, from such a quarter,
of indisputable fairness. “Even in its relative
isolation as distinctively Calvinistic, Dr Hodge's
book is invaluable. It is the gauge of the type
of Calvinism which is considered by its ablest
living representatives as tenable ; a Calvinism so
gentle in its spirit as to furnish irenical elements
of the most hopeful kind. . . . Next to having
Dr Hodge on one's side, is the pleasure of having
him for an antagonist; for where conscientious
men must discuss a subject, who can express the
comfort of honourable, magnanimous dealing on
As TEACHER, CHURCHMAN, THEOLOGIAN. 51
both sides 2 . . . Dr Hodge constitutes in himself a
distinct evidence of Christianity, and alike in what
he writes and what he is, vindicates the supremacy of
Protestant culture.”
The “Systematic Theology” has no doubt its
faults. There is a tendency to overlapping sometimes
in divisions, and a certain occasional diffuseness,
which may be readily explained, we believe, by the
circumstances of its composition. The work might
perhaps, with advantage, be considerably condensed
by a competent hand; and a one-volume analysis,
we have often thought, would be a useful accompani-
ment to the complete work. But, after all that may
be said, the fact remains, that Hodge’s “Systematic
Theology” is the modern masterpiece of English
dogmatic, and its detractors will have to try very
hard and very long before they will dislodge it
with anything more useful and abiding. It will
live, in spite of nibbling critics, as the greatest
Systematic work in theology of the age—the produc-
tion of an imperial intellect, which was balanced,
amid laborious research and abstruse speculation, by
rare Soundness and sagaciousness of natural judg-
1ment, and by what, though less common, is not less
important, an all - pervading reverence for, and
sympathy with, the revealed truth of God.
This last feature of sympathic reverence for God's
word was distinctive of Dr Charles Hodge alike as
teacher and as man. It was a trait that could not
fail to impress every one of the successive companies
52 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
of young men who found in him their Christian
Gamaliel. Investigation, he would say, is good.
Search the Scriptures: prove all things. But see
that your search is reverent, and that your proof
is sound. It has been truly said of him that he
was a philosopher as well as a theologian, but that
he never sought to ally philosophy as on equal
terms with Bible truth—his very mastery of philo-
sophy enabling him to keep it in its proper place.
On the last New Year's Day of the old Doctor's
life, I visited him in his study, and asked him
for a motto. With a kindly smile, the old man
wrote in a firm hand, “Thy Word is truth.” Ere half
the year had run its course, the hand that wrote it
was mouldering in the dust. But the treasured motto
still abides. It was at once the motto of Charles
Hodge's inner life, and the key to his theological
method. It is the motto he has bequeathed to
the younger generation, who are entering on an
age of new proclivities, and are called to grapple
with problems of their own — “THY WORD IS
TRUTH.”
VIII.
HODGE THE YOUNGER CONTRASTED WITH HIS
FATHER.
“Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,
Are equal in the earth at last;
Both, children of the same dear God,
Proved title to an heirship vast
By record of a well-filled past;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Well worth a life to hold in fee.”
LOWELL.
T has sometimes been found that a distinguished
paternity is more of a burden than of an advan-
tage in the race of life. But Archibald Alexander
Hodge, to whom the reader's attention is now called,
held a place all his own in the affection and esteem of
the Church, and his was an individuality too great to
be dwarfed by comparison with even such a father.
In Some departments, indeed, the younger Hodge
did not so much as come into competition with the
elder. Even had he lived as long, he would never,
for instance, have been as voluminous an author ;
for he was constitutionally averse to “the drudgery
of writing.” The editorial tact and patience which
carried The Princeton Review, “ball and chain,” for
well-nigh half-a-century, and made a success of it
54. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
all the time, were doubtless quite beyond him. Nor
would he ever have grown into the ecclesiastical
statesman his father was ; for, although when he
spoke in church courts his voice was always listened
to with marked respect, the guidance of church
polity and the settlement of cases did not lie much
in his way. -
On the other hand, Dr A. A. Hodge showed a
capacity at times to travel where his father might
admire more easily than follow him. Not only may
it be said that the great qualities of Dr Charles
Hodge as a theological thinker were inherited at their
best by his eldest born—his intuitive insight, his
analytic power, his logical force, his comprehensive-
ness of vision with respect to the relations of truth,
his absolute intellectual honesty. Not only may it
be added that, on the emotional side of his nature,
when the upper crust was pierced, the younger
Hodge was even more tender and warmly devo-
tional, if that were possible, than the Saintly
patriarch who by eight brief years preceded him to
heaven. But there was in him, besides, an unmis-
takable dash of that indescribable something which
we call genius ; giving to his other faculties their
peculiar range, and to his other qualities their quite
peculiar charm ; playing in eccentric humour, or
flashing in occasional great thoughts; glowing in
pathos or in scorn, or calmly beaming in the
luminousness of some poetic fancy. Dr Paxton,
who gave the address at his funeral on November
HODGE THE YOUNGER. 55
I5th, 1886, referred to this “transcendent some-
thing” in Dr A. A. Hodge, which those who really
knew him—not the readers of his books, but his
personal intimates and his students—could not fail
to recognise:–“ the peculiarities and the eccen-
tricities of genius, but also its sublimities, the
mighty elements of great thinking, the higher attri-
butes of power and influence.”
* “Funeral Address,” by William M. Paxton, D.D. (Anson D.
Randolph & Co., New York), p. 16.
IX.
SEA-SICKNESS, BUT NOT IN THEOLOGY.
“We sail the sea of life ; a calm one finds,
And one a tempest.”
WORDSWORTH.
“A wide sea voyage severs us at once. It makes us conscious of
being cast loose from the secure anchorage of settled life, and sent
adrift upon a doubtful world.” WASHINGTON IRVING.
IT was in August 1877 that I first met the
younger Hodge. It happened in this wise. As
I entered the office of the Anchor Line in Glasgow
to secure a berth for New York, another intending
passenger, as could be gathered from his enquiries,
was just leaving it. He was a man of about middle
height and moderate portliness, with a brow both
broad and high, and a face marked with deep re-
flective lines, and rather sombre otherwise, but lit
up by an eye of great kindliness and deep-seeing
intelligence. One could not have detected the cleri-
cal profession beneath the rather nonchalant tra-
veller's attire, though perhaps the epaulette-looking
shoulders of the coat—broadened d /a Americaine—
and certain indications of manner and address
SEA-SICKN ESS, BUT NOT IN THEOLOGY. 57
might have suggested the nationality of the wearer,
even had the spoken accent not revealed it. He was
plainly an American, and we were not long on board
the good ship Devonia without discovering in him
Dr Archibald Alexander Hodge.
It cannot be said that on the voyage out I came
to know much of my future teacher. It was the year
of the first Pan-presbyterian council in Edinburgh,
and there were trans-Atlantic divines on board who
took a much more prominent place than he in the
transient ship-board “society.” To speak frankly, the
Professor was but a sorry sailor; and though there
were lucid intervals, when he might be heard enter-
ing with much zest and power into discussion with
Dr Sloane of Alleghany and other clerical Com-
patriots, he presented for the most part a rather
woe-begone appearance, which was the reverse of
prepossessing to an intending catechumen. I
could afterwards appreciate, better than most of
the students, the deep experimental sincerity of
his seeming playful irony—“There's a great deal of
sea-sickness in theology, till you get your Sea
legs on, sky, and land, and water all mixed l’’
He would be a bold man who would guarantee that
the Professor ever did completely find his sea legs
during that voyage. But when, after the interval of
a few weeks from disembarking, I met him again in
the class-room, he was plainly, in colloquial phrase,
another man. There was no sea-sickness with him
there: he manifestly was “himself again.” And
58 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
from the beginning of the session to its close, it was
a daily enjoyment to sit at his feet.
More will be said later of his characteristic merits
as a teacher. In the meantime, some biographical
particulars may be appropriately inserted here.

X.
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD OF A. A. HODGE.
“A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall !
By the doors I have left unguarded
They enter my castle wall !
“They climb up into my turret,
O'er the arms and backs of my chair ;
If I try to escape, they surround me,
They seem to be everywhere.
“I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you into the dungeon
In the round tower of my heart.
“And there will I keep you for ever,
Yes, for ever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away !”
LONGFELLOW’s “Children’s Hour.”
RCHIBALD Alexander Hodge was born in
Princeton, New Jersey, on the 18th of July
1823. It was in the preceding year that his father,
Dr Charles Hodge, had been appointed with his re-
vered former teacher, Dr Archibald Alexander, as Pro-
fessor of Oriental and Biblical Literature in Princeton
Seminary; and after this great and good man, the
6O BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
“Socrates " of the Princeton school, he named his
first-born son. The boy's mother, as noted in the
foregoing sketch, was Sarah Bache, the great-grand-
daughter of Benjamin Franklin : and it is possible
that some of his distinctive qualities may be trace-
able to her.
He had the untold advantage in early years of
nurture in a genuinely pious home. As appears from
his biography of his father, his memories of his child-
hood continued through life to be of the sunniest
kind. What could be more beautiful than the follow-
ing picture of home life, in the glimpse it gives of
Charles Hodge among his little ones:—“They were,
at every age and at all times, allowed free access
to him. If they were sick, he nursed them. If
they were well, he played with them. If he were
busy, they played about him. His study had two
doors, one opening outward toward the Seminary for
the convenience of the students, and a second one
opening inward, into the main hall of the home.
Hence his study was always the family thoroughfare,
through which the children, boys and girls, went in
and out for work and play. When he was too lame,
and afterwards when he was too busy, to be inter-
rupted by that action, he took the latch from the
doors and caused them to Swing in obedience to
gentle springs, so that the least child might toddle in
at will unhindered.”
As is often in such circumstances the case, Archi-
bald never could recall the time when he was not
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD OF A. A. HODGE. 6 I
under religious impressions. Though all must be
born again to enter the Kingdom, it is not laid upon
all to pass consciously through the throes that some
natures have to suffer in the day of their regenera-
tion : and what minister does not know that among
his flock some of the most devoted and living
members—those in whom, if in any, the image of
Christ is seen and the power of Christ's resurrection
manifested—are they in whom, for aught that they
themselves can tell, the new birth was contem-
poraneous with the old Young Hodge did not by
his own act “join the Church" till 1842; but long
before that time God's spirit had been making His
power felt within him, in connection with the sacred
influences exerted on his young heart within the
home. The bright picture just given of Charles
Hodge among his family had its distinctively re-
ligious side, to bring out which we have but to con-
tinue the quotation :-" He prayed for us all at
family prayers, and singly, and with such soul-felt
tenderness taught us to pray at his knees, that,
however bad we were, our hearts all melted to his
touch. During later years he always caused his
family to repeat after him at morning worship the
Apostles' Creed, and a formula of his own composi-
tion, professing personal consecration to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. But that
which makes those days sacred in the retrospect of
his children is the person and character of the
father himself, as discovered in the privacy of his
62 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
home, all radiant as that was with love, with un-
wavering faith, and with unclouded hope.”*
Another important influence brought to bear on
young Hodge within his father's house was, the
contact into which he was naturally brought there
with some of the brightest intellects of his time. It
was a valuable, though partly unconscious education,
to be allowed, even from “the shadowy corners” of
the doctor's study, to look out upon the scenes trans-
acted in that sanctum –“Here almost every night,
for long years, came Professors Dod and Maclean,
and frequently Professors J. W. Alexander, Joseph
Henry, and the older professors, A. Alexander, and
Samuel Miller, President Carnahan, and frequently,
when visiting the town, Professors Vethake and
Torrey, and Dr John W. Yeomans. Thus, at least in
the eyes of the young sons gleaming out from the
corners, from the shadows of which they looked on
with breathless interest, this study became the scene
of the most wonderful debates and discourses on
the highest themes of philosophy, science, literature,
theology, morals, and politics.” +
* “Life of Charles Hodge, D.D., LL.D.,” by his son, A. A.
Hodge (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York), p. 227.
+ Zbid., 204.
XI.
HIS STUDENT DAYS AND DEPARTURE FOR INDIA.
“Some men serve God through their ambitions.
His ambition was to serve God.”
PATTON.
“A man’s life is an appendix to his heart.”
SOUTH.
RCHIBALD'S early intellectual development
appears, nevertheless, to have been Compara-
tively slow. He was by no means a bookish boy,
and though he could enjoy to some extent a gladia-
torial contest of wits among his seniors in the study,
it was more to his personal liking to try for the
certaminis gaudia in the field than to wear out his
brain in the pursuit of knowledge. But the time of
mental quickening came—and not, after all, so very
late. For we find that he graduated in Arts in 1841,
and had shown, through his course, such aptitude for
Mathematics and Natural Science, that his services
were retained for some time in Princeton College in
the capacity of tutor. Though his mind was of a
decidedly metaphysical cast, the love of physical
Science was also planted deep within him, and it
was but natural that this taste, which continued with
64 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
him all through life, should have shown itself earlier
than his even more marked subsequent aptitude for
abstract speculation. Among his treasured recollec-
tions to the end, was his early association with
Professor Henry in the laboratory, and his lasting
friendship with that distinguished man. - -
In the year 1843—the Scottish Disruption year—
the name of Archibald Alexander Hodge was entered
on the roll of the Princeton Seminary as a student
in theology. Here new tastes and new capacities in
him began to unfold themselves. In particular, he
entered with enthusiasm into the study of Christian
doctrine ; and it was the opening of a new era in his
life when he one day surprised his father by sending
in an essay on a difficult question of theology, of
such originality and vigour of thinking, that he was
requested to read it to the class.
About this time (1844) a Scottish visitor came to
Princeton, on whom young Hodge looked with a more
eager interest, doubtless, than if he had seen him
even a few years before—for he could now appreciate
in him the Systematic Theologian as well as the
ecclesiastical chief—Dr William Cunningham, of
Edinburgh. We find the following interesting re-
ference in Dr Charles Hodge's biography to the
meeting of these two giants—far mobile fratrum —
“I can well remember the pleased excitement of
our father as he lay back upon his easy chair listen-
ing to Dr Cunningham, as he strode gesticulating
through the study with his long arms, laying down
HIS STUDENT DAYS. 65
the principles and narrating the story of the great
Free Church exodus; or when our father walked
with him in the larger parlour, or, once or twice,
when the February sun shone clear, in the paths
around the house, laying down the principles and
narrating the story of the great controversies, as to
slavery, New England theology, and voluntary
Societies, in which his own part had not been
insignificant.” We have heard the younger Hodge
declare that no man sent by Scotland to Princeton
had left behind him so marked and favourable an
impression as Principal Cunningham ; and certainly
what he saw and heard of him on the occasion of this
visit made a lasting impression on himself.
Archibald Hodge graduated in 1846, and was
licensed in October of that year. To the joy of
his father—who did more for the heathen abroad
than the world knows—he gave himself promptly
and decisively to the foreign field. There was
burning at the young man's heart a yearning desire
to make the Saviour known to those who had never
heard His name before, though to his friends “he
would say, in his peculiar semi-serious way, that he
Could never preach at home—that he did not know
enough to instruct intelligent people, but might
possibly teach the heathen the rudiments of Christian
knowledge.”-F
The Mission Board thankfully accepted him, and
* “Life of Charles Hodge, D.D., LL.D.,” p. 354.
+ “Funeral Address,” p. 9.
E
66 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
he was ordained at Princeton, by the Presbytery of
New Brunswick, in May 1847, for service at Alla-
habad. It was an occasion that deeply stirred his
father's heart ; and one who was present at a meet-
ing held in connection with the departure of the
missionary and his young wife (née Elizabeth B.
Holliday, of Winchester, Virginia) for India, records
that “ his son's choice called forth from him one of
those bursts of emotional eloquence that thrilled the
whole assembly, and produced impressions which
can never be forgotten by those who heard it.”
The voyage to India, in August 1847, had few
incidents, but it furnished Hodge with a notable
illustration, in a sermon on the Resurrection,
which, from the account still given of it,” must
have been throughout a remarkable one. We refer
to a description of “the albatross that followed his
ship on the way to India, breasting the storm day
after day, and when the gale was most furious hold-
ing itself on outstretched wings "-an incident which
was sublimely used to convey conceptions regarding
the Resurrection body.
We have searched almost in vain for traces of the
Son in his biography of his father—so religiously
does he keep himself in the background—but he
does make mention of his own departure for India
as the first break in the family circle—the first
experience of the inevitable separations which await
us all—adding : “Such an experience makes an
* “Funeral Address,” p. 21.
HIS STUDENT DAYS, 67
epoch in any family, leaving it changed for ever.
Our family was never completely regathered on
earth again, for before the son returned from India
the mother was making the beginnings of the home
in heaven. The parting was the occasion of the
utter pouring forth of the treasures of love of both
parents' hearts. To us these are unspeakably pre-
cious, but they are too sacred to be given here.”
Dr Charles Hodge records concerning his wife, in
his diary, at the time of his bereavement—“Her
death was calm, peaceful, and holy. She was full of
humility, faith, and grateful, admiring love to God.
Her children, save the eldest, were all about her.”
And, after quoting the epithets of affection graven
On her tombstone by the sorrowing husband in 1849,
the son, in whose heart such a mother had all these
years been enshrined, and who has now gone to join
both where there are no partings, writes in 1880—
“This is indeed the outpouring of a bereaved heart.
But it is all true. And now when, after twenty-nine
years, we, their children, lay our father by Our
mother's side, and read this inscription on her tomb,
we all say, ‘Amen l’”*
* “Life of Charles Hodge, D.D., LL.D.,” pp. 37O-I.
XII.
A. A. HODGE AS MISSIONARY.
“Thy kingdom come, O God;
Thy rule, O Christ, begin ;
Break with Thine iron rod
The tyrannies of sin. . . .
‘‘ O'er heathen lands afar,
Thick darkness broodeth yet;
Arise, O Morning Star,
Arise, and never set.”
HENSLEY.
“Making his life a prayer.”
WHITTIER.
M R HODGE did valuable service at Allahabad,
while permitted to remain there ; and his
example in setting forth was indirectly fruitful in
inspiring others to a like resolve. But it was soon
seen that India was not to be his life sphere. His
own health suffered, and his wife's, by-and-bye, so
completely gave way that there was no alternative
but to return with their two children to America,
after a residence of less than three years in the
East.
There were two effects of Hodge's stay in India
upon himself, which never left him. The one was,
an intense admiration for British rule, which often
HODGE AS MISSIONARY. 69
showed itself in a half-earnest, half-jocular dispar-
agement of the institutions of the Model Republic.
The other was, an abiding impression of the im-
portance and hopefulness of the missionary cause,
which, from the time he set foot in India, if it did
not in the same sense exist even before then,
became an ineradicable part of himself, and made
him, wherever he might afterwards go, a living
missionary force.
The first feature just alluded to may be illus-
trated by the quotation of the opening sentences of
a characteristic letter, alas, the last received from
him by the writer, of date the 24th June 1886, the
summer before he died –“ Dear friend Salmond,
“Excuse me for not writing sooner. I am very
desirous of hearing from you. Please write often.
I have a good deal of it to do, and am old and
lazy. We are all well, and have just got through
‘commencement’ in College. All things are advanc-
ing prosperously, and portend favourably for the
future. You must not judge American opinion of
British politics from our newspapers. Under the
degrading conditions of modern civilisation, the
contents of newspapers are dictated by those in-
spired by the passions of the lower classes. This
has long been so in America, and it has now
become so in Great Britain. Poor Souls | You
people who believe in George Washington instead
of George III., who believe in extended suffrage,
and who move for disestablishment, are the re-
7O BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
sponsible fellows. All gentlemen in America Sym-
pathize with the Unionists and Protestants of Ulster.
But we have no newspaper. All gentlemen are
monarchists and aristocrats. “Liberty' leads to
social confusion, to secular education, to atheism,
to chaos, to the howling void.” This letter will
be understood at once by all who were in any real
sense acquainted with the writer. Others must
read it in connection with what a colleague calls
“the oriental luxuriance of speech " he sometimes
allowed himself, when unbending after serious effort:
and all may find in it an illustration of Professor
Patton's further discriminating observation, that
“aristocratic sympathies were very strong in him,
and found expression sometimes in an extravagant
avowal of Toryism, that was partly jest and partly
based upon a real conservatism of sentiment re-
specting the philosophy of social life.” ”
The other feature — his ardent and Sustained
missionary zeal—found expression in ways which
left no room for question either as to the absolute
sincerity or the profound depth of his convictions.
Long after his return from India, aye, even to
his last breath—he was a missionary at heart; and
he would on occasion speak to his students on the
subject of the evangelisation of the world, not only
with the authority of personal experience, but with
the glow of an enthusiasm which had manifestly
* “Memorial Discourse,” by Francis L. Patton, D.D., LL.D.
(John Wanamaker, Philadelphia), p. 55.
HODGE AS MISSIONARY. 7 I
felt it a greater sacrifice to leave the mission-field
than to give up home to enter it. In his prayers,
too, the same spirit of wide-embracing love for the
perishing souls of heathendom most touchingly
appeared. At a Missionary Convention in Prince-
ton, not long before his death, when he was asked
to lead the devotions, “the fountain of his heart
seemed broken up,” as it is recorded,” “and a
gush of tender moving petition melted the whole
assembly to tears.” Prof. Patton's statement is
here again so pertinent that we cannot refrain
from giving it in etſenso : “His experience in the
mission-field enhanced his zeal for the mission
Cause, gave him a grasp of the missionary
problem, and an interest in missionaries that
made him always the trusted counsellor of all
those among his pupils who contemplated a mis-
sionary career. If the students wished advice,
they went to him ; if the Sunday evening mission-
ary meeting was to be addressed, he was called
upon ; if, at the Monthly Concert, the expected
speaker failed to arrive, he was called upon ; if the
son of a converted Brahmin was sent here to be
educated, he was his guardian ; if a penniless
Oriental, bent on knowledge, and seeking it that
he might carry back the Gospel to his countrymen,
sought premature admission to the Seminary, he
found an eager advocate in Dr Hodge, if anything
could be said in his behalf; and if, as sometimes
* “Funeral Address,” p. 20.
72 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
happened, it was necessary to let him know that his
coming was a mistake, kind words from Dr Hodge,
and not infrequently a draft upon his exchequer,
sent him away in peace ; if the Interseminary Mis-
sionary Conference held its meetings at Hartford,
Dr Hodge must make an address ; if it met in
Princeton, Dr Hodge at least must pray.” In
ways like these, it will be seen, his early disappoint-
ment was overruled for good. It was “not in vain
in the Lord.” Not improbably he did actually
more for missions, in a wide sense, than if he had
been allowed to stay on at Allahabad.
* “Memorial Discourse,” p. 13.
XIII.
PASTOR, PREACHER, AND PLURALIST PROFESSOR.
“O use me, Lord, use even me,
Just as Thou wilt, and when, and where,
Until Thy blessed face I see,
Thy rest, Thy joy, Thy glory share.”
HAVERGAL.
OON after his return from India, in May 1850,
Mr Hodge received a call to a small rural
charge in Maryland, called Lower West Notting-
ham. There, on a salary of fully six hundred
dollars (£ I2O) a year, he settled quietly down to
ministerial duty. About five years later, in Septem-
ber 1855, he was called to Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Here, as before, he greatly endeared himself to the
people under his pastoral care ; and he now dis-
covered in himself, and soon made others see in him,
an unsuspected gift. This was the faculty of apt
and interesting extemporaneous speech in the expo-
sition of theology—a gift which, when discovered,
he turned to such good account that, by the time he
was removed to his next charge, in Wilkesbarre,
Pennsylvania (July 1861), he and his Virginian flock
had travelled together, in church and class, Over
74 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
the whole field of an exact though popularised
theology.
His “Outlines of Theology”—since translated
into various languages, and used as a text-book in
many Divinity Halls—is one very tangible outcome
of that course of lectures by the Fredericksburg
pastor. In the preface to the first edition, which
has been considerably augmented since, he himself
affirms :-" The several chapters were, in the first
instance, prepared and used in the same form in
which they are now printed, as the basis of a lecture
delivered otherwise extemporaneously to my con-
gregation every Sabbath night. In this use of them,
I found these preparations successful beyond my
hopes. The congregation, as a whole, were induced
to enter with interest upon the study even of the
most abstruse questions.”
It may be doubted whether many preachers could
carry through an entire course, such as Hodge
mapped out, so successfully as he ; for it is to be
feared that the audience would be exhausted, and
possibly the preacher, long before the subject. But
it is worthy of consideration by those who are called
to conduct weekly pulpit ministrations, whether en-
couragement may not be found in Dr Hodge's
experience for a more systematic style of preaching
than is commonly in vogue, and whether an ordi-
nary church audience may not have more appetite
than is generally supposed for doctrine. It is cer-
tainly important to shun what some esteem the one
PASTOR, PREACHER, PLURALIST PROFESSOR. 75
unpardonable sin in the pulpit—to be “dry;” but
possibly the admonition is more needed in these
days, to avoid, by a suitable stiffening of doctrine,
what is in reality a yet graver fault—to be “ watery”
and limp. Dr Hodge knew how to strike the
golden mean. He not only gave a judicious ad-
mixture of doctrine in his discourses ; he preached
a whole system of doctrine. But there was heart
as well as head in his preaching. While the teach-
ing was made perspicuous by analogy, and the
hearer was led on to the acquisition of Bible dog-
mata by the allurements of a fancy that could give
to every theme it touched a setting of clear light,
the conscience also was appealed to, and the affec-
tions moved, and the will bent, as the truth
expounded was at the same time applied ; or, at
the least, the enquiry was stirred within the breast
—“Is this truth anything to me 2"
It must not for a moment be supposed that Dr
Hodge's preaching, because Systematic, was either
ponderous or unproductive. It was weighty, but not
heavy. It was fitted to edify, but was also blessed to
quicken. His ministry, whatever his stipend might
be, was in the highest and directest sense a remu-
nerative one. It was not without seasons when the
pastor's heart was gladdened by a marked revival of
religion, during which “many were added to the
church of such as were being saved.”
Dr Hodge was not permitted to remain more than
three years in his third charge, at Wilkesbarre. His
76 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
reputation, both as an oral instructor and as a writer,
had by this time begun to spread. In 1862 he re-
ceived the degree of D.D. from the college of New
Jersey (followed by that of LL.D. from Wooster
University in 1876), and in July 1864, he was unani-
mously elected to the Chair of Didactic Theology in
Allegheny Seminary, Pennsylvania, Thus was de-
finitively opened the influential professorial career,
which continued to grow in eminence and power till
the autumn of 1886, when, to speak after the manner
of men, it was cut off so prematurely, and the hearts
of the many who admired and loved him were be-
gloomed, by his “Sun going down as at noonday.”
Multis ille flebiſis occidit: mulli ſãeóż/ior quam mihi,
At Allegheny, Dr Hodge remained for thirteen
years; and many a student here caught the inspira-
tion of his enthusiasm for theology. He published
at this time his monograph on the “Atonement” (in
1867), and his admirable “Exposition of the Con-
fession of Faith ” (in 1869), besides a suggestive little
book less widely known, his “Questions in Theology.”
It is interesting also to note, that during nearly the
whole of this period he was preacher as well as
professor. His powers of instructive and stimulat-
ing popular address were not suffered to lie fallow.
He held first an interim pastorate, for about a year,
in a church in the town of Pittsburg, not far from
Allegheny, and then, from 1866, the regular pastorate
of the North Church in Allegheny itself, where men
of mark in various walks of life gathered every week
PASTOR, PREACHER, PLURALIST PROFESSOR. 77
to hear him. Whatever may be said in general
about pluralities, those best qualified to judge
declare, that in this case, at least, the pulpit and the
chair so far from hindering seemed only to inspire
each other.
It was while he was in Allegheny that, his first
wife having died, he was married on Dec. 20th,
1869, to Mrs Margaret M'Laren Woods, of Detroit,
who continued to be the sympathetic and amiable
partner of his life till his death, and who, with two
daughters by his first marriage, still survives him.
XIV.
A TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION.
“God gives such men. A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill ;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions, and a will ;
Men who have honour—men who will not lie.”—ANON.
“Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children.”—PSALM xlv. 16.
IN 1877,” what Hodge regarded as the crowning
honour of his life, and what was certainly a high
mark of his Church’s confidence in him, was con-
ferred, in the call which transferred him from Alle-
gheny to be the associate of Dr Charles Hodge in the
Chair of Didactic and Polemic Theology in Princeton.
This step had been contemplated by the Board of
Directors four years previously—with the intention
that Dr A. A. Hodge should take the branch of His-
toric Theology, and, while assisting his father so long
as the latter lived, should be regarded as his appointed
successor. At that time, however, Dr Charles Hodge
threw cold water on the scheme. We find him writ-
ing—“The fidelity of the Seminary to our standards
is the great object which, I doubt not, the Directors
feel conscience-bound to secure. If that end can be
* “Memorial Discourse,” p. 17.
A TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 79
obtained as well without Alexander as with him, I
have always thought it would be better to let him
remain where he is. According to all accounts, he
is doing good there. We do not know that he would
be equally successful in Princeton. I see no harm in
allowing things to remain as they are. At my age,
life or fitness for service hangs by a thread. Provi-
dence may soon make the path of duty plain.”
The proposal was thereupon, for the time, allowed
to drop ; but, in the spring of 1877, the question of
a successor was again started by Dr Charles Hodge
himself, on whom the infirmities of age had by that
time begun to press more heavily. He spontaneously
offered to the Directors either his total resignation,
if that were deemed best in the interests of the Sem-
inary, or his partial resignation, with the prospect of
assistance in one or other of the departments of
teaching whose responsibility had so long devolved
On him. The latter alternative was, of course, most
heartily adopted by the Board ; and his son was
elected Associate Professor of Didactic Theology, it
being understood that he should come to the relief
of his father otherwise, whenever and wherever that
might be found desirable.
The view taken by “the old Doctor" beforehand
of his son's possible appointment appears in the
following propositions embodied in a letter which he
wrote to him on February 16th, I877,-‘My dear
Alexander . . . .
“I. Our Board is bound to take that course which
8O BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
it thinks will best promote the interests of this Sem-
inary, and the general interest of this Church.
“2. If our Directors think there is any other man
available as well qualified to fill the position as you,
they ought to leave you where you are.
“3. But if they are satisfied that you are the best
man to keep up the character of this institution for
fidelity to our doctrinal standards, I, if a Director,
although your father, would vote for your election.
“4. I would do this, because I think that this Sem-
inary, not because of any superiority of its Faculty,
but simply because of providential circumstances, is
for the present, at least, of special importance. It
therefore should be specially considered.
“5. All such considerations as delicacy, your per-
Sonal wishes, cheapness of living here or there, are
not of any serious weight.
“6. The question whether you are the best available
man to fill the place here is for our Directors to
- decide. Their decision, however, is subject to a
veto from your own ‘inner consciousness,' if your
conscience constrains you to exercise it. ‘Commit
your way unto the Lord, and He will direct your
steps.”— Your Father.””
But there can be no doubt that, however judicial
he might strive to be, Dr Charles Hodge must have
felt it no ordinary gratification to see his eldest son
installed as his colleague and successor in a chair
which had been occupied only by Dr Archibald
* “Life of Charles Hodge, D.D., LL.D.,” p. 573.
A TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 8 I
Alexander and himself, and that for a period (from
August 12, 1812, to November 18, 1877) of more
than sixty-five years.
The writer was present at Dr A. A. Hodge's in-
duction at Princeton, on the 8th November 1877,
and had the inestimable privilege of studying under
both the Hodges during the one session in which
Providence was to permit their joint services to the
Church. It was, as we conceive, a thankful day for
the father to have associated with him such a son.
It was a humble rather than a proud day for the son
to be called to succeed to such a father.
Dr W. M. Paxton, then of New York, as represent-
ing the Directors, spoke in his charge to the new
Professor with much eloquence and effect; although,
with comely diffidence, he compared himself, in his
Opening sentences, to “a corporal commanded
to teach a general how to marshal an army.”
He pointed out various differences between the
age in which the newly-inducted teacher's lot
was cast, and that of his two distinguished
predecessors, and indicated how the special neces-
sities and dangers of the time might best be met.
He finely described a theological seminary as at once
a school of learning and a cradle of piety, and urged
that the aim of each professor should be to produce
a vitalising impression on the students—giving to
them theology, exposition, demonstration, Ortho-
doxy, learning, but giving all this to them warm.
And in conclusion, he reminded the entrant Pro-
F
82 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
fessor of the historic position in which he stood :
“The name of this Seminary is known in all the
world. Its chief distinction is its Biblical teaching.
The ground of its faith is the Bible. Its only
question is—‘What has God said '' Its only proof
is God's Word. Its professors have never reached
the point of thinking that they knew more than the
Bible. This Seminary has alway taught that there
are but two questions to be considered—(1) Is this
the Word of God 2 and (2), What does it mean :
This ascertained, there is nothing left but to believe
and adore. The preaching which has always been
taught in this Seminary, and illustrated in the pulpits
of its graduates, has been simple Biblical-preaching ;
not that kind of Biblical preaching which strings
texts together and repeats them like a Romish Saint
his beads, in an endless rote and in a sacred mono-
tone which charms to sleep, but that intelligent
Biblical preaching which makes the text emit
thought as the sun emits light, which couples God’s
Word and man's doctrine like voice and echo, and
which puts such life and interest into discussion as
to make the Word a living oracle.” ”
Dr A. A. Hodge's Inaugural Address was directed
to showing that dogmatic Christianity is the essen-
tial ground of practical theology. This he demon-
strated along various lines of proof, all running up to
the same conclusion. One thing he conclusively
proved in addition to his main point, viz. this, that
* “Princeton Inaugural Addresses” (Sherman & Co., Philadelphia).
A TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 83
Princeton had that day got indeed a vitalising:
teacher, a worthy successor of those who had gone
before him—not merely a master of Sound, compact,
theological reasoning, but a Rabbi both disposed
and in every way qualified to perpetuate the best
traditions of the Princeton school.
“We claim,” said he, “to be sincere advocates of
free investigation, in the true sense of that word, in
every direction open to man. The believer in the
Supernatural revelation contained in God's Word is
placed on a higher and more central point of vision
than that of the mere naturalist, and he is thus
rendered free of the whole sphere of truth. The true
relations of the successive realms of the universe of
being and knowledge can be read by one looking
upon them from within outward, and not from
without inward ; from above downward, and in the
direction in which the supreme light of revelation
radiates, and not from below upward upon the side
on which the shadows fall. -
“But it is absurd to suppose that true intellectual
progress consists in a mere change of opinions, or
that it is consistent with the destruction of the
foundations which have been laid in the verified
knowledge of the past. Truth once adequately
established must be held fast for ever, while we stand
prepared to add to it all new truth substantiated by
equal evidence. And it is a law which all educated
men should be ready to acknowledge as axiomatic,
that truth in any department, once established, must
84 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
ever after hold the place of valid presumptions,
influencing the course of new investigations in
every department. Ruskin well testifies, ‘It is the
law of progressive human life that we shall not build
in the air, but in the already high-storied temple of
the thoughts of our ancestors.' . . .”
Regarding the Church's attitude to science, he
Continued—“We should unquestionably open our
doors wide, with a joy equal to her own, for all the
facts which science gathers in her harvest time. But
is it not absurd to ask the believers in the great
Church Creeds of Christendom to abandon, to
modify, or to mask that ancient and coherent mass
of knowledge which roots itself in the profoundest
depths of human nature and in all human history,
which has verified itself to reason and every phase
of experience for two thousand years, which has
moulded the noblest characters, inspired the most
exalted lives, and inaugurated the very conditions
which made modern Science and civilisation possible
—to modify or abandon all this in deference to the
variant and transient speculations which each in his
little day claims to speak in the venerable name of
science 2 . . . When we recall the obvious distinc-
tion between facts and theories, between established
knowledge and provisional hypothesis, we are readily
reassured by the recollection it suggests, that the
historic track of human thought is strewn with the
wreck of systems, of cosmogonies, and anthro-
pologies, as certainly believed, and as influential in
A TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 85
their day, as any of the anti-theological systems of
the present.”
The genuine personal diffidence with which the
new Professor closed his address was all the more
Striking, because of the firmness and force as well
as keen ability he had just displayed in handling
principles and enunciating truth —“Fathers and
brethren of the Board of Directors, your represen-
tative in his charge has reminded me that the chair
to which I am called is historical, having for sixty-
five years from the beginning been occupied only by
Archibald Alexander and Charles Hodge. Alas,
sirs, when I think of myself, I often cry—Woe is
me, that such an one as I should be called to inherit
the responsibilities descending in such a line ! And
when I think of the Church, I cry with a far sorer
wonder—What times are these, when such a man as
I should be made to stand in such a place P But
God has done it. He has chosen a vessel, earthen
indeed, that the excellency of the power may be
the more conspicuously shown forth to be His
alone. Directors, since your responsibilities in the
matter are at least equal to my own, I can Surely
claim your prayers, that in this service, to-day in-
augurated, God's strength may be made perfect in
weakness.””
These were no mere words of course, but were
felt at the time to be a kind of wail of cordial self-
depreciation, the echo of which sounds still in the
* “Princeton Inaugural Addresses” (Sherman & Co., Philadelphia).
86 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
ear, after the lapse of the years since it was uttered.
But every successive week confirmed the more the
wisdom of the appointment that day made. The
Junior Professor of Theology had very soon a firm
hold alike on the affection and on the admiration of
his students; and although none could ever dislodge
“the old Doctor” from their hearts, it is much to say
that, ere that one year of colleagueship had run its
course, the son was enthroned along with him there.
None rejoiced more than he in his colleague's accep-
tability, and in the pledge which that opening session
gave of continued prosperity of the best kind for the
Institution he so long had served, and still so deeply
loved.
XV.
THE PRINCETON SCHOOL, AND A. A. HODGE'S
PLACE IN IT.
“Allusion has been made to the type of theology taught in this
Seminary. The principle upon which it rests is—the absolute, univer-
sal, and exclusive supremacy of the Word of God as the rule of faith
and practice. . . . A censorious critic said the other day, derisively :
‘It is enough for Dr Hodge to believe a thing to be true, that he
finds it in the Bible !” We accept the token. Dr Hodge has never
got beyond the Bible. It contains every jot and tittle of his theology.”
SEMI-CENTENNIAL ADDRESS.
‘‘ See, thou that countest reason ripe
In holding by the law within,
Thou fail not in a world of sin,
And even for want of such a type.”
IN MEMORIAM.
R CHARLES HODGE, as has already been
recorded, died on the 19th of June 1878.
His was indeed a pleasant lot, when old age came
upon him—“to stand between two strong sons who
lightened his labours, and afterwards divided between
them the work that he left behind.”
The department of New Testament exegesis was
now fully committed to his younger son. Of Dr
88 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
C. W. Hodge, though he is less known as yet on the
European side of the Atlantic than he is likely by-
and-bye to be, it may be truly said, that he has
inherited in a marked degree his father's gift of
prompt analytical insight, with a more practised
skill in dealing with the details of exegesis, and un-
deniably more patience and tact in handling ques-
tions of textual criticism. His masterly treatment
of the Gospel History during the writer's session in
Princeton afforded ample illustration of exegetical
qualifications, analytic and synthetic, from which,
slow as he is to publish, valuable results according to
the safe anticipation of his pupils must one day be
given to the world. .
It is with Dr A. A. Hodge, however, the elder
brother, that we are now more immediately con-
cerned ; and, as regards his Occupancy of the Chair
of Dogmatic Theology, it is not saying little, but it
is in the fullest sense true, that “he filled his father's
place.” From what I saw of them—father and son
—during the One session in which they taught side
by side, I would without hesitation say, that Dr A.
A. Hodge was the more impressive teacher. But
comparison at that stage were palpably unfair to the
beloved veteran—the Nestor of Princeton and of the
Church.
The two were alike, and yet different. Alike in
their strength of conviction; alike in their loyalty to
the Word of God; alike in the vitality of thinking,
which made them anything rather than shallow
THE PRINCETON SCHOOL, 89
enunciators of well-worn formulae ; alike, moreover,
in the sobriety of thinking which was careful to hold
the speculative faculty controlled by reason, and to
rein the imagination in by common-sense—they had
each, at the same time, his own way of viewing
truth, and his own way of presenting it. With a regard
for his father, which very literally was a part of his
piety, the younger Hodge, in holding by the same
theology, had independence enough to think out for
himself every topic that came up for treatment, and
to state to others his views upon it with unmistak-
able freshness and individuality of expression, as
well as with the force of sincere personal adhesion.
What Dr Hetherington said of Dr Charles Hodge
was as manifestly true of his son, that his Orthodoxy
was “not merely a passive impression, but the attain-
ment of a mind vigorously exercised in the search of
truth.”
“He fought his doubts and gathered strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of the mind
And laid them : thus he came at length
To find a stronger faith his own.”
Speaking of the eight years of Dr A. A. Hodge's
Princeton professoriate as a whole—his last eight
years of life—they were years of ripened power and
ever widening influence. They gave ample proof of
his fitness, in every sense, to be the hereditary exponent
of the Princeton School, to which he was attached not
Only by birth and tradition but by strong and Staunchly
9C BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
vindicated individual conviction. That school is very
aptly characterised by Dr James Macgregor, then
Professor in the New College, Edinburgh, in The
British and Foreign Evangelical Review, when he
pronounces it markedly Biö/ica/ in its thinking, and
%agnanimous in its contending. Speaking, under
this last head, of the surprising revelations of charac-
ter that controversy brings, he says—“Some men,
heretofore supposed to be simply saints, will betray
a frailness in the fibre of their manhood. Other
men will evince a firm fibre of manhood, either by
Sweet and uncomplaining acceptance of defeat, or by
magnanimous forbearance and kindness toward those
Over whom they have got the upper hand. This
greatness of nature has been exhibited in remark-
able measure, from first to last, by the Princeton
School. They have, in their controversies, been
earnest, eloquent, warm, even passionate ; but, SO
far as we know, they have invariably spoken as true
Christian gentlemen, who in relation to adversaries
make due allowance for the fact that—speaking more
Americano—‘there's a good deal of human nature
in man.’” The same critic, writing at a time when
Dr Charles Hodge himself still “held the field,”
pronounces Dr Alexander “ the Socrates of the
Princeton School,” and says that “Hodge has proved
to be its Plato and Aristotle.” We venture to sub-
mit, however, that if these latter sentences had been
* British and Foreign Ezange/ical Review for July 1874.
THE PRINCETON SCHOOL. 9 I
penned in view of the leading characteristics of the
later professorial career of Dr A. A. Hodge, the
place of the Stagirite would, for other than mere
chronological reasons, have been accorded rather to
him in the Princeton triumvirate.
XVI.
VARIED GLIMPSES OF THE YOUNGER HODGE. .
‘‘Tongues of the dead, not lost,
But speaking from death’s frost,
Like fiery tongues of Pentecost.”
LONG FELLOW.
HE younger Hodge, like his two eminent prede-
cessors, sought to serve his own generation by
the will of God. He was quite alive to all the lead-
ing movements of the time in the world of thought.
If able conscientiously to concur, he gave his con-
currence with all his heart. If he found it needful
to oppose, his opposition was uncompromisingly
frank. He was as heedless as those who had gone
before him of the taunts of the 2//uminazz, who
affected to regard Princeton Seminary as “very um-
brageous and impenetrable to any new ray of light.”
He kept true to the last to the aim set forth in the
preface to his work on the Atonement—“I would
pray and labour that in gaining breadth we may not
lose height, and in gaining peace and love we may
not lose purity and truth.”
It was no part of his method, and was indeed alien
VARIED GLIMPSES OF THE YOUNGER HODGE. 93
to his nature, to import rancour into the discussion
of theological differences. He loved to meet an
open foe right openly, and knew how to wield upon
him the weapons alike of hard logic and of effective
plaisanterie.
One thing, however, never failed to rouse all the
manhood in him to a white heat of moral indignation,
which used great plainness of speech in exposing
what he regarded as a cruel wrong—and that was,
what he deemed to be the wounding of Christianity
in the house of its friends. He loved Calvinism
much, and could give a good account of any anta-
gonist who might impugn even the subordinate
tenets of that system ; but he loved Christianity
more than any of its bulwarks, and when he saw it
subjected at the centre to assault, and especially to
a covert assault, his whole Soul was stirred to its
defence.
A notable instance of this was given in his dissec-
tion of “Dean Stanley's Latest Views,” in an article
published in the Catholic Presbyterian of March 1882.
None could appreciate better than he the attractive
personal qualities of the accomplished and amiable
Dean ; yet he regarded the views enunciated in his
“Christian Institutions” (1881) as so subversive of
all that is vital in our Christian religion, that he felt
constrained to give utterance, with full reasons
annexed, to the distinct judgment, that, in this new
volume from Westminster, “all the characteristic
and distinguishing elements of the religion of Jesus
94. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
Christ are quietly eliminated, and that the residuum
barely comes up, either in content or in spirit, to the
baldest historical Socinianism.”
We cannot refer in detail to the trenchant expos-
ure of the bristling heresies of the Dean's remarkable
treatise, with which the sorrowful yet emphatic Con-
clusion is supported, that “all this is something
essentially different from Christianity.” What we
are at present illustrating is Dr Hodge's unflinching
courage in the utterance of his convictions, and that
in cases where others, in a spirit of /aisseg faire,
might have been tempted to pass by with a shrug
what they too, as well as he, could not but regard as
pernicious error. And it needed courage, in a theo-
logian of reputation, who was at the same time One
of the most tender and generous-hearted of men, to
utter, in times like these, a note like this, amid the
chorus of adulation accorded to Arthur Penrhyn
Stanley—“In the exercise of that power which his
practised talents, his acquisitions, and his unparal-
leled advantages of position gave him, ea cathedra of
the central Church of all the Protestant world, he
finished his life by deliberately substituting the
essence of natural deism into the place, and disguis-
ing it under the sacred name and symbols, of the
historical religion of Jesus Christ. Claiming that the
essence of Christianity is morality, he did this
immoral thing.”.”
Lest it be supposed by any that we have here the
* The Catholic Presbyterian for March 1882 (Nisbet & Co., London).
VARIED GLIMPSES OF THE YOUNGER HODGE. 95
mere vituperation of a narrow bigotry, it should be
added that a remarkable confirmation of the justness
of Dr Hodge's verdict was given, as he himself
shows, from a very different quarter—in the pages of
the Westminster /ćeview. But apart from this, the
spirit of candour as well as fervour in which the
article was penned will sufficiently appear from the
quotation of the following paragraph : “We also
believe in development. All things out of God
grow. Revelation itself was brought forth gradually
through a historic process. And by another process,
no less historical, since the close of revelation, its
contents have been gradually more and more
perfectly apprehended in the thought and life of the
Church. Theology, or the human science of the
contents of revelation, has been gradually perfected
through the last two thousand years, and will doubt-
less continue to advance until the second coming of
the Lord. . . . But, observe—(I) Our contention
with the last book of Dean Stanley does not relate
to theology, but simply to the essence of the
Christian religion. (2) The Christian religion is
essentially, not a philosophy, nor a Scientific theo-
logy, but a practical method of Saving men, provided
and executed by God, and revealed to man for his
intelligent acceptance and use : it must therefore be
a single, simple, practical method, identical from the
beginning to the end of the world, in spite of all
accidental complications. (3) All true development,
while it unfolds and perfects, also preserves the
96 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
essential identity of the things developed, from the
Ovum to the accomplished end. Substitution is not
development, and to put one thing for another is the
trick of the magician, not the eaſperimentum crucis of
the philosopher.” The impersonal nature of the dis-
cussion, though conducted with such fire, abundantly
appears also, in his references to the Dean himself:
“He personally realised in an eminent degree his
friend Matthew Arnold's phrase of ‘Sweetness and
light.’ His was a fine nature, refined by exquisite
Culture—intellectual, learned, full of grace and power,
in virtue of that tact which is the talent for using
all the talents most effectively. He radiated a fine
human sympathy, and hence attracted and bound all
kinds of human brethren to himself.” ” Thus could
Hodge the man appreciate Stanley the man, while
yet he regarded and treated the statements of the
Dean as the meet object of the odium theologicum
Żołżus cordis.
But, to return from this “aside,” Dr A. A. Hodge,
as professor in Princeton Seminary, not only sus-
tained from a theological point of view the old
renown of the chair he filled, but, as has already
been hinted, conquered for himself a place in the
affection and esteem of his students and brother
professors akin to that which his father had held
before him. We find one of these latter testifying,
that within the faculty he was everything that col-
leagues could desire : “not opinionative, nor arrogant,
* 7%e Catholic Aresbyteriazz for March 1882 (Nisbet & Co., London).
VARIED GLIMPSES OF THE YOUNGER HODGE. 97
nor reticent, nor indifferent—he pressed his views
with manly confidence in their correctness, but could
yield gracefully to an adverse decision.” ” One of his
students, again, may be taken as speaking for all the
rest when he says: “His patience and intellectual
charity were large, and he allowed the greatest free-
dom of debate to his scholars. In these contests he
was always chivalrous, and dismounted to meet his
adversary on equal terms. His many peculiarities
of speech and manner never impaired his courtesy
as a gentleman, or his dignity as a professor. He
had a powerful brain, a large heart, and the simple
faith of a little child.” ” Of his social qualities, Pro-
fessor Warfield, the distinguished alumnus of Prince-
ton who has since been appointed his successor in
the Princeton chair, has well said : “Nothing can
give the faintest conception of the beauty of his
Christian character, or of the astounding greatness of
his ordinary conversation. His intimate acquaint-
ances feel that a great light has gone out from their
lives in his departure. No one can enter in where
he entered into our hearts, and no one can rule as he
ruled by our firesides, and at our tables. But unless
you have lived under the same roof with him, I
should despair of conveying to you any adequate
idea of what he was.”
It may be added that Hodge's life, like his the-
ology, centred in Christ. With all his pleasantry in
private — exuberant enough sometimes — his deep
* “Memorial Discourse,” pp. 23 and 48.
G
98 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
personal piety was never brought into question. We
have in view, while we write, a visit he paid to our
Scottish home in the summer of 1884, which is one
of the oases of memory ever fragrant, ever green.
His prayers at the family altar, and indeed every-
where, were the outpouring of a profoundly religious
Spirit : full of an adoration without awe, and of a
confidence without unseemly familiarity, they were
suffused with the glow of a love that embraced
together God and the world for which Christ died.
XVII.
RIPENED IN USEFULNESS AND RIPE FOR GLORY.
“And doubtless unto thee is given
A life that bears immortal fruit,
In such great offices as suit
The full-grown energies of heaven.”
IN MEMORIAM.
HE influence of Dr A. A. Hodge was a steady
growth, and was never So great as just before
he died.
Enough has been said to indicate that his
published writings are no adequate representa-
tion of the varied gifts of their author, or of the
power wielded through his personality. Several of
his books will live. The “Outlines of Theology”
will be used long and widely as a class-book; for it
will be difficult to find a work of the same size
where so much theology is so clearly presented, or at
once so briefly and so interestingly discussed. Some
of the many notable contributions of his pen to
encyclopaedias and theological reviews are of per-
manent value. But Hodge was greater than any of
his writings, and none could come into close contact
with him without becoming conscious of a latency of
power in him from which yet higher results, had he
:
:
:
tº
gº
:
:
*
:
I OO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
been longer spared, might have been confidently
expected. The great work he did was the work he
accomplished in human intellects and hearts, and is
to this hour accomplishing through these in every
part of his own great country and in many quarters
of the world.
It is admitted by his warmest admirers, that
on the public platform he could sometimes be
disappointing enough. He was susceptible while
speaking to surrounding influences, and it was soon
apparent whether or not he felt “at home.” If he
did not, he was almost sure to be disappointing—
to none so much as to those who knew him best.
His appearance at the Pan-Presbyterian Council
in Belfast may, we rather think, be taken as a case
in point. We heard it described by one critic as
rather “wooden "-an adjective which, however it
might apply to that particular “appearance,” is one
of the last adjectives in the dictionary to be ap-
positely applied to the man.
He frequently, on the other hand, rose to the heights
of genuine and spontaneous eloquence. As a speaker,
he had few adventitious charms. His presence was
not imposing ; his face,—not so handsome as his
father's though quite as expressive in its way,+Some-
times in repose looked sombre ; his voice was lack-
ing both in tone and compass; and he had none of
the orator's arts. Yet his audience, as a rule, was
interested, and oftentimes it was enthralled. One of
his latest achievements, which gave promise of great
RIPENED IN USEFULNESS. I O I
future service of a similar kind, was the delivery,
in Philadelphia, of twelve lectures on the most
abstract theological subjects, to a miscellaneous
audience of ladies and gentlemen which remained
crowded to the end.
The unique power of Dr A. A. Hodge as a
preacher, when in one of his best moods, is thus
graphically described by Professor Patton :-
“It was a union of theology, philosophy, Christian
experience, knowledge of human nature, quaint
humour, elaborate description, a metaphor dropped
as a diamond unobserved might fall out of a casket,
facile utterance, a disdain of elocution, few gestures,
the face lighted up, the eye opened wide, as though
the speaker saw a vision of glory, the voice trem-
bling when the Saviour's name is mentioned, the
sensitive frame responding to the pressure of emo-
tion, and emotion finding vent at last in involuntary
tears.”
This is no fancy sketch. It was fully realised in
a sermon preached by Dr Hodge in my pulpit,
Free St Matthew's Church,” Glasgow, in June 1884,
On the Occasion of his visit to the said Presbyterian
Council in Belfast. None who were present on that day
will readily forget it. The theme was, “My Father's
house of many mansions,” and in its treatment the
theology of the intellect was permeated with the
chastened tenderness of deep and catching Christian
* The Congregation now ministered to by the Rev. James Stalker,
M. A.
I O2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
emotion ; so that, while the hearer's mind was en-
larged with wonderful thoughts of Christ and heaven,
his heart was yet more touched, and not a few of the
listeners were seen to join their tears with the
preacher's, who never in a church were seen to weep
before.
The variety of heaven was one of Dr Hodge's
favourite topics; and he has now gone to the place
—a bright and influential place it will be—which
Christ has prepared for him. On the last Sabbath
of his mortal life he was discoursing with even more
than usual fervour, in Princeton College Chapel; he
Caught a chill, which resulted in uraemia, and before
the week was over, on I Ith November 1886, he had
gone to be for ever with the Lord. “We shall not
meet here any more,” were his last words in his
closing lecture in Philadelphia, “let us pledge one
another to reassemble in heaven. We part as pil-
grims part upon the road. Let us take our way
heavenward ; for, if we do, we shall soon, some of us
very soon, be at home with the Lord.”
To Dr Wm. M. Paxton, who had heralded Dr A.
A. Hodge's succession to his father in the theologi-
cal chair, the duty was suitably assigned of signalis-
ing with sorrow his early succession to the grave.
This affecting task he lovingly discharged in his
funeral address on the 15th November, as they
committed the mortal remains of Archibald Alex-
ander Hodge to the sweet little cemetery in Princeton,
which also keeps, till the Resurrection Day, the
RIPENED IN USEFULNESS. IO3
hallowed dust of Witherspoon, and Edwards, and
the two Alexanders, and Charles Hodge, his father.
Having briefly recorded what Dr Hodge had
accomplished, he touched on what he was as well ;
and the closing words of Dr Paxton were such as to
find a response in every breast.
He spoke of the transparent ſºonesty of the de-
parted ; and everybody knew that “he was trans-
parent as a mountain lake. He had no policy, no
concealments, no stratagem. He never deceived.
You could look into the workings of his mind and
heart as into a mirror.”
He spoke of his sympathy, and all gave inward
assent when the orator said : “The great world of
humanity, with its wants and woes, was the habitual
theme of his thought and prayer ; his heart, like his
intellect, moved in vast circles, and encompassed the
world.”
He spoke of the simplicity of his faith, and many
in the audience, besides the speaker, could attest
that, “while God had created him with a giant in-
tellect, grace had made him a child, in the simple,
sincere, undoubting exercises of piety.”
Nor, in the view of those best acquainted with his
theme was the elegist a mere fond eulogist when he
summed up his characterization of Archibald Alex-
ander Hodge in the words: “Christian–Philosopher
—Theologian—Orator—Poet–Child.”
XVIII.
THE YOUNGER HODGE AMONG HIS STUDENTS.
“When one would aim an arrow fair,
But send it slackly from the string;
And one would pierce an outer ring,
And one an inner, here and there ;
“And last the master bowman, he
Would cleave the mark. A willing ear
We lent him. Who but hung to hear
The rapt oration flowing free
“From point to point, with power and grace
And music in the bounds of law,
To those conclusions when we saw
The God within him light his face.”
IN MEMORIAM.
HIS closing chapter may serve as a kind of
transition to the second portion of the volume,
by calling somewhat closer attention to Dr A. A.
Hodge's characteristic excellences as a teacher.
Reviewing our own reminiscences of him, we
certainly would say, that it was in the class-room
that he shone, or in a company small enough and
congenial enough for him to “commit himself unto
them.” His extraordinary analytic acumen, wedded
THE YOUNGER HODGE AND HIS STUDENTS. IO5
as it was to a singular faculty for apt illustration ;
his contagious earnestness, with its other side of
playful humour and quaint hyperbole ; his burning
sympathy with all that is good, and burning indig-
nation at everything false or mean ; his personal
modesty, amounting even to shyness, with its counter-
part of fearless and candid courage in defence of the
truth—qualities like these made him a model Pro-
fessor and an invaluable friend. To those who knew
him, his personal character gave added force to all
his utterances; and those who knew him best could
best appreciate the utter candour of his spirit and
the utter generosity of his heart.
Professor Patton distinguishes professors into three
classes.” There is first the man of leisurely research,
whose aim in his lecture is, to give in Some Sense a
completed contribution to his subject, and with
whom, as he dictates his results to the diligent
note-taking of his students, the matter, apart from
the manner of presenting it, is everything. Then
there is the instructor who relies much on the
brilliant mode of presentation he has elaborated, to
fire the minds of his students with a desire for further
investigation into the subject, some special phase
of which has been so suggestively handled in the
lecture. Then there is the teacher, whose grand
object it is, “safely and surely to transfer a certain
definite body of instruction from his own mind to
the minds of his scholars, incorporating it into their
* “Memorial Discourse,” p. 43.
IO6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
mental life as something which can never be for-
gotten—a 7.7%00. śg &gſ, something that is their own,
part of their very self-hood.”
We entirely agree with the verdict of his colleague,
that Dr A. A. Hodge belonged pre-eminently to the
third of these classes. Yet, though he did not seek
merely to pour out the results of his own cogitations
and investigations regarding the subject under dis-
cussion ; and though his method of presenting what
he had to say in the class-room bore no marks
whatever of elaborate premeditation as to form, but
seemed to be of the most impromptu character, he
may indeed be said, in taking front rank as a pro-
fessor of the third class, to have combined in a sense
the characteristic excellences of the other two. What-
ever was the topic for the day, he had some distinct
contribution of his own to offer for its elucidation ;
and while the fulness and readiness, as well as clear-
ness, with which he handled every theme could not
fail to instruct, the interest which his enthusiasm
always imparted to the discussion could as little
fail to stimulate.
Like his predecessor he strongly believed in the
importance of the living teacher, along with the text-
book, for the satisfactory impartation of Didactic
Theology, and in the active drill of oral question and
debate, along with Some practice in writing on theo-
logical theses. Having opened the class with prayer
—brief but comprehensive, earnest and vital—he at
once called on some student, in order, to “recite.”
THE YOUNGER HODGE AND HIS STUDENTS. I O7
This meant in effect, not that he was to parrot Over
by rote what he had acquired from the “Systematic
Theology” as a text-book the night before, but that
he was to give evidence of an intelligent apprehen-
Sion of what he had learned, and to give, probably
enough, at the same time, incidental occasion to the
professor to show, in the most graciously spontaneous
way, that he knew next to nothing yet as he ought
to know. The Socratic method adopted in the
“recitations” was attended with great interest and
permanent advantage. The young men left the
class-room not only possessing the truth taught, but
with it possessing them. “The students saw every
doctrine, as it presented itself to his vision. They
benefited by his power of concise statement and clear
definition. He held up the representative systems of
theology with such sharpness of outline and such
accuracy of articulation, that they knew them as one
knows the face of a familiar friend. They questioned
him, and he answered their questions. They raised
objections, and so woke in him the hot fires of his
polemic. They failed sometimes to comprehend a
dogma, and he swept the universe for illustrations,
and poured them out so copiously, and with such
manifest spontaneity, that they overwhelmed him
with their applause.” -
Students are proverbially critical of their teachers
and their prelections, counting themselves wiser than
all the former, and dismissing the latter with the
* “Memorial Discourse,” p. 47.
IO8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
faint praise, or sometimes less, which the immense
potentiality of undeveloped genius feels justified in
bestowing on the respectable performances of seniors
who have given their actual best. But with respect
to such a teacher, the affectation of a superior
potentiality was too ridiculous for even the most
self-complacent to assume, and if the voice of dis-
paragement ever reached a whisper, it was left
unheard amid the chorus of praise, which young
enthusiasm, when it is enlisted, yields in no reluctant
or half-hearted way.
And now, in conclusion, we cannot do better than
submit one more quotation from the same high
authority to whom appeal has been already so often
made, as summing up in few words the special
qualifications and characteristics of Professor A. A.
Hodge as a teacher of theology. Professor Patton
says: “Think then of Dr A. A. Hodge as having
an acute mind ; interested in theological specu-
lation ; rethinking independently the old ques-
tions; analytic in his mental processes; full of
scholastic subtleties; bold, confident, intense in his
convictions; filled with reverence for good tradi-
tions ; holding the reformed faith as a sacred trust,
and also as a personal possession ; pervaded by this
faith, and living on terms of easy familiarity with it;
able to distinguish between essence and accident,
and knowing when harmless idiosyncrasy runs into
Serious doctrinal divergence; strong in his convic-
tions, but not litigious ; tenacious of principle, but
THE YOUNGER HODGE AND HIS STUDENTS. Io9
never Sticking in the bark; a sturdy, robust thinker,
always ready to defend the faith; a brilliant thinker,
So that, as circumstances required, he could send
truth out in the shining drapery of soft and beauti-
ful speech, or shoot it forth like forked lightning, hot
and Scathing, to leave on the face of error the scarred
record of its presence—think of him, I say, as
exhibiting this many-sided mental expression, and
you have my conception of the type of theologians to
which Dr Hodge belonged. Beyond all question he
takes his place among the great men of America, and
the great theologians of the world.” “
This is no stinted praise. Yet such language is
but Sober truth to one who has studied under him of
whom it speaks.
The brevia theologica which follow are not, of
course, submitted as by any means a full representa-
tion of Dr A. A. Hodge's theological system. They
are nothing more than the pencil notes of a single
student, in a single session, and that the first session
of his Princeton professorship. Nor must these notes
be expected to furnish a sufficient clue to the remark-
able influence which is justly ascribed to the younger
Hodge as a teacher, in the foregoing pages. They
are simply a few of the sparks struck out in the
class-room, in the course of discussion on the theo-
logical topic of the day; or some of the fragments
which remain from what in its fulness was often a
* “Memorial Discourse,” p. 31.
I IO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
rich and satisfying feast. The annotator is glad, for
his own sake at least, that he was led to preserve
these reminiscences of helpful hours. Neither he nor
the 'speaker imagined, at the time, that the sent-
tentia would be placed thus on printed record. But
the end in view will be served, and what is now
done justified, if as sparks they shed some light,
however feeble, on the enthusiasm of regard in
which a great though unobtrusive career that has
recently passed from sight will long continue to be
held by those who came directly under its magnetic
influence ; or even if, as fragments, they do nothing
more than enable others to taste and appreciate the
kind of fare provided for the young manhood
gathered round his table, by Professor A. A. Hodge
of Princeton, their “guide, philosopher, and friend.”
BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
II.
III.
IV.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
XI.
BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
. OBITER DICTA
REASON AND REVELATION
THE UNIVERSE
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
. THE HOLY TRINITY
SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION
PROVIDENCE : ORDINARY AND MIRACULOUS
MAN AS MAN
MAN AS SINNER
. GOD'S LAW AND MAN'S DUTY
DEATH AND AFTER DEATH
PAGE
II 5
I 23
I37
I 52
I62
I68
N O T E.
THESE brevia are given as far as possible in Dr Hodge's own words.
For the headings, the Editor is wholly responsible, and also for the
order of arrangement. The latter might, in places, have been made
more strictly consecutive, but the attempt at close articulation of meis-
cel/anaea like these might be the opposite of an advantage from the
reader's point of view. All the utterances are not, of course, of equal
value. A few are inserted less for their theological than for their
biographical significance, and are to be read in the light of the pre-
ceding sketch. C. A. S.
OBITER L)ICTA.
A Theological Seminary.
REGARD a theological seminary as the organ of
communication between the Church of the past,
and the rising ministry of the present.
The Value of Definitions.
The truth of God is a boundless expanse. Defini-
tions are made for man; not man for definitions.
They are like ring-fences out on the prairies. They
are useful, and I am fond of them. But they have
to be learned and unlearned.
Warming about ///ustrations.
You are not to think that illustrations run like
lines parallel with their subject to all eternity; they
are rather like circles which Osculate at particular
points.
Single 7 earts.
I do not like to ground a doctrinal argument upon
merely a single text. Two posts afford you a line
of perspective, which one point cannot.
II 6 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
U/f???zafe 777///s.
Ultimate truths, which cannot be proved, are the
surest of all. The cylinder is firmer than any of the
links of the chain descending from it into the well—
of which each lower link has its own weakness plus
the weakness of the link above it.
Science, so-called, often Metaphysics.
A great deal of so-called science in Our day is
really metaphysics, and very poor metaphysics too,
—illogical and one-sided : vainly trying to explain
the spiritual by material causes, making joy in the
Holy Ghost a resultant of the disposition of the
molecules.
Plausible Intellectual Generalisations.
Generalisations of the intellect may be very mis-
leading, however persuasive. It is not the under-
standing but the moral sense that determines, e.g.,
what is right or wrong. An intellectual generalisa-
tion like “Ability limits obligation” has a plausible
look. But if you go about applying it to moral dis-
tinctions, you will be very like a man trying to test
music by the nose. The answer of your understand-
ing may not be worth sixpence, where your moral
sense will tell you right. Nobody would be so
absurd as to go through life trying to hear Smells
or to smell sounds. Yet this is precisely what men
OBITER DICTA. II 7
are often trying to do, in applying logic to casuistical
questions of duty, for instance.
Mazziz Termes.
I like you to get a good Latin phrase now and
then. Wherever you meet a Latin term, do not fail
to acquire it, for you may be sure it is worth several
Yankee words.
The Early Fathers not complimented.
These old patristic fellows were, in one aspect of
the case, the babies of the Church.
The Greek and the Latin Churches compared.
The Greek Church crystallized much sooner than
the Latin ; and, though in some respects more dead,
it is not so corrupt.
Course of 7%ought in Germany.
Dogmatism, deism, pantheism, materialism—this
has been the order in Germany.
A Common Tendency in Heresy.
There is a tendency in all heresy to simplification,
by denying parts of the truth.
The Boundaries of Truth.
In considering and defining a doctrine, you should
know what lies beyond. To bound Pennsylvania,
I 18 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
you have to tell what is on the north—New York;
on the west—Ohio; on the east—this kingdom of
Jersey, &c. And so with a doctrine. It is well
that we should know about the heresies beyond
its boundaries, that we may, by negation, exclude
them. I shall sometimes ask you to come with me
to the edge, and get the alternatives.
Occident and Orient.
Bible statements are not always perspicuous to a
Western mind. Of all men in the world the typical
Yankee * would be the stupidest as to insight into
orientalisms. With all his highly developed nine-
teenth century occidental acuteness, he would be in
a strange region there, and often at a loss.
Over Fezzouz 272 Dečaſe.
Men often, in disputation, overshoot the mark.
A materialist denying the reliability of conscious-
ness is like the Irishman sawing off the branch on
which he sat astride; or like a very choleric boy I
used to know in my youth, who when he fought
used to kick with both feet at one time. Result—a
tumble.
Testing a 7%eory.
If you burn the end of an idealist's nose, you
disturb his dream. If you infringe a pantheist's
* A name specifically applied in America to the New Englander,
and indicative of uncommon “smartness.” -
OBITER DICTA. II 9
rights, he will somehow refuse to regard you as
“a mere moment of infinite existence"; he will
recognise your personal responsibility.
7%e AVetus of Doctrines.
The doctrines of the Bible are not isolated, but
interlaced ; and the view of one doctrine must
necessarily affect the view taken of another. A
difference on such a fundamental question as the
divinity of Christ will produce an entirely different
system. This is found so in fact.
Here are triads which, as is natural, have gone
together:—
Christ a man;
Human nature not depraved ;
Salvation merely education.
Of"—
Christ a divine person ;
Human nature depraved ;
Salvation by the almighty power of God.
You may begin your argument from the correla-
tion of doctrine at either end. Beginning with a
diagnosis of the nature of the disease, you may infer
the kind of treatment and the sort of physician
necessary. Or, if you find a certain physician apply-
ing a certain remedy, you may infer the nature and
gravity of the disease.
I 2 O BREVIA THEOLOGICA,
Sea-sickness in Theology.
There is a great deal of sea-sickness in theology
till you get your sea-legs on—sky and land and
water all mixed.
The Final Conflict of Systems.
The last issue must be between Atheism in its
countless forms and Calvinism. The other systems
will be crushed as the half-rotten ice between two
great bergs. Two things you may be quite sure of,
viz.:-I. That you won't get rid of your difficulties
by putting away Christianity, because they will come
up under philosophy itself; and 2. That you won't
get rid of the difficulties of Calvinism by turning
Arminian ; therefore don't potter with half-measures,
but be on one side or the other, out and out.
An Objectionable Orthodoxy,
I am afraid of Calvinism when it is alone. A
mere Calvinist who is not a man and a Christian
had better be shut up in Bedlam. But if he is
human and Christian, then his Calvinism is a good
thing. In this day we require perhaps to emphasize
man's free will rather than God's sovereignty. At
the same time, we must not lose sight of the latter,
or allow our theological system to centre wrongly.
A ſe/iocentrica/ Theology.
If you study astronomy geocentrically, you will
bring everything into confusion ; if you study it
OBITER DICTA. I 2 I
heliocentrically, then everything will be right. Dr
Krauth once said to me—“If you begin with God,
you must be a Calvinist; if you begin with man,
you must be an Arminian. We Lutherans do neither ;
we begin with the Bible.” It is, however, impossible
to keep clear of both Arminianism and Calvinism ;
every theological idea is of the one colour or the
other. This I perceive in our classes here, where
you talk about as much Arminianism as Calvinism.
We are all Arminians in the natural grit; but Scrip-
ture comes in to correct this—showing the Con-
demnation of all to be just, and the salvation of any
to be of grace.
77°ut/. Manysided.
Men often start with wrong or imperfect premises,
and go right on, like a horse with blinders, not per-
ceiving what lies on either hand. But it is a mistake
to Suppose that logic goes only in a straight line.
Truth is manysided, and it radiates from above and
beneath, from north, South, east, and west. It is not
a line, but to be compared rather to a surface or a
Solid. There is a sense, though not the popular
sense, in which it is well to be “broad church,” and
“catholic.”
Man's Imperfect Comprehension.
An engineer and an intellectual fly would form
very different conceptions of the machinery in one
1 22 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
of our New England cotton factories, supposing
them to enter together. The engineer would see
the whole in every part. The fly, settling on a
Single cog, would see only parts in the whole. We
are the flies, relatively to the system of the universe
and the plan of God; and very poor flies we often
are too.
II.
REASON AND REVELATION.
A// Anozwledge is based on Faith.
MNIA exeunt e mysteria: all knowledge is
ultimately based on faith in the unintelligible.
This is true of so ordinary a thing, for instance, as
the assimilation of food.
The Üses of Reason.
Under this head you must distinguish between
these three:–
(I) The usus organicus of reason—i.e., its use as a
prehensile, an Organ of apprehension. .
(2) The 7udicium contradiction?s—i.e., its use in
determining as to the possibility of a thing.
(3) The judicium testimonii—i.e., its use in judg-
ing of the evidence in any special case.
Assentials to Faith.
In the first place, truth must be apprehended in
order to be believed : for instance, a Chinese pro-
I 24. BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
verb to you and to me would be meaningless, and
could not therefore be believed. In the next place,
an evident impossibility cannot be believed ; for it
cannot be a truth, and therefore cannot be an object
of faith. And in the third place, faith must have
adequate evidence : else it is mere superstition.
Importance of Appropriate Evidence.
The quality as well as quantity of evidence is of
prime importance. It is to the ear, not to the eye,
we turn for evidence about a sound : and to the Con-
science rather than the intellect for the evidence of
moral truth.
MŽnd and AVazure.
Logically, the science of mind precedes the science
of nature. Established facts in either of these cannot
be ignored by theologians.
The Proof of a Dźwine Revelation.
The Order of proof should be : that a supernatural
revelation is (I) possible, both a parte Dež and a parte
/homings, (2) probable, whether we view it from
God's side or man's ; and (3) actual, as something
demonstrably given to us in God's word.
A Supernatural Revelation possible.
On Theistic or Christian ground, a supernatural
revelation is evidently possible on the side of God.
REASON AND REVELATION. I 25
Whether it is possible on man's side will depend
on man's constitution. Now, we find that in its
appeal to us the Bible awakens ideas and feelings
till then dormant, but not new in the sense that
they cannot be analysed. Thus we can affirm, not
only that our God can reveal Himself; but that
we have organs to receive this revelation.
A Supernatural Revelation probable.
Its probability may be argued from the necessity
there is for it on the side of God's creature man.
A Supernatural Revelation actual.
Its actuality is shown by various lines of evidence.
One of the strongest of these is the unity of the
Bible as an organic whole, though its parts were
given forth at long intervals, and through men so
widely separated in various ways. Appeal may be
also made to “the demonstration of the Spirit.”
Christ says, “if any man will do His will, he shall
know of the doctrine”; SO that religion is, in a sense,
a branch of experimental philosophy.
Science not the subject of Revelation.
Man is left to digest phenomena himself, and
thence to elaborate science. God did not reveal the
latter. Otherwise it could not have been spoken of
I 26 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
as “science.” Genuine science does not conflict
with revelation.
Priest and Prophet defined.
The priest is one who represents men before God :
the prophet is one who represents God before men.
Both are mediators, but in opposite directions.
The Mystics and the Materialists.
Note how extremes meet. The mystics, who
deemed themselves eminently spiritual, fell into the
materialistic theory of an organic substantial one-
ness with God. The true doctrine of union with
God is, that we have to be brought into moral rela-
tionship with Him, as person with person—not that
our personality is to be mixed or fused with His.
Quakeris???.
George Fox was its originator; William Penn, its
social founder ; Robert Barclay, its doctrinal ex-
ponent. There is a great variety of Quakers in
America. Those of Indiana are often to be counted
excellent Christians, while the progressive Friends
in Pennsylvania are as indifferent a body of people
as you will readily find on this side of the sphere.
Eng/isſ, “AZvangelicals.”
The Evangelical party in the English Church
differs from the Broad, in emphasizing God's word
REASON AND REVELATION. I 27
and grace, as contrasted with man's mere reason
and moral consciousness. It differs from the
Ritualistic party, in maintaining the ethical as
against the magical view of man’s relationship and
access to God.
“A’eason ’’ as Ā’ome viezws 2.É.
From the Romish standpoint, all Protestants are
rationalistic: and this chiefly because the judicium
contradictionis (defined above) is so freely applied to
such dogmas as transubstantiation and the like.
The Romanist's Ground of Faith.
He accepts a dogma like transubstantiation, be-
cause he believes that the Apostles taught it. He
believes that, again, because tradition says SO ; and
this, again, because the existing Church SO declares.
It is only in the last step of definition that the
Pope is regarded as ea-cathedra infallible.
Faplicit versus Implicit Faith.
Explicit faith knows its object; implicit faith
accepts that of which it has no direct knowledge
whatever. By explicit faith, the Romanist believes
the Church infallible; by implicit faith he then
accepts any unknown conceivable doctrine which
the Church maintains or may at any time pro-
mulgate.
128 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
The Vulgate.
This was the great mother of translations,"and of
great value at the time when it was written ; but the
Papal Church has committed the absurdity of setting
it before the original.
Church Development.
Some have held—and Dr Schaff, formerly at least,
among them—that the development of the Church
has been normal and regular; so that the doctrine
of each age was just the doctrine for that age.
This is an outgrowth of realism, which regards
genera as real entities coming before particulars.
According to realism, the genus humanuma was
created in Adam, existed in him, and fell. It was
by-and-bye united to Christ, in whom a fresh start
was given to it. The Logos introduced a new
development, in germ, into the genus humanum ;
and this new development is supposed to go on in
stages, each of which is perfectly suited to its own
time. To this it may be remarked, that what is
true in one age must be true in another; and that,
in point of fact, the development of the Church has
not been like the growth of a healthy child in
favouring circumstances all along. The Church in
dark times has developed error, and has furnished a
very imperfect type for the contemporary age.
REASON AND REVELATION. I 29
The Ü/timate Appeal.
The Scriptures. If Jonathan Edwards were to
Come, proclaiming a revelation contrary to the Bible,
follow Scripture and let Jonathan Edwards slide
Even if he wrought wonders in his support, these
would have no effect on my mind—no sporadic
miracles would—unless their organic connection
could be shown with the miracles and the teaching
of the Bible.
The Unreliability of Tradition.
This may be shown from an example taken from
Our Own history. It is generally supposed that
Washington's mother was an excellent old lady,
grandmother of her country; the truth is, as I
learned at Fredericksburg, that Washington was
what he was in spite of his mother. Yet the contrary
tradition has sprung up in a very short time ; for
Washington died in 1799, and the old lady only a
short while before.
Aapal Assºmptions.
Each of these three assumptions is unproved —
(I), that Peter was primate ; (2), that Peter was
bishop of Rome ; (3), that Peter was primate as
bishop of Rome. The last is not unimportant ;
because Clement, for instance, might have succeeded
to the bishopric of Rome without the primacy, as
Queen Victoria came to the crown of England but
I
I 3O BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
not of Hanover. Or, to come nearer home, Ulysses
Grant was president of the United States and
husband of Mrs Grant ; Mr Hayes succeeded him
—but not in both capacities
A’ome heretical on her own ground.
The Church of Rome admits the infallibility of
Scripture, and yet teaches doctrine in manifest Con-
tradiction to it. On her own ground she is heretical,
as well as inconsistent with herself.
The True Church Catholic.
“I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,” and that
in a twofold sense : (1) as the elect of God in heaven
and on earth ; and (2) as the Oecumenical visible
Church of true believers in all their various organisa-
tions. On this Church question, Rome connects the
wrong subject with the right predicate.
The Question of Succession.
If George Washington had had children, are you
sure there would have been a succession of Washing-
tons Would they have been necessarily children
of the spirit as well as of the flesh 2 President
Grant's son may succeed to his horses and his box of
cigars, if the latter are not all smoked out : but will
he necessarily succeed to the qualities that made his
father President 2 If the States issue a gold dollar,
REASON AND REVELATION. I 3 I
and I take a bit of paper and tell you it is the dollar's
successor, will you take it 2. Not much. I don't
like to get into politics, but a deal of our trouble
arises out of this very thing. Government cannot
make paper into dollars, though they may force you
to take them as such.
Just so with the so-called successor of the Apostles
—this old man who has none of the qualities and
characteristics of the Apostles.
The Question of /nspiration really Two.
Scripture is—not merely contains—God's Word.
On the great formal principle of the Reformation,
that the Bible is the Word of God and the only
standard of faith, all the Reformed Churches, Cal-
vinistic and Lutheran, are agreed. But when we
affirm, “The Bible is inspired"—two questions are
raised : (1) what is meant by the subject here 2 and
(2) what do you mean by the predicate 2
Aposto/2c and Canonical not the same.
If a manuscript were found which could be proved
by internal and external evidence to be by an
Apostle, would you have it engrossed in the Canon 2
Yes, if it were written in the capacity of an Apostle,
and not, for instance, a letter from Peter to his wife's
mother, however excellent the advices to the old
lady might be. -
I 32 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
The Eartent of Apostolic Inspiration.
How far, precisely, the inspiration of the Apostles
extended we cannot tell. But it extended to all their
teaching (“whosoever heareth you heareth me") and
to much of their official action.
Isaiah's Inspiration versus Shakespeare's.
Isaiah, like Shakespeare, was no common man—a
genius; but in addition to great natural gifts, he was
under a special supernatural guidance, which con-
stitutes the differentiating element between them.
The Fact versus the Eaplanation of Inspiration.
The question as to the result is different from the
question as to the process or mode of its attainment.
How David was affected so as to make his psalms
the Word of God, I may not know. That he was so
affected is the doctrine of inspiration, which I believe.
God fore-ordained Shakespeare's plays, every word.
God fore-ordained the Bible. We see the difference
in the product more clearly than we can explain the
difference of the cause or influence operating toward
the result. Generically, God influences and fore-
ordains all man's products. Specifically, He in-
fluenced in a peculiar way, which we cannot well
define, the products of Scripture writers.
The Natural and the Supernatural.
These, it should be remembered, are not unrelated.
The natural is environed by the supernatural; and
REASON AND REVELATION. I 33
this again is articulated to the natural. You may
find Some analogy to what is meant in the co-
existence and co-relation of the nervous and the
circulatory systems in the body. In the matter of
inspiration, even the externals—the men, the lan-
guage, &c.—were as the Scaffolding prepared by
God. The man, the circumstances of the man, and
the Supernatural influence over the man as he wrote
were all of Him. Inspiration was a divine act not
Operating in a vacuum but on an organism.
The Architectomic Principle in Scripture.
A force, such as gravity, is different from the
directive life principle, say in a seed making it an
oak. There is what may be called an architec-
tonic principle discoverable in Nature—directing
the chemical forces, for instance, which go to the
upbuilding of a tree. So with the written Word.
Inspiration is the architectonic principle which guided
and directed the action of the writers without inter-
fering with its spontaneity; just as one at the tiller
of a boat may steer in spite of current influence,
while the rowers are free to put forth their full
activities.
I//ustration from the building of St Paul's.
At the rearing of St Paul's Cathedral, there was
so much horse or ass force employed ; but it was all
I 34 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
directed by the thought, the genius, the organizing
faculty of Sir Christopher Wren. The poor, feeble
old man had not one ass-force in himself. But who
was the author of St Paul's Not the hod-carriers,
Surely, but Sir Christopher. And whose is the
authorship of the Bible 2 It belongs not to the
mere human instruments, but to that All Wise
Almighty Architect under whose inspiration they
each did their part.
I//ustration from Music.
A musician sometimes plays another man's music
On another man's instrument. But he may make an
instrument to suit himself, and compose music for
his own rendering. So, we may say—without press-
ing the illustration too far, since God works on the
minds of men from within and not mechanically
from without—God wanted a great Organ, with all
kinds of pipes in it, for music of His own. Hence
He prepared Moses, and David, and Isaiah, and the
rest; and by His touch evoked from them precisely
what He wanted. The result is His, though the
tone or timbre belongs to their individuality.
Plenary /nspiration.
A chain is no stronger than its links: and if you
are to have any infallible record, it must be so down
to the words. It may be true that we have not now
REASON AND REVELATION. I 35
a metaphysically correct copy of the original revela-
tion. But God gave at first an infallible rule; and
that is something better for us than to have a meta-
physically correct copy of a rule which was not
Originally in all points infallible. We have a definite
point to work back to in the original autographs.
Paul's direct claim to Pſemary Inspiration.
There is an occasional expression in Paul's writings
which is wrongly interpreted sometimes in a con-
trary Sense, but which is really an explicit claim to
plenary inspiration. When he says, in I Cor. vii. 10,
“I command, yet not I but the Lord,” he makes
evident reference to the Lord's own express in-
junction in Matt. xix. 6. And when, a few verses
later, I Cor. vii. I2, he adds, “But to the rest say I,
not the Lord,” the evident meaning is, “The Lord
did not speak particularly on this ; but I, Paul, say ”
(so with verse 25). Such an expression is really to
put in an accentuated form the very claim he
makes in I Cor. xiv. 37. To compare great things
with small, it is as though I were to say—“My
teacher, Professor Alexander, did not say this
when he was here; but I teach it.” If this were to
be interpreted as an assumption by me of an
authority equal to that of so distinguished a man, it
would mean great presumption on my part. But
such presumption would be as nothing to the utter
I 36 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
blasphemy of Paul, in making his word as good as
Christ's, if he zwere not inspired.
Inspiration a Miracle.
Inspiration comes under the genus miracle: and a
miracle is a phenomenon which must be attributed
to the intervention of God.
III.
THE UNIVERSE.
Causation.
T is a mere truism to say, “Every effect must
have a cause.” The case is better stated, from
the point of view of consciousness, by M“Cosh when
he says, “Every new thing, every change, must have a
cause.” What particular cause produces a particular
effect, we ascertain by experience. But the tran-
scendental judgment, that “like causes under like
circumstances will produce like effects,” is attained
not by experience, but by intuition.
A Reasonable Postulate,
“Every change must have a cause suitable and
adequate.” This very reasonable assumption the
materialist cannot afford to grant us.
A Philosopher refuted by a Dog.
Rant held that it is a mere subjective law—that
we must think that every effect must have a cause.
If you pinched a dog's tail and immediately cried—
“Oh, sir, it's quite a mistake : nobody pinched it !”
I 38 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
do you think you could convince the dog 2 I never
saw a dog yet that agreed with the philosophers ; SO
the philosophers must be wrong.
What is meant by the Absolute P
The Absolute is the unrelated, the unconditioned ;
so that of course there cannot be two Absolutes.
As regards relations out of Himself, God was
absolute before creation. Whenever He created
So much as a grain of sand, however, he became
related. Consciousness implies relation ; it involves
subject-subject and subject–object. Hence it is
concluded that the Absolute, in the philosophic
sense, cannot be conscious. (But here comes in Our
doctrine of the Trinity).
In zwhat sense 2s God absoluže P
God is absolute not in the sense that He cannot
come into relation, but in the sense that He deter-
mines His own relations. God has certain interna/
relations, which are eternal and necessary. But as
to external relations He is absolute, in the sense
explained; He is the ordinating centre of the
universe.
The Infinite versus the A//.
God has infinite power. But the devil has some
power. God has infinite wisdom; but even preachers
have some wisdom. Thus the Infinite is different
from the All.
THE UNIVERSE. I 39
What is Ánowledge 2
Knowledge (notitia) is the apprehension of a thing
as true. But there is knowledge—and knowledge.
It may be (take geometry and mechanics, for in-
stance) either a mere notion or a power. Thus,
“to know God’ is a phrase that may have widely
different meanings. “Comprehensive knowledge,”
We may add, must be extensive and intensive too, to
be worthy of the name.
A Popular Account of Knowledge.
In the carpet, there is material and organization :
God's wool and man's brain—result, the carpet.
In man's life, you have varying experiences and the
human mind organizing—result, knowledge. We
have not intuitions even, without experience; only,
in their case, experience is the occasion, not the
SOUI1"Ce.
Am Unhappy Phrase.
“To make all things of nothing . . . in the space
of six days,” is liable to misinterpretation. Creation
from nothing is an act; it did not last six days.
There is an important distinction apt to be over-
looked in the use of such a phrase—the difference be-
tween creatio prima (out of nothing) and creatio
secunda (out of pre-existing elements, as when “the
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground");
or to put it differently, the distinction between the
I 4O BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
exercise on God's part of potestas /ibera (free direct
activity) and of potestas ordinata (power operating
through law). If it seems strange that God should
in creation have come down from the high sphere of
potestas libera into that of potestas ordinata, Con-
descending to the use of slow-working means, the
same wonder meets us in the scheme of redemption,
with its long eras of preparation for the coming of
the Christ. Why did not God literally create “all
things out of nothing ” apart from processes 2 I will
tell you, when you answer me this—Why did not
God send the Saviour without waiting till long
preliminary eras had run their course 2 If you can
answer the one query, you will have little difficulty
with the other.
An /m/ortant Distinction.
Creation is not in thought, but in willing. This
world has been eternally in God's thought, in which
sense we may speak of the eternal decree: the world
is not, however, eternal, but only as old as the
volition which gave it birth.
Cave Spinoza.
In dealing with a system like Spinoza's, look well
to its definitions. If you grant these, logic will do
the rest. But “substance,” for instance, is not the
self-existent and independent in his sense. It has
not an absolute independence, though relatively to
THE UNIVERSE. I4 I
attributes it is “the thing in itself.” All Spinoza-ism
is in its definitions.
Mind the Origin of Acţion.
Matter nowhere originates action. But when we
get back to a conscious will—i.e., a mind expressing
itself in volition—we reach an originator of change.
You find a row of bricks knocking each other over;
you go back and back, brick by brick, till you reach a
human leg, and so to the will of the boy who kicked,
and to whom you give a thrashing for his pains !
The Citadel against Materialism.
If we give over consciousness, we are in the hands
of the materialists in a minute.
Philosophy in Etymology.
“Nature" is an effect—a change—an eternal be-
Coming. Its very name means “being born :” there-
fore it must have a producer.
Malea and Fozzzz. -
Form is the “quiddity” of a thing—that which
makes it what it is. The Idea determines the
shape. Thus a cactus and a rose may be of the
same material ; but a different idea takes shape in a
widely different form.
P/aſſo's /deas.
The ideas of Plato may be compared, approxi-
mately, to the countless moulds of a founder. As
I 42 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
iron is poured into these, so when matter fills out
the Ideas countless existence-forms are the result.
Fina/ versus First Cazzse.
The final is not to be confused with the first
cause ; it refers not to the origin of a thing, but to
the object for which it was made.
Aristote/ic Distinctions.
Take a chair. Its material cause is the wood ;
efficient, the carpenter ; instrumental, the tools ;
formal, the idea determining its shape; fizza/, the
end it is made for, viz., to be sat upon.
To deny Final Causes, vainz.
Anything which becomes, or begins to be, if in-
telligible, must be the product of inte//igence. Hence,
philosophers who claim to understand the universe,
are not helped by denying final causes.
A greater Paley needed.
Paley's argument is a perfect statement on its
level. His logical faculty was superb, his intuitive
faculty deficient. What is now wanted is another
and greater Paley, to re-write the argument from
design in view of the advance of science.
A 77%ica/ Being.
Paley will be a typical being in the museum of
Heaven, if he has a place there. There never was a
THE UNIVERSE. I43
more strictly logical mind; but he was singularly
lacking in philosophic or metaphysical sweep.
|Wha? 2s ſizs/27acá P
Instinct is the reason of God working. It is an
Organic pre-adaptation of the creature towards certain
pre-determined results. Instinct works mechani-
cally ; it stimulates the bee, for instance, to make
Cones with mathematical exactness. It is commonly
Said that while man has reason, the lower animals
have instinct. But it is also true that a dog, for
example, has reason, and that man has instinct. Or
let us take, not a dog, but even a spider. The Spider
makes webs by instinct; man builds bridges by
reason, through experiment. But, besides its in-
stinct, the spider has from God a little understanding,
So that it can mend its web and adapt its operations
to circumstances. The difference is, that man has a
Sea of reason and a drop of instinct; the Spider, a
drop of reason and a sea of instinct.
The Old Mažeria/ism/z amed the AWezv.
The two are essentially the same. But the old
materialism was metaphysical or ontological in its
method of discussion, while the modern materialism
is scientific.
Old and New meet together.
The “heredity” of Darwinism is just the “ten-
dency” of the atoms of Epicurus writ new.
I 44 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. .
The Fallacy of Evolution. -
You can't get a human soul out of mud. Bricks
the Juggler used to bring eggs and puddings
and singing birds out of his hat. But he had to
slip them surreptitiously in first. And so is it with
Dr. Darwin. -
7%e Conditions of Eristence not its Explanation.
The conditions of existence make existence
possible, and may be said to limit its possibility.
But it is absurd to say that they explain existence.
The conditions of potato culture were present in
Ireland, but the plant had to be brought from
Virginia. It is pleasant for a man to get a house
nicely furnished, and then a wife; but when you go
to see him under such happy conditions, you do not
see in these his explanation
Aſozy Darwin's own Zerms refute him.
y 5 }} {{
Words like “selection,” “adaptation,” “intention,”
and so forth, all imply design, which Darwin denies.
Where Carpenter goes wrong.
As has often been the case with heresy, Carpenter
is right in what he affirms, but wrong in what he
denies.
Wha? 2s Poyce 2
Force is a simple idea, which cannot be reached
by analysis, synthesis, or analogy, but only by ex-
THE UNIVERSE. I 45
perience. Force is “a push,” or “a pull,” which
comes into the experience of our organism in anta-
gonizing gravitation. It is not movement, but that
which tends to produce movement.
As W7// a Fozze P
Strictly speaking, it is not. What is there to show
that it is 2 When an old friend clasps and squeezes
my hand, that is muscle force—bread and butter
force—and ultimately sun force. The will may
direct; but the force is not in proportion to the
volition but to the muscularity, as would be seen if I
were to receive a no less warm welcome from the
Same friend lying on a sickbed, with his frame
enfeebled by disease.
The Control/ing Power of Will.
If she will, the engineer's little girl may with her
little finger set agoing or stop the train.
President Edwards criticised.
There is one apparent fault in Jonathan Edwards;
he fails to keep his terms clean. He was a great
genius, but an imperfectly educated man. He
defines a term in one way, and then uses it in some
other sense. Thus his work on Will was hailed in
Scotland as a bulwark of Orthodoxy; whereas in
England it was worked into the basis of necessitari-
anism, atheism, and materialism.
K
I 46 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
As MŽzed a Suðstance P
Yes ; though not a material one. The definition
of “substance” includes –objective existence, power,
permanence.
The Beauty of St Paul's.
St Paul's Cathedral is wonderful, simply as a mass
of matter reared up toward heaven, but still more
Wonderful as a mass organised through an idea.
There is in it the beauty of unity in multiplicity.
The engineer may calculate the amount of force
required to bring and rear the stones in their places;
So much horse power, man power, or steam power
may be correlated. But to learn the secret of the
structure's beauty, I must turn to the directing mind
which supplied the principle on which St Paul's is
built.
Priority.
Matter or spirit—which comes logically first 2
Materialists and Idealists are often both absurd, but
the former more so. I feel the stove to be hot ; the
consciousness of self-existence is more immediate
than consciousness of the external world.
Physical Events versus Mental Acts.
The Indians, accustomed to see the Sail vessels of
the Europeans, were completely mystified when
THE UNIVERSE. I 47
Steamships were introduced. Without pushing the
analogy too far, we may compare a physical event
to the sail ship, propelled from without ; a mental
act, to the steamship, self-determined, moved from
within.
Best Mode of Argument with Scientists.
Every thought exists in the middle of a chain of
precedences and consequences. We may thus, in
argument, cut the chain either before or behind,
according as we use the scientific or the reductio ad
absurdum method. In dealing with the theories of
scientists, the latter is the more natural for the theo-
logian to take. He has to accept the facts, but can
claim to criticise the inferences and the consequences
from these.
A Meðal/ous D2/emzma.
Here is a dilemma for exponents of the nebulous
theory. If infinite, filling all space, the nebulous
matter cannot cool and concentrate, as the theory
demands, round points of radiation. If finite, the
nebulous matter must have a surface and radiate
heat out on the infinite void, thus becoming, how-
ever great it is, ultimately cold and dead.
A Zºrue /zzference for Hurley.
Living protoplasm and dead protoplasm are
chemically the same, says Mr Huxley. Therefore,
we say, life is not due to their chemical identity.
148 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
Theisma versus Deism.
The difference here is one of usage merely.
Theist strictly includes all who believe in a personal
God; Deist is used to differentiate those who deny
His mundane authority and Supervision.
The True in Deism and Pantheism conserved.
The Deist makes God the first cause of the world,
but regards Him as altogether apart from the
machine He has made and set in operation.
The Pantheist holds God to be immanent in the
world and expressing Himself through it.
The Christian, rejecting the false, combines the true
in both these systems, when he declares that God is
the maker and governor of the world—both transient
and immanent—beyond and above the world, as
well as in it.
A Caveat on Pantheism.
Pantheism does not say, “The universe is God.”
That, in effect, would be atheism. But what it says
is, “The universe is a phenomenon, an existence-
form of God.” God it regards as the esse, under-
lying the attributes or conditions; and a “pheno-
menon,” as its etymology suggests, is a transient
form of being “coming into sight.” To illustrate—
water is the existence-form of Oxygen and Hydrogen.
THE UNIVERSE. 1 49
But these, in their synthesis, may exist as ice or as
vapour too. So God, says Pantheism, may have
many existence-forms.
The Basis of Ažfacé on Pantheism.
The great solvent on Pantheism is our personal
consciousness as intelligent free agents. Aggression
against Pantheism must begin here ; it has no room
for proper personality, though it speaks of a kind of
individualisation. Just as a factory has one generat-
ing force in the boiler, which is individualised in
its application to a thousand different kinds of
machines, SO, according to this theory, will, intelli-
gence, &c., are individualised in a multitude of
human embodiments. Then, if you break the
machine the force remains equal in amount, though
not individualised as before.
Aſozy Polytheism is related to Pantheism.
Polytheism is exoteric in origin (personifying
nature); Pantheism esoteric (deifying Tô Tāv or
To ºv). Can a whole nation be Pantheistic * No ;
haven't got brains enough—that's safe Pantheism
is the greatest generalisation possible. Polytheism
is its needful practical or popular accompaniment.
Who would deify the Devil P
With the Pantheist, everything is a manifestation
of God ; and where there is most power, there is the
fullest manifestation of Him. Now Beelzebub is far
I 50 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
more powerful than a good Presbyterian—more than
a match, indeed, for the whole General Assembly
Hence evil, and Satan himself, come to be deified.
Scientific Pantheism distinguished from Populſar.
According to scientific Pantheism, God and His
existence-form are co-eternal and mutually indis-
pensable. According to Hinduism, Brum existed first,
for a long period, as the Absolute, of which nothing
could be predicated ; thence suddenly arose the
universe, to be again, for a long period, absorbed in
Brum, till at length there will arise another similar
cycle of existences.
Pazz/ºezsäc Schoo/s.
The Ionic school professed a Materialistic Pan-
theism ; the Eleatic, an Idealistic ; the Stoic, a
Hylo-zoic. The Neo-platonists of Alexandria
(which became a kind of Athens in the early
Christian centuries) had an eclectic system. They
held by absorption through ecstasy, somewhat akin
to the Hindu's method of focalising his attention on
Brum (nothing) till he become Brum. However
spiritual Some of these systems of absorption may
profess to be, they are in reality materialistic.
A Zaug/affle Conquest over Brum.
Ancient Pantheism is no match for modern science.
A young English doctor by the judicious use of a
THE UNIVERSE. I 5 I
little ammonia quickly brought a worthy old Hindu
Out of Brum again
7%e Yazakee * 720ſ a Hºndu.
A Hindu whom you wrong may come and die
at your door to spite you, and in order that he may
get a stage or two higher in the new life while you
are sent a stage or two lower down. But you won't
get a Yankee to do that : he wakens up to common
sense between times.
* See note, page I 18.
IV.
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.
Our Knowledge of God.
LL our knowledge of God is to be distributed
under three heads—Deus existens; volens ;
agens. These three categories cover the whole of
Theology proper; and God is immutable in all three
—His persons, purposes, and works.
Wha? 2s God P
The Westminster answer to this question is pro-
bably the best that ever was penned. God having
created us in His own image, His genus is there fitly
affirmed—“a spirit”—and then the specific differ-
ences are added—“infinite, eternal, and unchange-
able,” &c. The next best definition is that of Rein-
hard—“Deus est natura necessaria, a mundo diversa,
summas complexa perfectiones, et ipsius mundi
causa "--i.e., self-existent, extramundane, perfect,
the cause of the world.
A Morious Fame?/y Tree.
Atheism may be divided broadly into (I) practical,
and (2) speculative—the former being atheism in
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. I 53
life, the latter in thought. Speculative atheism
again is of several kinds—(a) sceptical, (b) dogmatic,
(c) virtual. Sceptical atheism may be either per-
Sonal—“I am not satisfied ”—or scientific—“The
point is as yet undetermined for the race” (cf. Hume).
Dogmatic atheism is the rare and irrational kind
which will boldly affirm—“The needle is not in the
haystack.” Virtual atheism consists in holding
opinions which when developed contradict theism ;
So that we might also call it potential atheism. Here
is the bad genealogy :-
Atheism.
|
|
Practical (in life). Speculative (in thought).
|
|
Sceptical Atheism. Dogmatic. Virtual or Potential.
Personal. Scientific.
Essence and Suðstance Distinguished,
These are not exact equivalents. Thus, justice is
of the essence but not of the substance of God.
Essence is a wider term than substance. Anything
belongs to the essence which cannot be withdrawn
without removing that which makes the thing what
Žt is. Thus, taking substance for that which sup-
ports the attributes, essence includes substance plus
attributes.
I 54. BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
Mind and Matter.
The attributes of mind and matter are incompat-
ible, and therefore the substances are distinct. The
phenomena of the one are not to be expressed in
terms of the other.
Attributes, Predicates, Accidents, Properties.
The Attributes of God are the qualities or active
powers which belong to the divine substance. In
the use of Predicates, we regard God as a person,
and affirm His external relations (as Creator, and
the like). Accidents (ad, cado), which may be
added or subtracted from a substance (e.g., the wet-
ness of an indiarubber ball) are never found in
God. All his qualities at any time are attributes,
By Properties in God we mean His internal relations,
within the Trinity.
Accidents in Man though not in God.
Holiness, an essential attribute in God, is, in the
philosophic Sense, an accident in man. In the “four-
fold state”—of innocence, sinfulness, grace, glory—
the maſz is the same all through. So, too, knowledge
may be said to be an accident in man ; a new-born
babe has none. There are no accidents in God ;
but in man there are many.
AVo Idiots in Heaven. -
A babe has intelligence before it has knowledge—
intelligence, not in function but in faculty, not in
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. I 55
posse but in esse. An idiot also has intelligence in
esse, and will not be an idiot in heaven. He may
be compared to a fine musician with a very poor
fiddle, all out of tune. He cannot discourse sweet
music to you here. But take him to heaven and
give him a new fiddle, or a harp with a thousand
strings, and you will see the difference
7%e Simplicity of God.
Simplicity is a term with various different mean-
ings. There is chemical simplicity—that of hydrogen
as Compared with water; mechanica/–that of a stick
which consists of a single piece ; organic—the Sim-
plicity of the type of animal that has only one
Organ ; metaphysical — implying that there is no
distinction between attribute and substance. It was
this last kind—metaphysical simplicity—that was
ascribed to God by the schoolmen.”
* Prof. Park of Andover told his students, in my hearing, a story so
apt in this connection that its insertion in a footnote will be pardoned.
This distinguished New England divine used to break a lance with
the elder Hodge; but the radical of one generation is sometimes the
conservative of the next, and, as one of the revenges brought in by the
whirligig of time, he has now found it needful to become, in turn, a
defender of orthodoxy against the “advanced * school of Andover.
Dr Park was enforcing on his young men, when I heard him, the im-
portance not only of having definite ideas themselves, but of expressing
them in language intelligible to others. A Scotch preacher, he said—
and all Scotchmen, he seemed to think, are more or less metaphysical
—began his prayer one day: “O Thou Simplest of Beings I’” Some
of the honest country folk were horrified ; and the matter found its
way to the presbytery. The offender protested that “he had, of
course, used the word ‘simple’ in the metaphysical sense.” “But the
I 56 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
As there any Zatency in God! ?
The old scholastic affirmed that God is actus
purus—that all that is in Him is expressed. So we
find Dr Shedd saying—“There is no latency in God.”
This is a great mistake. It is true enough of Some
preachers that I know. They have three or four
sermons, which contain all that is in them, actual
and potential ; unlike others, such as Dr Addison
Alexander, who always left the impression, however
great his discourse might be, that there was much
behind. There is latency in God. Wonderful as
His work has been, it is no adequate measure of the
power of its Author. His manifestations give but
a glimpse of what He is. God’s energy is not
mechanical, like that of a fountain. It is the energy
of a person and governed by will. It hath not
entered into the heart of man to conceive what God
has in store.
Omnipresence of God.
God is present at every point of space in every
moment of time. He is thus spaceless and timeless ;
for these are limits which apply not to Him but to
UlS.
people,” said his brethren, “would not understand it in that sense.”
“It was not to them,” he retorted, “that it was addressed ; I was
speaking to the Deity.” “It would not be accepted by Him either,
in that sense,” said the Presbytery; adding a sentence of suspension,
as an encouragement to philosophic preachers to wed clearness of
speech to depth of thought !—C. A. S.
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. I 57
Is God present in Hell ?
God is present everywhere equally as to His
essence, though not as to His power or manifesta-
tion. He is present in hell as much as in Heaven
as to His substance; but His manifestation is widely
different. It is this difference that makes Heaven
and hell what they are. It is the Divine presence
that makes Heaven — God's loving presence in
Christ. It is God's presence, too, that makes hell—
His wrathful presence, His frown, His searching
eye looking right through the fallen spirits who
have impugned but cannot evade His righteous
authority.
As Heavezz /located P
Yes; by the presence, not merely of God, who as
to essence is everywhere, but of Christ. Where He
is, Heaven is—the metropolis of the universe.
The Devil not omnipresent, though “atóiquitous.”
It is idolatry to think of the Devil as omnipresent;
for this is an attribute of God only. Ubiquity is a
different thing from omnipresence, and may in a
loose sense be ascribed to Satan. The ubiquity of
air rests on its great extension ; the ubiquity of a
mosquito arises from rapid motion ; the ubiquity of
a Napoleon consists in extraordinary influence upon
and through others. Satan's ubiquity is of the latter
two kinds—a ubiquity of rapid motion and ramify-
ing influence.
I 58 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
7%e Divine Consciousness.
God's consciousness includes in Synthesis, at any
given moment, past, present, and future — with
absolute accuracy, comprehension, and vividness.
And God's One point of consciousness—His one in-
divisible eternity—is parallel and contemporaneous
with every instant in the current line of time.
A terma/ Consciousness in God.
This may be argued from the case of Adam.
You and I gradually grew into consciousness; but
with the first man it was different. Adam was pro-
duced, not by generation but by creation. He came
into existence right in the middle of things, and in
the midst of ideas. Now if God could create a
Creature in time, with a developed consciousness,
apart from the training influence of external things,
may we not conceive of Himself as eternally con-
Scious apart from creation ?
But the question is plainly answered when we
remember that God is a Trinity. This doctrine
involves (1) that there is one God; (2) that Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost are this one God ; and (3) that
these three are mutually objective persons, who cam
say “T/ou" to one another; while yet (4) they are
one in external relations, one in eternal substance,
having a profound consciousness of identity. Are
we not entitled to say under this doctrine that there
is not only a united consciousness but a triple con-
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. I 59
Sciousness, without supposing which it is impossible
to perceive how one of the persons could, e.g., say,
“I love” (Cf. John xvii. 24)? -
The Measurement of 77me.
To measure time, the external criterion is motion ;
the internal criterion is thought. Some people can
apply this latter test with wonderful exactness. I
used to know a man in Princeton, who, whenever
you might happen to ask him, could tell you the
time, correct within five minutes, without the use of
a watch.
What is Eternity 2
To predicate “eternity” strictly implies (1) no
beginning ; (2) no end ; (3) no succession. Here is
a good Latin definition ; remember it, if you should
forget your grandmother:-"Eternitas est una, in-
dividua, et tota simul.”
God’s Eternity not Ours.
Like the asymptote and the hyperbole, we shall
be always getting nearer God, but never to Him in
our relation to duration. We cannot get out of time
into eternity in God's sense ; for not only has our
eternity a beginning, but we shall always have suc-
cession, which is not the case with God. We shall
have infinitely greater vistas hereafter into the past
and future in one moment than we can have now ;
• ,
©
w
9 @
tº
*
2
3.
ſº
:
:
.
* > g
:
º,
:
I 6O BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
º:
:
and we may live hundreds of our present years in
one moment then. But eternity is God’s relation to
duration ; and on that in the strict sense no creature
Can enter.
A/ow God's Knowledge differs from Ours.
It differs both in range and in quality. He knows
everything; and he knows absolutely. The affirma-
tion that he knows everything may be split up into
the two propositions—that he knows (I) Himself;
and (2) Everything out of Himself. The major part
of God's knowledge is the knowledge of Himself.
This in philosophic phrase is necessary knowledge
(scientia necessaria), not depending, i.e., on His will,
since His own existence does not arise from an act
of will. In knowing Himself, He knows all that
is possible. As for the knowledge of the actual
universe, since all things out of Himself depend for
their existence on God's will, His knowledge of these
is called free knowledge (scientia /76era), or some-
times, inasmuch as things made are seen, the know-
ledge of sight (scientia visionis) as contrasted with
the knowledge of simple intelligence (scientia sim-
plicis intelligentiae).
As Hypothetical Aºmozwledge a Separate Category P
The Spanish Jesuits, Molina and Fonseca, made
much of what they called scientia media—grounding
on it a distinction which was eagerly laid hold of by
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. I 6 I
the Semi-Pelagians, and later by the Arminians. It
was argued by some—If my free act is known
beforehand, it must be certain beforehand, and cannot
therefore be free. To escape this conclusion, the
clumsy invention of “the hypothetically future” was
introduced ; and the divine knowledge of that was
called scientia media—the knowledge that if such-
and—such conditions are granted, so-and-so will result.
But the distinction was a futile one. For instance, I
may predict, that if you put a match to a powder
magazine, you will be blown up. But you need not
call this scientia 7/media : it is simply knowledge of
the properties of gunpowder. Socinians have sought
another way out of the difficulty adverted to, but
have made little of it. Contradictories, they argue,
(e.g., to be and not be), are not objects of power;
therefore God is omnipotent, though he cannot do
contradictories. And similarly, the future free acts
of free agents are not objects of knowledge; there-
fore God is none the less omniscient though these
do not come within His ken. Such makeshifts are,
however, vain. They sound ingenious, but cannot
serve the purpose for which they were invented. It
remains that God, as God, knows everything and
aôsolutely.
V.
THE HOLY TRINITY.
Contrasted Hereszes.
"THE debate is about Christ's divinity—His per-
sonality being conceded; but about the Spirit's
personality—His divinity not being in dispute.
Trinitariazzism infrinsica/My most credible.
God is love, essentially and eternally, and must
have had an object to love. Where P So far from
my regarding the doctrine of the Trinity as some-
thing forced on me aſ extra by Revelation, the
doctrine of a Monotheism like that of the Moham-
medans is to me, intrinsically, far more difficult to
believe. A person cannot in any full sense be con-
ceived as existing without other persons. For my
part, I could sooner be a Tritheist or a Polytheist
than a deistical Monotheist,
Persona/ /Ozsänctions 272 the God/ead.
The Spirit is both substanția and subsistenția.
Father, Son, and Spirit are distinguished in the
THE HOLY TRINITY. I 63
sphere of subsistence, not merely of economic opera-
tion—the difference being, you will observe, how-
ever, one of person not of substance.
An Analogous Mystery.
The mystery of the Trinity is—How Father, Son,
and Spirit can be distinct supposita in one substance.
By a suppositum is meant a distinct, individual
organism, such as a tree—not a branch ; or such as
a person—who is a suppositum of a peculiar kind,
having intelligence and will. But we have a kindred
mystery in our own human constitution, where, in
the foetus, the soul is wrapt round with a body—the
two making together a distinct suppositum. Here
reason fails to furnish an explanation, while it does
suggest an analogy.
Organ versus Function.
In the sense of organ, there is but one intelligence
in God; in the sense of function there may be said
to be three—in holding which I may seem to go
nearer to Tritheism than some would be disposed to go.
God is Zāght.
The Father is light in Himself; the Son, em-
bodied light ; the Spirit, radiant light. In the God-
head there is thus light hidden, revealed, executive.
—No man has seen Light at any time, except as
specifically reflected from a disc; and no man has
seen God at any time except in Christ, the Logos,
I64 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
the effulgence (&ºra'ſ yagua) of the Father's glory.—
It is through radiance that the sun is omnipresent ;
so with God's omnipresence by the Spirit—Light
always tends to reproduce, and countless pictures
are thrown off everywhere, all of which save one are
shut off by the camera obscura in photography. So
by the agency of the Holy Ghost, the image of
Christ is reproduced in the soul, as heaven is re-
flected, toward eventide, in a lake no longer storm-
swept and darkened, but calmed and illumined in
the placid evening light.—No ray of light ever speaks
of itself, but of its source. So the Holy Spirit
reveals to us the things of Christ, and speaks to us
of Him, .
7%e Keystone of Doctrine.
The keystone of doctrine is the divinity of Christ.
There are various methods of proof. One is, by an
induction of Scripture passages, ascribing to Him
divine attributes, titles, works, and relations. Another
method is, to take up several leading doctrines of
Scripture, and by expounding their necessary inter-
relations, to evolve the conclusion that Christ must
be God. This is, at least, a valuable auxiliary
method, after marshalling your exegetical instances,
and focalizing all the divine predicates of Christ.
Deity and Divinity.
These must be distinguished. Men often mean
very little when they say that the Bible, or Christ,
THE HOLY TRINITY. I65
is “divine.” As with the old Semi-Arian distinction
between 6eós and 6 6.e69, they will speak of the
abstract “divine" yet deny the concrete God. The
controversy at Nice, on Övo- and 60 ot-, meant a great
deal. Gibbon sneers that “the whole world was
fighting about a mere iota.” But it was worth
while. It is a miserable thing when men get so
broad and charitable as never to have any fighting.
Rather let us have the Inquisition and a little
blood-letting, than a dead apathy about religious
doctrine,
The Unitarian's Difficulty.
Modern Unitarians are humanitarians. The ablest
man among them is Martineau, who does good
service in defending Theism against the like of
Arnold, but who regards Christ, nevertheless, as only
man. Unitarians will tell you that they could take
the Doctrine of the Trinity at once, if you would
leave out the Divinity of Christ; but they cannot
admit that God and man can be one person. Thus,
if you can prove the Divinity of Christ, you virtually
establish the Doctrine of the Trinity. Granted
the distinct, divine personality of the two first
persons, comparatively little additional evidence is
needed to complete the Trinitarian doctrine.
Analogy for the Mystery of Christ's Person.
Your body is in a sense your “person; ” but when
the separation comes, your Soul and not your corpse
I 66 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
will be your person. The body shares meantime in
the personality of the soul, but its separation and
dissolution would not destroy that. So with Christ's
humanity. It shared in the personality of the
Logos, but could never by its junction, or its separa-
tion, destroy the latter as an individual personal
subsistence.
What constitutes Personality.
In order to personality, there must be intelligence,
will, and individual subsistence. Christ's humanity
had the first two, but not the third, and was not
therefore a person. The Holy Spirit is characterized
by all three, and therefore is a person, Must not
those who impugn this admit that it would be wild
talking to say, under the baptismal formula—“I
baptize thee into the name of Jehovah, and of
Jehovah's Son, and of Jehovah's power/”
The name Holy Spirit.
The third person in the Godhead is called the
Aſoly Spirit, not because Himself more holy than
the other persons, but because He makes holy. He is
the Spirit, because breathed forth, proceeding by
spiration, from God. In this sense of eternal spira-
tion, the Spirit, according to the whole teaching of
Scripture, as contrasted with the Greek Church view,
proceeds equally from the Father and the Son.
THE HOLY TRINITY. I67
The Filioque Clause.
At the Old Catholic Council in Bonn, a few years
ago, it was urged that the phrase ſilioque (“pro-
ceedeth from the Father and the Some *) had been
Surreptitiously introduced into the church doctrine
of the Holy Spirit, and must be given up by the
Western Church if there was to be a general union.
The Greek Church makes the one verse, “the
Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father ”
(John xv. 26), the basis of its doctrine of the Holy
Spirit's procession. But to balance a doctrine on
One text, is like balancing a stool on one leg.—It
must not be overlooked that there are two processions
of the Holy Ghost—(I) in His eternal, essential
personality, and (2) in His sanctifying, comforting
work among men; and it is of importance to
enquire which of these is referred to in any particular
VerSe.
A'evelation and Redemption.
Revelation is from the Father, through the Son,
by the Spirit. Redemption is to the Father, by the
Son, through the Spirit.
VI.
SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION.
The Decrees of God.
ERE you come to one of the watersheds of
doctrine. The question of the decrees divides
Evangelical Christians into two great camps, Cal-
vinistic and Arminian, the point of difference being in
effect this—as to whether God's decrees are deter-
mined by Himself, or by something out of Himself.
The Unity of God's Plan.
All God's works constitute one system ; all His
decrees one purpose. We, being finite, can grasp
His plan only very partially; and we are wont to
speak of His decrees in the plural. But it was one
act by which He, knowing all possible systems, chose
this one.
God’s AWature logically anterior to His Wil/.
Chronologically, there is no before or after in God;
but logically, His nature, with its laws of reason and
righteousness, precedes His will.
SOWEREIGNTY, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION. 169
F/oze different Erfremists overlooked this.
The Arminians on the one hand, and the Supra-
lapsarians on the other, made God's will the origin
of right—forgetting that it is not the greatness of
God but the quality of God, His feature (of which
His will is the expression), that determines right.
The will of an infinite Beelzebub would not make
him the author of right.
God’s Decrees rational.
God's decrees are eminently rational. All His
attributes go into them, just as the whole human
Soul is engaged in willing, or in any other function.
A Canon and its Consequence.
It is a canon, that the first thing in intention is the
/ast in eacecution. We must know the final end
before we can rightly understand the process. Ex-
perience cannot reveal to us the Almighty's final
purpose. Our d prior? intuitions may tell us some-
thing of it; but it is to Scripture we must go.
The Problem of the Wheelbarrow.
Logically, the agent comes before the act, but not
necessarily chronologically. There was a fallacy
when the boy called the wheelbarrow an exception.
Are God's Operations conditioned 2
We men start under law, and have to operate under
it: for instance, in establishing telegraphic commu-
nication with England, we had to use means under
17o BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
law. But God creates the means, as well as appoints
the end. The Unconditioned can become condi-
tioned only through His own will. God, to begin
with, is conditioned simply by His own Nature and
His inter-personal relations. And though He now
works according to the laws of the universe, He is
Conditioned by these only as to His operations. These
very laws are the resultant of His will.
A Rising Scale.
The movement of the automaton is not self-
determined : that of the fly is self-determined, but
not rationally : that of the student is rationally self-
determined : that of God is rationally self-deter-
mined, and free from all aſ extra influence.
The Divine Right of Creation.
God had a right to form a moral system, and to
have a holy universe. Now, holiness is the loyalty
of a free will toward Him, and necessarily implies
the choice of allegiance or rebellion. God might
have determined to create only those who, He fore-
saw, would be faithful to Him ; but He determined
to create the others too, who by their freewill would
sin against Him. God is responsible for the acts of
His necessitated creatures, but not for the acts of
those that have the exercise of freewill.
A'esponsibility for Consequences.
A free agent cannot be held responsible for all
the consequences of his act. A father may be justi-
SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION. I 7 I
fied in putting his son from the house for the sake
of the Sisters and younger boys, though he knows
that Son will go to the devil. The responsibility of
the latter's profligacy does not lie with the father.
When Abraham Lincoln declared war to save the
Union, he knew that crimes would follow—many of
them perpetrated by the Union army itself. But he
was not responsible for these.
Fore-seeing and Fore-ordination.
In the case of human beings, the fore-seeing of a
consequence is not the determination of a con-
sequence. Take the case supposed above. A father
introduces a rule into his family which he regards as
needful for the best good of the whole. Though he
may foresee that it will expedite the ruin of one
boy bent on going to the bad, while it will be the
Saving of the rest, the father cannot be said to deter-
mine the evil consequence to that boy. With God,
however, the case is different. He, in the fore-seeing,
is not placed in the midst of things. He sees all
from the beginning, and if He permits anything thus
foreseen, what is that but equivalent to its “fore-
ordination ” -
The Theological Problem of Sin.
The psychological problem of the origin of evil
may so far be solved ; but the theological is, with
man's present light, insoluble. A priori, I would
expect that in God's universe there would be no sin.
I 72 - BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
A posterior?, there is sin. All that can be said is—
there is an infinite God, and yet there is sin; SO that,
though we cannot explain the permission of evil in
His universe, we cannot declare it inconsistent with
the perfection of any of God's attributes.
The Two Great Mysteries in Theology.
These are—(1) The constitution of Christ's person
(in two natures); and (2) the concursus between
God’s sovereign decree and man's free will.
A/ow much depends on the point of view.
Whoever emphasizes God tends to Calvinism ;
whoever emphasizes man tends to Arminianism.
Just as in looking at the moon we see the stars in
the background, we see, in looking at the Arminian,
Deism behind ; and he, looking at us Calvinists,
sees, or thinks he sees, Fatalism behind us.
Aſozy did God! /arden Pharaoh’s heart 2
He withdrew the Spirit's influence, and thus
allowed him to remain hard and to grow still harder.
Is there such a thing as Chance 2
“Chance" is a relation. The word does mean
something; and it is, therefore, foolish to tell children,
that “there is no such thing as chance.” It is a
relation in which the connection between cause and
SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION. 173
effect is too subtle for our discovery, or too complex
for us to calculate. The planet's motion, for instance,
we can reckon and predict; the fall of dice we can-
not, not because the case is too subtle, but because
the calculation is too complex. So, too, with a pro-
jectile like a cannon ball,—given the direction and
quantity of force, we can tell where it will light. It
is different with the fall of a leaf, owing to its
irregular shape and the uncertain impact of the gusts
of wind that may carry it we know not whither.
Yet, in the strict sense, there is as little “chance” in
the fall of the dice as in the course of the planet, or
in the fall of the leaf as in the destination of the
cannon ball. Chance is not a thing, but a relation.
With God there is no chance—because He knows all
forces and their direction.
Tzvo Calvinistic Distinctions.
There are conditional events; but God's purposes
are not conditional.
God wills by genuine desire sometimes (e.g., “that
all men should be saved"), when not by executive
A2.2%0se.
Are our Freezyż// Actions “determ?med” 2
God does not cause our free acts, but determines
their futurition. These are two very different things.
I think—I feel—I say; but God determines my
action, without causing it. The decree determines
I 74 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
everything—causes nothing. God did not cause
man to sin ; but He pre-determined that He would
sin, and yet created him. - -
What of the Heathem 2
The heathen are condemned and ought to be,
because, Speaking of them as a class, they are born
rascals. I say it with all reverence, and without a
desire of self-will in the matter, that if these men
(and I have been among them) go to heaven as they
are, I don't want to go. Liars, whore-mongers, full
Of all bestiality—look at their state, and say, where
are they going 2 You know whither yon planet is
tending, and where it will be next month ; and you
need be in no doubt as to where these poor souls,
left to themselves, will be after death. Hence it is
poor reasoning to say—don't go on missions to the
heathen, because God can't damn them till they
have heard the gospel !
Election works through the Will.
I tell my son that if he works well this week, I
shall give him an excursion on Saturday. Having
studied his nature, I know that if I leave him alone,
he will slide along and not work. But I know how
to influence him, so as to make him voluntarily work
well all the week, and get the holiday at the end of
it! We find the same principle in an infinitely
higher sphere. Salvation is conditioned on faith;
SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION. I 75
but it is by God influencing some men to believe,
that salvation is secured for them.
Two meanings of “Will.”
“Will” is sometimes put for the conative faculties
generally; sometimes for the faculty of choosing,
or of Self-determination.
Wha? 2s. Vo/7/2072 £
Volition is spontaneity guided by reason. It is an
expression of the freedom to will. This is a very
different thing from freedom to act, as many a poor
captive in chains has known.
A moral Cam'ſ and Won't.
All men are under condemnation. They cannot
believe because they won't. It is a moral (or im–
moral) can't and won't. The very want of belief is
sin, and therefore furnishes no excuse.
The Sovereignty of God 27. Comamaozz Zöſe.
It is said that God is “no respecter of persons.”
But the connection in the epistle of James should be
noted. It is true that God does not respect a shoddy
aristocracy. But He does make differences among
men. Take the child of a pious and high-born lady,
for instance, and the child of an abandoned woman
of the street; have these “the same chance” God
is sovereign.
I76 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
The Order of Decrees.
Supralaſsarian–Elect and damn ; create; permit
fall ; send Christ, &c.
Azz/ra/apsarian—Create ; permit fall; elect ; send
Christ, &c.
A/ypothetica/––Create ; permit fall ; make salvation
possible to all ; give efficacious grace to some.
Arminian—Create; permit fall; provide in Christ
redemption for all ; make result turn on man's free-
will and co-operation.
The Theories Comżrasſed.
The Infralapsarian is the view maintained by
most Calvinists. It puts election before redemption,
therein differing from the Hypothetical theory, which
puts redemption before election, and brings in effi-
cacious grace as an after-thought to prevent total
failure. In putting creation before election, the Infra-
lapsarian is not open to the objection applicable to
the Supralapsarian theory, that God created some in
order to damn them. The hypothetical scheme (of
Amyraut, &c.) is the least logical of all, though
Richard Baxter in England, and also the New Eng-
land school, adopted it. It is a middle ground that
cannot be held ; for if God set out with the intention
of saving all, He would certainly have secured the
result. The Arminian doctrine looks plausible at
certain points, but it does not really relieve any of
the difficulties of Calvinism ; and it is in the latter
SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION. 177
that Atheism in the long run will have to find its
true antagonist.
Are zwe responsible for our state of heart 2
The Arminian says, A man is responsible and
punishable only for his voluntary acts and states.
The Calvinist says, A bad heart, no matter how it
Originated, is wicked and deserving of punishment.
We are responsible for our states as well as our acts.
“Grace,” a word the Arminian should not use.
A man spoils my grandfather, and I come into
the world poor in consequence. By-and-bye, the
man comes to me and refunds. I accept the pay-
ment, but when he puts on an air of condescension
and charity, and talks of liberality, I say—“Stop ;
this is not of grace, but of debt.” Now, Arminians
say that since God allowed Adam to propagate a
sinful race, he owed it to that race, to give them
grace sufficient to be improved to their salvation.
What is this but to make salvation not of grace but
of debt 2 Thus, whatever speculative advantage
their system may seem to have, it leads to a virtual
denial of the doctrine of grace. “Grace" is a word,
indeed, that an Arminian should never utter—that
is, while speaking as a logician ; though happily in
their religious experiences Arminians and Calvinists
are often agreed.” -
* Dr. Charles Hodge remarked, or quoted the remark, one day in
his class, that “Arminians usually pray like Calvinists, and Calvinists
frequently preach like Arminians.”
M
178 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
17°resistible Grace, moz Coercion.
When the wind beat upon the man in Esop, it
made him only draw his cloak the closer round him.
But when the sun made him hot, he by his own will
threw off the cloak, which the storm without had not
torn from him. You might be got out of this room
in two ways : a strong man might come and thrust
you Out, or a beautiful lady might invite and thereby
draw you ! Now, it is an utter misconception to sup-
pose that by “irresistible grace" is meant an ab extra
coercing influence. Grace acts from within, through
the will. The man becomes willing : and so there is
no resistance or desire to offer it. To be “made
willing in the day of God's power” is the highest
liberty.
VII.
PROVIDENCE, ORDINARY AND MIRACULOUS.
What is “Preservation ”2
{{
HE Schoolmen defined preservation to be “a
continued efflux of the vis creatrix" or crea-
tive power of God. We may say that God sustains
things in their essence and form. Thus, water is
hydrogen and oxygen as to essence, while liquidity
is its form—though it may be made gaseous or Solid
also.
A Heresy of Jonathan Edwards.
President Edwards was always brimming over
with ideas of his own, which stood in need of regu-
lating. He sometimes put on paper suggestions
that were never really incorporated in his system,
and thus illustrated the truth of a remark already
made, that though a great genius he had not a
thoroughly educated mind. Thus, in a note, he
throws out the idea, that you come into the world
unholy as the punishment of Adam's sin, and this
because you are Adam as much as you are yourself.
For what, says he, is identity ? It is just a Divine
I 8o BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
constitution, an arbitrary appointment by the will
of God. And, to give colour to his theory, he goes
on to argue, that every creature is at every moment
the product of a Divine volition ; that you are, in
effect, a new being every second, every infinitesimal
flash of time ; that there is no real causal connection
between what you were yesterday and are to-day,
any more than between the successive images of the
candle light upon the mirror. In short, that God
makes you the same with Adam, and therefore you
are rightly held responsible !
It will be readily seen how crude this theory is,
and how subversive of proper identity and genuine
responsibility. But, as has been said, it is nothing
more than an ill-thought-out excrescence on the
system of its eminent author.
God’s Working contrasted with Man's.
All man's working is from without inward ; but
God's is from within Outward, and not mechanical
but vital. A quarrier builds a cathedral by masses
from without, and leaves chips. God builds an oak
from within, and leaves no chips. •
Concurszás.
This is the combination of two causal factors to
produce one effect. It is to be remembered that
God, who can put His finger on every spring of
man's spontaneity, works, in governing, within the
will of men, “both to will and to do.”
PROVIDENCE, ORDINARY AND MIRACULOUS. 18 I
John Stuart Mill on Providence.
“I have never seen any providence,” sneers Stuart
Mill. But this is nothing wonderful. I have never
seen the world revolve, though I have lived upon it
more than fifty years. The broad current carries
the ship with it though you do not mark the track.
And the providence of God encircles you, and your
vessel, and your ocean too ; and while you may take
your Own little path upon that ocean, the ocean,
ship, and passenger are being made subservient to a
Higher Will.
As there such a thing as “Special Providence” P
To admit universal providence and deny special is
nonsense. You might as well talk of a chain with-
Out any links. People often say in a loose kind of
way, “That seemed quite providential ” meaning
by it just, “very lucky for me!” But, supposing
you had not happened to look round when the pick-
pocket came to close quarters, would that not have
been providential too Providence is special,
because it is universal ; and it is universal because
it is special.
A Good Story of Dr Witherspoon.
Men often talk absurdity when looking at truth
from a merely subjective point of view. A man who
was driving along a road near Dr Witherspoon's "
* Dr Witherspoon, from Paisley, was one of the Presidents of
Princeton College, and one of the signatories to the Declaration of
Independence.
I 82 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
house was pitched out of his vehicle, but escaped un-
scathed. Hurrying into the Doctor's study, he told
his story in an excited kind of way, and ended with
the ejaculation—“Wasn't it a wonderful providence!”
“Hoot, man, that’s naething of a providence Com-
pared to what I can tell of,” quietly remarked the
Sagacious old Scotchman; “I’ve driven doon that
Same road for years and years, and my horse hasna
been allowed even to run off wi' me !”
Aleið727/2’s “Coincidences.”
Leibnitz denies the connection between volition
and act. If somebody strikes you, and your fist
flies out and knocks him down, is there any con-
nection between the volition and the act 2 No, says
Leibnitz; SO far as you are concerned, it is a pure
coincidence It might, however, be difficult to
persuade the other man of this.
7%e “Axe?"czse Sc/te/Ze.”
Dr Emmons held the principle of divine efficiency
creating all the series of exercises in the soul—re-
generation itself being a mere change in the series.
He was a virtual Pantheist. Dr N. W. Taylor
held the “exercise scheme * in a modified form.
Professor Barker drew his argument from the
correlation of forces: “All force is one; the only
force is will ; all force is God.”
PROVIDENCE, ORDINARY AND MIRACULOUS. 183
Oójections to the Theory of “Concursus.”
There is a general truth under the idea of “concur-
sus,” viz., that God co-operates with the creature in his
act as a cause along with him. But when the doctrine
is pressed to mean, that God influences every creature
to act in a special zway, it evidently becomes open to
serious objection. Sin, for example, presents a great
difficulty to those who argue for this kind of “con-
cursus.” They tried to get over it by saying that
the entity of the action was assignable to God, and
the quality of it to man. The greatest musician will
bring discord out of an ill-tuned fiddle ; and sinners
are instruments out of tune. Two men walk the
street—one rhythmically, the other limping. The
volition is the same in both, and so are the streams
of nervous influence passing through the limbs from
the brain. The mind is the author of the step ; the
lame leg, of the limp. Such illustrations are in-
genious and suggestive ; but the concursus doctrine,
though sanctioned by some of the greatest names
in theology, and therefore not to be pooh-poohed,
has to be handled with great care, as tending to
Pantheism through the denial of the real efficiency
of Second causes.
Wha? 2s a Mºracle P
It is “an event in the physical world, obvious to
the senses ; the immediate specific cause of which is
184 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
the will of God directly acting ; accompanying a
teacher sent from God, and designed as a divine sign
to authenticate his divine mission and doctrine.”
AWature and Žhe Supernatura/.
All admit that the universe governed by natural
law is nature. Man's freewill is supernatura/ There
is a further distinction between man and the super-
/.../mazz. And then there is a sense in which God
alone is “ex-lex; ” and a distinction to be main-
tained between Him and the whole universe besides.
7%e Analytic Method applied.
To understand what a miracle is, analyse one,
and so find out its esse apart from its differentia.
Take, e.g., the floating of the axe in the Old Testa-
ment, which appears to be one of the simplest pos-
sible miracles. There can be no higher natural law
making ordinary iron float in Ordinary water. God
simply interpolates among the sum of existing forces
that which either antagonizes gravity or increases
the density of water, so that the iron rises. Even
we can interpolate new causes. Is there any ante-
cedent improbability that God should do so 2 In
America here, the natural laws of weather have been
altered by man cutting down great forests that
covered millions of acres. Why should not God
directly interpose a new cause which will affect the
sum of forces and produce a new equilibrium ?
PROVIDENCE, ORDINARY AND MIRACULOUS. I 85
A Fallacy of Hume's.
Hume says, We believe evidence because of ex-
perience. That is false. If you come to my house,
my little nephews and nieces will believe everything
you tell them. But I who have had fifty years'
experience won’t believe the half! -
Al/?racles and AVoſt-mezracles.
If it be asked how we are to know a miracle from
a merely marvellous event, it is answered—Some
things are indisputably miracles, from (1) Their very
ſlature, e.g., the vivifying of a man who had been
dead four days; (2) Their circumstances, e.g., un-
lettered Jews accomplishing what science with all
its advance cannot do yet ; (3) Their lack of means,
e.g., a result accomplished through a word ; (4) 7%eir
relations, e.g., as signs standing in relation to a
System.
Postulates which will carry Hume's Conclusion.
If there is no God, and if we have to view so-called
miracles as isolated events, then Hume is right;
and no amount of evidence will make me believe
that iron could float.
Sporadic Miracles Unreal.
A sporadic miracle I would never believe. Though
old Dr John M'Lean * even were to take us all
* A well-known and highly esteemed veteran in Princeton.
I 86 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
down to the graveyard and raise up a man who
looked like Jonathan Edwards, it would weigh
nothing with me. A purposeless, isolated miracle
proves nothing. The miracles of Scripture are not
mere addenda to revelation, but are themselves
media of the communication of truth.
VIII.
MAN AS MAN.
7%e Origin of Man.
HE creation of man comes under the head of
miracle. He was not made out of nothing,
but from existing matter as to his body, by the
interpolation of a new cause.
Spontaneous Generation.
This theory found a prominent defender in
Bastion : and Crosse claimed to have produced a
plant by means of an electric current. But most
men of science hold the old axiom, “omne vivum
ex ovo,” or, more correctly, “ex vivo.” Many of
them, however, deny spontaneous generation, on
the ground that spontaneity does not exist in the
universe ; though there is a sense in which the
mouse is spontaneous, that the ball of yarn made
like it is not.
Mind, the Originator of Movement.
We cannot rest in the belief that matter originates
movement; but Soul can. The mere physicist vainly
I 88 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
tries to show, that your volition is just one of the
sparks of electricity generated through your eating
so much buckwheat, molasses, and butter.
The “reductio ad aā surdum ” of Materialism.
It is surely an absurdity, amounting to a total
denial of the spiritual side of man's nature, to reduce
all consciousness—all conscience, all thought, all joy,
up to joy in the Holy Ghost—to a mere molecular
change, a piece of physical mechanics |
Darwin's Zaws of Evolution.
The word “development" is a characteristic word
with men of science. But it implies “invelopment;”
or, as Joseph Cook expresses it—“You can’t have in
your evolution more than was put into your involu-
tion.” There is no doubt that the laws pointed to
by Darwin and Wallace exist, and are at work, with
beneficial results everywhere. They are divinely
appointed laws, and they explain very clearly the
variations of species. But they do not afford even
the suggestion of the origin of species. These are
permanent, distinct varieties, not shaded off into one
another. You may have dogs greatly variegated, or
cats; but they remain distinct species.
Many /l/?ssing Zinés in Darwinism.
Besides the logical objection already instanced, it
may be urged that Darwinism makes matter do the
work of mind ; that it gives no account of the origin
MAN AS MAN. 189
of mind itself; that the hypothesis gets no further,
at best, than “it might be SO;” and that it leaves
many missing links unaccounted for. Its adherents
require infinite time. But time is not itself a cause ;
it is only the condition of the operation of a cause
towards a result.
Does Inte//igence or Organization come first P
All religion demands that you begin with intelli-
gence, and go on to organization. But modern
theorists reverse this. They begin with organization
and rise toward intelligence,—through that of the
tadpole up to Tyndall himself, who may be supposed
to be the nearest approach to God that has yet been
made
Two Áinds of Evolution.
When Christian people say, “Evolution means
Atheism,” a distinction should be observed. If it is
Darwinianism they mean, they are right to demon-
stration. But evolution in the Duke of Argyll's
A'eign of Lazy sense may be admitted consistently
with Christianity; so that, when other Christian
people are found saying, “Evolution does not mean
Atheism,” they too may be right.
Darwin and Agassig at Opposite Extremes.
Darwin magnified the power of variation on One
original germ. He emphasized the principle of
unity.
I 90 BREVIA THEOLOGICA,
Agassiz went to the other extreme. He denied
the possibility of variation, and emphasized fixity of
type. But this led him to assert several Adams,
as explaining the Caucasian, Mongolian, and other
Iſa CCS.
Thus, while we hail Agassiz as an ally against
Darwin, we can go only a certain distance with him.
We see marvellous changes of variety going on in
the world, both of men and of beasts.
A Palºg/e for Darwinians.
If there is no change in a thousand years, how
much will there be in ten thousand 2 Hybridism is
not explained by Darwin.
G24/oz's Characteristics.
Professor Guyot has three eminent qualifications
that too seldom meet. He is a man of excellent
literary education (having been a professor of
history); a man of acknowledged attainments in
science ; and, withal, a humble believer in the Bible
as God's revelation.
Adam neither Savage nor Civilized.
Savagism is a process of degradation. Civilization
is a process of artificial education. But Adam was
put in medias res, into the midst of a process. He
was not born with a college diploma, and had none
MAN AS MAN. I 9 I
of the arts and sciences behind him. In many things
he had to get experience in the same way as an
infant. He knew many things, taught him by God;
but he was still a sort of inspired child.
Body versus Soul.
The body is constituted, the soul is created. The
Bible gives us both the analysis and the synthesis.
Potence or Impotence 2
That incompatible attributes cannot be predicated
of the same substance, we believe, not through a
mental impotency, but through a mental potency.
Scientific Correlation no Novelty.
The correlation of mental and physical causes and
effects, so much insisted on by modern philosophers,
is as old as Adam and Eve. I am pretty sure that
Eve had blushed when Adam courted her, and that
she started when the wild bulls around scared her.
The Body, part of the Person.
While united to the soul, the body is part of the
person. If a person strikes my body, then I say,
“He struck me : he committed a personal assault.”
Trichotomy.
We do not argue against the Trichotomy which
merely asserts two entities, and a third which is the
I 92 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
resultant of the union of the two (as when blue and
yellow make together green). But spirit and Soul
are the same thing in different relations. Angels
have spirits, but not souls, in common parlance. The
spirit in relation to a body is soul. Take soul out of
body, and you have ghost and corpse.
IX.
MAN AS SINNER.
The Pre-existence Theory.
HE theory of Origen about a pre-existent state
would explain original sin, if true. It has had
the adherence in this country of Edward Beecher,
who, though overshadowed in the popular eye by
Henry Ward, his brother, has more knowledge of
theology than the latter seems likely to have after
he has been in heaven for a thousand years | But it
must be observed about this hypothesis—(1) that
Scripture is silent about it; (2) that Scripture, in
teaching that sin is derived from Adam, is opposed to
it; and (3) that Consciousness tells nothing whatever
of a previous state. Certainly a baby does not look
like a scarred old warrior either, but like a young
life—very wicked often and very cruel, no doubt,
but hardly to be set down as of demoniacal origin
The Covenzazzz zwith Adam.
The Adamic covenant was not an arbitrary thing,
but in accordance with all analogy. Our race got
the best possible chance, in our first parent. God
N
I 94. BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
might have kept Adam and his posterity in an
eternal state of unstable equilibrium. But such a
life on the brink of a precipice would have been a
kind of hell. Adam, therefore, had a great oppor-
tunity of securing blessedness by a right choice;
and God tested him as kindly and gently as possible.
Yet Adam took the ground—“If you say I shan’t,
why then I will.” He had no excuse. The fault was
certainly not God's. Adam decided his equilibrium,
but in the wrong direction—not towards impecca-
bility, but toward sin and condemnation.
A S/ºp of the Pen at Westminster.
The Larger Catechism, in speaking of the Coven-
ant of Life, says it was entered into, upon condition
of “personal, perfect, and ſerpetual obedience.”
This is a slip of the pen. The terms would hardly
have suited us. God could not have promised ever-
lasting life as a reward of “perpetual '' obedience.
But man would have been confirmed in holiness as
the reward of his obedience when tested.
The Færsø Sacrameezz/.
Every Covenant has a Sacrament. That with
Noah had the Rainbow ; that with Moses, the Pass-
over; that with New Testament believers, Baptism
and the Lord’s Supper. So the Covenant of Life
had as its Sacrament the Tree, of which God would
not permit Adam to partake after he had sinned.
MAN AS SINNER. I 95
Angels and Men contrasted in their Trial.
In both cases there was instable equilibrium
morally ; then probation ; to be followed either by
confirmation or by condemnation. The angels had
right dispositions; but they were not at first put in
a state of stable equilibrium, any more than other
new created moral beings. They, too, were put to
the test.
But there is this contrast, that angels are pure
spirits, while men are spirits connected with a human
organisation. God had, of course, the right to
create a human race, making man spirit and animal
at the same time, and a race propagated, unlike the
angels, by generation. And whereas angels were
severally tried, men, as a stirps or race, could be
differently yet justly tried, under the most favour-
able conditions, in their fontal head.
Adam, not Fwe, our Representative.
It was Adam, not Eve, who stood as our repre-
sentative ; though Dr Krauth, in his “Conservative
Theology” (the best book on Lutheran theology in
the English language), always speaks of Adam and
Eve as Our dual representatives. It was Adam who
stood for us, and Adam’s first sin that wrought our
woe. It is his apostatizing act which assumed a
status of rebellion, that is imputed to us; and
not his sinfulness, or his acts in general. And it
is the punishableness (reatus poenae) and not the
I 96 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
subjective stain (macula) of that act which is
imputed.
Mediate /m/utation.
The distinction between Immediate and Mediate
Imputation was not made till after Imputation was
denied by Placaeus. It is not a valid distinction,
but a mere lawyer-like evasion of condemnation on
the part of Placaeus.
Ante-AWatal Forfeiture.
General Lee's child, born during the war, was
born in a state of ante-natal forfeiture, because his
father was a rebel. This analogy may throw some
light on the question of the relation of Adam's sin
to our natal condition, while it is true that God is
holy and could not de novo bring a creature into
existence sinful and prone to fall.
The Consequence of a Consequence.
Men are born under condemnation as a penal con-
sequence of Adam's transgression. There are other
consequences. The damnation of hell is one of these.
But I believe that children dying in infancy escape
this for Christ's sake, and that no one is sent to hell
because of Adam's sin alone. Sumner claimed
Consequential damages from Great Britain, holding
her responsible for the consequences of the conse-
quences as far as these could be traced. Without
MAN AS SIN NER. I 97
going into the merits of that dispute, we may say
that the punishment of the finally lost is the penal
consequence of their actual transgression, which
again is traceable, through original sin, to Adam’s
transgression.
The How and the Why of Simfulness.
The question of how is to be distinguished from
the question of why we are born corrupt. How is
sin transmitted, or how does the fact that Adam was
a sinner make us sinners ? Why, on what principle
of justice, are children brought into the world in a
sinful state 2 The historic order in dealing with
such questions is—Adam's sin, imputation, original
sin ; and this is the order of treatment in the Syste-
matic Theology textbook. But in teaching a class,
it is perhaps better to begin at the other end—
taking what we are, and are conscious of being,
and what the Scripture definitely teaches as to Our
state, before considering how and why we came to
be what we are. The New England Root Theory
of the propagation of sin deals only with the how.
What raises the question, Why?
If there be no person behind the law, then the
question as to Aozy we are born sinners is exhaus-
tive. But if there is a person behind it, then you
must face the question of why. The only answer
some give is—In sovereignty. We say rather—In
I 98 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
justice. The latter answer is adopted by the Real-
ists, who have their own way of defending the penal
character of our born sinfulness. They do not say
with the Calvinist, that such an infliction is just
because all men were represented by Adam, but
because “humanity” was summed up or embodied
in him. This is at bottom a materialistic theory,
making us all, in a very literal sense, “chips of the
old block.” When Realism is fully worked out, as by
Nevin (one of the ablest men America has produced),
it lands us in virtual Romanism. My conscience is
not touched by telling me that I was in Adam as to
my pſals; and if it be admitted that responsibility
is in the essence of it personal, then the Realistic
doctrine cannot stand. On the question of why
men are born corrupt, the different views may be
tabulated thus –
Corruption.
Pre-existent. Consequent.

Natural and arbitrary. Penal and just.
(The Root Theory.)
Realistic. Representative.
A’ome's view of Mazz's Fa//
Adam, according to the Romish theory, was like a
pith man with a little lead in his head. His animal
nature of itself tended to go against conscience;
MAN AS SINNER. I 99
but the dona supernaturalia held him straight for
a while. When these were lost, he turned upside
down. The theory runs through all the Romish
theology. As man's original state was negative,
awaiting Supernatural gifts, so a child is born like
new created Adam before he was so gifted ; not
with a moral bias to evil, but with a languor result-
ing from disease. He is in a state of unstable
equilibrium.
Objections to this view.
Sin, they say, is & Tağla ; righteousness is ejºraća ;
and the innate tendency of the lower appetites was
Counteracted by the dona supernaturalia, which, like
a ring round refractory sticks, kept them from flying
apart into disorder. If this ring was once put on
by God, how, it may be asked, could it get off
again But, more particularly, it may be objected
to Rome's doctrine—(1) That it makes Original
Righteousness aſ extra and unessential ; (2) that it
founds on the Manichaean idea, that sin is seated in
the body ; and (3) that it is really semi-Pelagian,
in accrediting man still with the power of contrary
choice, and doing away with the need of grace.
Concupiscence.
This word, like its synonym /ust, has a wide as
well as a narrow sense, and in Romish theology often
stands for the disorder (&raća) of the whole nature.
2 OO BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
A Complicated View of the Fall.
The Semi-Pelagians make the doctrine of the Fall
very complicated. They say that Adam was tried
and stood ; then he was rewarded with the dona
supernaturalia ; then he was tried again, and fell.
This is, in the first place, not recorded in Scripture ;
and, further, it immensely increases the psychologi-
cal difficulty of the case.
7%e Romanists and a S/ºut Augustine.
The Papists were brought up to believe a shut
Augustine; when Augustine was opened, they did
not like it. The difficulty about the Council of
Trent Doctrine is, as to whether it held the positive
element in original sin.
Judicial Abandonement.
Every creature depends upon God according to its
nature. Man was created with positive inclination to
holiness; but his highest life depended on something
aff extra : viz., on communion with the Spirit of
God. The instant Adam sinned, when sin was
matured in his soul, he died. God now creates
souls judicially in a state cut off from the influences
of the Holy Ghost. Thus original sin is, negatively,
a state of life without God's Spirit. But whenever
the child begins to act, the positive sinfulness shows
itself.
MAN AS SININER. 2O I
Eternal Death.
Adam's apostatizing act is imputed to men as the
ground of punishment in spiritual death. Then,
through this death and corruption as medium, comes
eternal death. Eternal death is thus mediated
through spiritual death.
The Plasticity of Human Nature.
The Jews by “marrying in " have so intensified
family characteristics that, if you had a Jewish
ancestor sixteen generations back, he would cast
your countenance. If one Smith marry another
Smith, and their child marry a Jones—why, don’t
you see that the Jones family face hasn’t a fair
chance in the next generation | The plasticity of
human nature is illustrated by this.
A Repulsive Aspect of 77 aducianism.
There are attractions in Traducianism, such as the
explanation it seems to offer of sinful and natural
dispositions. But its materialistic aspect is repulsive,
making, as it does, the architectonic principle of a
life to lie not in the soul but in the body. May not
God create individual souls, and yet make them like
the parent 2 or may there not be a soul-propagation
which we cannot explicate 2 We are by no means
shut up to Traducianism.
A'ealism and 7 raducianism go together.
Thomas Aquinas was a Realist and yet a Crea-
tionist; and there have been Traducian Nominalists.
2O2 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
But it seems to be the only consistent position—to
be both Realist and Traducianist, or else neither.
Creationism has prevailed in Calvinistic churches
and even in Roman Catholic circles ; while Tradu-
Cianism has prevailed among Lutherans.
A/ugh Miller's Aphorism on Heredity.
“The freewill of the parent is the destiny of the
child.” This saying of Hugh Miller's has many
applications. It has had no fuller illustration than
in the issue of our first parents' act of freewill in
sinning against God. Owing to that, God permits
us by judicial abandonment to be born sinners. He
is related to us on two planes, the providential and
the Spiritual ; and He has but to withdraw from us
the gracious influence of His Spirit, and we are
Spiritually dead. When, on the other hand, Christ's
righteousness being credited to the elect, the Holy
Ghost is restored, life and sanctification are the con-
sequence.
How does Christ escape Pollution ?
Imputation of Adam's sin to us causes pollution
in us; but imputation of our sin to Christ causes no
pollution in Him. The reason is, that in us it causes
withdrawal of the Spirit, and consequent death, but
not in Christ, who was God-Man. For Adam's sin,
the souls of men are put beyond the sphere of life.
MAN AS SINNER. 2O3
For Christ's righteousness, His people are brought
within that sphere.
|Wha? 2s S2/2 2
Sin is that which does not square, or homologate,
whether in act or in state, with law. The Shorter
Catechism definition of sin is better than the King
James version of I John iii. 4, “Sin is the trans-
gression of the law.” Under j čwapTia èa Tiv j čvouta
—“want of conformity” either by excess or defect is
certainly included.
A Definition of Sin.
“Forma peccati (the logical essence of sin) est dis-
convenientia actus, habitus, aut status hominis, Cum
lege divina.” Want of conformity may exist under
any of these three categories—act, habit, state.
7 wo AE/ements in Sán.
Two things have to be noted in sin—reatus, its
relation to punishment; and macula, its relation to
the holiness of God.
The Mystery of Evil.
The existence of physical evil would be itself a
mystery, were it not for the existence of moral evil.
The elder Mill, reasoning from the amount of sin and
misery in the world, attempts to attribute it to the
limitations of God. The problem of evil is the great
focus of doubt, the grand abyss of Scepticism.
2O4. BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
Audamzonism.
As the blades of scissors coming together serve one
end, so, according to the eudaemonistic theory, arch-
angels and devils are made by God to work together,
though opposites, for the highest good.
7%e Mystery of Sin twofold.
There is the theological mystery—why could God
have permitted it 2 There is also the psychological
mystery—how could the first wrong volition originate
in the holy soul of Adam 2
Pain in itself.
Of itself, pain will tend to make men only worse.
To make them better, it needs to be improved by
moral and spiritual influences. This may be very
simply shown, by merely pommelling a bad boy.
Two Aïnds of “Guilt.”
Reatus, which is the concrete of reus (guilty) is
distinguished into reatus culpae (blameworthiness)
and reatus poenae (liability to punishment). Only
the latter kind was predicable of Christ, or is
removed by Him from sinners.
Imputation.
The word translated “impute" is Xoyiſowat,
sometimes also rendered “reckon.” It means “to
charge to ” or “accredit with,” as a ground for a
MAN AS SINNER. 2O5
certain line of treatment, either something of our
own or of another. Imputation must be just, that is,
it must have some sufficient ground ; and Adam's
sin, though not personally, is organically or repre-
sentatively ours.
Three Views of Man's State and Need.
The Pelagian says—Man is well, and simply needs
teaching. The Semi-Pelagian — Man is sick, and
needs medicine. The Augustinian—Man is dead,
and needs a new creation.
“A/a.02/m/s '' versus “AZaúzz.”
“Habitus,” in Latin, signifies a condition, whether
innate or acquired. “Habit,” again, ordinarily
means no more than a state or condition which is
the result of past action modifying the present and
future action of faculties. This distinction in usage
should be remembered. Sin, as a kind of moral
scrofula, is not a change of substance or faculty, but,
in the Latin sense, of /abāţals.
How the character of an act may vary.
A blow may be unintentional and devoid of moral
quality, e.g., from St Vitus' dance; intentional, but
not responsible, e.g., that of a maniac; intentional
and dastardly, e.g., that of a bully; intentional and
virtuous, e.g., that of a grieved parent. The act
depends on the volition, and the volition on the in-
2O6 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
tention, and the intention on the permanent disposi-
tion or habit. The goodness or badness of the
volition rests on the underlying state.
Perfectionism.
If a man claim perfectionism, ask him whether
states, desires, &c., are of the nature of sin, or merely
what he calls acts 2
The Fata/ity of One Transgression.
If you are hanging from a branch at the top of a
precipice, you are “gone" the moment it snaps, as
truly as when you have reached the bottom.
W/at is Regeneration 2
It is a divine act, which changes the habitus. We
have free will as much as Adam. But the reason
why we cannot originate holy acts is, that Our
/abitus is wrong.
Fvidence of Original Sin.
If dice, being thrown IOOO times, always turn up
sixes, you say the dice are loaded. So with babies.
They come into the world as thick as those flakes of
snow to-day: and they always come “sin up.” How
do you explain it The dice are loaded.
Spiritue/ and S'piritual.
A spirituel girl is one who is the reverse of animal
or fleshly,–whose body is dominated by /ier Spirit.
MAN AS SININER, 2O7
A spiritual woman is one whose whole nature is
dominated by the Spirit of God.
Aze //zerº ever diszzzzez’esſed P
If you demand disinterestedness in the sense of
gratifying no principle of one's nature, your quest is
hopeless; it can't be found. A missionary is dis-
interested, though he is gratifying love. So was an
Italian, who led a man into mortal sin, and then
stabbed him, that he might straightway go to eternal
damnation. Disinterested he sacrificed himself for
hate. The truth is, that disinterestedness, as it is
called, is in itself neither good nor bad. Its quality
depends on its motive, and on whether it terminates
or not on self. The devil is as disinterested as
Gabriel ; but the one is prompted by hate, and the
other by love to God.
A Thirteenth Century Methodist.
Thomas Aquinas, in his doctrine of man's salva-
tion, stood where the Methodist is to-day. He held
that men need prevenient grace, to begin the move-
ment, and that then they can co-operate.
The Scotists.
They were named from Duns Scotus. You see
the Scotchman at the bottom of a great deal. But
this one wasn't a good Presbyterian : he was a Semi-
Pelagian.
2O8 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
Arminianism.
In the American and temporary sense, Arminians
are Wesleyans ; but historical Arminians (the Re-
monstrants) were very different. Arminius himself
bears about the same relation to Arminianism that
Americanus Vespuccius bears to America, a land
which he did not discover. Arminius was a Pres-
byterian and half a Calvinist, like Wesley. The
supralapsarianism of Beza and Gomarus drove him
rather far the other way. Then Curcellaeus, Lim-
borch, and others, carried out the system, till at length
it approached very near to Socinianism.
Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians.
The first say, Ability measures off/igation ; the
second, You are responsible for self-induced ha&zás.
Arminian View of Responsibility.
Arminians make us responsible for our states, not
because of their nature, but because of their Origin.
This would absolve all children from sin of state.
They further say that God could not have damned
any of Adam's descendants unless He had provided
“gracious ability,” with salvation through Christ and
the Spirit.
An Analogy for Sin in Man.
“Ole Bull” is author of the sound ; the bad fiddle
of the discord. But suppose he made the fiddle ; is
MAN AS SIN NER, 2O9
he not responsible for it as well as for the music
Ah, but it is constitutionally a good fiddle, though
now Sadly out of tune.
AVegaſion versus Privation.
A stone can’t see ; that is negation. A dog can’t
See ; that is privation, because seeing belongs to its
nature. So, said Augustine, sin in man is a priva-
tion ; it is a moral defect, because he ought to be
holy and to love God.
Moral versus Physical Condition.
If a poltroon put out an eye to avoid the con-
Scription, Government might punish him for that act,
but has no right to punish him afterwards for not
using a faculty he does not possess. If by neglect
at College, I am without eyes I might and should
have had, I was blameworthy; but I cannot be
punished for not using intellectual faculties I have
not. In the moral sphere it is different ; states
of mind have character, however they were brought
about. In failing to recognise this, the Arminians
erred in their half-way opposition to the Pelagian
theory—holding men responsible for only their self-
induced habits and self-produced acts.
A amž and the Sum of Morality.
There is nothing harder for us than to control our
affections. Now, the sum of the law is, to love God
O
2 IO BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
with all your heart: but you cannot love what you
don't love by a mere act of will. Yet Kant founds
on the axiom—“I ought: therefore I can.”
Christ made Sim—/how P
It was not the actus or the haëzfus, but the status
of sin Christ took. He gives us the status of righte-
ousness by justification ; but He also provides
for the habitus of righteousness in us, through
sanctification of the Spirit, whereby we are enabled
to produce the actus.
An Uzzzwarrantable Statement.
If God had not purposed to introduce redemption,
I believe that he would not have allowed Adam's
posterity to be born. But I cannot say with the
Methodists that it would not have been 7ust for Him
to have done so. They thereby make the sending
of salvation a matter of Compensation, rather than
of free grace.
A. a Christian : B. mot—why P
Where shall we seek the explanation of the differ-
ence between these two hearers of the same Gospel ?
The Pelagian answered—“A.’s purpose was suffi-
cient : he willed it, and he became a Christian.”
The Semi-Pelagian says —“A, did his best, and
God helped him.”
MAN AS SINNER. 2 I I
The Arminian says—“A. used the gracious abil-
ity, the prevenient grace, given by God to all, while
B. did not.”
The Zutheran says—“A. and B. both needed pre-
venient and co-operating grace. Neither could
co-operate, but either might resist. B. did resist,
while A. did not. Hence the difference.”
The Calvinist says—“A. was regenerated by the
grace of Almighty God.”
Under the Surface.
You Sometimes See a man struggling against his
Surging passions, and, by the aid of Some one fixed
principle, deep down, Overcoming and going against
them all. So have I seen an iceberg bearing along
in opposition to the Atlantic currents. But it did
not go without a motive. Deep down was the Gulf
Stream, quietly influencing the great mass.
Aersonal Freedo?/2.
Consciousness tells me that I have the power of
originating action ; and the immediate knowledge
which we have in the intuitions of consciousness is
the surest of all evidence.
“A zwant to believe, but can't.”
It is liberty of the man, not of the will, that we
have to keep clearly in view. A man says—“I
want to come to Christ, but can't.” I say—“You
2 I 2 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
don't want to come to Him, in the sense of giving
up sin, and giving up yourself to Him ; else you do
come to Him.” In a revival, an important question
is, Do converts want to be holy 2 Do they want the
“old man” in them to be broken up 2 Do they
want God’s justice to be righted 2 Or do they
merely want a new exciting experience, and, look-
ing beyond that, to escape hell ? The man I have
supposed does not, in the full and proper Sense,
“want to come.” The Bible declares—“And ye
shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for
me with all your heart” (Jer. xxix. I3).
X.
GOD's LAW AND MAN's DUTY.
The Foundation of Morals.
ROTIUS tried to found morals on nature. He
was a Christian ; but Kant, who followed
him, was a Deist; and many who follow Kant are
philosophical atheists.
A Waſers/ted.
Does good depend on the nature or on the will of
God 2 Here we have the watershed of much doc-
trine. Grotius, and others, making it depend on
God's will, prepared the way for the supralapsarian
doctrine, that God made men in order to damn
them. And further, if right depends on mere
divine volition, the doctrine of Atonement is de-
stroyed ; for if by an act of will God could have
made it right for sinners to get off without any
penalty being attached to sin, then Christ would not
have died. The will of God is rightly taken as the
absolute and perfect rule for us. Yet, as a matter
2 I 4 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
of analysis, God's own holiness precedes His will,
and is not a product of His volition. Right is
founded in the mature of God.
The Zyranny of Crozwds.
A true man must stand up against crowds in
America, as they have had in Europe to resist kings
and popes. w
Why should the Zazy of the Land be obeyed?
I must not, for instance, poach in England, be-
Cause it is the law of the land ; and I have to obey
the law because it conduces to the wellbeing of man,
which I am bound to further by the law of God.
Of course, if I am convinced that a law is not so
Conducive, it is open to me as a loyal citizen to
strive to have it altered.
What Guilt implies.
As liability to punishment, “guilt” implies an ob-
jective personal reference to an external lawgiver.
What Circumstances may do.
To drink a glass of wine is not wrong in itself, but
circumstances may make it sinful. It may be, e.g., a
Stumbling-block to others. Or it may be done with
GOD's LAW AND MAN's DUTY. 2 I 5
a wrong intention, e.g., a blasphemous act, or a trea-
Sonous act, such as drinking to the health of your
Country's enemy.
Where can the Church draw the line about Drink 2
It is quite true that one man gets drunk with two
glasses, and that another may drink a quart with
impunity. If it be asked, Ought not drinking to be
absolutely forbidden to both 2–the answer must be,
No, not on Scripture ground. I am prepared as a
citizen to vote for a prohibitory bill ; but I am not
prepared to discipline every man who drinks a glass
of wine. And why Because Christ does not for-
bid drinking. But He does forbid getting drunk ;
and, as far as Church discipline is concerned, we
have to draw the line just where the Bible does.
Distinctions among even Divine Zazws.
The primary laws of love and justice are more
fundamental than certain laws which are based upon
them—e.g., those concerned with property and those
bearing on the matrimonial relation. These may be
waived by God, if He sees meet. Difficulties raised
in connection with the Old Testament account of
God's procedure in regard to the observance of such
appointments, are to be viewed in the light of God's
right to execute His own law. If He has a right to
put a man into hell, He has a right to send another
(as to Agag) to kill him, or (as to the Egyptians) to
take his property.
2 I6 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
What is my Duty 2
A man can have only one duty at any particular
moment. But it may be difficult to know what it is;
because different precepts may seem to come in to-
gether with conflicting claims. Logic will not solve
your problem in such a case. The moral sense must
give the decision.
A’ight or Wrong 2
Questions of casuistry often arise as to right
and wrong. It can never, of course, be right to do
wrong ; but the question is, and it is sometimes a
hard one to answer, what is right Strategy in
war is often untruthful. It may be your only means
of self-defence. Is it right 2 Robbers assail your
house ; you hide your wife and daughters from
them ; they demand from you where they are ; you
mislead the robbers, and your people escape. Did
you sin Had the robbers a right to the truth from
you ? Or, take an actual case. Dr Alexander took
his Bible with him into Rome. When the baggage
was examined, the Bible was detected. “Oh, it's a
dictionary !” said the courier. Dr Alexander did
not speak. He thereby connived. He kept his
Bible. But did he sin 2
Możer of God.
The phrase “Mother of God" has biblical analogy
in the constructive phrase “blood of God” (Acts xx.
GOD's LAW AND MAN's DUTY. 2 1 7
28); but it has not biblical authority. It was used
for a good end at Ephesus (431 A.D.), against the
gnostic deniers of Christ's divinity. But it is not a
phrase that it is advisable for us to use.
7%e taking of Oaths.
In the case of oaths, it is the animus imponentis
(intention of the imposer) that governs. The im-
poser is the interpreter; and to take the verbal Oath
in a different sense is to deceive.
7%e Æssence of the Sa'ath.
That a regular portion of time, appointed by God,
to be observed by all men, should be set apart for
rest and the worship of God, this is the essence of
the Sabbath; that one-seventh of time should be so
Set apart is, relatively to this, the accident. It is,
however, the case that one-seventh of time has been
positively set apart by God for a Sabbath, and a
particular one-seventh of time. The choice has not
been left to us.
Duration and Extent of the Sabbath Law.
“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” is
as much a moral law as “Thou shalt not steal"—the
law founded on the relations of property. Its dura-
tion and extent are determined by the character
of the institution and the abiding reason for it;
and also by Scripture, in the New Testament portion
of which its permanence is incidentally recognised,
2 I 8 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
though there is no specific re-establishment of it, any
more than of infant church membership.
The Lord's Day and the Saôbath the same.
Our “Lord’s Day” and the Jewish “Sabbath” are
not different in essence. Both are days of rest and
festival, not of gloom. The essence of the Sabbath
Could not be changed without changing the nature
of man. But the accidents of it may be changed by
Competent authority, and were actually changed by
the College of Apostles, for a sufficient reason.
7%e Change of Day.
The stream of Sabbath observance on the seventh
day of the week came right down to the time of the
Apostles; it took a bend at that point ; and it has
come right on ever after. Only they could have
altered it; the authority of no other would have
wrought such an universal change in the Christian
world. The adequate reason for the change was,
the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ and
the new creation it secured. The competent authority
was that of the Apostles, and no other. (The trouble
with the hierarchical bishops now is, that they are
all Apostles, though they have not seen the Lord—
not a soul of them ()
American /law related to English.
We grew as a nation out of England, and thus
have laws based on religion and morality. We have
GOD's LAW AND MAN's DUTY. 2 IQ
Our Own peculiarities, however, in certain of which
our friends there seem disposed to imitate us, and,
Some of them, to imitate us to their destruction.
The A'zght of Æeligious Zegis/ation.
We have a right to administer the laws here re-
ligiously. Who cheated the Indians out of their
land 2 Have not we then the right to the advan-
tages 2 If foreigners come, they must obey the law
of the land. They may go to the moon or the
depths of the sea if they like. But if they come
here, they must be Christians or get killed. I would
give Atheists the Sabbath, or the alternative of cold
Steel or hot lead—either | When I was in India,
Hindu boys (I call them boys, though they might
be fathers * or grandfathers; you could never tell
that there) would sometimes be obstreperous in
School. If they demanded liberty to disobey, I told
them—“Certainly ; but outside the school. If you
Come in here, you must obey or get flogged.”
A Mome-mora/ Government /mpossible.
It is coming in this country to blood. Men of my
age won't perhaps live to see it. But it is coming.
A government can't be non-moral. It must be
either moral or immoral.
* Dr Hodge took one of his young Indian pupils to task for
absence from School one day, and to his surprise was met with the
well-founded excuse that, his wife being ill, he had been needed that
day at home to mind the baby |
22O BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
Religion cannot be ignored.
Men are religious beings. Religion can't be got
rid of by seeking to ignore it. A man, after taking
Some liquor perhaps, may go hopping round and de-
claring—“I’ll have no gravity;” but he need not
expect to get rid so of the laws of gravitation. As
little need our legislators attempt to put away re-
ligion. We have a right to insist that they shall not
try. I would not consent to be hanged by a jury
with an Atheist sitting in it. It would be much more
comfortable to be hanged by a jury of good Pres-
byterians !
A'e/?gious Education.
The theory of many here is, that the State is to
have no religion. Yet it is to be the great educator.
Hence education is to be divorced from religion.
So far as religion is concerned, the family and the
Sabbath-school are to do it all. But is this enough 2
A father is out all day, and comes home tired at
night; the mother is dragged to pieces by babies;
how much are they likely to do for religious educa-
tion ? And how many of the children go to Sabbath-
school ; and how efficient is the education provided
there 2 I have been twenty-five years a pastor—in
three States and four congregations—and although
there are no doubt exceptions, and many excellent
schools throughout the country, my experience has
been that the pupils are in general small children,
GOD'S LAW AND MAN's DUTY. 22 I
and the teachers biggish boys and girls, too big to
learn, and set to teach those who are often too little
to learn.
AVozz-religious Education /mpossible.
The deeper objection to so-called secular educa-
tion is, that the relation between our religion and
all our other knowledge is vital and organic—not
mechanical. You cannot separate them, like bread
and butter; it can't be done. Could you teach
history—the history, say, of England, and specially
of Scotland, the land of the Covenanters, and leave
religion out of account Take a schoolboard with
men of all shades of non-religionist opinion, and let
them carve out of your teaching system what didn't
suit them—and what would be the result 2. It would
be a worse case than that of Esop's man with the two
wives, who relieved him of all his locks,—not only
bald non-religion, but irreligion would be the result.
Mational Religion.
The proposal of a non-religious basis is something
novel, not found anywhere in the experience of the
past. To carry the theory out, the language itself
will have to be revolutionised, and the dictionary
itself expurgated; for its terminology as well as that
of the law of England is full of religion. And is it
not a significant fact, that in our great American
encyclopaedia there is no article on the word “God”
If you ask how far I would advocate religious train-
2
2
2
BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
ing, I reply, that the best practical system I have
known was the old Scottish parochial system, though
it is to be feared that, instead of getting back to
that, things, as with the New England schools, are
going in the opposite direction. Christianity should
be recognized publicly by this country. Christ
should be recognized in the law of our land, as the
supreme ruler of our nation. I am member of a
society striving for this end ; and the principle is
right, whatever our success may be. We should
insist that if the State has a right to educate, she
must not educate in infidel history and philology,
but, in assuming the educator's function, must obey
the Scripture injunction regarding that function—to
train the young “in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord.”
Atheism Worse than Popery.
Religion is what keeps a nation from chaos—from
falling asunder like uncemented sand. Dr H. of
New York was deploring in my father's house last
night the influence of Roman Catholics on educa-
tion. But—much as I dislike Popery—I would
infinitely rather see the education of our children
in the hands of Romanists than in the hands of
Atheists.
Capital Punishment.
Is it right to hang people 2 Yes; you have either
to hang or be hanged.
GOD's LAW AND MAN’S DUTY. 223
Celibacy and Matrimony.
Both married and unmarried missionaries are
needed. The latter have certain advantages,
especially in certain places. But ladies are needed to
teach women; and it is well to show the Hindus speci-
mens of pure family life. Celibacy is not in itself a
virtue; and matrimony is not essential to salvation
Why Rome's Priests do not marry.
Hierarchical reasons stand in the way of Romish
priests marrying. For instance, when the Pope issues
a summons for a General Council, about nine-tenths
of the bishops can assemble from all quarters of the
earth, which they could not do if they were married
men surrounded with family cares. So with all the
errands on which priestly emissaries have to be sent.
Aſozy Rome Disso/ves the Marriage 77e.
Romanists get no divorces; but they often get
marriage decreed null aſ initio, on many and various
pleas. I knew a professor Out west, who grew tired
of his wife. He could not get a divorce as a
Protestant Christian. So he turned Roman Catholic,
got his marriage annulled, and all his children
decreed bastard. Then he married again ; and by-
and-bye he turned Presbyterian
Why Russian Priests' Wives Zive so Zong.
Russian priests are allowed to marry Once, but
only once; and it is observed that no women live so
224 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
long as the wives of Russian priests. A man was
seen one day washing clothes; and another who
thought his appearance hardly in keeping with Such
an occupation, asked him why he should be washing
clothes 2 “Well, you see,” he answered, “I’m a
priest, and we are never allowed to marry a second
time ; so when we have a wife we do everything to
keep her as long as we can "
Can the State dissolve Matrimony P
The State can as little by its fiat dissolve the
vinculum of marriage as it can dissolve that of
parentage. Its decree would be just like the decree
of the Pope against the comet.
Americane sentiment about Divorce.
In the United States, the thirteen old States—
especially Episcopalian States like Virginia—which
brought over English law, are stricter on this subject
than some of the other States are. Public opinion
is wofully lax in some parts certainly, while in
others it is sufficiently strong. Death alone ipso
facto dissolves the marriage tie. Adultery does not,
until it is proved ; and for desertion to justify
divorce, it must be wilful, and final, and without
just cause.
Evil Company.
You may have to do business with a man who is
leading an immoral life. But you are not to have
GOD'S LAW AND MAN's DUTY. 225
friendly social relations with him, or to introduce
him to your family.
AWeed of a Marriage License Law.
In America we ought to have the State made
responsible, through the establishment of a marriage
license law, for proper registration. In Pennsyl-
vania, a minister who may happen to marry a minor
is liable to a fine of £50—a law which was intended
to prevent the abduction of young girls. All Sorts
of people used to come to me at Wilkesbarre to get
married. Sometimes I knew from the look of the
girl that I was safe; but I frequently had to refuse
to marry the applicants, because I had no means of
protecting myself. An old minister, Dr —, was
less careful. In course of time his conscience had
got So far seared that, when knocked up in the
morning, he would put his head and night-cap out of
the window and marry the folks right off in the
carriage, without even knowing whether they were
Old Or young, married or single. Such a thing as
that ought to be prevented.
A peculiar Question.
If God allowed the Patriarchs a dispensation of
toleration for polygamy, might not those heathen
who, in ignorance but in good faith, have married
several women be similarly tolerated 2 Or, when
the husband is converted to Christianity, are all the
P
226 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
poor women but one to be set adrift? This is a
difficult problem.
The Deceased Wife's Sister.
The Bible is our only rule of faith and practice.
Every sin is forbidden in it. Now, incest is a
heinous sin as even nature teaches, and must be
forbidden in Scripture. Yet it is nowhere forbidden,
if not in this Levitical law. We find that the
eighteenth chapter of Leviticus condemns, without
discrimination between affinity and consanguinity,
marriages within certain degrees of relationship.
The Deceased Wife's Sister law is permanent, if
its ground is permanent.
The Safety of Society.
The only thing that can save Society is the
recognition that it is to be founded on the will of
God, and that all authority comes from above
downward, and not from below upward. If in this
Country of universal suffrage we do not emphasize
great principles of duty, we are going to perdition.
Here, more than in any other land ; now, more than
at any other time, we need to remember this.
A Question of Casalistſy.
If a man has a right to the truth from me, I must
give him the truth. If he has no right to it, I may,
and usually should, hold my tongue. But if I am
GOD'S LAW AND MAN'S DUTY. 227
compelled to speak, and if the communication of
facts to a person who is ex-lex will enable him to
use his knowledge to the ruin, let us say, of my
wife and child—may I intentionally mislead him
without sin -
Aragging.
A form of lying we have not discussed as yet is
bragging. I knew an old gentleman so given to it,
that he would talk incessantly about the wonders he
and his family had done, and try to make out that
every great machine and new improvement had been
invented by himself. I would sometimes have to
sit two hours listening to his voluble talk, without
believing one word of it !
Mistaken Kindness.
A criminal is sent to the penitentiary. You begin
to coddle him ; you want to know if he has a sore
throat; you send the doctor; you take him by the
hand, and say, “My dear brother; ” you try, as you
say, to save his self-respect; and you send the chap-
lain to discuss all sorts of questions with him as an
equal. What is this but Sapping the foundations,
of society 2 The design of penitentiaries is not
primarily reformatory, but punitive ; and, as God
teaches us by example and precept, Crime must be
dealt with as a tremendous evil.
228 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
Exemplary Killing.
It is murder to kill a man for the benefit of his
fellow-men—that is, not as a deserved punishment to
him, but as a warning to others. As Coleridge says,
“A man is an end in himself, and not like the things
around him.”
Three Views of Suffering.
Suffering to satisfy justice is punishment. Suffer-
ing to improve the sufferer is chastisement. Suffering
without any such design is calamity.
XI.
D E AT H AN ID AIF T E R D E.A.T. H.
What is Life 2
IFE is the result of the action of a higher on a
lower agency. Animal soul acting on animal
organization gives animal life. Spiritual life is the
resultant of God’s Spirit's action on our souls (cf.,
Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh). The process of
death is initiated apparently on the side of the
body, very often through miasma which produces a
lesion inconsistent with the proper action of the
System.
W/a:/ 2's Deaf/ 2
Death, in the colloquial sense, is the dissolution
between Soul and body. There is no evidence that
it means cessation of being, as Annihilationists
affirm. Even the body does not cease to be. It is
a mere separation.
Spirit, and Soul, and Ghost.
How does a spirit become a soul ? By personal
union with a body. Hence angels are never Souls.
23O BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
What is a ghost A spirit which has been a Soul:
an unclothed soul. Both the creation and the dis-
solution of man—the synthetic and analytic methods
—may be called in to prove that man's soul is the
resultant of union between spirit and body.
Has a Dog: a Soul P
It has, in a sense : for when it dies, “the spirit of
the beast goeth downward to the earth’ (Eccles. iii.
21). We have no ground for affirming that it still
lives on after dissolution. But this we do know of
//zan's soul, from Revelation.
7%e Sou/ after Death.
The theory of Isaac Taylor is substantially this :--
When a man is dressed for company, he has on both
coat and vest. At death he puts off the former, and
goes in his vest and sleeves for a time. By-and-bye,
he returns to his coat, which, in the meantime, has
been fixed up for him. Joseph Cook's doctrine may
be compared with Swedenborg's idea of a double
body, an inner and outer coating. Archbishop
Whately gave both sides of the question as to the
soul's continued consciousness after death, and de-
clared it a balanced controversy, a drawn game. He
was a broad churchman, but a good man—on the
salvable side of that party. He held that the dead
body could not be said to sleep any more than a
stone, SO that the reference in this expression—
DEATH AND AFTER DEATH. 23 I
“sleep"—must be to the soul. But it should not
be forgotten, that language is not used in such cir-
cumstances to chop logic upon, but is based upon
phenomena. And nothing is so like death as sleep.
How is the Soul made fit for Heaven 2
Perfectionists say that the soul is made fit in this
life for heaven, and that the perfecting work may be
done early, through the believer's act of faith in Christ.
Romanists, again, postpone the completion of the
work, in the case of all, till after death ; and hence
they provide purgatory for good Catholics. We say
that, though there is nothing in death itself that
sanctifies, Christians are at death made perfect in
holiness by Divine and gracious power. Without
Such a provision, what would become of Christians
who are hardly fit to go to prayer meeting on earth,
not to speak of being fit to enter Heaven
Azemzāāſationisme and A’estoraždone?sme.
If you do not take the Bible doctrine of eternal
punishment, the only alternative at all defensible is
Annihilationism. It is of the essence of Christianity
in all its forms, that Divine favour produces man’s
goodness, and not vice versa. Punishment won't
make a man better; he will go on getting worse
and worse in hell. Here lies the absurdity of
Restorationism.
332 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
Azmihilationism eaflaimed.
Annihilationists mean, not that you must be put
absolutely out of existence, but resolved, rather, into
your constituents. The bubble bursts and vanishes
in air. You cease to be ; but, strictly speaking, you
are not annihilated. You are just, in Hindu lan-
guage, “absorbed in Brum.”
Spirits not mutual/y exclusive.
The scholastics gravely argued – “How many
spirits can stand together on a needle point *" The
correct answer was—An infinite number, because
spirits do not exclude each other.
A/e// area. Aſea weſz.
It is the presence of God as unreconciled that
constitutes hell; it is the presence of God, as recon-
ciled in Christ, that makes heaven.
As Heaveſz & Place P
If men were only spirits, heaven and hell might
occupy the same Square space. Souls do not fill
space. The arówa, however, which is organized
matter, does. The bodies of believers will be
numerically, though not qualitatively, the same in
heaven. In exchange for the animal body (arówa
WrvXuków), the believer is to have a spiritual body
(aºua Tvevu attków). You are not going to heaven
DEATH AND AFTER DEATH. 233
as an animal with vertebrate column and digestive
Organs. But you will have a body, nevertheless,
which, after the resurrection, will occupy space.
Heaven is a place as well as a state. Where Christ
in his glorified body is—that is Heaven.
Christ descending into Hades.
The phrase, “He descended into Hades,” should
be left as it is. Do not try to translate it; but do
not leave it out. It is no interpolation, but is part
of the concensus of Church doctrine which grew by
assimilation. For persons in New Jersey or any
part of this Yankee nation to cut it out would be
infinitely absurd. I would sooner shoot or hang a
man for that than for counterfeiting ; and, if I had
the power, wouldn't I do it quickl
The Lämöus /n/antum.
The doctrine of the limbus infantum has no ground
in Scripture. We believe that infants go to heaven
through the mercy of Christ. If they did go to
Hades with Original Sin on them, since we are not
to suppose that they remain infants eternally, they
would go on developing in wickedness, and SO
deserve damnation personally, like adults, through
actual transgression.
Infant Salvation.
Concerning the phrase “elect infants " in the
Westminster Confession, Dr Krauth thinks he shows
234. BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
that the original framers of the Confession meant
that some are not elect. There is another and more
important question—What does it and should it
mean 2 The answer to this is—that all infants
dying in infancy are saved, and Öecause they are elect.
The phrase should be interpreted as referring, not
to the extent of infant salvation but to the nature
of their security, to the ground of their salvation.
The Arminian view is, that infants are somehow
Saved on their own account. The Calvinistic, that,
though they have incurred condemnation in Adam,
they are saved through the redemption of Christ.
The Romanist, that the salvation of Christ is not
applied to children except through baptism.
The Heatherz.
The whole world has received certain benefits
through Christ's death ; but the heathen who do not
know the gospel are just left, so far forth as their
eternal salvation is concerned, where they were
before, and would have been without, Christ's
Coming.
The Place of Purgatory.
All who die in the Romish Church are supposed
to be saved. But many who so die are admittedly
bad : and none who are bad can enter heaven.
These shall, therefore, be cleansed in Purgatory.
This is a doctrine which contains some acknow-
DEATH AND AFTER DEATH. 235
ledgment of the evil of sin. A pious Romanist
looks on Purgatory as a blessing, though matters
should as far as possible be settled here, since a
higher rate of interest will be exacted yonder.
A/ozy to dea/ zwit/, /domazzism.
Remember that in attack you must take the
whole system of Romanism, and not merely parts of
it. Purgatory, for instance, is necessary under the
general Roman Catholic system : and you might do
the reverse of good to a devout Romanist by remov-
ing only his belief in Purgatory, which is, in some
sense, a tribute to the purity of heaven, and an
expression of the sense of defilement in man.
Above all, hold up the Gospel to such : and seek to
build up, and not merely to knock down.
7%e Pharisees.
The Pharisees were the best class in the nation,
after all ; and here lies the point of Christ's assertion,
that the best of natural religion could not take men
to heaven. Our old school Presbyterians, stripped of
their vital Christianity, would be the modern repre-
sentatives of the Pharisees. A man that winks, and
smiles, and thanks Heaven that he is not a Pharisee,
has usually little to thank God for along that line.
Something not to shout about.
When you hear a man shouting out about eternal
hell, he is making it as plain as possible that he’s
236 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
an infidel on the subject. There is a great deal
of unbelief in the world in this connection, and also
a great deal of Swearing in the pulpit. A man who
realises in any measure the awful force of the words,
eternal hell, won't shout about it, but will speak with
all tenderness.
A Persona/ Alemãmiscence.
I was much staggered and perplexed, during a
period of anxiety after College, in reading from
Angell James's “Anxious Enquirer,” a passage to
the effect, that the reader had better shut the book
and go down on his knees, if he did not feel that his
past sin was sufficient to merit eternal damnation in
hell. Now, this is not the just way of putting the
case. God withdrew spiritual life from Adam, the
moment he ate the apple ; he abandoned the man.
But what makes the abandonment everlasting is
man's continued sin. If men could go there and
suffer without sinning, hell would not be half so bad.
But they both sin and suffer there.
A Running Account of Guilt.
It is often held, not by Romanists only but by
many Protestants, that future punishment is all in-
flicted because of sins committed on earth. But
eternal punishment, although it is the result, is not
the correlate of temporal sin. A penalty and a
consequence are not the same. It is to be re-
DEATH AND AFTER DEATH. 237
membered that men's sins in he// deserve and get
punishment. Exclusion from God's favour is the
result of sin here; the continuation of that exclusion
perpetuates the punishment; and the guilt of lost
Souls in the other world is a running account kept
up with compound interest. It is with them as with
certain criminals, e.g., in Allegheny penitentiary, who,
through the attempted murder of a warder, got a
prolongation of punishment. The ring-leaders in
Such places often go on getting increments of punish-
ment; and this is a view of the case not to be
lost sight of, in speaking of the eternity of future
punishment.
7%ree A’e/a/zones to Zazey.
Law is essential. It is a relation which every
intelligent creature sustains eo iſ so to God. Hell,
as well as earth and heaven, is under law. Our
probation is here (under the covenant), and our
destiny is fixed when we die; but even after that the
lost as well as the saved continue under law. There
are, however, three relations to law, which must be
distinguished, the covenant, the regulative, and the
penal,
The Fina/ /udgment.
So far as God is concerned, the facts, the know-
ledge of the facts, and judgment on the facts about
any of us are as old as eternity. The great object
238 BREVIA THEOLOGICA.
of the Judgment is, to establish justice, and to exalt
it in the estimation of men.
7%e /udgment General as zwe// as Individual.
We die as individuals, and God deals with us as
such. But God has also dealings with men in the
mass even now ; and he will so deal with them at the
great day of Judgment. The doctrine of a general
Judgment implies, that each man shall be revealed
not only to himself, but to all whose history has had
points of contact with Him. It does not necessarily
imply a revelation of each to every soul in the
universe, which would require a sort of omniscience
in these.
7%e 7 esſ in /?tag/zenſ.
Men's loyalty to Christ will be the test. The
judgment of men's characters will be qualified
according to their light. No two men, even
brothers in one house, have had the same amount
of light. We are responsible, too, for the light we
might have had.
The Missionary Eſzter/rise.
Millenarian missionaries have a style of their own.
Their theory affects their work in the way of making
them seek exclusively, or chiefly, the conversion of
individual souls. The true and efficient missionary
method is, to aim directly, indeed, at Soul winning,
IDEATH AND AFTER DEATH.
39
2
but at the same time to plant Christian institutions
in heathen lands, which will, in time, develop
according to the genius of the nationalities.
English missionaries can never hope to convert the
world directly by units.
7%e AE/za.
Now, gentlemen, we might as well come to “the
end of the world.” Mr Rubinkam, will you please
recite: we have very little time, sir! .
FINIS.
7 uzzzbull & Spears, Arizzlers, Zdz72&ltzgh,
Opinions of the |\te 33
SOME RECENT PUBLICATIONS
OF
OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & PERRIER,
24 S T G I L E S S T R E E T,
E. D. I. N. B. U R G H.


Oliphant, Anderson, dº Ferrier's Publications.
Now ready, crown 8vo, Thirteenth Edition, price 3s.6d. ; or in plainer
binding, without Illustrations, 2s. 6d., -
Bits from Blinkbonny; or, Bell o' the Manse. A
Tale of Scottish Willage Life between 1841 and 1851. By JOHN
STRATHESK. With Six Original Illustrations.
“The daily life in a thoroughly Scotch rural village is described in the most
lifelike manner, and one feels a personal certainty of being able to recognise
any of the people described if one met them. The homely but pretty illustra-
tions place the country Scenery before our actual vision.’—Athenæum,
“Altogether, “Bell” is an exquisitely careful and finished study. The book
abounds in quaint touches of Scottish humour, delightful specimens of our
vernacular language, incidents and anecdotes grave and gay.”—Scotsman.
“The effect is really delightful, and the blending of quiet humour and
natural pathos in the volume makes it a positive refreshment to the spirit.
. . . The account of Bell's courtship with the shamefaced bachelor, David
Tait of Blackbrae, is delicious.”—Glasgow Daily Mail.
“If there are not so many characters introduced as in some of Sir Walter
Scott's works, the characters have an individuality as pronounced as any of
his, and the lights and shades of character are finished off with an equal
degree of care and truthfulness.”—Huntly Express.
“Bell is the heroine of the book, and a well-drawn character she is, with her
quaint ways, her happy expedients, her clever but never shrewish tongue, her
simple yet strong fidelity to the family she served, and her wise, droll, and
pithy sayings. Dan Corbett, the one-eyed Smuggler, poacher, molecatcher,
and a dozen other things, ranks next to Bell as a finished portraiture.’—
Chambers's Journal.
‘Piquant and charming in its very simplicity. Enlivened in almost every
page by bits of genuine Scottish humour.’—Ayr Advertiser.
“The chapter treating of “Wee Nellie” comes closer home in its power of
stirring the heart than anything we have seen since the appearance of Dr.
John Brown’s “Rab and his Friends.” The illustrations are true works of
art.”—Brechin Advertiser.
“A story of homely Scotch life, pleasant and amusing. The dialect is well
managed and faithful without being overdone.”—The Graphic.
“Scattered throughout the volume are several graphic sketches of village
characters, including Gavin Sinclair, the beadle and gravedigger, an old
worthy descended from John Brown of Priesthill, the covenanting martyr,
Dan Corbett, the village poacher, etc.’—Edinburgh Courant,
“Pictures penned. . . . “Bell” is simply delightful. We defy any one to
read it without a sense of real enjoyment.”—The Literary World.
‘We have never seen Scottish village life better described.”—Montrose
Review. -
‘A finely told story, which, for interest, excels not a few of our novels. A
splendid study.’—Hawick Advertiser.
“The author describes the village life of Scotland with the fidelity and grace
of Wilkie. We should have enjoyed hearing Burns read them to Tam o'
Shanter over the last gill.”—Sheffield Independent.
Oliphant, Anderson, dº Ferrier's Publications.
BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘BITS FROM BLINKBONNY.”
Fifth Edition, extra crown 8vo, elegantly bound, cloth, gilt, price 5s. ; also
in leather bindings, for presentation, from 7s. 6d. to 12s. 6d.,
The ‘COME’ and ‘GO' Family Text-Book; con-
taining a ‘CoME’ and ‘GO’ Text, also three spaces each for
Births, Marriages, and Deaths, for every Day in the Year.
“The author of “Bits from Blinkbonny” has succeeded in devising a
genuine novelty—a remarkably handsome small quarto, with a dainty
coloured border on each page. “The ‘CoME’ and ‘Go' Family Text-Book”
is composed of Scripture passages, each day having a couple, in the first of
which the word “Come" has a leading function, while in the second the
word “Go” is no less prominent. A real teaching power is secured by the
quaint arrangement, which is quite the reverse of mechanical. The
compilation has been executed “with brains” and also with spiritual
insight.”—Glasgow Daily Mail.
“A novel idea in books of the nature of calendars has been carried out
in this elegant volume. No one could desire a more suitable framework
for the coming and going of his friends.”—Scotsman.
‘As neat and elegant a book of Scripture quotations as has yet appeared.
A glance through the collection of texts containing the words “Come" and
“Go” respectively,–given for each day in the year, conveys the idea that
these two little words are set in the most pathetic and grandest passages in
Holy Writ. Most of the available space is intended for the Register of
Births, Marriages, and Deaths, and thus the book may become a well-prized
register of kindred and friends.”—Scottish Leader.
‘A beautiful book both outside and in, and does credit to both compiler
and publisher. In the way of a text-book it is quite a novelty. Its specialty
is that the quotations from Scripture are those in which the words “Come”
or “Go” are found, and one from each set is placed alongside the dates of the
month, and surrounded by pretty floral wreaths. Each month is also intro-
duced by a suitable quotation in which both words occur, and also by
passages numbering the month, and appropriately describing it. Under each
date there are lines for the entry not only of Births, but also of Marriages and
Deaths. No one can examine the book without admiring it, and being
amazed at the rich portions of Scripture which have been brought together
under the principle employed.’—Aberdeen Jowrmal.
Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier's Publications.
Crown 4to, cloth extra, with 150 Illustrations, price 10s. 6d.,
Edinburgh, Past and Present. By J. B. Gillies.
With Notes of the County, Historical, Descriptive, and Scientific.
By Rev. JAMES S. MILL, FLORA. MASSON, and Dr. GEIKIE.
* “Edinburgh, Past and Present,” by J. B. Gillies, is a handsome book—
a sweet, dainty, and most pleasure-giving memorial of Edinburgh. The
letterpress is first rate. Mr. Gillies is a skilled writer, and he knows
Edinburgh History. . In this volume, in a style at once simple and graphic, he
links the past with the present; and without any parade of antiquarian lore
he tells all; or nearly all, that is worth repeating regarding the public and
domestic history of the capital and its famous buildings and institutions.”—
The Daily Review. - -
“Mr. J. B. Gillies, if we mistake not, is a writer who already has attained a
large share of popularity by his descriptions of storied scenes in the Modern
Athens. Under this impression we may, perhaps, congratulate the “Benjie.”
of old upon the handsome appearance of “Edinburgh, Past and Present.”
Throughout the two hundred and sixty pages will be found a large number
of illustrations, very beautifully executed, and adding no inconsiderable
interest to the spirited text.”—The Publisher's Cîn'cular.
“The book cannot be too highly praised.’—The Inverness Cowrier.
“Readable from end to end, and in many places extremely amusing.’—
St. James's Gazette. - -
“The illustrations of the book are gems of the art. No pains have been
spared to make the book complete. It is finely and spiritedly written; it is
eloquently embellished. Every American visitor of “Old Edinboro” will
surely want this charming work.”—Round Lake Journal, U.S.A.
‘A better man than Mr. Gillies, the author of the letterpress, no one could
desire as a guide through Old Edinburgh, for no man knows it better.
Teaders of the famous “Edinburgh Supplement” of the “Graphic” must
know his handiwork. The illustrations are the very things one would wish
for in such a book.”—Aberdeen Jowrmal.
‘This is a spendidly got up book, both internally and externally. Author
and publishers, artist and engraver, printers and binder have all combined to
make the work worthy of the subject.”—Kelso Mail.
“The vignette illustrations interspersed among the letterpress are charming.
As a drawing-room book it is highly attractive.”—Spectator.
“Everything in and about the Old Town of Edinburgh is interesting, and
that interest is very much enllanced in the present work by the numerous and
well-executed woodcuts which adorn its pages. The author has earned the
thanks of his contemporaries by the able manner in which he has woven into
his work the most salient points of Edinburgh History. Its style and typo-
graphy are of that high order which we might expect from a firm of publishers
of such repute."—Western Antiquary.
‘This is an elegantly got up and altogether very interesting volume; and
numerous as are the books about Old and New Edinburgh, there is nothing in
existence so well adapted to the requirements of the general reader. Mr.
Gillies' coadjutors, who have supplied the Historical, Descriptive, and
Scientific notes, have done their parts exceedingly well.’—Aberdeen, Free
Press. -
‘One of those books which should be popular among the crowds who
annually flock to the Scottish metropolis. . . . A book which can be taken
up at any time, and will seldom be laid down without having given the
reader some pleasure and profit. What publishers could do to make the
work attractive and successful has been done.’—Glasgow Herald.
Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier's Publications.
Now ready, in one vol. 4to, price advanced to 31s. 6d.,
The Religious House of Pluscardyn, Convent of
the Vale of St. Andrew, in Morayshire. With Introduction,
containing the History and a Description of the Present State
of the Mother-House of Wallis Caulium (Val des Choux) in
Burgundy. By the Rev. S. R. MACPHAIL, A.M., Liverpool.
Illustrated by 13 Full-page Lithographs, 2 Chromo-Lithographs,
a Badge of the Order in gold and colours, 5 Charters in fac-
simile, and numerous Woodcuts. Only 500 copies printed.
“A learned, accurate, and appreciative history.”—Scotsman.
‘This interesting contribution to antiquarian and historical research in
general, and the history of Morayshire in particular.”—Aberdeen Journal.
“The fruit of unwearied industry, patient research, and mature archaeological
study. . . . A monument of persevering effort, admirable arrangement, and
antiquarian lore. . . . Accompanied by a carefully compiled index of persons,
places, and subjects.”—Liverpool Mercury.
‘A book of singular interest and value. The antiquarian will gloat over
... while the general reader cannot fail to find it a most agreeable companion.”
—Liverpool Daily Post.
‘Will take its place among the treasures of archaeological libraries.”—Inver-
mess Courier.
“A sumptuous work, over which neither labour nor cost has been spared.”
—Aberdeen Free Press.
“A learned and interesting work, marked by independent judgment, and
written in a clear and agreeable manner.”—St. James' Gazette.
‘The book is a credit to all concerned: to the author, for his patient and
laborious research ; . . . to assisting friends, for their valuable and unstinted
aid; and to the publishers, for the generous and splendid way in which the
volume has been produced.”—Daily Review.
‘Careful, intelligent, and tolerably complete."—Athenæum.
In large crown 8vo, cloth extra, bevelled boards, price 5s.,
Letters of the Rev. Samuel Rutherford. Carefully
Revised and Edited by the Rev. THOMAS SMITH, D.D., with a
Preface by the late Rev. ALEx. DUFF, D.D. ; and containing, by
kind permission of the Author of ‘Immanuel's Land, and other
Pieces,’ the Poem entitled ‘Last Words of Samuel Rutherford.”
‘We have to thank the publishers for this very complete edition of the
“Iletters of Samuel Rutherford,” a work which in Scotland has long been
recognised as one of the classics of practical divinity.’—Edinburgh Courant.
“The volume is becomingly handsome, but its special value consists in its
completeness as much as in its good looks.”—Daily Review.
‘This is a good, cheap, and complete edition of the priceless “Letters.”
—Sword and Trowel.
“It is his burning earnestness and transparent sincerity which constitute
the wondrous charm of these “Letters,” and make them the most attractive
picture of Puritanism ever presented to the world. . . . These “Letters” are
a fine specimen of pure, terse, pointed, epigrammatic English—or Scottish
if the reader chooses to call it so—well worthy of careful study by all lowers
of our native literature.”—Scotsman.
Oliphant, Anderson, dº Ferrier's Publications.
Small crown 8vo, extra cloth, price 2s. 6d.,
Thomas Chalmers: A Biographical Study. By
JAMES DODDS, Author of ‘The Fifty Years' Struggle of the
Scottish Covenanters.”
“A graphic account of a very remarkable man, written in a manly style'
and none the worse for being enthusiastic.'—Daily News.
* Presents a vivid sketch of Chalmers in the principal events and actions of
his life, and accompanies this with graphic, often eloquent, estimates of his
character and wonderful powers.”—Daily Review.
“Shows us a life of unceasing labour, devoted to some of the highest objects
that can engage human energy ; full of encouragement and success and fame;
but seasoned throughout with the most genuine humility, the freest charity,
the most spontaneous and exhaustless generosity of spirit.”—Scotsman.
“A very charming book.’— Watchman.
“All men should study such a life as this—philanthropists, politicians,
preachers, theologians. . . . Mr. Dodds has executed his task in a most
masterly way.”—Bomilist.
“A right, brave, outspoken, manly book.’— Weekly Review.
“The writer has seized with remarkable ability the salient points of his
hero's character, and although the portrait is in miniature it is very effective.’
—Pall Mall Gazette.
“Thoughtful and pleasant biography.”—Manchester Guardian.
‘We hope this volume of Mr. Dodds may be on the shelves of Sunday-
school libraries.”—Sunday School Chronicle.
‘Will be perused with much interest. . . . Written with just appreciation
of the great man whose career it narrates. . . . A graphic pen, and a style
that sometimes reminds us of Carlyle.”—The Record.
• ‘An admirable sketch.”—Literary World.
“It is written in a perspicuous, energetic, and graceful style, and is an
excellent estimate of the life and work of Chalmers as a preacher, a social and
religious reformer, and Christian man; and though the writer has shown a
warm admiration for his hero, yet in analyzing his character he has in no
way allowed his enthusiasm to swamp the Soundness of his judgment.”—
Aberdeen Free Press.
A BEAUTIFUL CHRISTMAS BOOK.
4to, cloth extra gilt, price 25s.,
Edinburgh, Past and Present; Its Associations
and Surroundings. Drawn with Pen and Pencil by W.
BALLINGALL.
“The thanks of lovers of old Edinburgh are due to Mr. Ballingall for
preserving such accurate and charming illustrations of picturesque old corners.
. . . The engravings are from sketches by Waller H. Paton, Sam Bough,
James Drummond, and others.”—Scotsman,
Oliphant, Anderson, dº Ferrier's Publications.
Fourth Edition, crown 8vo, with Portraits, price 5S.,
Life and Times of George Lawson, D.D., Selkirk.
By Rev. JoHN MACFARLANE, LL.D.
ExTRACT FROM LETTER OF THOMAS CARLYLE.-‘Your “Biography of
Dr. Lawson " has interested me not a little; bringing present to me from
afar much that is good to be reminded of; strangely awakening many
thoughts, many scenes and recollections of forty, of sixty years ago—all now
grown very sad to me, but also very beautiful and solemn. It seems to me
I gather from your narrative and from his own letters a perfectly credible
account of Dr. Lawson’s character, course of life, and labours in the world;
and the reflection rises in me that perhaps there was not in the British Island
a more completely genuine, pious-minded, diligent, and faithful man.
Altogether original, too, peculiar to Scotland, and, so far as I can guess,
unique even there and then. England will never know him out of any book;
or, at least, it would take the genius of a Shakespeare to make him known by
that method; but, if England did, it might much and wholesomely astonish
her.’
* A book which presents not only a faithful and sympathetic narrative of
the career and works of one of the greatest Scottish divines of his day, but
many picturesque glimpses and details of Scottish life and character during
the latter half of the last, and the first decades of the present, century.”—
Scotsman.
‘We are right glad to see a new edition of the “Life and Times of Dr.
Lawson,” for many and many a time have we been amused and refreshed by
reading its sparkling pages. . . . As Boswell’s “Life of Johnson’’ will always
remain a model of all memoirs from its admiring homely chattiness, so will
the “Life of Dr. Lawson " ever remain supreme among Christian literary
men as a model of how a man’s portrait should be drawn.'—Sword and Throwel.
* “Cockburn's Memorials,” and “Carlyle's Autobiography,” and “Dr.
Lawson's Life and Times” are books which will long be favourites at Scottish
firesides. In certain respects Dr. Macfarlane’s “Life of Dr. Lawson” affords
the most perfect picture of Scottish life and character of the period; and the
new edition will afford many that opportunity of possessing themselves of a
book which they were deprived of by the speedy exhaustion of the early
editions.”—North British Daily Mail.
‘For the charming stories that are told of the simplicity of his character,
the shrewdness of his replies, the curious results of his frequent absence of
mind, of the manner in which he comforted and counselled his friends, of the
singular honour conferred on him by the University of Aberdeen, of the
manner in which he won the hearts of the students who gathered around him
when he was appointed Professor of Theology to the Associate Synod, and of
the esteem in which he was held by rich and poor alike, we must send our
readers to the volume itself.”—Preachers' Monthly.
Oliphant, Anderson, dº Ferrier's Publications.
BY A N N | E. S. S W A N.
In extra crown 8vo, cloth, price 5s.,
The Gates of Eden: A Story of Endeavour.
Second Edition. —— ---——-- -— — —-
“The subject of Miss Swan's “Gates of Eden” is one which demands, and
receives from her hand, a skilful treatment. John Bethune rears his
motherless boys in accordance with a preconceived plan. The elder is to be
a minister, the younger is to follow the plough. Circumstances seem to
favour his scheme; for the future minister has, it appears, the advantage in
appearance, in manners, and in ability. But the real truth is different. The
depth of character and the best mental gifts really belong to the latter. How
the young man, conscious of his power, yet stedfastly walks along the
appointed path till he is free to choose, and how, once free, he enters on his
own way and overcomes all its difficulties, is very well told in these pages.
We have not often seen a better portraiture than is that of the two brothers.
Miss Swan is too skilful to make the weaker of the two a mere foil to the
stronger. He, too, with all his faults, has virtues of his own, and the reader
is glad to see them reaching their true development before the story is
finished. The episode of the recovery of Willie Lorraine, a repentant
prodigal, is full of pathos; as is also the love-story of Mary Campbell. The
“Gates of Eden" is a worthy successor to the author's “Aldersyde.”—
Spectator.
“A distinct success. . . . We follow the career of twin brothers through
the book—Sandy and Jamie Bethune. Sandy, apparently getting all the
brains, is sent to St. Andrews to study, and his conceits and fine talk on his
visits home are humorously described. Then we see him transformed into
the Rev. Alexander Bethune of Lochbroom. Jamie seems fit only for the
harrows and the loom at first, but Aunt Susan always sees deeper than this,
and we read with interest the story of his endeavour to rise to higher
things. His character is well drawn, the earnest, noble soul following
God’s leading.”—British Weekly.
“The “Gates of Eden” is, like most of its predecessors, a homely tale of
Scottish life and manners. The homely dialect is given with admirable
fidelity, and there is much truthful delineation of character.”—Scotsman.
“The underlying conception—that of a contrast between two brothers,
the one brilliant, clever, and superficial, but needing stern discipline before
the real strength of his mature can be evoked; the other modest, unselfish,
but earnest and indomitable—is strongly grasped from the first, and is
wrought out with such power and consistency as to hold the reader's
attention by a kind of spell. The book is one which everybody can read
with pleasure, and from which many will profit.”—Scottish Leader.
‘One of the most dramatically rendered scenes of the book is that in
which the death of old Peter Bethune is described. If the author had never
written anything else, this part of the story would justify her claim to the
place in the front rank of our most gifted literary artists.”—Northern
Ensign.
“A happy note is struck at the very outset of the “Gates of Eden,” and
the quality of the good beginning is maintained throughout. . . . The best
of all the stories that we have yet received from the pen of its accom-
plished authoress.”—Kilmarnock Standard.
“Remarkably beautiful, noble in spirit, rich in pathos, strong in the
triumph of an earnest purposeful life.”—Daily Mail.
Oliphant, Anderson, 6 Ferrier's Publications.
Extra crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Six Original Illustrations, 5s.,
Briar and Palm : A Study of Circumstance and Influence.
By ANNIE S. SWAN, Author of ‘Aldersyde,’ ‘Carlowrie,” “Gates
of Eden,” etc. etc.
‘Is as charming a tale as this talented writer has produced. It paints
with quiet force and occasional touches of fine pathos, the career of a young
doctor, Denis Holgate, a character in whom the author arouses a deep
interest by the skill with which she has traced his growth through work
and suffering to gentleness and mobility of nature.”—Scotsman.
‘Furnishes another proof that the author of “Aldersyde" and “Carlowrie.”
is as much at home among English folk, both of the Southern Counties and
of Lancashire, as she is among the people of Scotland.’—Liverpool Mercury.
“Some of the chapters indicate a larger outlook on life, and also a more
intense dramatic energy.”—Daily Mail.
“We find Miss Swan quite as much at home in the Metropolis, and among
the people of the Lancashire seaboard, as in her native Tlothians. . . . She
has evidently been working hard, and enlarging her knowledge of the
treasures of literature, as well as of places and people.”—Greenock Telegraph.
‘Take it all in all, the authoress shows a wonderful versatility and per-
fection in the art of telling a story pleasantly and well.'—Pem and Pencil.
“A lovely tale, honestly worth its weight in gold.”—Sheffield Independent.
“The book is instinct with that fine feeling and tender idealism which gives
Miss Swan's work the stamp of uniqueness.”—Evening News.
“Miss Swan's versatility is truly wonderful, and in no previous instance has
it been more powerfully exhibited than in this highly interesting and dramatic
story.”—Kilmarnock Standard.
* In “Briar and Palm * Miss Swan is at her best, and the characters are
so well drawn that they absolutely stand out from the page like living and
breathing realities. Taken as a whole, this is the best effort of the talented
authoress.’— Leeds Times,
“The whole conception is quite novel, yet vigorously worked out, and
with a success that justifies the effort at showing how the influence of
genuine Christian love and sympathy can soften and ultimately conquer, in a
naturally noble woman, the harsher teachings of poverty.'—Haddington Courier.
“Need we say that the tale has a high moral purpose, and that it is told
with a charm of style which rivets attention from the first page to the
last.”—Worthern Ensign. -
‘Another good story from this prolific pen, depicting the life of Denis
Holgate, a young doctor. She paints some fine characters in the course of the
book, notably little Daisy Frew and her good father the curate of the little .
sea-village, Crosshaven.”—British Weekly.
“A story that only Miss Swan could write, and it will be read with deep in-
terest and sincere pleasure by her wide circle of admirers.”—Dundee Advertiser.
“A new departure for one who has won her laurels in depicting Scottish
rural life. The work will in no way detract from the splendid reputation the
author has won.”—Helens' urgh Times.
“A powerful and well-written story, engaging the attention from its
opening Sentence till its close.”—Dumfries Cowrier.
“Told with all Miss Swan's dramatic and descriptive power, full of good
thoughts and healthful suggestions.”—Arbroath. Herald.
“The work gives manifest token of the growth of the young authoress alike
in its analysis of character, dramatic energy, and deftness of literary touch.”—
Christiaº Leader.
‘This is one of the brightest and most interesting stories that we have
come across for a considerable time.”—Society Journal.
Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier's Publications.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, price 5s.,
The Shadow of the Hand, and other Sermons.
By Rev. W. A. GRAY, Elgin. .
‘Earnest, thoughtful, and scholarly sermons.”—Literary Chºwrchman.
“A volume of delicate, true, and helpful delineations of certain phases of
Christian experience. . . . . Conveys a most favourable impression of the
original and careful work that is being done for the pulpit by conscientious
men.”—Eacpositor.
“It is seldom that one meets with such sermons as these coming from
Scotland, or, for the matter of that, from England.’—The Churchman.
“The whole volume of sixteen sermons we can cordially recommend.”—
Clergyman’s Magazine.
“We commend the book . . . for its quiet, meditative grace, and its deep
feeling for Nature. . . . Maintains a high level of vigorous common sense,
and is as much alive to the needs and characteristics of the world of men as
to the gentler impressions of the field and sky.”—Homiletic Magazine.
* A book of thoughtful sermons by a Scotch minister.”—Christian.
* Exceedingly thoughtful, deeply spiritual and practical.”—Christian
TWO?"ld.
“Discourses of rare excellence. Give evidence of independent and vigor-
ous thought, and are characterized by much frèshness and beauty; no striving
after originality, and yet we have it.”—W. B. Daily Mail.
“The thoughts are fresh and vigorous; the arrangement is clear, the tone
is devout.”—Primitive Methodist World.
* Everything is brought to bear upon great principles of the Christian
life. Devout, evangelical, and fervent, these are very useful and practical
sermons.”—British Quarterly Review.
“Multiplied evidence of homiletic and expository skill, controlled and held
in check throughout by loyal submission to the word of God.”—British and
Foreign Evangelical Record.
* Substantial sermons, which we have read with much pleasure. We
delight in their doctrine, tone, and manner. The sermon on “Faith refusing
Deliverance ’’ strikes us as a masterpiece; . . . fine specimens of sermons
for an educated Christian audience.’—Mr. SPURGEoN in Sword and Throwel.
“Thoughtful, practical, and extremely elegant. . . . The theories handled
are taken hold of with power. The language in many places is exceedingly
beautiful.”—Presbyterian Messenger.
* Admirable sermons. Evangelical in sentiment, eminently practical and
useful, and abounding in fresh and attractive illustrations.”—United Presby-
teriam, Magazine.
“The most notable feature of the book is the amount of solid thought in
it; next we should mention the sustained and unfailing earnestness of the
sermons.”—Christian Leader.
“Remarkable for their graceful style and literary finish; they have a fresh-
ness of thought, a clearness of expression, and a current of pathos that can-
not fail to interest.”—Aberdeen Free Press. -
‘Since the Rev. John Ker published his single volume of Sermons some
years ago, there has been no such suggestive volume given to the press as
this.”—Worthern Whig, Belfast.
‘Evidently the product of a very thoughtful and cultured mind. . . Bear
the impress of the nineteenth century upon them.”—Belfast Witness.
‘Vigorous, direct, and manly. . . . Sermons that can be read without a
sense of impatience or weariness.”—Westmoreland Gazette.
Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier's Publications.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, price 5s.,
In Defence of the Faith. By Alexander Oliver, B.A.,
Minister of Regent Place United Presbyterian Church, Glasgow.
“It would not be easy to find more excellent specimens of what we may call
popular “apologetics.”’—Literary World.
* It must be admitted that the case for Christianity is presented with
considerable ability, and in a very clear and telling way. The writer is
evidently a man of wide reading, and one who knows how to make good
use of the resources at his command. He possesses a good literary style
and much power of vigorous statement; and these lectures, which are intended
chiefly for the young, will not fail to stimulate thought and strengthen faith.”
—Scotsman.
“The volume deserves to be widely read, and wherever read it will be
appreciated for its beauty, truth, eloquence, extensive information, solid
reasoning, and for its power to clear away the mists of scepticism and give
mind and heart rest in the quiet Sunny light of Christian faith.'—Aberdeen.
Journal.
‘It is a pleasure to welcome so good a piece of work, one of the best of its
kind we have come across for a long time.’—W. B. Daily Mail.
“The author has kept his purpose clearly before him right through the
book. It is full of the most interesting facts in illustration or enforcement of
his arguments.’—The Freeman.
“We recommend this book as a most instructive and trustworthy exposition
of the themes of which it treats.”—Presbyteriam. Witness, Halifaac, W.S.
‘Lectures on apologetics are not often successful; but the reason is not that
the people cannot be interested in the subject. It is because few know how
to put arguments in a form that the people will hear with interest and
remember. Mr. Oliver has succeeded, and we have no doubt many will be
glad to learn from him how to teach others.”—British Weekly.
‘This handsome volume is very appropriately named, and most fully
sustains its title throughout ; for a more thoughtful and valuable apologetic
treatise, and one more admirably suited to meet the forms of religious doubt
now so boldly and artfully placed before the minds of the young, it would be
difficult to name.’—Aberdeen, Free Press. -
“We commend the volume as quite one for the times. Its logic is inexorable,
and it may well be accepted by the churches as a particularly able and manly
contribution to apologetics.”—Liverpool Mercury.
‘Characterized by no ordinary ability.”—Kilmarnock Standard.
“The volume is no mean “defence of the faith,” and we heartily commend
it to the careful attention of all honest doubters.”—Elgin, Cowramî.
“We can confidently recommend the book for the grasp which it shows the
author to possess of the various problems discussed in it, and also for the
freshness and clearness with which these problems are handled.”—Glasgow
Herald.
‘Dealing with such subjects as God, immortality, revelation, miracles,
Christ, etc., all of which are handled in a lively and yet earnest and forcible
manner, the volume is calculated to do not a little good to thoughtful young
people.”—Wonconformist.
“A work of refreshing ability—supplies a want by its compendious,
suggestive, and searching argument on the highest themes.”—Paisley Gazette.
‘For logical, incisive, popular statement of these various lines of
argument, with criticism of the theories opposed to them, and skilful
marshalling of facts and opinions in their support, we do not know where
young men could find a better book.’—Young Men’s Christian Magazine.
Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier's Publications.
Now ready, uniform with ‘BITS FROM BLINKBONNY.”
New Edition, in One Volume, cloth extra, with Six Original Illustrations,
price reduced to 3s. 6d.; or in plainer binding, without Illustrations,
price 2s. 6d. ; paper boards, 2s.,
Aldersyde. A Border Story of Seventy Years
Ago. By ANNIE S. SWAN. -
The Authoress has received the following Autograph Letter from Mr.
Gladstone:—
* 10 DownING STREET, -
WHITEHALL, April 16, 1883.
‘DEAR MADAM, I have now read the work which you did me the honour
to present to me with a very kind inscription, and I feel obliged to add a line
to my formal acknowledgment already sent. I think it beautiful as a work of
art, and it must be the fault of a reader if he does not profit by the perusal.
Miss Nesbit and Marget will, I hope, long hold their places among the truly
living sketches of Scottish character.—I remain, your very faithful and
obedient W. E. GLADSTONE.”
‘Sir Walter Scott himself never delineated a character more true to life
than Janet Nesbit.”—Stirling Observer.
“Readers who can follow Scotch idioms easily will be moved by the narra-
tive of Janet Nesbit's life. . . . Incidents common enough, but eloquent of
character and well told.”—Athenaewm.
‘Full of quiet power and pathos."—Academy.
“She has brought us into the presence of a pure and noble nature, and has
reminded us that a life of sorrow and disappointments has its deep compensa-
tions, and its glorious meaning.’—Literary World.
“If there is anything more noteworthy than another in this cleverly con-
structed story, it is the vigorous raciness with which the vernacular is
employed.’—Haddington Cowrier.
* A tale of deep interest; it is a work of true genius.'—United Presbyterian
Magazine.
* Hurrah! our good Scotch stories, with their dear rough old vernacular,
are not going to die out just yet, or, if at all, they are going to die hard.”—S.S.
Teachers’ Magazine.
‘Beautifully conceived and exquisitely written.”—Airdrie Advertiser.
‘One of the best Scotch tales that has appeared for many years. . . . A
wealth of local colouring and fineness of touch rarely to be met in these days
of painfully analytic writing.”—Kilmarnock Herald. -
* A book we must read through at a sitting. It lays hold of our interest in
the first page, and sustains it to the end.”—Daily Review. ... •
‘Deserves to occupy a prominent and permanent place among Scottish works
of imagination. . . . Not a dull page in the book; while not a paragraph will
be skipped lest some of the finer touches should be missed.”—Kclso Chronicle.
‘We have not read a fresher, livelier, or more wholesomely stimulating story
for many a day.”—Kilmarnock Standard.
‘As a type of the sound-hearted, high-spirited Scottish gentlewoman, who
can sustain her dignity on a poor pittance, and who is tender and true without
any pretence of high sentiment, Janet Nesbit is a fine portrait of a noble
woman.’—N. B. Daily Mail. -
“The central figure in the narrative is Miss Janet Nesbit, of Aldersyde,
a young gentlewoman who is early called to a life of self-sacrifice. This she
humbly accepts, working out the problem with so much sincerity and faith-
fulness that the grey morning is followed by a bright day.'—Christian Leader,
Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier's Publications.
New Edition, in crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Six IIIustrations in Chalk
by TOM Scott, price reduced to 3s.6d. ; or in plainer binding, without
Illustrations, price 2s. 6d. ; paper boards, 2s.,
Carlowrie ; or, Among Lothian Folk. By ANNIE
S. SWAN. -
“A treat to the lovers of Scottish fiction, the scenery and local truth of the
dialect and “modes of thought” are all that can be desired; and the book is
no small addition to the literature which endeavours to depict a phase of
country life fast passing away.'—Athenæum.
‘Will certainly enhance the reputation of the authoress of “Aldersyde.”’—
Liverpool Mercury. - -
‘The characters are sketched with more freedom and with more keenness
also than those in “Aldersyde,” and this comparison is just as severe a test
as could be applied.”—Daily Review.
‘The delineation of the house-mother, Mrs. Dalrymple, strikes us as being
one of the very finest portraits to be found in the whole extent of our national
literature of a clever, sunny-hearted, and utterly unselfish Scotchwoman of
the rustic middle class.”—Kilmarnock Journal. - -
* The interest of the reader is enchained from first to last.”—The Christian.
‘The book possesses a quiet idyllic charm which it is impossible to resist.
. . . The breezy freshness and pervading refinement of the story will hardly
fail to please all readers of simple tastes.”—Academy.
* “Carlowrie ’’ is already one of the pronounced successes of the season.
All the Scottish newspapers, with one characteristic exception, are delighted
with this tale of the Lothians. That it is a study from the life, executed
with the delicate insight that comes from loving sympathy, hardly admits of
a doubt; and the delineation of the farmer's gentle wife—one of nature's true
nobility—is a masterpiece of the purest pathos.’—Christian Leader.
“Of Such stories as this—full of tender religious feeling, life-like characters,
and graceful description—one cannot have too many.’—Literary World.
“A sweet idyl of rural life in a country farm.”—Southern Reporter.
‘A healthy tone, and a Doric having the right twang in it.”—Fifeshi e
Journal.
‘It is with choice taste, and an appropriateness rarely found in the inscrip-
tion of a book, that Miss Swan dedicates her “Carlowrie" to the dear memory
of her who made the Sunshine of the home that was ; and she may be well con-
gººd On her work as the book of the season.'—National Literary
O?/7°78,000.
“True to the life. . . . Interesting from beginning to end, and the reader
must be hard to please who cannot find entertainment in what is at Once a
pleasant novel and a good book.’—Northern Whig.
“An episode of Midlothian life, so true in its local descriptions, so graphic in
its character drawing, and so pure-spirited withal, that the most fastidious
critic will fall in love with it. . . . Parents of taste and intelligence will be
glad to put such a book as this into the hands of their children.’—Courant.
Åitto's Jailp Bible Śllustrations,
THE NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ANNOTATED BY
REV. J. L. PORTER, D.D., LL.D.,
AUTHOR of “THE GIANT CITIES OF BASHAN,’ ETC.
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS ON WOOD AND STEEL.
These “Illustrations’ consist of Original Readings for a Year on
subjects relating to Sacred History, Biography, Geography, Anti-
quities, and Theology. Especially designed for the Family Circle
and Sabbath-School Teachers.
This Edition, like the former, consists of Two Series, as follows:—
VOL. IVIORNING SERIES. WOL. EVENING SERIES.
1. The Antediluvians and Patri- 1. Job and the Poetical Books.
archs. 2. Isaiah and the Prophets.
2. Moses and the Judges. 3. T.ife and Death of Our T.Ord.
3. Samuel, Saul, and David. 4. The Apostles and the Early
4. Solomon and the Kings. Church,
*...* Each volume is complete in itself, and is sold separately, price 6s.
“In practical service to teachers we must perhaps put Kiito first, but next to
him we think Dean Stanley takes the place of honour, at least in relation to
the Old Testament.”—Sunday School Chronicle.
‘You have here reading more interesting than any novel that was ever
written, and as instructive as the heaviest theology.’— C. H. Spurgeon.
‘I never open it without getting help, and I find that much more pretentious
books are largely built up of his abundant materials. Do your best to spread
the book, not only among ministers, but also among Sabbath-School teachers.
—Aleoc. Whyte, D.D.
“After having consulted the best authorities on various Biblical subjects.
I have been struck, in coming back to Kitto, to find unmistakeable evidence
that he had gone over the same ground, and, without any display of erudition,
had given his readers the benefit of what the most observant travellers aud
%. º equipped scholars had written.’—J. H. Wilson, M.A., Barclay Free
2.7°C/2.
“I regard the book as one full of the most healthy reading. It states the old
truth clearly, and brings to bear upon it the newest and freshest light, so as
to make it interesting and memorable.”—Alexander Mair, D.D., Morningside.
* One of the best books of the kind.”—Spectator.
‘It is handy in shape, beautifully printed, and well adapted for the daily
use for which it was originally designed, while worthy to take its place on
the shelves of a library as a work of reference.’—Scotsman.
“As helps to the intelligent and systematic study of the Bible, they have long
been highly prized wherever the English language is spoken.”—Daily Review.
EDINBURGH: OLIPHANT, ANDERSON, & FERRIER,
AND ALL BOOKSELLERS,
Books FOR SABBATH-SCHOOL AND BIBLE-CLASS
TEACHERS.
By THOMAS MORRISON, M.A., LL.D.
The Sabbath-School Teachers' Handbook; or, The Prin-
ciples and Practice of Teaching, with Special Reference to the Sabbath School. 2s.
The Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul
arranged in the Form of a Continuous History. With Notes Critical and Ex-
planatory, Map, Gazetteer of Places, and Questions for Examinations. 2s. 6d.
º By JOHN KITTO, D.D. e e
Kitto's Daily Bible Illustrations ; being Original Readings for
a year on Subjects relating to Sacred History, Biography, Geography, Antiqui-
ties, and Theology. Especially designed for the Family Circle. In 8 vols.
crown 8vo, with fine Frontispieces, Vignettes, and numerous Engravings. New
Edition, edited and revised by J. L. PortER, D.D., LL.D., Belfast, Author of
“The Giant Cities of Bashan,” &c. 6s. per volume, or 30s. per set net.
MORNING SERIES. EVENING SERIES.
Vol. I. ANTEDILUVIANS AND PATRI- Vol. I. JOB AND THE POETICAL BOOKS.
ARCHS. ,, II. ISAIAH AND THE PROPHETs.
III. THE LIFE AND DEATH OF OUR
,, II. MOSES AND THE JUDGES. 33
LORD.
,, III. SAMUEL, SAUL, AND DAVID. ,, IV. THE APOSTLES AND EARLY
,, IV. SoLOMON AND THE KINGs. CHURCH.
By MELANGTHON W. JACOBUS.
Notes On Matthew. Price 2s. 6d.
Notes on Mark and Luke. Price 2s. 6d.
Notes On John. Price 2s. 6d.
By Rev. THORNLEY SMITH.
History of Joseph : Viewed in connection with Egyptian Antiqui.
ties, and the Customs of the Times in which he lived. 3s.6d. -
History of Moses: Viewed in connection with Egyptian Antiqui-
ties, and the Customs of the Times in which he lived. 3s. 6d.
History of Joshua : Viewed in connection with the Topography
of Canaan. 8s. 6d.
By JOHN WEHITECROSS.
Moral and Religious Anecdotes. 2s.
Anecdotes Illustrative of the Assembly’s Shorter Cat-
echism. 2s.
Anecdotes Illustrative of the New Testament. 2s. ; Cheap
Edition, 1s. 6d.
Anecdotes on the Old Testament. Price 2s. 6d. ; cheap edition,
ls. 6d.
An Explanation of the Shorter Catechism. By the Rev.
GAVIN STRUTHERs, D.D., Glasgow. Price 4d.
Eastern Manners Illustrative of New Testament History.
By the late Rev. RoBERT JAMIESON, D.D. 8s. 6d.
Dictionary of the Bible. By the Rev. JoHN BROWN, Haddington.
New Edition, revised and edited by His Son. Price 10s. 6d.
The Tabernacle : Its Priests and Services Described and Considered
in relation to Christ and the Church. By WILLIAM BROWN. Cloth boards 2s.
6d., Cloth limp ls. 6d.
The Unerring Guide; or, Scripture Precepts topically arranged.
By H. W. DEXTER, D.D. Price 2s. 6d.
The Master's Memorial: A Manual on the Lord's Supper, for
Class and Bible Study. By Rev. THOMAS MACADAM, Strathroy, Ontario. With
Preface by Rev. Prof. SALMOND, D.D. Price 3d.
EDINBURGH : OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER.
24 ST. GILES STREET.
By THE AUTHOR OF THE PRESENT VOLUME.
A WOMAN'S WORK :
ME MORIA LS OF ELIZA FLETC HER.
By Rev. C. A. SALMOND, M.A.
Seventh Zhousand. Complete Illustrated Aſaff. Crown Adition. 304?.
“Cannot fail to accomplish great good.”—-Å'ez. C. H. Søzurgeon.
“Very suggestive to Teachers of Bible-Classes, as well as to other
readers.”—Rev. J. A. Wilson, D. Z).
“This fascinating volume. . . . We heartily commend the work
to ministers, teachers, parents, and others who can appreciate a valuable
biography.”—Clergyman’s Magazine.
‘‘Will take its place among the most genuine and stimulating bio-
graphies.”—Onited Presbyterian Magazine.
‘‘A most admirable biography.”—A'ez. Hugh Macmillazz, Z). O. -
“A portrait of surpassing interest. . . . We have read no biography
of an evangelist which has had impressed upon every page such a feeling
of profound reality.”—Christiazz Zeader. -
“It would be difficult to find a more stimulating biography for Christian
workers.”—Belfast AWorthern Whig.
“A thrilling effective biography. . . . A most suitable book for
Christian women.”—Footsteps of Zºrett/.
“A charming book.”—Sheffield Zndependenz.
“Full of individuality and naturalness.”—Ziterary World.
“Deserves to occupy a place in every well-selected library wherever
the English language is spoken.”—Christian Commonwealth.
A Jº ZTA/A2 S.4//A2. A U 77A/OA’.
T H Y S A V | O U R.
32 AA.—Aºftieth 7%.ousand.
TWENTY-FOUR ADDRESSES ON THE NAMES OF CHRIST.
“A precious booklet for the young. Simple and child-like, but never
childish ; full of tender feeling, freshness, and interest.”—Christiazz
Aleader.
“A delightful little book for the children.” – 7%e Christian. -
“Like ‘a piece of an honeycomb,” full of sweet and precious truth
about Christ, brightened with apt and lively illustrations and incidents.”——
C/22/a/7′ezz's A’ecordſ.
“Just the sort of book a Christian nurse or mother may find very
helpful.”—Christian Herald.
“Couched in language eminently suited to children. Illustrations
simple, natural, and fresh ; lessons pointed, plain, practical, and there-
fore telling.”—Saôóath Schoo! Magazine.
** Firm grasp of Saving truth. Would supply a course of very profitable
Sabbath evening home-lessons for about half-a-year.”—British Messenger.
GLASGOW : J. N. MACKINLAY, 421 SAUCHIEHALL STREET.
EDINBURGH : RELIGIOUS TRACT AND BOOK. SOCIETY.
LONDON : W. B. HORNER & SON, 27 PATERNOSTER SQUARE ;
Or through any Bookseller.
|||||I||
1651
F
90.15 02801 
sº §
º - - * T ; : « º: º
** * ºº:::: ... :
ºr ***, r***
º - *g
* : "...º.º.º.
** * *ś **
* , , ; ;
g
i
º
Nº.-