Question: What  is  the  supra-lapsarian  tlieory  of  predestination  ?

Answer: The term supra-lapsarian (supra lajjsum) designates that view of" the various provisions of the divine decree in their logical relations whicli supposes that the ultimate end which God pro- posed to himself was his own glory in the salvation of some men and in the damnation of others, and that, as a means to that end, he decreed to create man, and to permit him to fall. According to this view, man simply as creatible, and fallible, and not as actually created or fallen, is the object of election and reprobation. The order of the decrees would then be — 1st. Of all possible men, God first decreed the salvation of some and the damnation of others, for the end of his own glory. 2d. He decreed, as a means to that end, to create those already elected or reprobated. 3d. He decreed to permit them to fall. 4th. He decreed to provide a salvation for the elect. This view was held by Beza, the successor of Calvin in Geneva, and by Gomarus, the great opponent of Arminius. 4(3. State the respective pioints of agreement and of difference between these several scJiemes. 1st. The Arminian as compared with the Calvinistic scheme. With the x\rmiiiian the decree of redemption precedes the decree of election, which is conditioned upon the foreseen faith of the individual. W'ith the Calvinist, on the other hand, the decree of election precedes the decree of redemption, and the decree of election is conditioned upon the simple good pleasure of God alone. 2d. The French or Salmurian as compared with the legiti- mate view of the Eeformed Churches and with the Arminian view. The French view agrees with the Reformed and differs from the Arminian view in making the sovereign good pleasure of God the sole ground of election ; Avliile it differs from the Reformed and agrees with the Arminian in making the decree of redempti(jii precede the decree of election. 3d. The supra-lapsarian scheme as compared with the infra- lapsarian view prevalent among the Reformed Churches. The supra-lapsarian scheme makes the decree to elect some and reprobate others, precede the decree to create and to permit to fall. The infra-lapsarian view makes the decree of election come after the decree to create and permit to fall. The supra- lapsarian view regards man not as created and fallen, but sim- ply as creatible, the object of electicm and reprobation. The THE ORDER OF THE DIVINE DECREES. 233 infra-lapsarian view makes man as already created and fallen the only object of those decrees. 47. State the arguments agaiiist the SKpra-lajJsarian scheme. This scheme is unquestionably the most logical of all. It is postulated upon the principle, that what is last in execution is first in intention, wliich undoubtedly holds true in all splieres comprehended in human experience. Hence it is argued that if the final result of the whole matter is the glorification of God in the salvation of the elect and the perdition of the non- elect, it must have been the deliberate purpose of God from the beginning. But the case is too high and too vast for the a priori application and enforcement of the ordinary rules of human judgment; we can here only know in virtue of and within the limits of a positive revelation. The objections agauist this scheme are — 1st. Man creatible is a nonentity. He could not have been loved or chosen unless considered as created. 2d. The whole language of Scripture upon this subject im- plies that the " elect " are chosen as the objects of eternal love, not from the number of creatible, but from the mass of actually sinful men. — John xv. 19 ; Rom. xi. 5, 7. 3d. The Scriptures declare that the elect are chosen to sanc- tification, and to the sprinkling of the blood of Christ. They must therefore have been regarded when chosen as guilty and defiled by sin.— 1 Pet. i. 2 ; Eph. i. 4-6. 4th. Predestination includes reprobation. This view repre- sents God as reprobating the non-elect by a sovereign act, with- out any respect to their sins, simply for his own glory. This appears to be inconsistent with the divine righteousness, as well as with the teaching of Scripture. The non-elect are " or- dained to dishonor and wrath /'or their sins, to the praise of his glorions justice. — " Conf. Faith," ch. 3, sec. 3-7, "L. Cat.," ques- tion 13; "S. Cat.," question 20. 48. Slioiv that a. correct exegesis of Eph. iii. 9, 10, does not sup- port the supra-lapsarian vieiv. This passage is claimed as a direct affirmation of the supra- lapsarian theor}^ H" tlie 'iya, introducing the tenth verse, refers to the immediately preceding clause, then the passage teaches tliat God created all things in order that his manifold wisdom might be displayed by the church to the angels. It is evident, however, that zVa, refers to the preceding phrase, in which Paul declares that he was ordained to preach tlie gospel to the Gentiles, and to enlighten all men as to the mystery of redemp- 234 PREDESTINATION. tion. All this he was commissioned to do, in order that God's glory might be displayed, etc. — See " Hodge on Ephesians." 49. State the arguments against the French scheme.


Question: What  is  the  origin  of  the  Doctrine  of  Creation  ex  nihilo?

Answer: The prevalency, if not the conception, of the idea of absohite creation, or of creation ex niliilo^ is to be referred to the influence of the inspired word of God. Anterior to revelation there were two prevalent causes which prevented the acceptance of this idea, (a.) The universally assumed truth of the axiom that ex nihilo nihil Jit. Hence all theists and atheists alike failed to conceive of, or conceiving repudiated, the idea of absolute creation as absurd, {h.) The second cause influencing theists was the presumed interest of natural theology, in the impossi- bility, on that hypothesis, of reconciling the existence of evil with the perfections of God. 2. What views were respectively held by the great theists Plato and Aristotle ? Plato held that there are two eternal, self-existent principles, God and matter, u/l^, which exist co-ordinately in an indivisi- ble, unsuccessive eternity ; that time and the actual phenomenal world which exists in time, are the work of God, who freely moulds matter into forms which image his own infinitely perfect and eternal ideas. Aristotle also held that God and matter are co-ordinately self-existent and eternal; but he differed from Plato in regarding God as eternally self-active in organizing the world out of matter, and consequently in regarding the uni- verse thus organized as eternal as well as the mere matter of which it is formed. — "Ancient Phil," W. Archer Butler, Series 3, Lectures 1 and 2.


Question: What  vieivs  on  this  point  prevailed  among  the  Gnostics  ?

Answer: Some of the Gnostics taught that the universe proceeds from God by way of emanation, which was explained as "a necessary and gradual unfolding ad extra, of the germ of exist- ence that lay in God," as radiance proceeds from the sun, etc. Most of the Gnostics united with this theory of emanation the 238 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. doctrine of dualism, i. e., of the co-ordinate self-existence of two independent principles, God and matter (uA?/). From God by successive emanations proceeded the Ji^ons, the Demimgos, Creator of the world, the Jehovah of the Old Testament, and finally Christ. The material universe springs from self-exist- ent matter, intrinsically evil, organized by the Demimgos. All soals have emanated from the world of light, but have become entangled in matter, hence the historical contest between good and evil, which Christ came to settle by giving power to souls ultimately to escape from the toils of matter. 4. What is the vieiv on this subject common to all schemes of Pantheism ? Pantheists identify God and the universe. God is the abso- lute being of which things are the special and transient modes. God is tlie self-existent and persistent principle of all things, which by an inherent self-acting law of development is eter- nally running through ceaseless cycles of change. 5. State the true doctrine as to creation. The Christian doctrine as to Creation involves the following points: 1st. "In the beginning," at some unknown point of de- finite commencement in time. 2d. God called all things (that is the original principles and causes of all things) into being out of nothing. Thus every thing which has or will or can exist, exterior to the Godhead, owes its being and substance as well as its form to God. 3d. This creative act is an act of free, self-determined will. It was not a necessary constitutional act analogous to the immanent and eternal acts of the Generation of the Son or the Procession of the Holy Spirit. 4th. It was not necessary to complete the divine excellence or blessed- ness, which were eternal and complete and inseparable from the divine essence. But it was done in the exercise of abso- lute discretion for infinitely wise reasons. — Dr. Charles Hodge. This doctrine is essential to Theism. All opposing theories of the origin of the world are essentially Pantheistic or Atheistic. 6. What distinction is signalized by the terms Creatio prima seu immediata, and Creatio secunda seu mediata, and by ivhom ivas it introduced? The phrase Creatio prima seu immediata signifies the origi- nating act of the divine will whereby he brings, or has brought, into being, out of nothing, the principles and elementary es- sences of all things. The phrase Creatio secunda seu mediata signifies the subsequent act of God in originating different forms of things, and especially different species of living beings ABSOLUTE CREATION TAUGHT IN SCRIPTURE. 239 out of the already created essences of things. The Christian Church holds both. These phrases originated in the Avritings of certain Lutheran theologians of the seventeenth century, e. (/., Gerhard, Quenstedt, etc. 7. What is the primary signification., and ivhat the biblical usage of the word X"i3? "1st. Strictly, To heii\ cut out. 2d. To form, maJce, 2J'^'oduce (whether out of nothing or not). — Gen. i. 1, 21, 27; ii. 3, 4; Isa. xliii. 1, 7; xlv. 7; Ixv. 18; Ps. li. 12; Jer. xxxi. 22; Amos iv. 13. Niphal, 1st. To be created. — Gen. ii. 4; v. 2. 2d. To be born. — Ps. cii. 19; Ezek. xxi. 35. Piel, 1st. To Jieiv, cut down, e. g., a wood. Josh. xvii. 15, 18. 2d. To cid doion (with the sword), to kill. Ezek. xxiii. 47. 3d. To form, engrave, mark out. — Ezek. xxi. 24." Gesenius' " Lex." 8. State the direct proof of the truth of this doctrine afforded in Scrip)ture. 1st. Since the idea itself is new, and foreign to all prece- dent modes of thought, it could be conveyed in Scripture only through the use of old terms, previously bearing a different sense, but so employed as to suggest a new meaning. The word "barii," however, is the best one the Hebrew language afforded to express the idea of absolute making. 2d. This new idea is inevitably suggested by the way in wdiicli the term is first used by Moses, when giving accouiit from the very commencement of the genesis of the heavens and the earth. As a general introduction to the history of the formation of the world and its inhabitants, it is declared that " In the beginning — in the absolute beginning, God made the heavens and the earth." Tliere is not the slightest hint given of any previously existing material. In the beginning God made the heavens and the eartli, after that Chaos existed, for then it is said "the earth was without form and void," and the Spirit of God brooded over the abyss. 3d. The same truth is also inevitably suggested in all the various modes of expression by which the agency of God in originating the world is set forth in Scripture. In no case is there the faintest trace of any reference to any pre-existing materials or precedent conditions of creation. In every case the whole causal agency to which the creation is referred is tlie " Word," the bare " fiat " of Jehovah. — Ps. xxxiii. 6 and cxlviii. 5. "By faith we understand tliat the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen {za fiXETcoi-isi'a) wei'e not made of things which do appear (/(?/ en q)aivoju£'roov). — Heb. xi. 3. See Rom. iv. 17; 2 Cor. iv. 6. 240 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. 9. In what manner is tins doctrhm of the ahsohtte creation of the ivorld by God implied in Scripture ? 1st. In all those passages that teach that God is an absolute Sovereign, and that the creature is ahsoIufeJi/ dependent on him, "in Avhom we live and move and have our being." — Acts xvii. 28; Neh. ix. 6; Col. i. 1(3; Eev. iv. 11; Kom. xi. 36; 1 Cor. viii. 6. Now it is evident that if the essences and primordial princi- ples of all things are not immediately created by God out of nothing, but are eternally self-existent independently of him, then he, in his offices of Creator and Providential governor of all things, must be conditioned and limited by the pre-existing essential properties and powers of those primordial elements. In Avhich case God would not be absolute Sovereign, nor the things made absolutely dependent upon his will. 2d. In all those passages which teach that the kosmos, the "all things" had a beginning. — Ps. xc. 2; John xvii. 5, 24. 10. Whcd arguments derived from reason and consciousness, and from the elementary constitution of mcdter, may be adduced in proof of absolute creation ? 1st. This doctrine alone is consistent with the feeling of absolute dependence of the creature upon the Creator, which is inherent in every heart, and which is inculcated in all the teach- ings of the Scriptures. It could not be said that "he upholds all things by the word of his power," nor that "we live and move and have our being in him," unless he be absolutely the Creator as well as the Former of all things. 2d. It is manifest from the testimony of consciousness: (1.) That our souls are distinct individual entities, and not parts or particles of God; (2.) that they are not eternal. It follows consequently that they were created. And if the crea- tion of the spirits of men ex nihilo be once admitted, t/here remains no special difficulty with respect to the absolute crea- tion of matter. 3d. Although the absolute origination of any new existence out of nothing is to us confessedly inconceivable, it is not one whit more so than the relation of the infinite foreknowledge, or foreordination, or providential control of God to the free agency of men, nor than many other truths which we are all forced to believe. 4th. After having a(hnitted the necessary self-existence of an infinitely wise and powerful personal Spirit, whose exist- ence, upon the hypothesis of his possessing the power of abso- lute creation, is sufficient to account for all the phenomena of . SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. 241 the universe, it is unphilosophical gratuitously to multiply causes by supposing the independent, eternal self-existence of matter also. 5th. When the physical philosopher has analyzed matter to its ultimate atoms, and determined their essential primary properties, he finds in them as strong evidence of a powerful antecedent cause, and of a wisely designing mind, as he does in the most complex organizations of nature; for what are the ultimate properties of matter but the elementary constituents of the universal laws of nature, and the ultimate conditions of all phenomena. If design discovered in the constitution of the universe as finished proves a divine Former, by equal right must the same design discovered in the elementary constitution of matter prove a divine Creator. Atoms were asserted by Sir John Herschell to have all the appearance of "a manufactured article," on account of their uniformity. "Whether or not the conception of a multitude of beings existing from all eternity is in itself self-contradictory, the con- ception becomes palpably absurd when we attribute a relation of quantitive equality to all those beings. We are then forced to look beyond them to some common cause, or common origin, to explain why this singular relation of equality exists . . . We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter can not be eternal and self-existent it must have been created." — Prof J. Clerk- Maxwell in Art. Atom, " Encj^clo. Britannica," 9th ed. 11. State and refute the objection to this doctrine based upon the axiom, " Ex nihilo nihil fit." It is objected that it is an original and self-evident princi- ple of reason, that only nothing can come from notliing. We answer that this statement is indefinite. If it is meant that no new thing, nor any change in a previously existing thing, can begin to be without an adequate cause, we aiiswer that it is true, but does not apply to the case in hand. Our doctrine is not that the universe came into being without an adequate cause, but that the essences as well as the forms of all things had a beginning in time, and their cause exists only in the will of God. The infinite power inherent in a self-existent Spirit is precisely the Cause to which we refer the absolute origination of all things. But if it is meant by the above objection that this infinite God has not power to create new entities, then the principle is simply false and not self-evident; it bears not one of the marks of a valid intuition — neither self-evidence, neces- sity, nor universality. 16 242 THE CREATION OE THE WORLD. 12. State and refute the position of some loho maintain on moral grounds the self-existence of matter. Those among theistic thinkers who have been tempted to regai'd matter as eternal and self-existent, have been influenced by the vain hope of explaining thereby the existence of moral evil in consistency with the holiness of God. They would refer all the phenomena of sin to an essentially evil principle inher- ent in matter, and would justify (if)d by maintaining that he has done all that in him lay to limit that evil. Now, besides the inconsistency of this theory's attempt to vindicate the holi- ness of God at the expense of his independence, it proceeds upon absurd principles, as appears from the following consid- erations: (1.) iMoral evil is in its essence an attribute of spirit. To reler it to a material origin must logically lead to the grossest materialism. (2.) The entire Christian system of relig- ion, and the example of Christ, is in opposition to that asceti- cism and "neglecting of the body" (Col. ii. 23), which neces- sarily springs from the view that matter is the ground of sin. (3.) When God created the material universe he pronounced his works "very good." (4.) The second Person of the holy Trinity assumed a real material body into personal union with himself (5.) The material creation, now "made subject to vanity " through man's sin, is to be renovated and made the tempie in which the God-man shall dwell forever. — See below, Chap. XXXIX., Question 17. (G.) The work of Christ in deliv- ering his people from their sin does not contemplate the renun- ciation of the material part of our natures, but OTir bodies, which are now "the members of Christ," and the "temples of the Holy Ghost," are at the resurrection to be transformed into the like- ness of his glorified body. Yet nothing could be more absurd than to argue that the daijica Tcvev/nocriHov is not as literally material as the present dc^iia ipvxiHov. (7.) If the cause of evil is essentially inherent in matter, and if its past developments have occurred in spite of God's efforts to limit it, wdiat certain ground of confidence can any of us have for the future. 13. Prove that the icork of creation is in Scrij^ture attributed to God absolutely, i. e., to each of the three ^persons of the Trinity co-ordinately, and not to either as his special personal function. 1st. To the Godhead absolutely.— Gen. i. 1, 26. 2d. To the Father, 1 Cor. viii. 6. 3d. To the Son.— John i. 3; Col. i. 16, 17. 4th. To the Holy Spirit.— Gen. i. 2; Job xxvi. 13; Ps. civ. 30.


Question: Hoiv  can  it  be  proved  that  no  creature  can  create  ?

Answer: 1st. From the nature of the work. It appears to us that THE CHIEF END OF GOD IN CREATION. 243 tlie work of absolute creation ex nUtilo is an infinite exercise of power. It is to us inconceivable because infinite, and it can belong, therefore, only to that Being who, for the same reason, is incomprehensible. 2(1. The Scriptures distinguish Jehovah from all creatures, and from false gods, and estabhsh his sover- eignt}^ and rights as the true God by the fact that he is the Creator, Is. xxxvii. 16; xl. 12, 13; liv. 5; Ps. xcvi. 5; Jer. x. 11, 12. 3d. If it were admitted that a creature could create, then the works of creation would never avail to lead the creature to an infallible knowledge that his creator was the eternal and self- existent God. 15. Why is it important for us to kno2V, if such hioidedge he ^Mssihle, lohat God's chief end in creation loas? This is not a question of vain curiosity. It is evident, since God is eternal, immutable, and of absolutely perfect intelli- gence, that the great end or ultimate purpose for which he at the beginning created all things must have been kept in view unchangeably in all his works, and so all his works must be more directly or remotely a means to that end. Now our minds are so constituted that we can understand a system only when we understand its ultimate purpose or end. Thus we can comprehend the parts of a watch or steam engine, and their relations and functions, only after we understand the end or purpose which the entire watch or engine was intended to serve. And although God has hid from us many of his subor- dinate purposes, we believe that he has revealed to us that great ultimate design, without a glimpse of which the true character of his general administration ^never could be in any degree com- prehended. None can deny that if he has revealed his ultimate purpose in creation, that it must be a matter to us of the very highest importance. It is self-evident that loe can not rise to so high a generali- zation as this by any process of induction from what we know or can know of his works. Our conclusion on this subject must therefore be drawn, in the first instance at least, entirely from what we know of God's attributes and from the explicit teach- ings of his word. 16. What is the meaning of the term Theodicy, and, hy ivlum was this department of speculative theology in the first instance formally explored ? The term Theodicy {peoi Siurf) signifies a speculative justifi- cation of the ways of God towards the human race, especially as respects the origin of evil, and the moral government of the world. It was first exalted into a department of theological 244 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. science by the great German philosopher Leibnitz, in his great work entitled "Theodicy, or the Goodness of God, the Liberty of Man, and the Origin of Evil," a. d. 1710. 17. What view as to the end of God in creation did Leihiitz advocate, and hy ivhom has he heenfollotoed? Leibnitz held that all moral excellence can be resolved into benevolence, and that the grand, all-comprehending pnrpose of God in the creation of the universe, and in his preservation and government thereof, is the promotion of the happiness of his creatures. Hence he concludes that God has chosen the best possible system to attain that end in the largest possible degree. This is the system of Optimism. This view has prevailed largely among the New England theologians, in connection with the prevalent theory Avhich regards all virtue as consisting in disinterested benevolence. The objections to this view are — 1st. All virtue does not consist in disinterested benevolence. — See above, Chapter VI II., Ques. 61. And happiness is not the highest good. 2d. It sub- ordinates the Creator to the creature, the greater to the less, as the means to an end. When God from eternity formed the purpose to create, no creatures existed to be made happy or miserable. The motive to create therefore could not have orig- inated in the non-existent, and could have its origin and object only in the divine being himself 3d. The Scriptures (see next question) never either directly or indirectly intimate that any thing in the creature is the chief end of God, nor do they ever propose any personal or public good of the creature as the chief end of the creature himself 18. State the true view and quote the statements of the Confession of Faith ? The true view is that the great end of God in creation was his own glory. Glory is manifested excellence. The excellence of his attributes are manifested by their exercise. This end therefore was not the increase either of his excellence or bless- edness, but their manifestation ad extra. "It pleased God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, /or the manifestation of the (jlory of his eternal poicer., wi><dom, and good- ness, in the begiiniing to create or make of nothing the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good." — " Conf Faith," Ch. iy., § 1. The same is affirmed to be the chief end of God in all his pur- poses and works of Providence and Redemption. — Ch. iii. § 3, THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 245 5, 7, and Cli. v. § 1; Ch. vi. § 1; Ch. xxxiii. § 2; "Larger Cat," Qs. 12 and 18; " S. Cat.," Qs. 7. 19. State from reason and Scri2:)ture the arguments ivhich sus- tain this view. Ist. Since God formed the purpose to create before any crea- ture existed, it is evident that the motive to create must have its source and object in the pre-existing Creator and not in the non-existing creature. The absolute Creator can not be subordinated to nor conditioned upon the finite and depend- ent creature. 2d. Since God himself is infinitely worthier than the sum of all creatures, it follows that the manifestation of his own excellence is infinitely a higher and worthier end than the hap- piness of the creatures, indeed tlie highest and worthiest end conceivable. 3d. Nothing can so exalt and bless the creature as his being made thus the instrument and the witness of the infinite Crea- tor's glory, hence the proposing that glory as the " chief end " of the creation is the best security for the creature's advance in excellence and blessedness. 4th. The Scriptures explicitly assert that this is the chief end of God in creation (Col. i. IG; Prov. xvi. 4), and of things as created. — Rev. iv. 11; Rom. xi. 36. 5th. They teach that the same is the chief end of God in his eternal decrees. — Eph. i. 5, 6, 12. 6th. Also of God's providential and gracious governing and disposing of his creatures. — Rom. ix. 17, 22, 23; Eph. iii. 10. 7th. It is made the duty of all moral agents to adopt the same as their personal end in all things. — 1 Cor. x. 31 ; 1 Pet. iv. 11. 20. What is the present attitude of Geological science in relation to the Blosaic Record of creation? The results of modern geological science clearly establish the conchisions — (a.) That the elementary materials of which the world is composed existed an indefinitely great number of ages ago. {h.) That the world has been providentially brought to its present state by a gradual progression, through many widely contrasted ph^'sical conditions, and through long inter- vals of time, (c.) That it has successively been inhabited by many diff"erent orders of organized beings, each in turn adapted to the physical conditions of the globe in its successive stages, and generally marked in each stage by an advancing scale of organization, from the more elementary to the more complex and more perfect forms, {d.) That man completes the pyramid 24G THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. of creation, tlie most perfect, and the last formed of all the in- habitants of the world. The only difficulty in adjusting these results "with the INIosaic Record of creation is found in matters of detail, in which the true sense of the inspired record is ob- scure, and the conclusions of the science are innnature. There- fore all such detailed adjustments as that attempted by Hugh Miller in his "Testimony of the Rocks" have failed. As to the relation of the findings of science with respect to the an- tiquity of man to Biblical Chronology see beloAv, Chapter XVI. In general, however, there is a most remarkable agreement be- tween the Mosaic Record and the results of Geology as to the following principal points. The Record agrees with the science in teaching — (a.) The creation of the elements in the remote past, (i.) The intermediate existence of chaos, (c.) The ad- vance of the earth through various changes to its present physical condition, {d,.') The successive creations of different genera and species of organized beings — the vegetable before the animal — the lower forms before the higher forms — in adap- tation to the improving condition of the eartli — and man last of all. If we remember when and where and for what purpose this Record was produced, and compare it with all other ancient or medieval cosmogonies, this wonderful agreement with the last results of modern science will be felt to contribute essentially to the evidences of its divine origin. It is certainly, even when read subject to the most searching modern criticism, seen to be amply sufficient for the end intended, as a general introduction to the history of Redemption, which although rooted in creation is henceforward carried on as a system of supernatural revelations and influences. 21. State the several princqjles winch should always he horve in mind in considering questions involving an apparent conflict of science and revelation. 1st. God's wotks and God's word are equally revelations from him. They are consequently both alike true, and both alike sacred, and to be treated with reverence. It is absolutely impossible that when they are both adequately interpreted they can come into conflict. Jealousy on either part, is treason to the Author and Lord of both. 2d. Science, or the interpretation of God's works, is there- fore a legitimate and obligatory department of human study. It has its rights which must be respected, and its duties which it must observe. It is the right of every science to 2:mrsue the investigation of its own branch according to its own legitimate methods. We can not require of the chemist that he should RELATION OF SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 247 pursue the methods of the philologist, nor of the geologist that he should go to history, either profane or sacred, for his facts. It is the duty of the students of every science to keep within its province, to recognize the fact that it is only one depart- ment of the vast empire of truth, and to respect alike all orders of truth, historical and inspired as well as scientihc; mental and spiritual, as well as material. 3d. It follows as a practical consequence from the narrow- ness of the human faculties, that men confined to particular branches of inquiry acquire special habits of thought, and as- sociations of ideas peculiar to their line, by which they are apt to measure and judge the whole world of truth. Thus the man of science misinterprets and then becomes jealous of the theo- logian, and the theologian misinterprets and becomes jealous of the man of science. This is narrowness, not superior knowl- edge; weakness, not strength. 4th. Science is only the human interpretation of God's works, it is always imperfect and m.akes many mistakes. Biblical in- terpreters are also liable to mistakes and should never assert the absolute identity of their interpretations of the Bible with the mind of God. 5th. All sciences in their crude condition have been thought to be in conflict with Scripture. But as they have approached perfection, they have been all found to be perfectly consistent with it. Sometimes it is the science which is amended into harmony with the views of the theologian. Sometimes it is the views of the theologian which are amended into harmony with perfected and demonstrated science, e. ^., the instance of the universal and now grateful acceptance by the church of the once abhorred Copernican s^'stem. 6th. In the case of many sciences, as eminently of Geology, the time has not yet come to attempt an adjustment between their conclusions and revelation. Like contemporaneous his- tory in its relation to prophecy. Geology in its relation to the Mosaic Record of creation is in transitu. 'Its conclusions are not yet mature. When geologists are all agreed among them- selves, when all the accessible tacts of the science are observed, analyzed, and classified, and when Generalization has doue its perfect work, and when all of its results are finished and finally fixed as part of the intellectual heritage of man forever, then the adjustment between science and revelation will stand self- revealed, and science will be seen to support and illustrate, instead of oppose, the written word of God. 7. There are hence two opposite tendencies which equally damage the cause of religion, and manifest the weakness of the faith of its professed friends. Thejirst is the weak accept- 248 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. ance of every hostile conclusion of scientific speculators as certainly true; the constant confession of the inferiority of the light of revelation to the light of nature, and of the certainty of tlie conclusions of Biblical exegesis and Christian theology to that of the results of modern science; the constant attempt to accommodate the interpretation of the Bible, like a nose of wax, to every new phase assumed by the current interpretations of nature. The second and opposite extreme is that of jealously suspecting all the findings of science as probable offences against the dignity of revelation, and of impatiently attacking even those passing phases of imperfect science which for the time appear to be inconsistent with our own opinions. Stand- ing upon the rock of divine truth. Christians need not fear, and can well afford to await the result. Perfect faith, as well as perfect love, casteth out all fear. All things are ours, whether the natural or the supernatural, whether science or revelation. — See Isaac Taylor's "Restoration of Belief," pp. 9, 10.


Question: What  were  the  cherubim  ?

Answer: "They were ideal creatures, compounded of four parts, those namely, of a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle." " The predomi- nant appearance was that of a man, but the number of faces, feet, and hands differed according to circumstances." — Ezek. i. G, compare with Ezek. xli. 18, 19, and Ex. xxv. 20. To the same ideal beings is applied the designation " living 250 ANGELS. creatures" (Ezek. i. 5-22; x. 15, 17; Rev. iv. 6-9; v. 6-14; vi. 1-7; vii. 11; xiv. 3; xv. 7; xix. 4), rendered in our version "beasts." "They were symholical of the highest properties of creature life, and of these as the outgoings and manifestation of the divine life; but they were fypical of redeemed and glorified manhood, or prophetical representations of it, as that in which these properties were to be combined and exhibited. "They were appointed immediately after the fall to man's original place in the garden, and to his office in connection with the tree of life." — Gen iii. 24. "The other and more common connection in which the cherub appears is with the throne or pecidiar dwelling-place of God. In tiie holy of holies in the tabernacle, Ex. xxv. 22, he was called the God who dwelleth between and sitteth upon the cherubim, 1 Sam. iv. 4; Ps. Ixxx. 1; Ezek. i. 26, 28; whose glory is above the cherubim. In Rev. iv. 6, we read of the living creatures who were in the midst of the throne and around about it." "What does this bespeak but the wonderful fact brought out in the history of redemption, that man's nature is to be exalted to the dwelling-place of the Godhead? In Christ it is taken, so to speak, into the very bosom of the Deity; and because it is so highly honored in him, it shall attain to more than angelic glory in his members." — Fairbairn's "Typology," Pt. II., Chapter i., Section 3. See also "Imperial Bible Dic- tionary," Art. Cherubim. 4. What is the^etymology of the word serajohim, and lohat is taught in Scripture concerning them ? The word signifies burning, bright, dazzling. It occurs in the Bible only once. — Isa. vi. 2, 6. It probably presents, under a difierent aspect, the ideal beings commonly designated cheru- bim and living creatures. 5. Is there any evidence that angels are of various orders and ranks ? That such distinctions certainly exist appears evident — 1st. From the language of Scripture. Gabriel is distinguished as one that stands in the presence of God (Luke i. 19), evi- dently ill some y)re-eminent sense; and Michael as one of the chief princes. — Dan. x. 13. Observe also the epithets archangel, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers. — Jude 9; Eph. i. 21. 2d. From the analogy of the fallen angels. — See Eph. ii. 2 ; Matt, ix. 34. 3d. From the analogy of human society and of the THEIR NUMBER, POWER, AND EMPLOYMENTS. 251 universal creation. Throughout all God's works gradation of rank prevails. 6. Bo the Sa-iptures speak of more than oiie archangel, and is he to be considered a creature? This term occurs but twice in the New Testament, and in both instances it is used in the singular number, and preceded by the definite article o. — 1 Thes. iv. 16; Jude 9. Thus tlie term is evidently restricted to one person, called, Jude 9, Michael, who, in Dan. x. 13, and xii. 1, is called "one of the chief princes," and "the great prince," and in Rev. xii. 7, is said to have fought with his angels against the dragon and his angels. Many suppose that the archangel is the Son of God. Others suppose that he is one of the highest class of creatures, since he is called ''one of the chief princes" Dan. x. 13; and since divine attributes are never ascribed to him. 7. What do the Scriptures teach concerning the number and power of angels ? 1st. Concerning their number, revelation determines only that it is very great. "Thousand thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand." — Dan. vii. 10. "More than twelve legions of angels." — ]\Iatt. xxvi. 53. "Multitude of the heavenly host." Luke ii. 13. " iAIyriads of angels." — Heb. xii. 22. 2d. Concerning their power, the Scriptures teach that it is very great when exercised both in the material and in the spir- itual worlds. They are called "mighty angels," and are said to "excel in strength?' — 2 Thess. i. 7; Ps. ciii. 20; 2 Kings xix. 35. Their power, however, is not creative, but, like that of man, it can be exercised only co-ordinately with the general laws of nature, in the absolute sense of that word.


Question: What  are  their  employments  ?

Answer: 1st. They behold the face of God in heaven, adore the divine perfections, study every revelation he makes of himself in prov- idence and redemption, and are perfectly blessed in his presence and service. — Matt, xviii. 10; Rev. v. 11; 1 Pet. i. 12. 2d. God employs them as his instruments in administer- ing the affairs of his providence. — Gen. xxviii. 12; Dan. x. 13. (1.) The law "was ordained by angels." — Gal. iii. 19; Acts vii. 53; Heb. ii. 2. (2.) They are instruments of good to God's people. — Heb. i. 14; Acts'^xii. 7; Ps. xci. 10-12. (3.) They ex- ecute judgment upon God's enemies. — Acts xii. 23; 2 Kings xix. 35; 1 Chron. xxi. 16. (4.) They will officiate in the final judgment, in separating the good from the bad, in gathering 252 ANGELS. the elect, and in bearing them up to meet the Lord in the air. ]\Iatt. xiii. 30, 39; xxiv. 31; 1 Thess. iv. 17. 9. Have angels bodies, and Jioiv are the appai^itions of angels to he accounted for ? Angels are called in the Scriptures "spirits" {TtvEvnara), Heb. i. 14, a word which is also used to designate the souls of men when separate from the body. — 1 Pet. iii. 19. There is however nothing in that word, nor in the opinions of the Jews at the time of Christ, nor in any thing which is told us of the nature or the employments of angels in the Scriptures, which prove that angels are absolutely destitute of proper material bodies of any kiiKl. Indeed as the Son of God is to have "a glorious body," "a spiritual body" forever, and since all the redeemed are to have bodies like his, and since the angels are associated with redeemed men as members of the same infi- nitely exalted kingdom, it may appear probable that angels may have been created with physical organizations not alto- gether dissimilar to the "spiritual bodies" of the redeemed. They always appeared and spoke to men in Bible times in the bodily form of men, and as such they ate food and lodged in houses like common men. — Gen. xviii. 8 and xix. 3. It has hence been supposed by some that angels have bodies like the present " natural " or animal bodies of men (6c3f.ia jpvxiHov), 1 Cor. XV. 44, of flesh, bones, and blood, of head and features, hands and feet, and that the apparition of an angel involved no change in him, but only a coming within the sphere of the sense perception of the observer, when the angel appeared just as he habitually is. Now this is inconsistent with the facts of the inspired rec- ord. In certain situations the angels "appeared" precisely like common men, and in other situations they acted very difierently (Acts xii. 7-10; Num. xxii. 31), in passing through stone walls, appearing and disappearing at will, etc. Besides, one of the three men who appeared to Abraham at Mamre, and wliose feet he washed, and who ate the meat he had prepared, was Jehovah, the second Person of the Trinity, who had no body till he acquired it many centuries afterwards in the womb of tlie Virgin. If the apparent Innnan body of the one angel was not a real, permanent human body, tliere is nt)t ground to argue from the recorded phenomena tiiat the others were. — Gen. xviii. 1-33. Besides this, the theory in question indicates absurd confu- sion of thought. The animal human body, as we know it, is a phj'sical organization in equilibrimn with certain definite and nicely adjusted physical conditions, and it can exist only under THE WORSHIP OF ANGELS. 253 those conditions. The vertebrate type, of Avhich the hnman body is the highest form, has been continnally changed as the physical conditions of the globe have changed, and it ceases always to exist whenever those conditions are changed in any decided degree. If it would be absurd to conceive of a human body existing in water, or in fire, how much more absurd is it to conceive of a warm-blooded, food-consinning animal existing indifferently on earth and in heaven; traversing at Avill the interstellar spaces, and as a true cosmopolite inhabiting alter- nately and indifferently all Avorlds, and all elements, ether, air and water, and all temperatures, from the molten sun to the absolue zero of the starless void. The bodily appearance of angels, therefore, must have been something new assumed, or something pre-existent and perma- nent greatly modified for the purpose of enabling them to hold, upon occasion, profitable intercourse with men. 10. What is the Romish doctrine ami practice ivith regard to the ivorship of angels? "Catechismus Romanus," iii. 2, 9, 10. — "For the Holy Spirit who says, Honor and glory unto the only God (1 Tim. i. 17), com- mands us also to honor our parents and elders (Lev. xix. 32, etc.) ; and the holy men who worshipped one God only are also said in the sacred Scriptures to have adored (Gen. xxiii. 7, 12, etc.), that is, to have suppliantly venerated, kings. If then kings, by whose agency God governs the world, are treated with so high an honor, shall we not give to the angelic spirits an honor greater in proportion as these blessed minds exceed kings in dignity ; [to those angelic spirits] whom God has been pleased to constitute his ministers; whose services he makes use of, not only in the government of the Church, but also of the rest of the universe; by whose aid, although we see them not, we are daily delivered from the greatest dangers both of soul and body? Add to this the charity with which they love us, through which, as Scripture informs us, they pour out their prayers for those countries (Dan. ii. 13) over which they are placed by Providence, and for those too, no doubt, whose guardians they are, for they present our prayers and tears before the throne of God (Job iii. 25; xii. 12; Rev. viii. 3). Hence our Lord has taught us in the gospel not to scandalize the little ones, because in heaven their angels do always heliold the face of his Father ivhich is in heaven. "Their intercession, therefore, we must invoke, because they always behold God, and receive from him the most willing ad- vocacy of our salvation. To this, their invocation, tlie sacred Scriptures bear testimony. — Gen. xlviii. 15, 16." 254 ANGELS. 11. Wlxat views have been entertained with respect to "Guar- dian Angels"? " It was a favorite opinion of the Christian Fathers that every individual is under tlie care of a particular angel, who is assigned to him as a guardian. They spoke also of two angels, — the one good, the other evil, — whom they conceived to be attendant on each individual: the good angel prompting to all good, and averting ill; and the evil angel prompting to all ill, and averting good (Hermas xi. 6). The Jews (except- ing the Sadducees) entertained this belief, as do the Moslems. The heathen held it in a modified form — the Greeks having their tutelary daamon, and the Romans their genius. There is however nothing to support this notion in the Bible. The passages usually referred to for its support (Ps. xxxiv. 7 ; Matt, xviii. 10), have assuredly no such meaning. The former sim- ply denotes that God employs the ministry of angels to deliver his people from affliction and danger; and the celebrated pas- sage in Matthew means that the infant children of believers, or the least among the disciples of Christ, whom the ministers of the church might be disposed to neglect, are in such esti- mation elsewhere, that angels do not think it below their dignit}^ to minister unto them." Nothing is said of the per- sonal assignment of angels to individual men. — Kitto's "Bib. Encyclo." 12. What are the names by ivhich Satan is distinguished, and what is their import ? Satan, which signifies adversary, Luke x. 18. The Devil (SidfJoXoi always occurs in the singular) signifying slanderer. Rev. XX. 2; Apollyon, which means destroj^er, and Abbadon, Rev. ix. 11; Beelzebub, the prince of devils, from the god of the Ekronites, chief among the heathen divinities, all of which the Jews regarded as devils, 2 Kings i. 2; Matt xii. 24; Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Rev. ix. 11; Prince of the World, John xii. 31 ; Prince of Darkness, Eph. vi. 12 ; A Roaring Lion, 1 Pet. V. 8; a Sinner from the Beginning, 1 John iii. 8; Accuser, Rev. xii. 10 ; Belial, 2 Cor. vi. 15 ; Deceiver, Rev. xx. 10 ; Dragon, Rev. xii. 7; Liar and Mvuxlerer, John viii. 44; Leviathan, Is. xxvii. 1; Lucifer, Is. xiv. 12; Serpent, Is. xxvii. 1; Tormentor, IMatt. xviii. 34; God of this World, 2 Cor. iv. 4; he that hath the Power of Death, Heb. ii. 14. — See Cruden's "Concordance." 13. Hoiv mny it he proved that Satan is a personal being, and not a mere person ijication of evil? Throughout all the various books of Scripture Satan is WICKED ANGELS. 255 always consistently spoken of as a person, and personal at- tributes are predicated of him. Such passages as Matt. iv. 1-11, and John viii. 44, are decisive. 14. Wliat do the Scrijjfures teach concerning the relation of Satan to other evil SjMrifs and to our ivorld? Other evil spirits are called " his angels," Matt. xxv. 41 ; and he is called "Prince of Devils," Matt. ix. 34; and "Prince of the powers of the Air," and " Prince of Darkness," Eph. vi. 12. This indicates that he is the master spirit of evil. His relation to this world is indicated by the history of the Fall, 2 Cor. xi. 3 ; Eev. xii. 9, and by such expressions as " God of this World," 2 Cor. iv. 4; and "Spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience," p]ph. ii. 2; wicked men are said to be his children, 1 John iii. 10; he blinds tlie minds of those that believe not and leads them captive at his will, 2 Tim. ii. 26; he also pains, harasses, and tempts God's true people as far as is permitted for their ultimate good. — Luke xxii. 31 ; 2 Cor. xii. 7 ; 1 Thess. ii. 18.


Question: What  are  the  terms  hij  tvhich  fallen  spirits  are  designated?

Answer: The Greek word 6 SidfioXoi, the devil, is in the original ap- plied only to Beelzebub. Other evil spirits are called dcx/jnorsi, deemons, ]\lark v. 12 (translated devils); unclean spirits, INIark V. 13; angels of the devil. Matt. xxv. 41; principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, Eph. vi. 12; angels tliat sinned, 2 Pet. ii. 4; angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, Jude vi. ; lying spirits, 2 Chron. xviii. 22. 16. What poiver or agency over the bodies and souls of men is ascribed to them ? Satan, like all other finite beings, can only be in one place at a time; yet all that is done by his agents being attributed to him, he appears to be practically ubiquitous. It is certain that at times at least they have exercised an inexplicable influence over the bodies of men, yet that influence is entirely subject to God's control. — Job ii. 7; Luke xiii. 16; Acts X. 38. They have caused and aggravated diseases, and excited appetites and passions. — 1 Cor. v. 5. Satan, in some sense, has the power of death. — Heb. ii. 14. With respect to the souls of men, Satan and his angels are utterly destitute of any power either to change the heart or to coerce the will, their influence being simply moral, and exer- cised in the way of deception, suggestion, and persuasion. The descriptive phrases applied by the Scriptures to their working 256 ANGELS. are such as — "the deceivahleness of imrighteousness," "power, signs, lying wonders," 2 Thess. ii. 9, 10; he "transforms him- self into an angel of light." — 2 Cor. xi. 14. If he can deceive or persuade he uses "wiles," Eph. vi. 11; "snares," 1 Tim. iii. 7; "depths," Kev. ii. 24; he "blinds the mind," 2 Cor. iv. 4; "leads captive the will," 2 Tim. ii. 26; and so "deceives the whole world." — Rev. xii. 9. If he can not persuade he uses "fiery- darts," Eph. vi. 16; and "buffetings." — 2 Cor. xii. 7. As examples of his influence in tempting men to sin the Scriptures cite the case of Adam, Gen iii. ; of David, 1 Chron. xxi. 1; of Judas, Luke xxii. 3; Ananias and Sapphira, Acts v. 3, and the temptation of our blessed Lord, Matt. iv.


Question: What  evidence  is  tliere  that  the  heathen  u'orsJiip  devils?

Answer: "The daif-ioov is the object of their worship, dsidiSaiucovia describes their worship itself, and 8Et6idaiixoov the worshipper." Paul (Acts xvii. 22) declared that the men of Athens were 8Ei6idaii.iov£6T£povi, i. e., too much addicted to demon-woi'ship. David says (Ps. cvi. 37), "The gods of the heathen are demons," and Paul (1 Cor. x. 20), "The things which the Gentiles sacri- fice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God." Moses said of apostate Israelites (Deut. xxxii. 17), "They sacrificed to demons and not to God, to gods Avhom they knew not; to ncAV gods that came newly up; whom your fathers feared not." — "The Imperial Bible Dictionary." 18. Where do they reside, and what is the true interpretation of Eph. ii. 2, and vi. 12 ? These passages simply declare that evil spirits belong to the unseen spiritual world, and not to our mundane sj^stem. Noth- ing is taught us in Scripture as to ther place of their residence, further than that they originally dwelt in and fell from heaven, that they now have access to men on earth, and that they Avill be finally sealed up in the lake of fire prepared for them. — Eev. XX. 10; Matt. xxv. 41.


Question: By  ivhat  terms  ivere  those  possessed  by  evil  spirits  designated?

Answer: They are called "demoniacs," translated |)osse§ser? ivith devils, Matt. iv. 24; "having the spirit of an unclean devil," Luke iv. 33; "oppressed of the devil," Acts x. 38; "lunatics," JMatt. xvii. 15. 20. What arguments are urged by those ivho regard the de- moniacs mentioned in the Neiv Testament as simjjly diseased or deranged ? That we can not discriminate between the effects of demoni- DEMONIACAL POSSESSION. 257 acal possession and disease. That precisely the same symptoms have, in other cases, been treated as disease and cured. Tliat, hke witchcraft, the experience of such possessions has been confined to the most ignorant ages of the world. They argue further that this doctrine is inconsistent with clearly revealed principles. 1st. That the souls of dead men go immediately either to heaven or hell. 2d. That fallen angels are already shut up in chains and darkness in expectation of the final judgment. — 2 Pet. ii. 4; Jude 6. They attempt to explain away the language of Christ and his apostles upon this subject by affirming, that as it Avas no part of their design to instruct men in the true science of nature or disease, they conformed their language on such subjects to the prevalent opinions of the people they addressed, calling diseases by the popular name, without intending thereby to countenance the theory of tlie nature of the disease, out of which the name originated. Just as we now call crazed peo- ple " lunatics," without believing in the influence of the moon upon them. — "Kitto's Bib. Ency." 21. How may it be proved that the demoniacs of the New Testa- ment luere really possessed of evil spirits ? The simple narratives of all the evangelists put it beyond peradventure that Christ and his apostles did believe, and wished others to believe, that the demoniacs were really pos- sessed with devils. They distinguish between possession and disease. — Mark i. 32; Luke vi. 17, 18. The "deemons," as distinct from the "possessed," spoke (Mark. v. 12), were addressed, commanded, and rebuked by Christ.— Mark i. 25, 34; ix. 25; Matt. viii. 32; xvii. 18. Their desires, reqtiests, and passions are distinguished from those of the possessed. — Matt. viii. 31 ; Mark ix. 26, etc. The number of daemons in one person is mentioned. — Mark xvi. 9. They went out of the "possessed" into the swine. — Luke viii. 32. We never speak of the moon entering into, and sore vexing a man, or being cast out of a lunatic, or of the moon crying aloud, etc. The argument of those who w^ould explain away the force of Christ's language on this subject, therefore fails.


Question: How  are  miracles  designated  in  the  New  Testament  ?

Answer: They are called — (1) rspara, wonders, Acts ii. 19; (2) Srva- l-iEii, works of superhuman power, and (3) 6rjnti<x, signs, John ii. 18, INlatt. xii. 38. The last designation expresses their true office. I They are designed to be "signs" incapable of being counterfeited, of God's commission and authentication of a religious teacher and of his doctrine, l 39. Hoiv then is a miracle, in the Scrij^tural sense of that tvord, to he defined, so as to signalize its specific distinction from supernat- ural events in genercd, and from extraordinary Providences, as above explained ? A miracle is (1) an event occurring in the physical world, capable of being discerned and discriminated by the bodily senses of human witnesses, (2) of such a character that it can be rationally referred to no other cause than the immediate volition of God, (3) accompanying a religious teacher, and designed to authenticate his divine commission and the truth of his message. 40. State and ansicer the a priori objection to the possibility of miracles, that they essentially involve the violcdion of the laws of nature. It is maintained that all experience, and the integrity of human reason, unite in guaranteeing the absolute inviolability of the law of continuity — that every possible event finds its full explanation in adequate causes which precede it, and that every event in its turn causes endless consequences to succeed it. No event can be isolated from its antecedents and conse- quences, nor from its conditions, and every cause acts accord- ing to an intelligible law of its nature. This is all true, and as true of miracles as of any other events. If by " law of nature " Ave mean the physical forces which produce effects, then no miracle involves any suspension or violation of such law. It is a common experience that forces 276 PROVIDENCE. modify each other, and each added force combines with others in producing effects otherwise impossible. If by " law of na- ture " Ave mean the ordinary course of events observed in nature, then a miracle is, by definition, a signal suspension of that order. But the same thing is brought about every day by the inter- vention in nature of the intelligent Avills of men. In every physical event there are a combination of con- causes combining to effect it. The human will in acting violates no law, and annihilates no force, it simply combines natural forces under special conditions, and interpolates into the smn of concauses a new concause — the human volition. AVhen the sons of the prophets " cut down a stick and cast it into the water and the iron of the axe-head did swim " (2 Kings vi. 6), neither the specific gravities of the iron nor of the water were altered, nor was the law of gravitation sus- pended. The miracle consisted only in a divine volition in- terpolating a new transient force, equal to the excess of the specific gravity of the iron over that of the water, and acting in a directioii opposite to that of gravity. This is precisely analogous to the action of the human will upon physical oljjects — with this exception — man's will acts upon outward objects only indirectly through the mechanism of his body, and directly only upon his voluntary muscles; while God's will acts directly upon every element of the world he has created. And what is true in this simple miracle could be shown to be true in the most complex ones, such as the raising of Lazarus, if we knew enough of the chemistry and physiology of human life. John Stuart INIill ("Essay on Theism," Pt. iv.) says, "It may be argued that 'the power of volition over phenomena is itself a law, and one of the earliest known and acknowledged laws of nature. . . . The interference of human will with the course of nature is only not an exception to law, when we in- clude among laws the relation of motive to volition ; and by the same rule interference by the divine will would not be an exception either; since we can not but suppose Deity, in every one of his acts, to be determined by motives.' The alleged analogy holds good: but what it proves is only what I have from the first maintained — that divine interference with nature could be proved if we had the same sort of evidence for it which we have for human interferences." That is, this greatest of all the philosophical rationalists maintains that there is no a jmoi^i ground to judge miracles impossible. It is purely a question as to tlie sufficiency of the evidence. Every Christian is perfectly satisfied that the evi- dence (historical, moral, and spiritual) for the resurrection of DESIGN OF MIRACLES. 277 Christ, and the miracles historically associated with that event, is abundantly sufficient. 41. State andj answer the objection to the occurrence of a mirade drawn from the balance of the physical univtrse. It is a fact that the whole physical universe forms one sys- tem, and that as at present adjusted it is in a state of such del- icate equilibrium that the addition or subtraction ot a single atom in any one portion of it would disturb that equilibrium throughout the entire system. A disturbance, however slight, ab extra — the intrusion of an agent not belonging to the system of things, would be destructive of the whole. It is obvious that this objection Avould have weight if the material universe were an exclusive whole by itself, and if it sustained no constitutional relation to God. But if God and the created world together constitute a whole — a complete universe of things — the objection is absurd. The sum of his activities of every kind is the necessary complement of the sum of the activities of all his creatures, and only thus the equilibrium is maintained. It is plain that the will of God is no more outside the sum of things constituting the universe than is the will of man. And man is constantly modifying nature over wide areas, and every moment bringing his will as a new concause to act upon the physical laws of the universe ab extra, and giving them new directions and conditions. The equilibrium of the physical universe, moreover, is not a permanent one, but one constantly changing, especially through the diffusion of heat and the massing of matter at the centres of attraction. 42. State and ansiver the objection that the assumption of the necessity of miraculous interfei-ence is derogatory to the icisdom and -power of the Creator. It is argued that the skill of a human workman is always exhibited in proportion to the ability of his work to perform its designed function independently of his repair, or correction, or guidance. That the necessity of interference for any purpose ab extra is a proof of defect or at least of limitation in the skill or power of the maker. Any occasion for a miracle therefore could only arise, they argue, from a change of purpose on the part of God, or a radical defect upon the part of his creation. Theodore Parker said, " There is no whim in God, and therefore no miracle in nature." This would have force if miracles were desiii'ned to correct 278 PROVIDENCE. ■ the defective working of the physical universe. But this no Christian has ever dreamed. The design of a miracle is simply to signify to God's intelli- gent creatures his active intervention in the moral universe for the purpose of restoring the order disturbed by sin. The moral system is essentially different from the physical one. The one is mechanical, the other embraces the reason, consciencje, free WILL, and the law of motive. Free will makes sin possible, and sin makes direct divine intervention necessary, either to redeem or to damn. All the miracles of Scripture are grouped around the great crises in the Avork of Redemption, or the restoration of the original natural law disturbed by sin. Hence the miracles of Scripture, unlike all the miracles of the heathen, or of the Papal Church, or of modern spiritualism, instead of being mere won- ders, exhibitions of power, wanton violations of natural order, are pre-eminently works of healing, acts the whole bearing and spirit of which imply the restoration and confirmation, not the violation, of law. The highest meaning of the word Law is order, arrange- ment, assignment of function, to the end of effecting a purpose. The supreme essence of all law, therefore, is the eternal purpose of God. Not a single miracidous intervention was an after-thought. One eternal act of absolutely intelligent volition embraced the whole scheme of being and events in all space and all duration, appointing all ends and all means and all methods at once, the necessary and the free, the physical and the moral, the acts of tiie creature obeying law, and the interventions of the Creator imposing law. 43. Hoio can an event advally occurring he certainly recognized as coming under the category of 'miracles as above defined? I. A miracle, according to the foregoing definition, is "an event occurring in the physical world capable of- being dis- cerned and certainly discriminated by the bodily senses." The miracles of Scripture fulfil this condition, especially the most important of them. They were exhibited (1) in the clear light of day, (2) on several occasions, (3) under varying circum- stances (4) to a number of witnesses, and (5) to the scrutiny of several senses, as of sight, hearing, and touch, mutually cor- roborating one another. II. A miracle, by the same definition, must "accompany a religious teacher, and is designed to authenticate his divnie commission and the truth of his message." It hence follows that every such event, in order to be credible, must (1) be itself of a character, rationally and morally, congruous with its pro- A MIRACLE CAN BE RECOGNIZED. 279 fessedly divine origin. (2.) The character of the religions teach- er whose commission it antlienticates, and the character of his doctrine, must be such that it is credible that they represent the mind and will of God. (3.) The messenger and his message must be found to be consistent, historically and doctrinally, with the entire organism of preceding revelations and divine interventions. III. The miracle, in the third place, must be "of such a character that it can be rationally referred to no other cause than the immediate volition of God." It has been objected at this point that a miracle could not be certainly determined to be such, even if it occur, because — 1st. No man knows all the laws of nature, nor what is the true line between the natural and the supernatural. What is new or inexplicable is relatively supernatural, i. e., by us incapable of being reduced to the categories of nature. 2d. Because evil spirits often have wrought supernatural works — and it is impos- sible for us, therefore, to determine in any case that the cause of the event can be only a direct volition of God. We answer — 1st. As far as evil spirits are concerned, the kingdom of Satan can easily be recognized by its character. No isolated event is ever to be recognized as a miracle. The man, and the doctrine, and their relation to the whole system of past revelations and miraculous interventions, will in every case be sufficient to discriminate tlie identity of the supernat- ural cause of an event. 2d. As far as the question of deter- mining with certainty what eflects transcend the powers of nature, we answer — (1.) There are some classes of effects about which no man can possibly doubt, e. (/., the raising of Laz- arus, and the miiltiplying of the loaves and fishes; we may doubt about the exact boundaries of the supernatural — but no man can mistake that which so far transcends the boundaries. (2.) These effects were accomplished two thousand years ago, in an unscientific age, by an unlearned people.  (3.) These efi'ects were produced over and over again at tJie mere ivord^ of command, without the use of any sort of means, or fixed physical condition. (4.) The works were divine in character, and the occasions were worthy, the religious teachers and dootrines carried their own corroborative spiritual evidence, and the events fell into their place in the entire system of revelation. ^^^-"-^"^^^^ /3t^«r«tv pA^^^^^^.^^^ -z^ Chapter y^ .^z^^^r^^yZlu^^u^^ ^^tv^/x^'t. THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF THE SOUL, WILL, LIBERTY, ETC. -^ 1. TF/za^ general department of theology are ice now entering, and what are the jJrincipal topics embraced in it ? The general department of Anthropology, and the principal topics embraced in this department,^re the moral constitution of man psychologically considered, the moral condition of man when created, and the providential relations into which man was introduced at his creation.3-(the nature of sin, the sin of Adam, the effects of his sin upon himself and upon his pos- terity, and the consequent moral condition and legal relations into which his descendants are introduced at birtliA It is obvious that an accurate understanding of the nature of sin, original or actual, of the influence of divine grace, and of the change wrought in the soul in regeneration, of course involves some previous knowledge of the constitutional facul- ties of the soul, and especially of those faculties which partic- ularly distinguish man as a moral agent. Hence there are certain psychological and metaphysical questions inseparable from theological discussions. 2. What is the general principle which it is always necessary to hear in mind while treating of the various faculties of the human soul ? The soul of man is one single indivisible agent, not an or- ganized wliole consisting of several parts; and, tlierefore, what we call its several faculties are rather the capacity of the one agent, for discharging successively or concurrently the several functions involved, and are never to be conceived of as sepa- rately existing parts or organs. These several functions exer- cised b}'- the one soul are so various and complex, that a minute anal^'sis is absolutely necessary, in order to lay open to us a definite view of their nature. Yet we must carefully remem- ber that a large part of the errors into which philosopliers have "-^t^*- '^-^-tf.^feX ^ X^ ^^^ ^y^FACULTIES CLASSIFIED. <2 fallen in their interpretation of man's moral constitution, has resulted from the abuse of this very process of analysis. This is especially true with respect to the interpretation of the vol- untary acts of the human soul. In prosecution of his analysis the pliilosopher comes to recognize separately the differences and the likenesses of these various functions of the soul, and too frequently forgets that these functions themselves are, in fact, never exercised in that isolated manner, but concurrently by the one soul, as an indivisible agent, and that thus they always qualify one another. Thus, it is not true, in fact, that the understanding reasons, and the heart feels, and the con- science approves or condemns, and the will decides, as different members of the body work together, or as the different persons constituting a council deliberate and decide in mutual parts; but it is true that tlie one indivisible, rational, feeling, moral, self-determining soul reasons, feels, approves, or condemns and decides. The self-determining power of the ivill as an ahsfract faculty is absurd as a doctrine, and would be disastrous as an experi- ence ; but the self-determining power of the human soul as a concrete, rational, feeling agent, is a fact of universal conscious- ness, and a fundamental doctrine of moral philosophy and of Christian theology. The real question is not as to the liberty of the tvill, but as to the liberty of the man in willing. It is obvi- ous that we are free if we have liberty to will as ive please, i. e., as upon the whole we judge best, and all things consid- ered desire.


Question: Hoiv  may  the  leadi7ig faculties  of  the  human  soul  he  classified?

Answer: and luhich are the seat of our moral nature ? 1st. The intellectual. This class includes all those faculties in different ways concerned in the general function of know- ing; as the reason, the imagination, the bodily senses, and the moral sense (when considered as a mere source of knowledge informing the understanding). 2d. TliR f>pintinna1. This class includes all those feelings which attend, in any manner, the exercise of the other faculties. 3d._Xll£jisalL- It will be observed that the functions of the conscience in- volve faculties belonging to both the first and second classes (see below, Question 5). It is often asked. Which of our faculties is the seat of our moral nature? Now while there is a sense in which all moral questions concern the relation of the states or acts of the will to tlie law of God revealed in the conscience, and therefore in which the will and the conscience are pre-eminently the fouu- 282 MORAL CONSTITUTION OF THE SOUL. dation of man's moral nature, it is true, nevertheless, that every one of the faculties of the human soul, as above classified, is exercised in relation to all moral distinctions, e. (/., the intellect- ual in the perception and judg-ment; the emotional in pleasant feeling- or tlie reverse; the will, in choosing or refusing, and in acting. Every state or act of any one of the faculties of the human soul, therefore, which involves the judging, choosing, refusing, or desiring, upon a purel}^ moral question, or the feel- ing corresponding thereto, is a moral state or act, and all the faculties, viewed in their relations to the distinction between good and evil, are moral faculties.


Question: What  is  the  Will?

Answer: The term "will" is often used to express the mere faculty of volition, whereby the soul chooses, or refuses, or determines to act, and the exercise of that faculty. It is also used in a Avider sense, and in this sense I use it here, to include the faculty of V volition, together with all of the spontaneous states of the soul \ (designated by Sir William Hamilton, " Lectures on Metaphy- ^ sics," Lect. XL, the faculties of conation, the excitive, striving faculties, possessing, as their common characteristic, " a ten- dency toward the realization of their end "), the dispositions, affections, desires, which determine a man in the exercise of his free power of volition. It must be remembered, however, that these two senses of the word "will" are essentially distinct. The will, as including all the faculties of conation (the disposi- tions and desires), is to be essentially distinguished from the single faculty of soul exercised in the resulting volition, i. e., the choosing or the acting according to its prevailing desire. The term " will " is used in the wider sense in this chapter. A man in willing is perfectly free, i. e., he always exercises volition according to the prevailing disposition or desire of his will at the time. This is the highest freedom, and the only one consistent with rationality or moral responsibility. 5. Dejine the term Volition. By the term " faculty of volition " Ave mean the executive faculty of the soul, the faculty of choice or self-decision ; and by the term " volition " we mean the exercise of that faculty in any act of choice or self-decision.


Question: W licit  is  Conscience?

Answer: Conscience, as a faculty, includes (a) a moral sense or intu- ition, a power of discerning right and wrong, which, combining Avith the understanding, or faculty of comparing and judging, judges (jf the right or wrong of our own moral dispositions and TRUE TEST AND SEAT OF MORAL CHARACTER. 283 voluntary actions, and of the dispositions and volnntaiy actions of other free agents. (6.) This faculty judges according to a divine law of right and wrong, included within itself (it is a law to itself, the original law written upon the heart, Horn, ii. 14), and (c) it is accompanied Avith vivid emotions, pleasur- able in view of that which is right, and painful in view of that which is wrong, especially when our conscience is engaged in reviewing the states or the actions of our own souls. This faculty in its own province is sovereign, and can have no other superior than the revealed word of God. — See M'Cosh, "Divine Government," Book III., chap. i. sec. 4. 7. What is the true test for determining the moral quality of any mental act or state ? The only true tests of the moral quahty of any state or act are — 1st. The inspired word of God, and 2d. The spontaneous, practical, and universal judgments of men. The moral judgments of men, like all our intuitive judg- ments, are certainly reliable only when they respect concrete and individual judgments. The generalized and abstract prop- ositions which being supposed to be formed by abstraction and generalization from these individual judgments may be true or not, but they can not be received as a reliable foundation upon which to erect a system of evidence. Very absurd attempts have been often made to demonstrate the moral or non-moral character of any principle, by means of general formularies rep- resenting partial truths imperfectly stated, and by means of other, — either false, senseless, or irrelevant, — a priori consid- erations. 8. Itito what classes are the spontaneous affections of the soul to he distributed, and ivhat are the distinguishing characteristics of each class ? The spontaneous desires and affections of the soul are of two distnict classes. 1st. The animal, or those which arise bHndly without intelligence, e. g., the appetites and instinctive afff ctions, these have no intrinsic moral quality in themselves, and become the occasion of moral action only when they are restrained or inordinately indulged. 2d. The rational affec- tions and desires called out by objects apprehended by the intellect. 9. What rational spontaneous affections possess a moral quality, and in what does thai quality inherently attach ? Such rational spontaneous affections are intrinsically and essentially either good or bad or morally indifferent, and their 284 MORAL CONSTITUTION OF THE SOUL. quality is discriminated by the quality of the objects by which they are attracted. They are good when their objects are good, evil when tlieir objects are evil, and morally indifferent when their objects are indifferent. Theii" moral quality, whatever it be, is intrinsic to them. When they are good, all men con- sider them worthy of approbation, and when they are evil, all men consider them worthy of condemnation and righteous in- dignation, because of their essential nature as good or as evil, and without any consideration of their origin. When good these spontaneous affections determine the volitions to good, when they are evil they determine the volitions to evil. 10. To ivliat do ice apply fJie desk/nation ^'■permanent principles, or dispositions " of soul ? and when do they possess a moral charac- ter, and what is the source of that character ? There are in the soul, underlying its passing states and af- fections, certain permanent habits or dispositions involving a tendency to or facility for certain kinds of exercises. Some of these habits or dispositions are innate and some are acquired. These constitute the character of the man, and lay the founda- tion for all his successive exercises of feeling, affection, desire, volition, or action. As far as these are morally good, the man and his action are good; as far as these are evil, the man and his action are evil; as far as tliese are morally indifferent, i. e., concern objects morally indifferent, the actions which spring from them are morally indifferent. The moral character of these inherent moral tendencies of the soul is intrinsic and es- sential. They are the ultimate tendencies of the soul itself, and their goodness or badness is an ultimate fact of consciousness. 11. Shoiv that the state and actlo7i of the intellect may possess a moral character. The intellect is so implicated in its exercises with the moral affections and emotions, that its views and judgments on all moral subjects have a moral character also. A man is hence responsible for his moral judgments — and hence for his beliefs as well as for his moral feelings, because the one is as imme- diately as the other determined by the general moral state or character of the soul. A man who is blind to moral excellence, or to the deformity of sin, is condemned bj^ every enhghtened conscience. The Scriptures pronounce a woe upon those "who call evil good and good evil, Avho put light for darkness and darkness for liglit." — Isa. v. 20. Sin is called in Scripture "blind- ness" and "folly." — 1 John ii. 11; Eph. iv. 18; Rev. iii. 17; Matt, xxiii. 17; Luke xxiv. '2b. CONSCIENCE INDESTRUCTIBLE. 285


Question: Wliat  are  the  essential  conditions  of  moral  responsibility  ?

Answer: To be morally responsible a man mnst be a free, rational, moral agent (see answer to preceding question). 1st. He must be in present possession of his reason to distinguish truth from falsehood. 2d. He must also have in exercise a moral sense to distinguish right from wrong. 3d. His will, in its volitions or executive acts, must be self-decided, i. e., determined by its own spontaneous affections and desires. If any of these are wanting, the man is insane, and neither free nor responsible.


Question: Is  the  conscience  indestructible  and  infallible  ?

Answer: The conscience, the organ of God's law in the soul, may vir- tually, i. e., as to its effects and phenomena, be both rendered latent and perverted for a time, and in this phenomenal sense, therefore, it is neither indestructible nor infallible. But if the moral sense be regarded simply in itself it is infallible, and if the total history of even the worst man is taken into the ac- count, conscience is truly indestructible. 1st. As to its imlestructihility. Conscience, like every other faculty of the soul, is undeveloped in the infant, and very imperfectly developed in the savage; and, moreover, after a long habit of inattention to its voice and violation of its law, the individual sinner is often judicially given up to carnal indifference; his conscience for a time lying latent. Yet it is certain that it is never destroyed — (1.) From the fact that it is often aroused to the most fearful energy in the hearts of long-hardened reprobates in the agonies of remorse. (2.) From the fact that this remorse or accusing conscience constitutes the essential torment of lost souls and devils. This is the worm that never dieth. Other Avise their punishment would lose its moral character. 2d. As to its i) fallibility. Conscience, in the act of judging of moral states or actions, involves the concm-rent action of the understanding and the moral sense. This understanding- is always fallible, especially when it is prejudiced in its action by depraved affections and desires. Thus, in fact, conscience constantly delivers false decisions from a misjudgment of the facts and relations of the case; it may be through a selfish or sensual or a malignant bias. Hence we have virtually a deceiving as well as a latent conscience. Notwithstanding this, however, the normal sense of the distinction between right and wrong, as an eternal law to itself, lies indestructible even in the most depraved breasts, as it can not be destroyed, so it can not be changed; when aroused to action, and when not deceived as to the true state of the case, its language is 286 MORAL CONSTITUTION OF THE SOUL. eternally the same. — See M'Cosh, " Divine Government," Book III., chapter ii., section 6, and Dr. A. Alexander, "Moral Sci- ence," chapters iv, and v.


Question: Wlicd  is  the  essential  nature  of  virtue  ?

Answer: "Virtue is a peculiar quality of" certain states of the will, i. e., either permanent dispositions or temporary affections of the will, and " of certain voluntary actions of a moral agent, which quality is perceived by the moral faculty with which every man is endowed, and the perception of which is accom- panied by an emotion which is distinct from all other emotions, and is called moral." — Dr. Alexander, "Moral Science,'* ch. xxvi. The essence of virtue is, that it obliges the will. If a thing is morall}" right it ought to be done. The essence of moral evil is, that it intrinsically deserves disapprobation, and the agent punishment. This point is of great importance, because the truth here is often perverted by a false philosophy, and because this view of mdral good is the only one consistent with the Scriptural doctrine of sins, rewards, and punishments, and, above all, of Christ's atonement. The idea of virtue is a simple and ultimate intuition; at- tempted analysis destroys it. Right is right because it is. It is its own highest reason. It has its norm in the immutable nature of God.


Question: What  constitutes  a  virtuous  and  tvhat  a  vicious  character?

Answer: Virtue, as defined in the answer to the last question, attaches only to the will of man (including all the conative faculties), 1st, to its permanent disposition; 2d, to its temporary afiections; and 3d, to its volitions. Some of these states and actions of the will are not moral, i. e., they are neither approved nor con- demned by the conscience as virtuous or vicious. But virtue or vice belong only to moral states of the soul, and to volun- tary acts. A virtuous character, therefore, is one in which the permanent dispositions, the temporary affections and desires, and the volitions of the soul, are conformahle to the divine laiv. A vicious character, on the other hand, is one in which these states and acts of the will are not conformable to the divine law. The acts of volition are virtuous or vicious as the affections or desires by which the}^ are determined are the one or the other. The affections and desires are as the permanent dispo- sitions or the character. This last is the nature of the will itself, and its character is an ultimate unresolvable fact. Whether that character be innate or acquired by habit, the fact of its WHAT CONSTITUTES MAN A FREE AGENT. 287 moral quality as virtuous or vicious remains the same, and the consequent moral accountability of the agent for his character is unchanged. It must be remembered that the mere possession of a con- science which approves tlie right and condemns the wrong, and which is accompanied witli more or less lively emotion, painful or pleasurable as it condemns or approves, does not make a character virtuous, or else the devils and lost souls would be eminently virtuous. But the virtuous man is he whose heart and actions., in biblical language, or whose disposi- tions, affectioivs, and volitions, in philosophical language, are con- formed to the law of God. 16. State both branches of the Utilitarian theory of virtue. The first and lowest form is that which maintains that vir- tue consists in the intelligent desire for happiness. Dr. N. W. Taylor says — " Nothing is good but happiness and the means of happiness, and nothing evil but misery and the means of misery." The second and higher form of the Utilitarian theory of virtue is that it consists in disinterested benevolence, and that all sin is a form of selfishness. This is shown. Chapters VI II., XII., and XVIII., to be a defective and therefore a false view.


Question: What  do  ive  mean  when  loe  say  that  a  man  is  a  free  agent?

Answer: 1st. That, being a spirit, he originates action. Matter acts only as it is acted upon. A man acts from the spring of his own active power. 2d. That, although a man may be forced by fear to will and to do many things which he would neither Avill nor do if it were not for the fear, yet he never can be made to will what he does not himself desire to will, in full view of all the circumstances of the case. 3d. That he is furnished with a reason to distinguish be- tween the true and the false, and with a conscience, the organ of an innate moral law, to distinguish between right and wrong, in order that his desires may be both rational and righteous. And yet his desires are not necessarily either rational or right- eous, but are formed under the light of reason and conscience, either conformable to or contrary to them, according to the permanent, habitual dispositions of the man; i. e., according to his own character. 18. Shoio that this attribute of human nature is inalienable. A man is said to be free in willing when he wills in con 288 MORAL CONSTITUTION OF THE SOUL. formity with his own prevaihng dispositions and desires at the time. A man's judgment may be deceived, or his actions may be coerced, but his will must he free, because, if it be truly his iciU, it must be as he desires it to be, in his present state of mind and under all the circumstances of the case at the time. It hence follows that volition is of its very essence free, whether the agent willing or the act willed be wise or foolish, good or bad. 19. Do not the Scriptures, however, speak of mans being under the bondage of corrupiion, and his liberty as lost ? As above shown, a man is alwaj-s free in every responsible volition, as much when he chooses, in violation of the law of God and conscience, as in conformity to it. In the case of unfallen creatures, and of perfectly sanctified men, however, the permanent state of the will, the voluntary affections and desires (in Scripture language, the heart), are conformed to the light of reason and the law of conscience within, and to the law of God, in its objective revelation. There are no conflicting prin- ciples then within the soul, and the law of God, instead of coercing the will by its commands and threatenings, is spon- taneously obeyed. This is "the liberty of the sons of God;" and the law becomes the " royal law of liberty " when the law in the heart of the subject perfectly corresponds with the law of the moral Governor. In the case of fallen men and angels, on the other hand, the reason and conscience, and God's law, are opposed by the governing dispositions of the will ; and the agent, although free, because he wills as he chooses, is said to be in bondage to an evil nature, and " the servant of sin," because he is impelled by his corrupt dispositions to choose that which he sees and feels to be wrong and injurious, and because the threatenings of God's law tend to coerce his will through fear. The Scriptures do not teach that the unregenerate is not free in his sin, for then he would not be responsible. But the contrast between the liberty of the regenerate and the bondage of the unregenerate arises from the fact that in the regenerate the habitually controlling desires and tendencies are not in conflict with the voice of conscience and the law of God. The unregenerate, viewed psychologically, is free when he sins, be- cause he wills as upon the whole he desires; but viewed theo- logically, in his relation to God's law as enforced by reason and conscience and Scriptiu'e, he maj?^ be said to be in bondage to the evil dispositions and desires of his own heart, which he sees DEFINITIONS OF LIBERTY. 289 to be both wrong and foolish, bnt whicli, nevertheless, he is impotent to change.