THE NATURE, DECREES, AND WORKS OF GOD.

CHAPTER 1.

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.

In contemplating the words and acts of God, as in contemplating the words and acts of individual men, we are compelled to assign uniform and permanent effects to uniform and permanent causes. Holy acts and words, we argue, must have their source in a principle of holiness; truthful acts and words, in a settled proclivity to truth; benevolent acts and words, in a benevolent disposition.

Moreover, these permanent and uniform sources of expression and action to which we have applied the terms principle, proclivity, disposition, since they exist harmoniously in the same person, must themselves inhere, and find their unity, in an underlying spiritual substance or reality of which they are the inseparable characteristics and partial manifestations.

Thus we are led naturally from the works to the attributes, and from the attributes to the essence, of God.

For all practical purposes we may use the words essence, substance, being, nature, as synonymous with each other. So, too, we may speak of attribute, quality, characteristic, principle, proclivity, and disposition, as practically one. As, in cognizing matter, we pass from its effects in sensation to the qualities which produce the sensations, and then to the material substance to which the qualities belong; and as, in cognizing mind, we pass from its phenomena in thought and action to the faculties and dispositions which give rise to these phenomena, and then to the mental substance to which these faculties and dispositions belong; so, in cognizing God, we pass from his words and acts to his qualities or attributes, and then to the substance or essence to which these qualities or attributes belong.

The teacher in a Young Ladies’ Seminary described substance as a cushion, into which the attributes as pins are stuck. But pins and cushion alike are substance, — neither one is quality. The opposite error is illustrated from the experience of Abraham Lincoln on the Ohio River. “What is this transcendentalism that we hear so much about?” asked Mr. Lincoln. The answer came: “You see those swallows digging holes in yonder bank? Well, take away the bank from around those holes, and what is left is transcendentalism.” Substance is often represented as being thus transcendental. If such representations were correct, metaphysics would indeed be “that, of which those who listen understand nothing, and which he who speaks does not himself understand,” and the metaphysician would be the fox who ran into the hole and then pulled in the hole after him. Substance and attributes are correlates, — neither one is possible without the other. There is no quality that does not qualify something; and there is no thing, either material or spiritual, that can be known or can exist without qualities to differentiate it from other things. In applying the categories of substance and attribute to God, we indulge in no merely curious speculation, but rather yield to the necessities of rational thought and show how we must think of God if we think at all. See Shedd, History of Doctrine, 1:240; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:172-188.

I. DEFINITION OF THE TERM ATTRIBUTES.

The attributes of God are those distinguishing characteristics of the divine nature which are inseparable from the idea of God and which constitute the basis and ground for his various manifestations to his creatures.

We call them attributes, because we are compelled to attribute them to God as fundamental qualities or powers of his being, in order to give rational account of certain constant facts in God’s self-revelations.

II. RELATION OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES TO THE DIVINE ESSENCE.

1. The attributes have an objective existence. They are not mere names for human conceptions of God — conceptions, which have their only ground in the imperfection of the finite mind. They are qualities objectively distinguishable from the divine essence and from each other.

The nominalistic notion that God is a being of absolute simplicity, and that in his nature there is no internal distinction of qualities or powers, tends directly to pantheism; denies all reality of the divine perfections; or, if these in any sense still exist, precludes all knowledge of them on the part of finite beings. To say that knowledge and power, eternity and holiness, are identical with the essence of God and with each other, is to deny that we know God at all.

The Scripture declarations of the possibility of knowing God, together with the manifestation of the distinct attributes of his nature, are conclusive against this false notion of the divine simplicity.

Aristotle says well that there is no such thing as a science of the unique, of that which has no analogies or relations. Knowing is distinguishing; what we cannot distinguish from other things we cannot know. Yet a false tendency to regard God as a being of absolute simplicity has come down from medieval scholasticism, has infected much of the post-reformation theology, and is found even so recently as in Schleiermacher, Rothe, Olshausen, and Ritschl. E.G. Robinson defines the attributes as “our methods of conceiving of God.” But this definition is influenced by the Kantian doctrine of relativity and implies that we cannot know God’s essence, that is, the thing-in-itself, God’s real being. Bowne, Philosophy of Theism, 141 — “This notion of the divine simplicity reduces God to a rigid and lifeless stare… The One is manifold without being many.”

The divine simplicity is the starting point of Philo: God is a being absolutely bare of quality. All quality in finite beings has limitation, and no limitation can be predicated of God who is eternal, unchangeable, simple substance, free, self-sufficient, better than the good and the beautiful. To predicate any quality of God would reduce him to the sphere of finite existence. Of him we can only say that he is, not what he is; see art. by Schurer. in Encyc. Brit., 18:761.

Illustrations of this tendency are found in Scotus Erigena: “Deus nescit se quid est, qula non est quid”; and in Occam: The divine attributes are distinguished neither substantially nor logically from each other or from the divine essence; the only distinction is that of names; so Gerhard and Quenstedt. Charnock, the Puritan writer, identifies both knowledge and will with the simple essence of God. Schleiermacher makes all the attributes to be modifications of power or causality; in his system God and world = the “natura naturans” and “natura naturata” of Spinoza.

There is no distinction of attributes and no succession of acts in God, and therefore no real personality or even spiritual being; see Pfleiderer, Prot.

Theol. seit Kant, 110. Schleiermacher said: “My God is the Universe.”

God is causative force. Eternity, omniscience and holiness are simply aspects of causality. Rothe, on the other hand, makes omniscience to be the all-comprehending principle of the divine nature; and Olshausen, on John 1:1, in a similar manner attempts to prove that the Word of God must have objective and substantial being, by assuming that knowing = willing; whence it would seem to follow that since God wills all that he knows, he must will moral evil.

Bushnell and others identify righteousness in God with benevolence, and therefore cannot see that any atonement needs to be made to God. Ritschl also holds that love is the fundamental divine attribute, and that omnipotence “and even personality are simply modifications of love; see Mead, Ritschl’s Place in the History of Doctrine, & Herbert Spencer only carries the principle further when he concludes God to be simple unknowable force.

But to call God everything is the same as to call him nothing. With Dorner, we say that “definition is no limitation.” As we rise in the scale of creation from the mere jelly sac to man, the homogeneous becomes the heterogeneous, there is differentiation of functions, complexity increases.

We infer that God, the highest of all, instead of being simple force, is infinitely complex, that he has an infinite variety of attributes and powers.

Tennyson, Palace of Art (lines omitted in the later editions): “All nature widens upward: evermore The simpler essence lowers lies: More complex is more perfect, owning more Discourse, more widely wise.” Jeremiah 10:10 — God is “the living God”; John 5:26 — he “hath life in himself” — unsearchable riches of positive attributes; John 17:23 — “thou lovedst me” — manifoldness in unity. This complexity in God is the ground of blessedness for him and of progress for us: Timothy 1:11 — “the blessed God”; Jeremiah 9:23,24 — “let him glory in this, that he knoweth me.” The complex nature of God permits anger at the sinner and compassion for him at the same moment: Psalm 7:11 — “a God that hath indignation every day”; John 3:16 — “God so loved the world”; Psalm 85:10,11 — “mercy and truth are met together.” See Julius Muller, Doct. Sin, 2:116 sq .; Schweizer, Glaubenslehre, I:229-235; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:43, 50; Martensen, Dogmatics, 91 — “If God were the simple One, to< ajplw~v e[n , the mystic abyss in which every form of determination were extinguished, there would be nothing in the Unity to be known.” Hence “nominalism is incompatible with the idea of revelation. We teach, with realism, that the attributes of God are objective determinations in his revelation and as such are rooted in his inmost essence.” 2. The attributes inhere in the divine essence. They are not separate existences. They are attributes of God.

While we oppose the nominalistic view, which holds them to be mere names with which, by the necessity of our thinking, we clothe the one simple divine essence, we need equally to avoid the opposite realistic extreme of making them separate parts of a composite God.

We cannot conceive of attributes except as belonging to an underlying essence, which furnishes their ground of unity. In representing God as a compound of attributes, realism endangers the living unity of the Godhead.

Notice the analogous necessity of attributing the properties of matter to an underlying substance, and the phenomena of thought to an underlying spiritual essence; else matter is reduced to mere force, and mind, to mere sensation, — in short, all things are swallowed up in a vast idealism. The purely realistic explanation of the attributes tends to low and polytheistic conceptions of God. The mythology of Greece was the result of personifying the divine attributes. The nomina were turned into numina, as Max Muller says; see Taylor, Nature on the Basis of Realism, 293.

Instance also Christmas Evans’s sermon describing a Council in the Godhead, in which the attributes of Justice, Mercy, Wisdom, and Power argue with one another. Robert Hall called Christmas Evans “the oneeyed orator of Anglesey,” but added that his one eye could “light an army through a wilderness”; see Joseph Cross, Life and Sermons of Christmas Evans, 112-116; David Rhys Stephen, Memoirs of Christmas Evans, 168- 176. We must remember that “Realism may so exalt the attributes that no personal subject is left to constitute the ground of unity. Looking upon Personality as anthropomorphism, it falls into a worse personification, that of omnipotence, holiness, benevolence, which are mere blind thoughts, unless there is one who is the Omnipotent, the Holy, the Good.”

See Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, 70. 3. The attributes belong to the divine essence as such. They are to be distinguished from those other powers or relations which do not appertain to the divine essence universally.

The personal distinctions (proprietates) in the nature of the one God are not to be denominated attributes; for each of these personal distinctions belongs not to the divine essence as such and universally, but only to the particular person of the Trinity who bears its name, while on the contrary all of the attributes belong to each of the persons.

The relations, which God sustains to the world (predicata), moreover, such as creation, preservation, government, are not to be denominated attributes; for these are accidental, not necessary or inseparable from the idea of God. God would be God, if he had never created.

To make creation eternal and necessary is to dethrone God and to enthrone a fatalistic development. It follows that the nature of the attributes is to be illustrated, not alone or chiefly from wisdom and holiness in man, which are not inseparable from man’s nature, but rather from intellect and will in man, without which he would cease to be man altogether. Only that is an attribute, of which it can be safely said that he who possesses it would, if deprived of it, cease to be God. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:335 — The attribute is the whole essence acting in a certain way. The center of unity is not in any on attribute, but in the essence… The difference between the divine attribute and the divine person is, that the person is a mode of the existence of the essence, while the attribute is a mode either of the relation, or of the operation, of the essence.” 4. The attributes manifest the divine essence. The essence is revealed only through the attributes. Apart from its attributes it is unknown and unknowable.

But though we can know God only as he reveals to us his attributes, we do, notwithstanding, in knowing these attributes, know the being to whom these attributes belong. That this knowledge is partial does not prevent its corresponding, so far as it goes, to objective reality in the nature of God.

All God’s revelations are, therefore, revelations of himself in and through his attributes. Our aim must be to determine from God’s works and words what qualities, dispositions, determinations, powers of his otherwise unseen and unsearchable essence he has actually made known to us; or in other words, what are the revealed attributes of God. John 1:18 — “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”; Timothy 6:16 — “whom no man hath seen, nor can see”; Matthew 5:8 — “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”; 11:27 — “neither doth any man know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him.” C.A. Strong: “Kant, not content with knowing the reality in the phenomena, was trying to know the reality apart from the phenomena; he was seeking to know, without fulfilling the conditions of knowledge; in short, he wished to know without knowing.” So Agnosticism perversely regards God as concealed by his own manifestation. On the contrary, in knowing the phenomena we know the object itself. J.C.C. Clarke, Self and the Father,6 — “In language, as in nature, there are no verbs without subjects, but we are always hunting for the noun that has no adjective, and the verb that has no subject, and the subject that has no verb. Consciousness is necessarily a consciousness of self. Idealism and monism would like to see all verbs solid with their subjects, and to write ‘I do ‘or ‘I feel’ in the mazes of a monogram, but consciousness refuses, and before it says ‘Do’ or ‘Feel,’ it finishes saying ‘I.”’ J. G. Holland’s Katrina, to her lover: “God is not worshiped in his attributes. I do not love your attributes, but you. Your attributes all meet me otherwhere, Blended in other personalities. Nor do I love nor do I worship them, Nor those who bear them. E’en the spotted pard Will dare a danger which will make you pale; But shall his courage steal my heart from you? You cheat your conscience, for you know That I may like your attributes, Yet love not you.”

III. METHODS OF DETERMINING THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.

We have seen that the existence of God is a first truth. It is presupposed in all human thinking, and is more or less consciously recognized by all men.

This intuitive knowledge of God we have seen to be corroborated and explicated by arguments drawn from nature and from mind. Reason leads us to a causative and personal Intelligence upon whom we depend. This Being of indefinite greatness we clothe, by a necessity of our thinking, with all the attributes of perfection. The two great methods of determining what these attributes are, are the Rational and the Biblical. 1. The Rational method. This is threefold: — (a) the via negationis, or the way of negation, which consists in denying to God all imperfections observed in created beings; (b) the via eminentia, or the way of climax, which consists in attributing to God in infinite degree all the perfections found in creatures; and (c) the via causalitatis or the way of causality, which consists in predicating of God those attributes which are required in him to explain the world of nature and of mind.

This rational method explains God’s nature from that of his creation, whereas the creation itself can be fully explained only from the nature of God. Though the method is valuable, it has insuperable limitations, and its place is a subordinate one. While we use it continually to confirm and supplement results otherwise obtained, our chief means of determining the divine attributes must be 2. The Biblical method. This is simply the inductive method, applied to the facts with regard to God revealed in the Scriptures. Now that we have proved the Scriptures to be a revelation from God, inspired in every part, we may properly look to them as decisive authority with regard to God’s attributes.

The rational method of determining the attributes of God is sometimes said to have been originated by Dionysius the Areopagite, reputed to have been a judge at Athens at the time of Paul and to have died AD 95. It is more probably eclectic, combining the results attained by many theologians, and applying the intuitions of perfection and causality, which lie at the basis of all religious thinking. It is evident from our previous study of the arguments for God’s existence, that from nature we cannot learn either the Trinity or the mercy of God, and that these deficiencies in our rational conclusions with respect to God must be supplied, if at all, by revelation. Spurgeon, Autobiography, 166 — “The old saying is ‘Go from Nature up to Nature’s God.’ But it is hard work going up hill. The best thing is to go from Natures God down to Nature and it you once get to Nature’s God and believe him and love him, it is surprising how easy it is to hear music in the waves, and songs in the wild whisperings of the winds, and to see God everywhere.” See also Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:181.

IV. CLASSIFICATION OF THE ATTRIBUTES.

The attributes may be divided into two great classes: Absolute or Immanent, and Relative or Transitive.

By Absolute or Immanent Attributes, we mean attributes which respect the inner being of God, which are involved in God’s relations to himself, and which belong to his nature independently of his connection with the universe.

By Relative or Transitive Attributes, we mean attributes which respect the outward revelation of God’s being, which are involved in God’s relations to the creation, and which are exercised in consequence of the existence of the universe and its dependence upon him.

Under the head of Absolute or Immanent Attributes, we make a threefold division into Spirituality, with the attributes therein involved, namely, Life and Personality; Infinity, with the attributes therein involved, namely, Self- existence, Immutability, and Unity; and Perfection, with the attributes therein involved, namely, Truth, Love, and Holiness.

Under the head of Relative or Transitive Attributes, we make a threefold division, according to the order of their revelation, into Attributes having relation to Time and Space, as Eternity and Immensity; Attributes having relation to Creation, as Omnipresence, Omniscience, and Omnipotence; and Attributes having relation to Moral Beings, as Veracity and Faithfulness, or Transitive Truth; Mercy and Goodness, or Transitive Love; and Justice and Righteousness, or Transitive Holiness.

This classification may be better understood from the following schedule: 1.Absolute or Immanent Attributes:

A. Spirituality, involving (a) Life, (b) Personality Spirit B. Infinity, involving (a) Self-existence, (b) Immutability, (c) Unity.

Infinite C. Perfection, involving (a) Truth, (b) Love, (c) Holiness.

Perfect 2. Relative or Transitive Attributes; A. Related to Time and Space (a) Eternity, (b) Immensity The Source B. Related to Creation (a) Omnipresence, (b) Omniscience, (c) Omnipotence.

The Support C. Related to Moral Beings (a) Veracity and Faithfulness, or Transitive Truth. (b) Mercy and Goodness, or Transitive Love (c) Justice and Righteousness, or Transitive Holiness.

The End Of All Things It will be observed, upon examination of the preceding schedule, that our classification presents God first as Spirit, then as the infinite Spirit, and finally as the perfect Spirit. This accords with our definition of the term God (see page 52). It also corresponds with the order in which the attributes commonly present themselves to the human mind. Our first thought of God is that of mere Spirit, mysterious and undefined, over against our own spirits. Our next thought is that of God’s greatness; the quantitative element suggests itself: his natural attributes rise before us: we recognize him as the infinite One. Finally comes the qualitative element; our moral natures recognize a moral God; over against our error, selfishness and impurity, we perceive his absolute perfection.

It should also be observed that this moral perfection, as it is an immanent attribute, involves relation of God to himself. Truth, love and holiness, as they respectively imply an exercise in God of intellect, affection and will, may be conceived of as God’s self-knowing, God’s self-loving, and God’s self-willing. The significance of this will appear more fully in the discussion of the separate attributes.

Notice the distinction between absolute and relative, between immanent and transitive, attributes. Absolute — existing in no necessary relation to things outside of God. Relative — existing in such relation. Immanent — “remaining within, limited to, God’s own nature in their activity and effect, inherent and indwelling, internal and subjective — opposed to immanent or transitive.” Transitive — having an object outside of God himself. We speak of transitive verbs, and we mean verbs that are followed by an object. God’s transitive attributes are so called, because they respect and affect things and beings outside of God.

The aim of this classification into Absolute and Relative Attributes is to make plain the divine self-sufficiency. Creation is not a necessity, for there is plh>rwma in God ( Colossians 1:19), even before he makes the world or becomes incarnate. And plh>rwma is not “the filling material,” nor “the vessel filled,” but “that which is complete in itself,” or, in other words, “plenitude,” “fullness,” “totality,” “abundance.” The whole universe is but a drop of dew upon the fringe of God’s garment, or a breath exhaled from his mouth. He could create a universe a hundred times as great. Nature is but the symbol of God. The tides of life that ebb and flow on the far shores of the universe are only faint expressions of his life. The Immanent Attributes show us how completely matters of grace are Creation and Redemption, and how unspeakable is the condescension of him who took our humanity and humbled himself to the death of the Cross. Psalm 8:3,4 — “When I consider thy heavens… what is man that thou art mindful of him?”; 13:5, 6 — “Who is like unto Jehovah our God, that hath his seat on high, that humbleth himself?”; Philippians 2:6,7 — “Who, existing in the form of God,… emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”

Ladd, Theory of Reality, 69 — “I know that I am, because, as the basis of all discriminations as to what I am, and as the core of all such selfknowledge, I immediately know myself as will .” So as to the non-ego, “that things actually are is a factor in my knowledge of them which springs from the root of an experience with myself as a will, at once active and inhibited, as an agent and yet opposed by another.” The ego and the non-ego as well are fundamentally and essentially will. “Matter must be, per se, Force. But this is… to be a Will” (439). We know nothing of the atom apart from its force (442). Ladd quotes from G. E.

Bailey: “The life principle, varying only in degree, is omnipresent. There is but one indivisible and absolute Omniscience and Intelligence, and this thrills through every atom of the whole Cosmos” (446). “Science has only made the Substrate of material things more and more completely self-like” (449). Spirit is the true and essential Being of what is called Nature (472). “The ultimate Being of the world is a self-conscious Mind and Will, which is the Ground of all objects made known in human experience” (550) On classification of attributes, see Luthardt, Compendium, 71; Rothe, Dogmatik, 71; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:162; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:47, 52, 136. On the general subject, see Charnock, Attributes; Bruce, Eigenschaftslehre.

V. ABSOLUTE OR IMMANENT ATTRIBUTES.

First division. — Spirituality, and attributes therein involved.

In calling spirituality an attribute of God, we mean, not that we are justified in applying to the divine nature the adjective “spiritual,” but that the substantive “Spirit” describes that nature ( John 4:24, margin — “God is spirit”; Romans 1:20 — “the invisible things of him”; 1 Timothy 1:17 — “incorruptible, invisible”; Colossians 1:15 — “the invisible God”). This implies, negatively, that (a) God is not matter. Spirit is not a refined form of matter but an immaterial substance, invisible, uncompounded, indestructible. (b) God is not dependent upon matter. It cannot be shown that the human mind, in any other state than the present, is dependent for consciousness upon its connection with a physical organism.

Much less is it true that God is dependent upon the material universe as his sensorium. God is not only spirit, but he is pure spirit. He is not only not matter, but he has no necessary connection with matter ( Luke 24:39 — “A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold me having”).

John gives us the three characteristic attributes of God when he says that God is “spirit,” “light” “love” ( John 4:24; I John 1:5; 4:8), — not a spirit, a light, a love. Le Conte, in Royce’s Conception of God,45 — “God is spirit, for spirit is essential Life and essential Energy, and essential Love, and essential Thought; in a word, essential Person.”

Biedermann, Dogmatik, 631 — “Das Wesen des Geistes als des reinen Gegensatzes zur Materie, ist das reine Sein, das in sich ist, aber nicht da ist.” Martineau, Study, 2:366 — “The subjective Ego is always here, as opposed to all else, which is variously there… Without local relations, therefore, the soul is inaccessible.” But, Martineau continues, “if matter be but centers of force, all the soul needs may be centers from which to act.” Romanes, Mind and Motion, 34 — “Because within the limits of human experience mind is only known as associated with brain, it does not follow that mind cannot exist in any other mode.” La Place swept the heavens with his telescope, but could not find anywhere a God. “He might just as well,” says President Sawyer, “have swept his kitchen with a broom.” Since God is not a material being, he cannot be apprehended by any physical means.

Those passages of Scripture, which seem to ascribe to God the possession of bodily parts and organs, as eyes and hands, are to be regarded as anthropomorphic and symbolic. When God is spoken of as appearing to the patriarchs and walking with them, the passages are to be explained as referring to God’s temporary manifestations of himself in human form — manifestations, which prefigured the final tabernacling of the Son of God in human flesh. Side by side with these anthropomorphic expressions and manifestations, moreover, are specific declarations which repress any materializing conceptions of God; as, for example, that heaven is his throne and the earth his footstool ( Isaiah 66:1) and that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him ( 1 Kings 8:27). Exodus 33:18-20 declares that man cannot see God and live; Corinthians 2:7-16 intimates that without the teaching of God’s Spirit we cannot know God; all this teaches that God is above sensuous perception, in other words, that he is not a material being. The second command of the decalogue does not condemn sculpture and painting, but only the making of images of God. It forbids our conceiving God after the likeness of a thing, but it does not forbid our conceiving God after the likeness of our inward self, i.e., as personal. This again shows that God is a spiritual being. Imagination can be used in religion, and great help can be derived from it. Yet we do not know God by imagination, — imagination only helps us vividly to realize the presence of the God whom we already know. We may almost say that some men have not imagination enough to be religious. But imagination must not lose its wings. In its representations of God, it must not be confined to a picture, or a form, or a place. Humanity tends too much to rest in the material and the sensuous, and we must avoid all representations of God which would identify the Being who is worshiped with the helps used in order to realize his presence; John 4:24 — “they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

An Egyptian Hymn to the Nile, dating from the 19th dynasty (14th century BC), contains these words: “His abode is not known; no shrine is found with painted figures; there is no building that can contain him” (Cheyne. Isaiah, 2:120). The repudiation of images among the ancient Persians (Herod. 1:131), as among the Japanese Shintos, indicates the remains of a primitive spiritual religion. The representation of Jehovah with body or form degrades him to the level of heathen gods. Pictures of the Almighty over the chancels of Romanist cathedrals confine the mind and degrade the conception of the worshiper. We may use imagination in prayer, picturing God as a benignant form holding out arms of mercy, but we should regard such pictures only as scaffolding for the building of our edifice of worship, while we recognize, with the Scripture, that the reality worshipped is immaterial and spiritual. Otherwise our idea of God is brought down to the low level of man’s material being. Even man’s spiritual nature may be misrepresented by physical images, as when medieval artists pictured death, by painting a doll like figure leaving the body at the mouth of the person dying.

The longing for a tangible, incarnate God meets its satisfaction in Jesus Christ. Yet even pictures of Christ soon lose their power. Luther said: “If I have a picture of Christ in my heart, why not one upon canvas?” We answer: Because the picture in the heart is capable of change and improvement, as we ourselves change and improve; the picture upon canvas is fixed, and holds to old conceptions which we should outgrow.

Thomas Carlyle: “Men never think of painting the face of Christ, till they lose the impression of him upon their hearts.” Swedenborg, in modern times, represents the view that God exists in the shape of a man — an anthropomorphism of which the making of idols is only a grosser and more barbarous form; see H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 9, 10. This is also the doctrine of Mormonism; see Spencer, Catechism of Latter Day Saints. The Mormons teach that God is a man, that he has numerous wives by whom he peoples space with an infinite number of spirits. Christ was a favorite son by a favorite wife, but birth as man was the only way he could come into the enjoyment of real life. These spirits are all the sons of God, but they can realize and enjoy their son-ship only through birth.

They are about every one of us pleading to be born. Hence, polygamy.

We come now to consider the positive import of the term Spirit. The spirituality of God involves the two attributes of Life and Personality. 1. Life.

The Scriptures represent God as the living God. Jeremiah 10:10 — “He is the living God”; 1 Thessalonians 1:9 — “turned unto God from idols, to serve a living and true God”; John 5:26 — “hath life in himself”; cf. 14:6 — “I am… the life,” and Hebrews 7:16 — “the power of an endless life’’ Revelations 11:11 — “the Spirit of life.”

Life is a simple idea, and is incapable of real definition. We know it, however, in ourselves, and we can perceive the insufficiency or inconsistency of certain current definitions of it. We cannot regard life in God as (a) Mere process, without a subject for we cannot conceive of a divine life without a God to live it. Versus Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, 1:10 — “Life and mind are processes; neither is a substance; neither is a force… the name given to the whole group of phenomena becomes the personification of the phenomena, and the product is supposed to have been the producer.” Here we have a product without any producer — a series of phenomena without any substance of which they are manifestations. In a similar manner we read in Dewey, Psychology. 247 — “Self is an activity. It is not something which acts; it is activity… it is constituted by activities… Through its activity the soul is.” Here it does not appear how there can be activity, without any subject or being that is active. The inconsistency of this view is manifest when Dewey goes on to say: “The activity may further or develop the self,” and when he speaks of “the organic activity of the self.” So Dr. Burdon Sanderson: “Life is a state of ceaseless change, — a state of change with permanence; living matter ever changes while it is ever the same.” “Plus ca change, plus c’est la m’me chose.”

But this permanent thing in the midst of change is the subject, the self, the being, that has life.

Nor can we regard life as (b) Mere correspondence with outward condition and environment for this would render impossible a life of God before the existence of the universe. Versus Herbert Spencer, Biology, 1:59-71 — “Life is the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external coexistence and sequences.” Here we have, at best, a definition of physical and finite life; and even this is insufficient, because the definition recognizes no original source of activity within, but only a power of reaction in response to stimulus from without. We might as well say that the boiling teakettle is alive (Mark Hoptins). We find this defect also in Robert Browning’s lines in The Ring and the Book I The Pope, 1307): “O Thou — as represented here to me In such conception as my soul allows — Under thy measureless, my atomwidth — Man’s mind, what is it but a convex glass Wherein are gathered all the scattered points Picked out of the immensity of sky, To reunite there, be our heaven for earth, Our known Unknown, our God revealed to man?” Life is something more than a passive receptivity. (c) Life is rather mental energy, or energy of intellect, affection, and will.

God is the living God, as having in his own being a source of being and activity, both for himself and others.

Life means energy, activity, and movement. Aristotle: “Life is energy of mind.” Wordsworth, Excursion, book 5:602 — “Life is love and immortality, The Being one, and one the element… Life, I repeat, is energy of love Divine or human.” Prof. C. L. Herrick, on Critics of Ethical Monism, in Denison Quarterly, Dec. 1896:248 — “Force is energy under resistance, or self-limited energy, for all parts of the universe are derived from the energy. Energy manifesting itself under selfconditioning or differential forms is force. The change of pure energy into force is creation.” Prof. Herrick quotes from S. T. Coleridge, Anima Poetæ: Space is the name for God; it is the most perfect image of soul — pure soul being to us nothing but unresisted action. Whenever action is resisted, limitation begins — and limitation is the first constituent of body; the more omnipresent it is in a given space, the more that space is body or matter; and thus all body Presupposes soul, inasmuch as all resistance presupposes action.” Schelling: “Life is the tendency to individualism.”

If spirit in man implies life, spirit in God implies endless and inexhaustible life. The total life of the universe is only a faint image of that moving energy, which we call the life of God. Dewey, Psychology, 253 — “The sense of being alive is much more vivid in childhood than afterwards. Leigh Hunt says that, when he was a child, the sight of certain palings painted red gave him keener pleasure than any experience of manhood.” Matthew Arnold: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven.” The child’s delight in country scenes, and our intensified perceptions in brain fever, shows us by contrast how shallow and turbid is the stream of our ordinary life. Tennyson, Two Voices: “‘Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for which we pant; More life; and fuller, that we want.” That life the needy human spirit finds only in the infinite God. Instead of Tyndall’s: “Matter has in it the promise and potency of every form of life,” we accept Sir William Crookes’s dictum: “Life has in it the promise and potency of every form of matter.’ See A. H. Strong, on The Living God, in Philos. and Religion, 180-187. 2. Personality.

The Scriptures represent God as a personal being. By personality we mean the power of self-consciousness and of self-determination. By way of further explanation we remark (a) Self-consciousness is more than consciousness. This last the brute may be supposed to possess, since the brute is not an automaton. Man is distinguished from the brute by his power to objectify self. Man is not only conscious of his own acts and states, but also, by abstraction and reflection he recognizes the self, which is the subject of these, acts and states. (b) Self-determination is more than determination. The brute shows determination, but his determination is the result of influences from without; there is no inner spontaneity. Man, by virtue of his freewill, determines his action from within. He determines self in view of motives, but his determination is not caused by motives; he himself is the cause.

God, as personal, is in the highest degree self-conscious and selfdetermining.

The rise in our own minds of the idea of God, as personal, depends largely upon our recognition of personality in us. Those who deny spirit in man place a bar in the way of the recognition of this attribute of God. Exodus 3:14 — And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” God is not the everlasting “IT IS,” or “I WAS,” but the everlasting “I AM” (Morris, Philosophy and Christianity, 128); “I AM” implies both personality and presence. 1 Corinthians 2:11 — “the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God”; Ephesians 1:9 — “good pleasure which he purposed”; 11 — “the counsel of his will.”

Definitions of personality are the following: Boethius — “Persona est animÆ rationalis individua substantia” (quoted in Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:415). F. W. Robertson, Genesis 3 — “Personality — selfconsciousness, will, character.” Porter, Human Intellect, 626 — “Distinct subsistence, either actually or latently self-conscious and selfdetermining.”

Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism: Person “being, conscious of self, subsisting in individuality and identity, and endowed with intuitive reason, rational sensibility, and free-will.” See Harris, 98, 99, quotation from Mansel — “The freedom of the will is so far from being, as it is generally considered, a controvertible question in philosophy, that it is the fundamental postulate without which all action and all speculation, philosophy in all its branches and human consciousness itself, would be impossible.”

One of the most astounding announcements in all literature is that of Matthew Arnold, in his “Literature and Dogma,” that the Hebrew Scriptures recognize in God only “the power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness” = the God of pantheism. The “I AM” of Exodus 3:14 could hardly have been so misunderstood, if Matthew Arnold had not lost the sense of his own personality and responsibility. From free will in man we rise to freedom in God — “That living Will that shall endure, When all that seems shall suffer shock.” Observe that personality needs to be accompanied by life — the power of self-consciousness and selfdetermination needs to be accompanied by activity — in order to make up our total idea of God as Spirit. Only this personality of God gives proper meaning to his punishments or to his forgiveness. See Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1884:217-233; Eichhorn, die Personlichkeit Gottes.

Illingworth, Divine and Human Personality, 1:25, shows that the sense of personality has had a gradual growth; that its pre-Christian recognition was imperfect; that its final definition has been due to Christianity. In 29- 53, he notes the characteristics of personality as reason, love, will. The brute perceives; only the man apperceives, e.g., recognizes his perception as belonging to himself. In the German story, Dreiauglein, the three-eyed child, had besides her natural pair of eyes one other to see what the pair did, and besides her natural will had an additional will to set the first to going right. On consciousness and self-consciousness, see Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:179-189 — “In consciousness the object is another substance than the subject; but in self-consciousness the object is the same substance as the subject.” Tennyson, in his Palace of Art, speaks of “the abysmal depths of personality.” We do not fully know ourselves, nor yet our relation to God. But the divine consciousness embraces the whole divine content of being: “the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” ( 1 Corinthians 2:10).

We are not fully masters of ourselves. Our self-determination is as limited as is our self-consciousness. But the divine will is absolutely without hindrance; God’s activity is constant, intense, infinite; Job 23:13 — “What his soul desireth, even that he doeth”; John 5:17 — “My Father worketh even until now, and I work.” Self-knowledge and self-mastery are the dignity of man; they are also the dignity of God; Tennyson: “Selfreverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three lead life to sovereign power.” Robert Browning, The Last Ride Together: “What act proved all its thought had been? What will but felt the fleshly screen?” Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 6, 161, 216-255 — “Perhaps the root of personality is capacity for affection.”… Our personality is incomplete: we reason truly only with God helping; our love in higher Love endures; we will rightly, only as God works in us to will and to do; to make us truly ourselves we need an infinite Personality to supplement and energize our own; we are complete only in Christ ( Colossians 2:9,10 — “In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made full.” Webb, on the Idea of Personality as applied to God, in Jour. Theol.

Studies, 2:50 — “Self knows itself and what is not itself as two, just because both alike are embraced within the unity of its experience, stand out against this background, the apprehension of which is the very essence of that rationality or personality which distinguishes us from the lower animals. We find that background, God, present in us, or rather, we find ourselves present in it. But if I find myself present in it, then it, as more complete, is simply more personal than I. Our not-self is outside of us, so that we are finite and lonely, but God’s not-self is within him, so that there is a mutual inwardness of love and insight of which the most perfect communion among men is only a faint symbol. We are ‘hermit-spirits,’ as Keble says, and we come to union with others only by realizing our union with God. Personality is not impenetrable in man, for ‘in him we live, and move, and have our being’ ( Acts 17:28), and ‘that which hath been made is life in him ( John 1:3,4).” Palmer, Theologic Definition, 39 — “That which has its cause without itself is a thing, while that which has its cause within itself is a person.” Second Division. — Infinity, and attributes therein involved.

By infinity we mean, not that the divine nature has no known limits or bounds, but that it has no limits or bounds. That which has simply no known limits is the indefinite. The infinity of God implies that he is in no way limited by the universe or confined to the universe; he is transcendent as well as immanent. Transcendence, however, must not be conceived as freedom from merely spatial restrictions, but rather as unlimited resource, of which God’s glory is the expression. <19E503> Psalm 145:3 — “his greatness is unsearchable”; Job 11:7-9 — “high as heaven… deeper than Sheol”; Isaiah 66:1 — “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool”; 1 Kings 8:27 — “Heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee”; Romans 11:33 — “how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out” There can be no infinite number since to any assignable number a unit can be added, which shows that this number was not infinite before. There can be no infinite universe, because an infinite universe is conceivable only as an infinite number of worlds or of minds. God himself is the only real Infinite, and the universe is but the finite expression or symbol of his greatness.

We therefore object to the statement of Lotze, Microcosm, 1:446 — “The complete system, grasped in its totality, offers an expression of the whole nature of the One… The Cause makes actual existence its complete manifestation.” In a similar way Schurman, Belief in God,26, 173-178, grants infinity, but denies transcendence: “The infinite Spirit may include the finite, as the idea of a single organism embraces within a single life a plurality of members and functions… The world is the expression of an ever active and inexhaustible will. That the external manifestation is as boundless as the life it expresses, science makes exceedingly probable. In any event, we have not the slightest reason to contrast the finitude of the world with the infinity of God.

If the natural order is eternal and infinite, as there seems no reason to doubt, it will be difficult to find a meaning for ‘beyond’ or ‘before.’ Of this illimitable, ever-existing universe, God is the inner ground or substance. There is no evidence, neither does any religious need require us to believe, that the divine Being manifest in the universe has any actual or possible existence elsewhere, in some transcendent sphere… The divine will can express itself only as it does, because no other expression would reveal what it is. Of such a will, the universe is the eternal expression.”

In explanation of the term infinity, we may notice: (a) That infinity can belong to but one Being, and therefore cannot be snared with the universe. Infinity is not a negative but a positive idea. It does not take its rise from an impotence of thought, but is an intuitive conviction, which constitutes the basis of all other knowledge.

See Porter. Human Intellect, 651, 652, and this Compendium, pages 59- 62. Versus Mansel, Proleg. Logica, chap. 1 — “Such negative notions… imply at once an attempt to think, and a failure in that attempt.” On the contrary, the conception of the Infinite is perfectly distinguishable from that of the finite, and is both necessary and logically prior to that of the finite. This is not true of our idea of the universe, of which all we know is finite and dependent. We therefore regard such utterances as those of Lotze and Schurman above, and those of Chamberlin and Caird below, as pantheistic in tendency, although the belief of these writers in divine and human personality saves them from falling into other errors of pantheism.

Prof. T. C. Chamberlin, of the University of Chicago: “it is not sufficient to the modern scientific thought to think of a Ruler outside of the universe, nor of a universe with the Ruler outside. A supreme Being who does not embrace all the activities and possibilities and potencies of the universe seems something less than the most supreme Being, and a universe with a Ruler outside seems something less than a universe. And therefore the thought is growing on the minds of scientific thinkers that the supreme Being is the universal Being, embracing and comprehending all things.”

Caird, Evolution of Religion, 2:62 — “Religion, if it would continue to exist, must combine the monotheistic idea with that which it has often regarded as its greatest enemy, the spirit of pantheism.” We grant in reply that religion must appropriate the element of truth in pantheism, namely, that God is the only substance, ground and principle of being, but we regard it as fatal to religion to side with pantheism in its denials of God’s transcendence and of God’s personality. (b) That the infinity of God does not involve his identity with ‘the all,’ or the sum of existence, nor prevent the coexistence of derived and finite beings to which he bears relation. Infinity implies simply that God exists in no necessary relation to finite things or beings, and that whatever limitation of the divine nature results from their existence is, on the part of God, a self-limitation. <19B305> Psalm 113:5,6 — “that humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth.” It is involved in God’s infinity that there should be no barriers to his self-limitation in creation and redemption (see page 9, F.). Jacob Boehme said: “God is infinite, for God is all.” But this is to make God all imperfection, as well as all perfection. Harris, Philos.

Basis Theism: “The relation of the absolute to the finite is not the mathematical relation of a total to its parts, but it is a dynamical and rational relation.” Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:189-191 — “The infinite is not the total; ‘the all’ is a pseudo-infinite, and to assert that it is greater than the simple infinite is the same error that is committed in mathematics when it is asserted that an infinite number plus a vast finite number is greater than the simple infinite.” Fullerton, Conception of the Infinite, — “The Infinite, though it involves unlimited possibility of quantity, is not itself a quantitative but rather a qualitative conception.” Hovey, Studies of Ethics and Religion, 39-47 — “Any number of finite beings, minds, loves, wills, cannot reveal fully an infinite Being, Mind, Love, Will. God must be transcendent as well as immanent in the universe, or he is neither infinite nor an object of supreme worship.”

Clarke. Christian Theology, 117 — “Great as the universe is, God is not limited to it, wholly absorbed by what he is doing in it, and capable of doing nothing more. God in the universe is not like the life of the tree in the tree, which does all that it is capable of in making the tree what it is.

God in the universe is rather like the spirit of a man in his body, which is greater than his body, able to direct his body, and capable of activities in which his body has no share. God is a free spirit, personal, self-directing, unexhausted by his present activities.” The Persian poet said truly: “The world is a bud from his bower of beauty; the sun is a spark from the light of his wisdom; the sky is a bubble on the sea of his power.” Faber: “For greatness which is infinite makes room For all things in its lap to lie. We should be crushed by a magnificence Short of infinity. We share in what is infinite; it is ours, For it and we alike are Thine. What I enjoy, great God, by right of Thee, Is more than doubly mine.” (c) That the infinity of God is to be conceived of as intensive, rather than as extensive. We do not attribute to God infinite extension, but rather infinite energy of spiritual life. That which acts up to the measure of its power is simply natural and physical force. Man rises above nature by virtue of his reserves of power. But in God the reserve is infinite. There is a transcendent element in him, which no self-revelation exhausts, whether creation or redemption, whether law or promise.

Transcendence is not mere outsideness, — it is rather boundless supply within. God is not infinite by virtue of existing “extra flammantia múnia mundi” (Lucretius) or of filling a space outside of space, — he is rather infinite by being the pure and perfect Mind that passes beyond all phenomena and constitutes the ground of theta. The former conception of infinity is simply supra cosmic, the latter alone is properly transcendent; see Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 244. “God is the living God, and has not yet spoken his last word on any subject” (G. W. Northrup). God’s life “operates unspent.” There is “ever more to follow.” The legend stamped with the Pillars of Hercules upon the old coins of Spain was Ne plus ultra — “Nothing beyond,” but when Columbus discovered America the legend was fitly changed to Plus ultra — More beyond.” So the motto of the University of Rochester is Meliora — “Better things.”

Since God’s infinite resources are pledged to aid us, we may, as Emerson bids us, “hitch our wagon to a star,” and believe in progress. Tennyson, Locksley Hall: “Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new, That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.” Millet’s L’ Angelus is a witness to man’s need of God’s transcendence. Millet’s aim was to paint, not air but prayer. We need a God who is not confined to nature. As Moses at the beginning of his ministry cried, “Show me, I pray thee, thy glory” ( Exodus 33:18), so we need marked experiences at the beginning of the Christian life, in order that we may be living witnesses to the supernatural. And our Lord promises such manifestations of himself: John 14:21 — “I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him.” Psalm 71:15 — “My mouth shall tell of thy righteousness, And of thy salvation all the day; For I know not the numbers thereof” = it is infinite. Psalm 89:2 — “Mercy shall he built up forever” = ever growing manifestations and cycles of fulfillment — first literal, then spiritual. <19B304> Psalm 113:4-6 — “Jehovah is high above all nations, And his glory above the heavens. Who is like unto Jehovah our God, That hath his seat on high, That humbleth himself [stoopeth down] to behold The things that are in heaven and in the earth?” Malachi 2:15 — “did he not make one although he had the residue of the Spirit” — he might have created many wives for Adam, though he did actually create but one. In this “residue of the Spirit,” says Caldwell, Cities of our Faith, 370, “there yet lies latent — as winds lie calm in the air of a summer noon, as heat immense lies cold and hidden in the mountains of coal — the blessing and the life of nations, the infinite enlargement of Zion.” Isaiah 52:10 — “Jehovah hath made bare his holy arm” = nature does not exhaust or entomb God; nature is the mantle in which he commonly reveals himself; but he is not fettered by the robe he wears — he can thrust it aside, and make bare his arm in providential inter-positions for earthly deliverance, and in mighty movements of history for the salvation of the sinner and for the setting up of his own kingdom. See also John 1:16 — of his fullness we all received, and grace for grace” = “Each blessing appropriated became the foundation of a greater blessing. To have realized and used one measure of grace was to have gained a larger measure in exchange for it ca>rin ajnti> ca>ritov”; so Westcott, in Bib.

Com., in loco . Christ can ever say to the believer, as he said to Nathanael ( John 1:50): “thou shalt see greater things than these.”

Because God is infinite, he can love each believer as much as if that single soul were the only one for whom he had to care. Both in providence and in redemption the whole heart of God is busy with plans for the interest and happiness of the single Christian. Threatenings do not half reveal God, nor his promises half express the “eternal weight of glory” ( Corinthians 4:17). Dante, Paradiso, 19:40-63 — God “Could not upon the universe so write The impress of his power, but that his word Must still be left in distance infinite.” To “limit the Holy One of Israel” ( Psalm 78:41 — margin) is falsehood as well as sin.

This attribute of infinity, or of transcendence, qualifies all the other attributes and so is the foundation for the representations of majesty and glory as belonging to God (see Exodus 33:18; Psalm 19:1; Isaiah 6:3; Matthew 6:13; Acts 7:2; Romans 1:23, 9:23; Hebrews 1:3; 1 Peter 4:14; Revelation 21:23). Glory is not itself a divine attribute; it is rather a result — an Objective result — of the exercise of the divine attributes. This glory exists irrespective of the revelation and recognition of it in the creation ( John 17:5). Only God can worthily perceive and reverence his own glory. He does all for his own glory. All religion is founded on the glory of God. All worship is the result of this immanent quality of the divine nature. Kedney, Christian Doctrine, 1:360-373, 2:354, apparently conceives of the divine glory as an eternal material environment of God, from which the universe is fashioned. This seems to contradict both the spirituality and the infinity of God. God’s infinity implies absolute completeness apart from anything external to himself. We proceed therefore to consider the attributes involved in infinity.

Of the attributes involved in Infinity, we mention: 1. Self-existence.

By self-existence we mean (a) That God is “causa sui,” having the ground of his existence in himself.

Every being must have the ground of its existence either in or out of itself We have the ground of our existence outside of us. God is not thus dependent. He is a se; hence we speak of the aseity of God.

God’s self-existence is implied in the name “Jehovah” ( Exodus 6:3) and in the declaration I AM THAT I AM” ( Exodus 3:14), both of which signify that it is God’s nature to be. Self-existence is certainly incomprehensible to us, yet a self-existent person is no greater mystery than a self-existent thing, such as Herbert Spencer supposes the universe to be; indeed it is not so great a mystery, for it is easier to derive matter from mind than to derive mind from matter. See Porter, Human Intellect, 661. Joh. Angelus Silesius: “Gott ist das was Er ist; Ich was Ich durch Ihn bin; Doch kennst du Einen wohl, So kennst du mich und Ihn.” Martineau, Types, 1:302 — “A cause may be eternal, but nothing that is caused can be so.” He protests against the phrase “causa sui”. So Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:338, objects to the phrase “God is his own cause,” because God is the uncaused Being. But when we speak of God as “causa sui ,” we do not attribute to him beginning of existence. The phrase means rather that the ground of his existence is not outside of himself, but that he himself is the living spring of all energy and of all being.

But lest this should be misconstrued, we add (b) That God exists by the necessity of his own being. It is his nature to be.

Hence the existence of God is not a contingent but a necessary existence. It is grounded, not in his volition, but in his nature.

Julius Muller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:126, 130, 170, seems to hold that God is primarily will, so that the essence of God is his act: “God’s essence does not precede his freedom”; “if the essence of God were for him something given, something already present, the question ‘from whence it was given?’ could not be evaded; God’s essence must in this case have its origin in something apart from him, and thus the true conception of God would be entirely swept away.” But this implies that truths, reason, love, holiness, equally with God’s essence, are all products of will. If God’s essence moreover, were his act, it would be in the power of God to annihilate himself. Act presupposes essence; else there is no God to act.

The will by which God exists, and in virtue of which he is causa sui , is therefore not will in the sense of volition, but will in the sense of the whole movement of his active being. With Muller’s view Thomasius and Delitzsch are agreed. For refutation of it, see Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 2:63.

God’s essence is not his act, not only because this would imply that he could destroy himself, but also because before willing there must be being. Those who hold God’s essence to be simple activity are impelled to this view by the fear of postulating some dead thing in God, which precedes all exercise of faculty. So Miller, Evolution of Love,43 — “Perfect action, conscious and volitional, is the highest generalization, the ultimate unit, the unconditioned nature, of infinite Being”; i.e. , God’s nature is subjective action, while external nature is his objective action. A better statement, however, is that of Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 170 — “While there is a necessity in the soul, it becomes controlling only through freedom; and we ‘nay say that everyone must constitute himself a rational soul… This is absolutely true of God.” 2. Immutability.

By this we mean that the nature, attributes, and will of God are exempt from all change. Reason teaches us that no change is possible in God, whether of increase or decrease, progress or deterioration, contraction or development. All change must be to better or to worse. But God is absolute perfection, and no change to better is possible. Change to worse would be equally inconsistent with perfection. No cause for such change exists, either outside of God or in God himself. <19A227> Psalm 102:27 — “thou art the same”; Malachi 3:6 — “I, Jehovah, change not”; James 1:17 — “with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.” Spenser, Faerie Queen, Cantos of Mutability, 8:2 — “Then ‘gin I think on that which nature sayde, Of that same time when no more change shall be, But steadfast rest of all things, firmly stayed Upon the pillars of eternity; For all that moveth doth in change delight, But henceforth all shall rest eternally With him that is the God of Sabaoth hight; Oh thou great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabbath’s sight!” Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 146, defines immutability as “the constancy and continuity of the divine nature which exists through all the divine acts as their law and source.”

The passages of Scripture, which seem at first sight to ascribe change to God, are to be explained in one of three ways: (a) As illustrations of the varied methods in which God manifests his immutable truth and wisdom in creation.

Mathematical principles receive new application with each successive stage of creation. The law of cohesion gives place to chemical law, and chemistry yields to vital forces, but through all these changes there is a divine truth and wisdom which is unchanging, and which reduces all to rational order. John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:140 — “Immutability is not stereotyped sameness, but impossibility of deviation by one hair’s breadth from the course which is best. A man of great force of character is continually finding new occasions for the manifestation and application of moral principle. In God infinite consistency is united with infinite flexibility. There is no iron-bound impossibility, but rather an infinite originality in him.” (b) As anthropomorphic representations of the revelation of God’s unchanging attributes in the changing circumstances and varying moral conditions of creatures. Genesis 6:6 — “it repented Jehovah that he had made man” — is to be interpreted in the light of Numbers 23:19 — “God is not a man that he should lie: neither the son of man that he should repent.” So cf. I Sam. 15:11 with 15:29. God’s unchanging holiness requires him to treat the wicked differently from the righteous. When the righteous become wicked, his treatment of them must change. The sun is not fickle or partial because it melts the wax but hardens the clay, — the change is not in the sun but in the objects it shines upon. The change in God’s treatment of men is described anthropomorphically, as if it were a change in God himself, — other passages in close conjunction with the first being given to correct any possible misapprehension. Threats not fulfilled, as in Jonah 3:4,10, are to be explained by their conditional nature. Hence God’s immutability itself renders it certain that his love will adapt itself to every varying mood and condition of his children, so as to guide their steps, sympathize with their sorrows, answer their prayers. God responds to us more quickly than the mother’s face to the changing moods of her babe. Godet, in The Atonement, 338 — “God is of all beings the most delicately and infinitely sensitive.”

God’s immutability is not that of the stone, that has no internal experience, but rather that of the column of mercury, that rises and fails with every change in the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere.

When a man bicycling against the wind turns about and goes with the wind instead of going against it, the wind seems to change, though it is blowing just as it was before. The sinner struggles against the wind of prevenient grace until he seems to strike against a stone wall.

Regeneration is God’s conquest of our wills by his power, and conversion is our beginning to turn round and to work with God rather than against God. Now we move without effort, because we have God at our back; Philippians 2:12,13 — “work out your own salvation… for it is God who worketh in you.” God has not changed, but we have changed; John 3:8 — “The wind bloweth where it will… so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” Jacob’s first wrestling with the Angel was the picture of his lifelong self-will, opposing God; his subsequent wrestling in prayer was the picture of a consecrated will, working with God ( Genesis 32:24-28). We seem to conquer God, but he really conquers us. He seems to change, but it is we who change after all. (c) As describing executions, in time, of purposes eternally existing in the mind of God. Immutability must not be confounded with immobility. This would deny the imperative volition of God by which he enters into history, The Scriptures assure us that creation, miracles, incarnation, regeneration, are immediate acts of God. Immutability is consistent with constant activity and perfect freedom.

The abolition of the Mosaic dispensation indicates no change in God’s plan; it is rather the execution of his plan. Christ’s coming and work were no sudden makeshift, to remedy unforeseen defects in the Old Testament scheme: Christ came rather in “the fullness of the time” ( Galatians 4:4), to fulfill the “counsel” of God ( Acts 2:23). Genesis 8:1 — “God remembered Noah” — interposed by special act for Noah’s deliverance, showed that he remembered Noah.

While we change, God does not. There is no fickleness or inconstancy in him. Where we once found him, there we may find him still, as Jacob did at Bethet ( Genesis 35:1,6,9). Immutability is a consolation to the faithful, but a terror to God’s enemies ( Malachi 3:6 — “I, Jehovah, change not; therefore ye, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed”; Psalm 7:11 — “a God that hath indignation every day”). It is consistent with constant activity in nature and in grace (John 5:l7 — “My Father worketh even until now, and I work”; Job 23:13,14 — “he is in one mind, and who can turn him?… For he performeth that which is appointed for me: and many such things are with him”). If God’s immutability were immobility, we could not worship him, any more than the ancient Greeks were able to worship Fate. Arthur Hugh Clough: “It fortifies my soul to know, That, though I perish, Truth is so: That, howsoe’er I stray and range, Whate’er I do, Thou dost not change. I steadier step when I recall That, If I slip, Thou dost not fall.” On this attribute see Charnock, Attributes, 1:310-362; Dorner, Gesamelte Schriften, 188-377; translated in Bibliotheca Sacra, 1879:28-59, 209-223. 3. Unity.

By this we mean (a) that the divine nature is undivided and indivisible (unus); and (b) that there is but one infinite and perfect Spirit (unicus). Deuteronomy 6:4 — “Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah”; Isaiah 44:6 — “besides me there is no God” John 5:44 — the only God”; 17:3 — “the only true God”; 1 Corinthians 8:4 — “no God but one”; 1 Timothy 1:17 — “the only God”; 6:15 — “the blessed and only Potentate”; Ephesians 4:5,6 — “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.” When we read in Mason, Faith of the, Gospel,25 — “The unity of God is not numerical, denying the existence of a second; it is integral, denying the possibility of division,” we reply that the unity of God is both, — it includes both the numerical and the integral elements.

Humboldt, in his Cosmos, has pointed out that the unity and creative agency of the heavenly Father have given unity to the order of nature, and so have furnished the impulse to modern physical science. Our faith in a “universe” rests historically upon the demonstration of God’s unity, which has been given by the incarnation and death of Christ. Tennyson, In Memoriam: “That God who ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far off divine event To which the whole creation moves.” See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 184-187. Alexander McLaren: “The heathen have many gods because they have no one that satisfies hungry hearts or corresponds to their unconscious ideals.

Completeness is not reached by piecing together many fragments. The wise merchantman will gladly barter a sack full of ‘ goodly pearls’ for the one of great price. Happy they who turn away from the many to embrace the One!”

Against polytheism, tritheism, or dualism, we may urge that the notion of two or more Gods is self-contradictory; since each limits the other and destroys his godhood. In the nature of things, infinity and absolute perfection are possible only to one. It is unphilosophical, moreover, to, assume the existence of two or more Gods, when one will explain all the facts. The unity of God is, however, in no way inconsistent with the doctrine of the Trinity; for, while this doctrine holds to the existence of hypostatical, or personal, distinctions in the divine nature, it also holds that this divine nature is numerically and eternally one.

Polytheism is man’s attempt to rid himself of the notion of responsibility to one moral Lawgiver and Judge by dividing up his manifestations, and attributing them to separate wills. So Force, in the terminology of some modern theorizers, is only God with his moral attributes left out. “Henotheism” (says Max Muller, Origin and Growth of Religion, 285) “conceives of each individual god as unlimited by the power of other gods. Each is felt, at the time, as supreme and absolute, notwithstanding the limitations which to our minds must arise from his power being conditioned by the power of all the gods.”

Even polytheism cannot rest in the doctrine of many gods, as an exclusive and all-comprehending explanation of the universe. The Greeks believed in one supreme Fate that ruled both gods and men. Aristotle: “God, though he is one, has many names, because he is called according to states into which he is ever entering anew.” The doctrine of God’s unity should teach men to give up hope of any other God, to reveal himself to them or to save them. They are in the hands of the one and only God, and therefore there is but one law, one gospel, one salvation; one doctrine, one duty, one destiny. We cannot rid ourselves of responsibility by calling ourselves mere congeries of impressions or mere victims of circumstance.

As God is one, so the soul made in God’s image is one also. On the origin of polytheism, see articles by Tholuck, in Bib. Repos., 2:84, 246, 441, and Max Muller, Science of Religion, 124.

Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 83 — “The Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end and sum and meaning of Being, is but One. We who believe in a personal God do not believe in a limited God. We do not mean one more, a bigger specimen of existences, amongst existences. Rather, we mean that the reality of existence itself is personal: that Power, that Law, that Life, that Thought, that Love, are ultimately, in their very reality, identified in one supreme, and that necessarily a personal Existence. Now such supreme Being cannot be multiplied: it is incapable of a plural: it cannot be a generic term. There cannot be more than one all-inclusive, more than one ultimate, more than one God. Nor has Christian thought, at any point, for any moment, dared or endured the least approach to such a thought or phrase as ‘two Gods.’ If the Father is God, and the Son God they are both the same God wholly, unreservedly.

God is a particular, an unique, not a general, term. Each is not only God, but is the very same ‘singularis unicus et totus Deus.’ They are not both generally God , as though ‘God’ could be an attribute or predicate; but both identically God, the God, the one all-inclusive, indivisible, God… If the thought that wishes to be orthodox had less tendency to become tritheistic, the thought that claims to be free would be less Unitarian.” Third Division. — Perfection, and attributes therein involved.

By perfection we mean, not mere quantitative completeness, but qualitative excellence. The attributes involved in perfection are moral attributes. Right action among men presupposes a perfect moral organization, a normal state of intellect affection and will. So God’s activity presupposes a principle of intelligence, of affection, of volition in his inmost being, and the existence of a worthy object for each of these powers of his nature. But in eternity past there is nothing existing outside or apart from God. He must find, and he does find, the sufficient object of intellect, affection, and will, in himself. There is a self-knowing, a self-loving, a self-willing, which constitute his absolute perfection. The consideration of the immanent attributes is, therefore, properly concluded with an account of that truth, love, and holiness, which render God entirely sufficient to himself. Matthew 5:48 — “Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; Romans 12:2 — “perfect will of God”; Colossians 1:28 — “perfect in Christ”; cf. Deuteronomy 32:4 — “The Rock, his work is perfect “; Psalm 18:30 — “As for God, his way is perfect.” 1. Truth.

By truth we mean that attribute of the divine nature in virtue of which God’s being and God’s knowledge eternally conform to each other.

In further explanation we remark:

A. Negatively: (a) The immanent truth of God is not to be confounded with that veracity and faithfulness which partially manifest it to creatures. These are transitive truth, and they presuppose the absolute and immanent attribute. Deuteronomy 32:4 — “A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, Just and right is he”; John 17:3 — “the only true God” ajlhqino>n; 1 John 5:20 — “we know him that is true” ton . In both these passages ajlhqino>v describes God as the genuine, the real, as distinguished from ajlhqh>v, the veracious (compare John 6:32 — “the true bread”; Hebrews 8:2 — “the true tabernacle”). John 14:6 — “I am… the truth.” As “I am… the life” signifies, not “I am the living one, but rather “I am he who is life and the source of life,” so “I am… the truth” signifies, not “I am the truthful one,” but “I am he who is truth and the source of truth” — in other words, truth of being, not merely truth of expression. So 1 John 5:7 — the Spirit is the truth.’ Cf. 1 Esdras 1:33 — “The truth abideth and is forever strong, and it liveth and ruleth forever” = personal truth? See Godet on John 1:13; Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:181.

Truth is God perfectly revealed and known. It may be likened to the electric current, which manifests and measures the power of the dynamo.

There is no realm of truth apart from the world ground, just as there is no law of nature that is independent of the Author of nature. While we know ourselves only partially, God knows himself fully. John Caird, Fund.

Ideas of Christianity, 1:192 — “In the life of God there are no unrealized possibilities. The presupposition of all our knowledge and activity is that absolute and eternal unity of knowing and being which is only another expression for the nature of God. In one sense, he is all reality, and the only reality, whilst all finite existence is but a becoming, which never is.”

Lowrie, Doctrine of St. John, 57-63 — “Truth is reality revealed. Jesus is the Truth, because in him the sum of the qualities hidden in God is presented and revealed to the world, God’s nature in terms of an active force and in relation to his rational creation.” This definition however ignores the fact that God is truth, apart from and before all creation. As an immanent attribute, truth implies a conformity of God’s knowledge to God’s being, which antedates the universe; see B. (b) below. (b) Truth in God is not a merely active attribute of the divine nature. God is truth, not only in the sense that he is the being who truly knows, but also in the sense that he is the truth that is known. The passive precedes the active; truth of being precedes truth of knowing.

Plato: “Truth is his (God’s) body, and light his shadow.” Hollaz (quoted in Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:137) says that “truth is the conformity of the divine essence with the divine intellect.” See Gerhard, loc. ii:152: Kahnis, Dogmatik, 2:272, 279; 3:193 — “Distinguish in God the personal self-consciousness [spirituality, personality — see pages 252, 253] from the unfolding of this in the divine knowledge, which can have no other object but God himself. So far, now, as self-knowing in God is absolutely identical with his being is he the absolutely true. For truth is the knowledge which answers to the being and the being which answers to the knowledge.”

Royce, World and Individual, 1:270 — “Truth either may mean that about which we judge, or it may mean the correspondence between our ideas and their objects.” God’s truth is both object of his knowledge and knowledge of his object. Miss Clara French, The Dramatic Action and Motive of King John: “You spell Truth with a capital, and make it an independent existence to be sought for and absorbed; but, unless truth is God, what can it do for man? It is only a personality that can touch a personality.” So we assent to the poet’s declaration that “Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again.” only because Truth is personal. Christ, the Revealer of God, is the Truth. He is not simply the medium but also the object of all knowledge; Ephesians 4:20 — “ye did not so learn Christ” = ye knew more than the doctrine about Christ, — ye knew Christ himself; John 17:3 — “this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.’’ B. Positively: (a) All truth among men, whether mathematical, logical, moral, or religious, is to be regarded as having its foundation in this immanent truth of the divine nature and as disclosing facts in the being of God.

There is a higher Mind than our mind. No apostle can say “I am the truth,” though each of them can say “I speak the truth.” Truth is not a scientific or moral, but a substantial, thing — “nicht Schulsache, sondern Lebenssache.” Here is the dignity of education, that knowledge of truth is knowledge of God. The laws of mathematics are disclosures to us, not of the divine reason merely, for this would imply truth outside of and before God, but of the divine nature. J. W. A. Stewart: “Science is possible because God is scientific.” Plato: “God geometrizes.” Bowne: “The heavens are crystallized mathematics.” The statement that two and two make four, or that virtue is commendable and vice condemnable, expresses an everlasting principle in the being of God. Separate statements of truth are inexplicable apart from the total revelation of truth, and this total revelation is inexplicable apart from One who is truth and who is thus revealed. The separate electric lights in our streets are inexplicable apart from the electric current, which throbs through the wires, and this electric current is itself inexplicable apart from the hidden dynamo whose power it exactly expresses and measures. The separate lights of truth are due to the realizing agency of the Holy Spirit; the one unifying current which they partially reveal is the outgoing work of Christ, the divine Logos; Christ is the one and only Revealer of him who dwells “in light unapproachable; whom no man hath seen, nor can see “( 1 Timothy 6:16).

Prof. H. E. Webster began his lectures “by assuming the Lord Jesus Christ and the multiplication table.” But this was tautology, because the Lord Jesus Christ, the Truth, the only revealer of God, includes the multiplication table. So Wendt, Teaching of Jesus. 1:257; 2:202, unduly narrows the scope of Christ’s revelation when he maintains that with Jesus truth is not the truth which corresponds to reality but rather the right conduct which corresponds to the duty prescribed by God. ‘Grace and truth” ( John 1:17) then means the favor of God and the righteousness which God approves. To understand Jesus is impossible without being ethically like him. He is king of truth, In that he reveals this righteousness, and finds obedience for it among men. This ethical aspect of the truth, we would reply, important as it is, does not exclude but rather requires for its complement and presupposition that other aspect of the truth as the reality to which all being must conform and the conformity of all being to that reality. Since Christ is the truth of God, we are successful in our search for truth only as we recognize him. Whether all roads lead to Rome depends upon which way your face is turned. Follow a point of land out into the sea, and you find only ocean. With the back turned upon Jesus Christ all, following after truth, leads only into mist and darkness. Aristotle’s ideal man was “a hunter after truth.” But truth can never be found disjoined from love, nor can the loveless seeker discern it. “For the loving worm within its clod Were diviner than a loveless God” (Robert Browning). Hence Christ can say: John 18:37 — “Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” (b) This attribute therefore constitutes the principle and guarantee of all revelation, while it shows the possibility of an eternal divine selfcontemplation apart from and before all creation. It is to be understood only in the light of the doctrine of the Trinity.

To all this doctrine, however, a great school of philosophers have opposed themselves. Duns Scotus held that God’s will made truth as well as right.

Descartes said that God could have made it untrue that the radii of a circle are all equal. Lord Bacon said that Adam’s sin consisted in seeking a good in itself, instead of being content with the merely empirical good.

Whedon, On the Will, 316 — “Infinite wisdom and infinite holiness consist in, and result from, God’s volition eternally.” We reply that, to make truth and good matters of mere will, instead of regarding them as characteristics of God’s being, is to deny that anything is true or good in itself. If God can make truth to be falsehood, and injustice to be justice, then God is indifferent to truth or falsehood, to good or evil, and he ceases thereby to be God. Truth is not arbitrary, — it is matter of being — the being of God. There are no regulative principles of knowledge, which are not transcendental also. God knows and wills truth, because he is truth.

Robert Browning, A Soul’s Tragedy, 214 — “Were ‘t not for God, I mean, what hope of truth — Speaking truth, hearing truth — would stay with Man?” God’s will does not make truth, but truth rather makes God’s will. God’s perfect knowledge in eternity past has an object. That object must be himself, he is the truth Known, as well as the truthful Knower.

But a perfect objective must be personal. The doctrine of the Trinity is the necessary complement to the doctrine of the Attributes. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:183 — “The pillar of cloud becomes a pillar of fire.” See A.

H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 102-112.

On the question whether it is ever right to deceive, see Paine, Ethnic Trinities, 300-339. Plato said that the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians. The rulers of the state may lie for the public good, but private people not: “officiosum mendacium.” It is better to say that deception is justifiable only where the person deceived has, like a wild beast or a criminal or an enemy in war, put himself out of human society and deprived himself of the right to truth. Even then deception is a sad necessity which witnesses to an abnormal condition of human affairs.

With James Martineau, when asked what answer he would give to an intending murderer when truth would mean death, we may say: “I suppose I should tell an untruth, and then should be sorry for it forever after.” On truth as an attribute of God, see Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct. 1877:735; Finney, Systematic Theology, 661; Janet, Final Causes, 416. 2. Love.

By love we mean that attribute of the divine nature in virtue of which God is eternally moved to self-communication. 1 John 4:8 — “God is love”; 3:36 — “hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us”; John 17:24 — “thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”; Romans 15:30 — “the love of the Spirit.”

In further explanation we remark:

A. Negatively: (a) The immanent love of God is not to be confounded with mercy and goodness toward creatures. These are its manifestations, and are to be denominated transitive love.

Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:138, 139 — “God’s regard for the happiness of his creatures flows from this self-communicating attribute of his nature. Love, in the true sense of the word, is living goodwill, with impulses to impartation and union; self-communication (bonum communicativum sui); devotion, merging of the ego in another, in order to penetrate, fill, bless this other with itself, and in this other, as in another self, to possess itself, without giving up itself or losing itself.

Love is therefore possible only between persons, and always presupposes personality. Only as Trinity has God love, absolute love; because as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost he stands in perfect self-impartation, selfdevotion, and communion with himself.” Julius Muller, Doct. Sin, 2:136 — “God has in himself the eternal and wholly adequate object of his love, independently of his relation to the world.”

In the Greek mythology, Eros was one of the oldest and yet one of the youngest of the gods. So Dante makes the oldest angel to be the youngest, because nearest to God the fountain of life. In 1 John 2:7,5, “the old commandment” of love is evermore “a new commandment,” because it reflects this eternal attribute of God. “There is a love unstained by selfishness, Th’ outpouring tide of self-abandonment, That loves to love, and deems its preciousness Repaid in loving, though no sentiment Of love returned reward its Sacrament; Nor stays to question what the loved one will, But hymns its overture with blessings immanent; Rapt and sublimed by love’s exalting thrill, Loves on, through frown or smile, divine, immortal still.” Clara Elizabeth Ward: “If I could gather every look of love, That ever any human creature wore, And all the looks that joy is mother of, All looks of grief that mortals ever bore, And mingle all with God-begotten grace, Methinks that I should see the Savior’s face.” (b) Love is not the all-inclusive ethical attribute of God. It does not include truth, nor does it include holiness.

Ladd, Philosophy of Conduct, 352, very properly denies that benevolence is the all-inclusive virtue. Justness and Truth, he remarks, are not reducible to benevolence. In a review of Ladd’s work in Bibliotheca Sacra, Jan. 1903:185, C. M. Mead adds: “He comes to the conclusion that it is impossible to resolve all the virtues into the generic one of love or benevolence without either giving a definition of benevolence which is unwarranted and virtually nullifies the end aimed at, or failing to recognize certain virtues which are as genuinely virtues as benevolence itself. Particularly is it argued that the virtues of the will (courage, constancy, and temperance), and the virtues of judgment (wisdom, justness, and trueness), get no recognition in this attempt to subsume all virtues under the one virtue of love. ‘The unity of the virtues is due to the unity of a personality, in active and varied relations with other persons’ (361). If benevolence means wishing happiness to all men, then happiness is made the ultimate good, and eudÆmonisin is accepted as the true ethical philosophy. But if, on the other hand, in order to avoid this conclusion, benevolence is made to mean wishing the highest welfare to all men, and the highest welfare is conceived as a life of virtue, then we come to the rather inane conclusion that the essence of virtue is to wish that men may be virtuous.” See also art, by Vos, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-37. (c) Nor is God’s love merely a regard for being in general, irrespective of its moral quality.

Jonathan Edwards, in his treatise On the Nature of Virtue, defines virtue as regard for being in general. He considers that God’s love is first of all directed toward himself as having the greatest quantity of being, and only secondarily directed toward his creatures whose quantity of being is infinitesimal as compared with his. But we reply that being in general is far too abstract a thing to elicit or justify love. Charles Hodge said truly that, if obligation is primarily due to being in general, then there is no more virtue in loving God than there is in loving Satan. Virtue, we ‘hold, must consist, not in love for being in general, but in love for good being, that is, in love for God as holy. Love has no moral value, except as it is placed upon a right object and is proportioned to the worth of that object. “Love of being in general” makes virtue an irrational thing, because it has no standard of conduct. Virtue is rather the love of God as right and as the source of right.

G. S. Lee, The Shadow-cross,38 — “God is love, and law is the way he loves us. But it is also true that God is law, and love is the way he rules us.” Clarke, Christian Theology, 83 — “Love is God’s desire to impart himself, and so all good, to other persons, and to possess them for his own spiritual fellowship.” The intent to communicate himself is the intent to communicate holiness, and this is the “terminus ad quem” of God’s administration. Drummond, in his Ascent of Man, shows that Love began with the first cell of life. Evolution is not a tale of battle, but a love story.

We gradually pass from selfism to otherism. Evolution is the object of nature, and altruism is the object of evolution. Man = nutrition, looking to his own things; Woman = reproduction, looking to the things of others.

But the greatest of these is love. The mammalia = the mothers, last and highest, care for others. As the mother gives love, so the father gives righteousness. Law, once a latent thing, now becomes active. The father makes a sort of conscience for those beneath him. Nature, like Raphael, is producing a Holy Family.”

Jacob Boehme: “Throw open and throw out thy heart. For unless thou dost exercise thy heart, and the love of thy heart, upon every man in the world, thy self-love, thy pride, thy envy, thy distaste, thy dislike, will still have dominion over thee… In the name and in the strength of God, love all men. Love thy neighbor as thyself, and do to thy neighbor as thou doest to thyself. And do it now. For now is the accepted time, and now is the day of salvation.” These expressions are scriptural and valuable, if they are interpreted ethically, and are understood to inculcate the supreme duty of loving the Holy One, of being holy as he is holy, and of seeking to bring all Intelligent beings into conformity with his holiness. (d) God’s love is not a merely emotional affection, proceeding from sense or impulse, nor is it prompted by utilitarian considerations.

Of the two words for love in the New Testament, file>w designates an emotional affection, which is not and cannot be commanded ( John 11:36 — “Behold how he loved him!”), while ajgapa>w expresses a rational and benevolent affection which springs from deliberate choice ( John 3:16 — “God so loved the world”; Matthew 19:19 — “Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself”; 5:44 — “Love your enemies”).

Thayer, New Testament Lex., 653 Agapa~n “properly denotes a love founded in admiration, veneration, esteem, like the Lat. diligere, to be kindly disposed to one, to wish one well; but filei~n denotes an inclination prompted by sense and emotion, Lat. amare… Hence men are said ajgapa~n God, not filei~n .” In this word ajga>ph , when used of God, it is already implied that God loves, not for what he can get, but for what he can give. The rationality of his love involves moreover a subordination of the emotional element to a higher law than itself, namely, that of holiness. Even God’s self-love must have a reason and norm in the perfections of his own being.

B. Positively: (a) The immanent love of God is a rational and voluntary affection, grounded in perfect reason and deliberate choice.

Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 3:277 — “Love is will, aiming either at the appropriation of an object, or at the enrichment of its existence, because moved by a reeling of its worth… Love is to persons; it is a constant will; it aims at the promotion of the other’s personal end, whether known or conjectured; it takes up the other’s personal end and makes it part of his own. Wilt as love, does not give itself up for the other’s sake; it aims at closest fellowship with the other for a common end.” A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 388-405 — “Love is not rightfully independent of the other faculties, but is subject to regulation and control… We sometimes say that religion consists in love… It would be more strictly true to say that religion consists in a new direction of our love, a turning of the current toward God which once flowed toward self… Christianity rectifies the affections, before excessive, impulsive, lawless, — gives them worthy and immortal objects, regulates their intensity in some due proportion to the value of the things they rest upon, and teaches the true methods of their manifestation. In true religion love forms a co-partnership with reason… God’s love is no arbitrary, wild, passionate torrent of emotion…, and we become like God by bringing our emotions, sympathies, affections, under the dominion of reason and conscience.” (b) Since God’s love is rational, it involves a subordination of the emotional element to a higher law than itself, namely, that of truth and holiness. Philippians 1:9 — “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment” True love among men illustrates God’s love. It merges self in another instead of making that other an appendage to self. It seeks the other’s true good, not merely his present enjoyment or advantage. Its aim is to realize the divine idea in that other and therefore it is exercised for God’s sake and in the strength, which God supplies. Hence it is a love for holiness, and is under law to holiness. So God’s love takes into account the highest interests, and makes infinite sacrifice to secure them. For the sake of saving a world of sinners, God “spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all” ( Romans 8:32), and ‘Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” ( Isaiah 53:6). Love requires a rule or standard for its regulation. This rule or standard is the holiness of God. So once more we see that love cannot include holiness, because it is subject to the law of holiness. Love desires only the best for its object, and the best is God. The golden rule does not bid us give what others desire, but what they need: Romans 15:2 — “Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying.” (c) The immanent love of God therefore requires and finds a perfect standard in his own holiness, and a personal object in the image of his own infinite perfections. It is to be understood only in the light of the doctrine of the Trinity.

As there is a higher Mind than our mind, so there is a greater Heart than our heart. God is not simply the loving One — he is also the Love that is loved. There is an infinite life of sensibility and affection in God. God has feeling, and in an infinite degree. But feeling alone is not love. Love implies not merely receiving but giving, not merely emotion but impartation. So the love of God is shown in his eternal giving. James 1:5 — “God, who giveth,” or “the giving God” tou~ dido>ntov Qeou~ = giving is not an episode in his being — it is his nature to give. And not only to give, but to give himself. This he does eternally in the selfcommunications of the Trinity; this he does transitively and temporally in his giving of himself for us in Christ, and to us in the Holy Spirit.

Jonathan Edwards, Essay on Trinity (ed. G. P. Fisher), 79 — “That in John God is love shows that there are more persons than one in the Deity, for it shows love to be essential and necessary to the Deity, so that his nature consists in it, and this supposes that there is an eternal and necessary object, because all love respects another that is the beloved. By love here the apostle certainly means something beside that which is commonly called self-love: that is very improperly called love, and is a thing of an exceeding diverse nature from the affection or virtue of love the apostle is speaking of.” When Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, 226- 239, makes the first characteristic of love to be self-affirmation, and when Dorner, Christian Ethics, 73, makes self-assertion an essential part of love, they violate linguistic usage by including under love what properly belongs to holiness. (d) The immanent love of God constitutes a ground of the divine blessedness. Since there is an infinite and perfect object of love, as well as of knowledge and will, in God’s own nature, the existence of the universe is not necessary to his serenity and joy.

Blessedness is not itself a divine attribute but it is rather a result of the exercise of the divine attributes. It is a subjective result of this exercise, as glory is an objective result. Perfect faculties, with perfect objects for their exercise, ensure God’s blessedness. But love is especially its source. Acts 20:35 — “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Happiness (hap, happen) is grounded in circumstances; blessedness, in character.

Love precedes creation and is the ground of creation. Its object therefore cannot be the universe, for that does not exist, and, if it did exist, could not be a proper object of love for the infinite God. The only sufficient object of his love is the image of his own perfections, for that alone is equal to himself. Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 264 — “Man most truly realizes his own nature, when he is ruled by rational, self-forgetful love.

He cannot help inferring that the highest thing in the individual consciousness is the dominant thing in the universe at large.” Here we may assent, if we remember that not the love itself but that which is loved must be the dominant thing, and we shall see that to be not love but holiness.

Jones, Robert Browning, 219 — “Love is for Browning the highest, richest conception man can form. It is our idea of that which is perfect; we cannot even imagine anything better. And the idea of evolution necessarily explains the world as the return of the highest to itself. The universe is homeward bound… All things are potentially spirit, and all the phenomena of the world are manifestations of love… Man’s reason is not, but man’s love is, a direct emanation from the inmost being of God” (345). Browning should have applied to truth and holiness the same principle, which he recognized with regard to love. But we gratefully accept his dicta: “He that created love, shall not he love?… God! thou art Love! I build my faith on that.” (e) The love of God involves also the possibility of divine suffering, and the suffering on account of sin which holiness necessitates on the part of God is itself the atonement.

Christ is “the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world” ( Revelation 13:8); 1 Peter 1:19,20 — “precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot even the blood of Christ: who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world.” While holiness requires atonement, love provides it. The blessedness of God is consistent with sorrow for human misery and sin. God is passable, or capable of suffering. The permission of moral evil in the decree of creation was at cost to God. Scripture attributes to him emotions of grief and anger at human sin ( Genesis 6:6 — “it grieved him at his heart”; Romans 1:18 — “wrath of God”; Ephesians 4:30 — “grieve not the Holy Spirit of God”); painful sacrifice in the gift of Christ ( Romans 8:32 — “spared not his own son”; cf . Genesis 22:16 — “hast not withheld thy son”) and participation in the suffering of his people ( Isaiah 63:9 — “in all their affliction he was afflicted”); Jesus Christ in his sorrow and sympathy, his tears and agony, is the revealer of God’s feelings toward the race, and we are urged to follow in his steps, that we may be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. We cannot, indeed, conceive of love without self-sacrifice, or of self-sacrifice without suffering. It would seem, then that, as immutability is consistent with imperative volition in human history, so the blessedness of God may be consistent with emotions of sorrow.

But does God feel in proportion to his greatness, as the mother suffers more than the sick child whom she tends? Does God suffer infinitely in every suffering of his creatures? We must remember that God is infinitely greater than his creation, and that he sees all human sin and woe as part of his great plan. We are entitled to attribute to him only such passableness as is consistent with infinite perfection. In combining passableness with blessedness, then, we must allow blessedness to be the controlling element, for our fundamental idea of God is that of absolute perfection. Martensen, Dogmatics, 101 — “This limitation is swallowed up in the inner life of perfection which God lives, in total independence of his creation, and in triumphant prospect of the fulfillment of his great designs. We may therefore say with the old theosophical writers: ‘In the outer chambers is sadness, but in the inner ones is unmixed joy.”’ Christ was “anointed… with the oil of gladness above his fellows,” and “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross ‘( Hebrews 1:9; 12:2).

Love rejoices even in pain, when this brings good to those beloved. “Though round its base the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.”

In George Adam Smith’s Life of Henry Drummond, 11, Drummond cries out after hearing the confessions of men who came to him: “I am sick of the sins of these men! How can God bear it?” Simon, Reconciliation, 338- 343, shows that before the incarnation, the Logos was a sufferer from the sins of men. This suffering however was kept in check and counterbalanced by his consciousness as a factor in the Godhead, and by the clear knowledge that men were themselves the causes of this suffering.

After he became incarnate he suffered without knowing whence all the suffering came. He had a subconscious life into which were interwoven elements due to the sinful conduct of the race whose energy was drawn from himself and with which in addition he had organically united himself.

If this is limitation, it is also self-limitation which Christ could have avoided by not creating, preserving, and redeeming mankind. We rejoice in giving away a daughter in marriage, even though it costs pain. The highest blessedness in the Christian is coincident with agony for the souls of others. We partake of Christ’s joy only when we know the fellowship of his sufferings. Joy and sorrow can coexist, like Greek fire that burns under water.

Abbe Gratry, La Morale et la Loi de l’Histoire, 165, 166 — “What! Do you really suppose that the personal God, free and intelligent, loving and good, who knows every detail of human torture, and hears every sigh — this God who sees, who loves as we do, and more than we do — do you believe that he is present and looks pitilessly on what breaks your heart, and what to him must be the spectacle of Satan reveling in the blood of humanity? History teaches us that men so feel for sufferers that they have been drawn to die with them, so that their own executioners have become the next martyrs. And yet you represent God, the absolute goodness, as alone impassible? It is here that our evangelical faith comes in. Our God was made man to suffer and to die! Yes, here is the true God. He has suffered from the beginning in all who have suffered. He has been hungry in all who have hungered. He has been immolated in all and with all who have offered up their lives. He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Similarly Alexander Vinet, Vital Christianity, 240, remarks that “The suffering God is not simply the teaching of modern divines. It is a New Testament thought, and it is one that answers all the doubts that arise at the sight of human suffering. To know that God is suffering with it makes that suffering more awful, but it gives strength and life and hope, for we know that, if God is in it, suffering is the road to victory. If he shares our suffering we shall share his crown,” and we can say with the Psalmist, 68:19 — “Blessed be God, who daily beareth our burden, even the God who is our salvation,” and with Isaiah 63:9 — “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them.”

Borden P. Bowne, Atonement: “ Something like this work of grace was a moral necessity with God. It was an awful responsibility that was taken when our human race was launched with its fearful possibilities of good and evil. God thereby put himself under infinite obligation to care for his human family; and reflections on his position as Creator and Ruler, instead of removing, only make more manifest this obligation. So long as we conceive God as sitting apart in supreme ease and self-satisfaction, he is not love at all, but only a reflection of our selfishness and vulgarity. So long as we conceive him as bestowing blessing upon us out of his infinite fullness, but at no real cost to himself, he sinks below the moral heroes of our race. There is ever a higher thought possible, until we see God taking the world upon his heart entering into the fellowship of our sorrow, and becoming the supreme burden bearer and leader in self-sacrifice. Then only are the possibilities of grace and condescension and love and moral heroism filled up, so that nothing higher remains. And the work of Christ, so far as it was a historical event, must be viewed not merely as a piece of history, but also as a manifestation of that cross which was hidden in the divine love from the foundation of the world, and which is involved in the existence of the human world at all.”

Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 264 — “The eternal resolution that, if the world will be tragic, it shall still, in Satan’s despite, be spiritual, is the very essence of the eternal joy of that World-Spirit of whose wisdom ours is but a fragmentary reflection… When you suffer, your sufferings are God’s sufferings, — not his external work nor his external penalty, nor the fruit of his neglect, but identically his own personal woe. In you God himself suffers, precisely as you do, and has all your reason for overcoming this grief.” Henry N. Dodge, Christus Victor: “O Thou, that from eternity Upon thy wounded heart hast borne Each pang and cry of misery Wherewith our human hearts are torn, Thy love upon the grievous cross Both glow, the beacon light of time, Forever sharing pain and loss With every man in every clime. How vast, how vast Thy sacrifice, As ages come and ages go, Still waiting till it shall suffice To draw the last cold heart and slow!”

On the question, Is God passable? see Bennett Tyler, Sufferings of Christ; A Layman, Sufferings of Christ; Woods, Works, 1:299-317; Bibliotheca Sacra, 11:744; 17:422-424; Emmons, Works, 4:201-208; Fairbairn, Place of Christ, 483-487; Bushnell, Vic. Sacrifice, 59-93; Kedney, Christ.

Doctrine Harmonized, 1:185-245; Edward Beecher, Concord of Ages, 81- 204; Young, Life and Light of Men, 20-43, 147-150; Schaff, Hist. Christ.

Church, 8:191; Crawford, Fatherhood of God,43,44; Anselm, Proslogion, cap. 8; Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 268; John Caird, Fund.

Ideas of Christianity, 2:117, 118, 137-142. Per contra, see Shedd, Essays and Addresses, 277, 279 note; Woods, in Lit. and Theol. Rev., 1834:43- 61; Harris, God the Creator and Lord of All, 1:201. On the Biblical conception of Love in general, see article by James Orr, in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary. 3. Holiness.

Holiness is self-affirming purity. In virtue of this attribute of his nature, God eternally wills and maintains his own moral excellence. In this definition are contained three elements: first, purity; secondly, purity willing; thirdly, purity willing itself. Exodus 15:11 — “glorious in holiness”; 19:10-16 — the people of Israel must purify themselves before they come into the presence of God; Isaiah 6:3 — “Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts” — notice the contrast with the unclean lips, that must be purged with a coal from the altar (verses 5-7); 2 Corinthians 7:1 — “cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God”); 1 Thessalonians 3:13 — “unblamable in holiness”; 4:7 — “God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification”; Hebrews 12:29 — “our God is a consuming fire” — to all iniquity. These passages show that holiness is the opposite to impurity, that it is itself purity.

The development of the conception of holiness in Hebrew history was doubtless a gradual one. At first it may have included little more than the idea of separation from all that is common, small and mean. Physical cleanliness and hatred of moral evil were additional elements, which in time became dominant. We must remember however that the proper meaning of a term is to be determined not by the earliest but by the latest usage. Human nature is ethical from the start, and seeks to express the thought of a rule or standard of obligation, and of a righteous Being who imposes that rule or standard. With the very first conceptions of majesty and separation which attach to the apprehension of divinity in the childhood of the race there mingles at least some sense of the contrast between God’s purity and human sin. The least developed man has a conscience, which condemns some forms of wrongdoing, and causes a feeling of separation from the power or powers above. Physical defilement becomes the natural symbol of moral evil. Places and vessels and rites are invested with dignity as associated with or consecrated to the Deity.

That the conception of holiness clears itself of extraneous and unessential elements only gradually, and receives its full expression only in the New Testament revelation and especially in the life and work of Christ, should not blind us to the fact that the germs of the idea lie far back in the very beginnings of man’s existence upon earth. Even then the sense of wrong within had for its correlate a dimly recognized righteousness without. So soon as man knows himself as a sinner he knows something of the holiness of that God whom he has offended. We must take exception therefore to the remark of Schurman, Belief in God, 231 — “The first gods were probably non-moral beings,” for Schurman himself had just said: “A God without moral character is no God at all.” Dillmann, in his Old Testament Theology, very properly makes the fundamental thought of Old Testament religion, not the unity or the majesty of God, but his holiness. This alone forms the ethical basis for freedom and law. B. O.

Robinson, Christian Theology — “The one aim of Christianity is personal holiness. But personal holiness will be the one absorbing and attainable aim of man, only as he recognizes it to be the one preeminent attribute of God. Hence everything divine is holy — the temple, the Scriptures, the Spirit.” See articles on Holiness in Old Testament, by J. Skinner, and on Holiness in New Testament, by G. B. Stevens, in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary.

The development of the idea of holiness as well as the idea of love was prepared for before the advent of man. A. H. Strong, Education and Optimism: “There was a time when the past history of life upon the planet seemed one of heartless and cruel slaughter. The survival of the fittest had for its obverse side the destruction of myriads. Nature was ‘red in tooth and claw with ravine.’ But further thought has shown that this gloomy view results from a partial induction of facts. Paleontological life was marked not only by a struggle for life, but by a struggle for the life of others. The beginnings of altruism are to be seen in the instinct of reproduction, and in the care of offspring. In every lion’s den and tiger’s lair, in every mother eagle’s feeding of her young, there is a self-sacrifice, which faintly shadows forth man’s subordination of personal interests to the interests of others. But in the ages before man can be found incipient justice as well as incipient love. The struggle for one’s own life has its moral side as well as the struggle for the life of others. The instinct of self-preservation is the beginning of right, righteousness, justice, and law, on earth. Every creature owes it to God to preserve its own being. So we can find an adumbration of morality even in the predatory and internecine warfare of the geologic ages. The immanent God was even then preparing the way for the rights, the dignity, the freedom of humanity.’ And, we may add, was preparing the way for the understanding by men or his own fundamental attribute of holiness. See Henry Drummond, Ascent of Man, Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ.

In further explanation we remark:

A. Negatively, that holiness is not (a) Justice, or purity demanding purity from creatures. Justice, the relative or transitive attribute, is indeed the manifestation and expression of the immanent attribute of holiness, but it is not to be confounded with it.

Quenstedt. Theol., 8:1:34, defines holiness as “summa omnisque labis expers in Deo puritas, puritatem debitam exigens a creaturis” — a definition of transitive holiness, or justice, rather than of the immanent attribute. Isaiah 5:16 — “Jehovah of hosts is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness” = Justice is simply God’s holiness in its judicial activity. Though holiness is commonly a term of separation and expresses the inherent opposition of God to all that is sinful, it is also used as a term of union, as in Leviticus 11:44 — “be ye holy; for I am holy.” When Jesus turned from the young ruler ( Mark 10:23) he illustrated the first; John 8:29 illustrates the second: “he that sent me is with me.” Lowrie, Doctrine of St. John, 51-57 — “God is light’ ( 1 John 1:5) indicates the character of God, moral purity as revealed, as producing joy and life, as contrasted with doing ill, walking in darkness, being in a state of perdition.”

Universal human conscience is itself a revelation of the holiness of God, and the joining everywhere of suffering with sin is the revelation of God’s justice. The wrath, anger, jealousy of God shows that this reaction of God’s nature is necessary. God’s nature is itself holy, just, and good.

Holiness is not replaced by love, as Ritschl holds, since there is no selfimpartation without self-affirmation. Holiness not simply demands in law, but imparts in the Holy Spirit; see Pfleiderer, Grundriss, 79 — versus Ritschl’s doctrine that holiness is God’s exaltation, and that it includes love; see also Pfleiderer, Die Ritschl’sche Theologie, 53-63. Santayana, Sense of Beauty,69 — “If perfection is the ultimate justification of being, we may understand the ground of the moral dignity of beauty. Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and nature, and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy of the good.” We would regard nature however as merely the symbol and expression of God, and so would regard beauty as a ground of faith in his supremacy. What Santayana says of beauty is even more true of holiness. Wherever we see it, we recognize in it a pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and God, and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy of God. (b) Holiness is not a complex term designating the aggregate of the divine perfections. On the other hand, the notion of holiness is, both in Scripture and in Christian experience, perfectly simple, and perfectly distinct from that of other attributes.

Dick, Theol., 1:275 — Holiness = venerableness, i.e., “no particular attribute, but the general character of God as resulting from his moral attributes.” Wardlaw calls holiness the union of all the attributes, as pure white light is the union of all the colored rays of the spectrum (Theology, 1:618-634). So Nitzsch, System of Christ. Doct., 166; H. W. Beecher: “Holiness = wholeness.” Approaching this conception is the definition of W. N. Clarke, Christian Theology, 83 — “Holiness is the glorious fullness of the goodness of God, consistently held as the principle of his own action, and the standard for his creatures.” This implies, according to Dr. Clarke, 1. An inward character of perfect goodness:2. That character as the consistent principle of his own action; 3. The goodness which is the principle of his own action is also the standard for theirs.” In other words, holiness is 1. character; 2. self-consistency; 3. requirement. We object to this definition that it fails to define. We are not told what is essential to this character; the definition includes in holiness that which properly belongs to love; it omits all mention of the most important elements in holiness, namely purity and right.

A similar lack of clear definition appears in the statement of Mark Hopkins, Law of Love, 105 — “It is this double aspect of love, revealing the whole moral nature, and turning every way like the flaming sword that kept the way of the tree of life, that is termed holiness.” As has been shown above, holiness is contrasted in Scripture, not with mere finiteness or littleness or misfortune or poverty or even unreality, but only with uncleanness and sinfulness. E. G. Robinson, Christ. Theology, 80 — “Holiness in man is the image of God’s. But it is clear that holiness in man is not in proportion to the other perfections of his being — to his power, his knowledge, his wisdom, though it is in proportion to his rectitude of will — and therefore cannot be the sum of all perfections… To identify holiness with the sum of all perfections is to make it mean mere completeness of character.” (c) Holiness is not God’s self-love, in the sense of supreme regard for his own interest and happiness. There is no utilitarian element in holiness.

Buddeus, Theol. Dogmat., 2:1:36, defines holiness as God’s self-love. But God loves and affirms self, not as self, but as the holiest. There is no selfseeking in God. Not the seeking of God’s interests, but love for God as holy, is the principle and source of holiness in man. To call holiness God’s self-love is to say that God is holy because of what he can make by it, i.e., to deny that holiness has any independent existence. See Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:155.

We would not deny, but would rather maintain, that there is a proper selflove, which is not selfishness. This proper self-love, however, is not love at all. It is rather self-respect, self-preservation, self-vindication, and it constitutes an important characteristic of holiness. But to define holiness as merely God’s love for himself, is to leave out of the definition the reason for this love in the purity and righteousness of the divine nature.

God’s self-respect implies that God respects himself for something in his own being. What is that something? Is holiness God’s “moral excellence” (Hopkins), or God’s “perfect goodness” (Clarke)? But what is this moral excellence or perfect goodness? We have here the method and the end described, but not the motive and ground. God does not love himself for his love, but he loves himself for his holiness. Those who maintain that love is self-affirming as well as self-communicating, and therefore that holiness is God’s love for himself, must still admit that this self-affirming love which is holiness conditions and furnishes the standard for the selfcommunicating love which is benevolence.

G. B. Stevens, Johannine Theology, 364, tells us that “God’s righteousness is the self-respect of perfect love.” Miller, Evolution of Love,53 — “Self-love is that kind of action which in a perfect being actualizes, in a finite being seeks to actualize, a perfect or ideal self.” In other words, love is self-affirmation. But we object that self-love is not love at all, because there is in it no self-communicating. If holiness is in any sense a form or manifestation of love — a question which we have yet to consider — it is certainly not a Unitarian and utilitarian self-love, which would be identical with selfishness, but rather an affection which implies Trinitarian otherness and the maintenance of self as an ideal object. This appears to be the meaning of Jonathan Edwards, in his Essay on the Trinity (ed. Fisher), 79 — “All love respects another that is the beloved. By love the apostle certainly means something beside that which is commonly called self-love: that is very improperly called love, and is a thing of an exceeding diverse nature from the affection or virtue of love the apostle is speaking of.” Yet we shall see that while Jonathan Edwards denies holiness to be a Unitarian and utilitarian self-love, he regards its very essence to be God’s Trinitarian love for himself as a being of perfect moral excellence.

Ritschl’s lack of Trinitarian conviction makes it impossible for him to furnish any proper ground for either love or holiness in the nature of God.

Ritschl holds that Christ as a person is an end in himself; he realized his own ideal; he developed his own personality; he reached his own perfection in his work for man; he is not merely a means toward the end of man’s salvation. But when Ritschl comes to his doctrine of God, he is strangely inconsistent with all this, for he fails to represent God as having any end in himself, and deals with him simply as a means toward the kingdom of God as an end. Garvie, Ritschlian Theology, 256, 278, 279, well points out that personality means self-possession as well as selfcommunication, distinction from others as well as union with others.

Ritschl does not see that God’s love is primarily directed towards his Son, and only secondarily directed toward the Christian community. So he ignores the immanent Trinity. Before self-communication there must be self-maintenance. Otherwise God gives up his independence and makes created existence necessary. (d) Holiness is not identical with, or a manifestation of, love. Since selfmaintenance must precede self-impartation, and since benevolence has its object motive, standard and limit in righteousness, holiness the selfaffirming attribute can in no way be resolved into love the selfcommunicating.

That holiness is a form of love is the doctrine of Jonathan Edwards, Essay on the Trinity (ed. Fisher), 97 — “Tis in God’s infinite love to himself that his holiness consists. As all creature holiness is to be resolved into love, as the Scripture teaches us, so doth the holiness of God himself consist in infinite love to himself. God’s holiness is the infinite beauty and excellence of his nature, and God’s excellency consists in his love to himself.” In his treatise on The Nature of Virtue, Jonathan Edwards defines virtue as regard for being in general. He considers that God’s love is first of all directed toward himself as having the greatest quantity of being, and only secondarily directed towards his creatures whose quantity of being is infinitesimal as compared with his. God therefore finds his chief end in himself, and God’s self-love is his holiness. This principle has permeated and dominated subsequent New England theology, from Samuel Hopkins, Works, 2:9-66, who maintains that holiness = love of being in general, to Horace Bushnell, Vicarious Sacrifice, who declares: “Righteousness, transferred into a word of the affections, is love; and love, translated back into a word of the conscience, is righteousness; the eternal law of right is only another conception of the law of love; the two principles, right and love, appear exactly to measure each other.” So Park, Discourses, 155-180.

Similar doctrine is taught by Dorner, Christian Ethics, 73, 93, 184 — “Love unites existence for self with existence for others, self-assertion and self-impartation… Self-love in God is not selfishness, because he is the original and necessary seat of good in general, universal good. God guards his honor even in giving himself to others… Love is the power and desire to be one’s self while in another, and while one’s self to be in another who is taken into the heart as an end… I am to love my neighbor only as myself… Virtue however requires not only good will, but the willing of the right thing.” So Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, 226-239, holds that 1. Love is self-affirmation. Hence he maintains that holiness or selfrespect is involved in love. Righteousness is not an independent excellence to be contrasted with or put in opposition to benevolence; it is an essential part of love. 2. Love is self-impartation. The only limit is ethical. Here is an everdeepening immanence, yet always some transcendence of God, for God cannot deny himself. 3. Love is self-finding in another. Vicariousness belongs to love. We reply to both Dorner and Smyth that their acknowledgment that love has its condition, limit, motive, object and standard shows that there is a principle higher than love and which regulates love. This principle is recognized as ethical. It is identical with the right. God cannot deny himself because he is fundamentally the right. This self-affirmation is holiness, and holiness cannot be a part of love, or a form of love, because it conditions and dominates love. To call it benevolence is to ignore its majestic distinctness and to imperil its legitimate supremacy.

God must first maintain his own being before he can give to another, and this self-maintenance must have its reason and motive in the worth of that which is maintained. Holiness cannot be love, because love is irrational and capricious except as it has a standard by which it is regulated, and this standard cannot be itself love, but must be holiness. We agree with Clarke, Christian Theology, 92, that “love is the desire to impart holiness.” Love is a means to holiness, and holiness is therefore the supreme good and something higher than mere love. It is not true, vice versa, that holiness is the desire to impart love, or that holiness is a means to love. Instead then of saying, with Clarke, that “holiness is central in God, but love is central in holiness,” we should prefer to say: “Love is central in God, but holiness is central in love,” though in this case we should use the term love as including self-love It is still better not to use the word love at all as referring to God’s regard for himself. In ordinary usage, love means only regard for another and sad communication to that other. To embrace in it God’s self-affirmation is to misinterpret holiness and to regard it as a means to an end, instead of making it what it really is, the superior object and the regulative principle, of love.

That which lays down the norm or standard for love must be the superior of love. When we forget that “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne” ( Psalm 97:2), we lose one of the chief landmarks of Christian doctrine and involve ourselves in a mist of error. Revelation 4:3 — “there was a rainbow round about the throne” = in the midst of the rainbow of pardon and peace there is a throne of holiness and judgment. In Matthew 6:9,10, “Thy kingdom come ‘is not the first petition, but rather, “Hallowed be thy name.” it is a false idea of the divine simplicity which would reduce the attributes to one. Self-assertion is not a form of self-impartation. Not sentiency, a state of the sensibility, even though it is the purest benevolence, is the fundamental thing, but rather activity of will and a right direction of that will. Hodge, Essays, 133-136, 262-273, shows well that holy love is a love controlled by holiness. Holiness is not a mere means to happiness. To be happy is not the ultimate reason for being holy. Right and wrong are not matters of profit and loss. To be told that God is only benevolence, and that he punishes only when the happiness of the universe requires it, destroys our whole allegiance to God and does violence to the constitution of our nature.

That God is only love has been called “the doctrine of the papahood of God.” God is “a summer ocean of kindliness, never agitated by storms.” (Dale, Ephesians, 59). But Jesus gives us the best idea of God, and in him we find, not only pity, but at times moral indignation. John 17:11 — “HoIy Father — more than love. God can exercise love only when it is right love. Holiness is the track on which the engine of love must run. The track cannot be the engine. If either includes the other, then it is holiness that includes love, since holiness is the maintenance of God’s perfection, and perfection involves love. He that is holy affirms himself also as the perfect love. If love were fundamental, there would be nothing to give, and so love would be vain and worthless. There can be no giving of self, without a previous self-affirming. God is not holy because he loves, but he loves because he is holy. Love cannot direct itself; it is under bonds to holiness. Justice is not dependent on love for its right to be. Stephen G.

Barnes “Mere good will is not the sole content of the law; it is insufficient in times of fiery trial; it is inadequate as a basis for retribution. Love needs justice, and justice needs love; both are commanded in God’s law and are perfectly revealed in God’s character.”

There may be a friction between a man’s two hands, and there may be a conflict between a man’s conscience and his will, between his intellect and his affection. Force is God s energy under resistance, the resistance as well as the energy being his. So, upon occasion of man’s sin, holiness and love in God become opposite poles or forces. The first and most serious effect of sin is not its effect upon man, but its effect upon God. Holiness necessarily requires suffering, and love endures it. This eternal suffering of God on account of sin is the atonement, and the incarnate Christ only shows what has been in the heart of God from the beginning. To make holiness a form of love is really to deny its existence, and with this to deny that any atonement is necessary for man’s salvation. If holiness is the same as love, how is it that the classic world that knew of God’s holiness did not also know of his love? The ethics here reminds one of Abraham Lincoln’s meat broth that was made of the shadow of a pigeon that died of starvation. Holiness that is only good will is not holiness at all, for it lacks the essential elements of purity and righteousness.

At the railway switching grounds east of Rochester, there is a man whose duty it is to move a bar of iron two or three inches to the left or to the right. So he determines whether a train shall go toward New York or toward Washington, toward New Orleans or San Francisco. Our conclusion at this point in our theology will similarly determine what our future system will be. The principle that holiness is a manifestation of love, or a form of benevolence, leads to the conclusions that happiness is the only good, and the only end; that law is a mere expedient for the securing of happiness; that penalty is simply deterrent or reformatory in its aim; that no atonement needs to be offered to God for human sin; that eternal retribution cannot be vindicated, since there is no hope of reform.

This view ignores the testimony of conscience and of Scripture that sin is intrinsically ill-deserving, and must be punished on that account, not because punishment will work good to the universe, — indeed, it could not work good to the universe, unless it were just and right in itself. It ignores the fact that mercy is optional with God, while holiness is invariable; that punishment is many times traced to God’s holiness, but never to God’s love; that God is not simply love but light — moral light — and therefore is “a consuming fire” ( Hebrews 12:29) to all iniquity.

Love chastens ( Hebrews 12:6), but only holiness punishes ( Jeremiah 10:24 — “correct me, but in measure; not in this anger”; Es. 28:22 — “I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her”; 36:21, 22 — in judgment “I do not this for your sake, but for my holy name”; <620105 1 John 1:5 — “God is light, and in him is no darkness” — moral darkness; Revelation 15:1,4 — “the wrath of God… thou only art holy… thy righteous acts have been made manifest”; 16:5 — “righteous art thou… because thou didst thus judge”; 19:2 — “true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great harlot”). See Hovey, God with Us, 187-221; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 2:80-82; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 154, 155, 346-353; Lange, Pos. Dogmatik, 203.

B. Positively, that holiness is (a) Purity of substance. — In God’s moral nature, as necessarily acting, there are indeed the two elements of willing and being. But the passive logically precedes the active; being comes before willing; God is pure before he wills purity. Since purity, however, in ordinary usage is a negative term and means only freedom from stain or wrong, we must include in it also the positive idea of moral rightness. God is holy in that he is the source and standard of the right.

E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 80 — “Holiness is moral purity, not only in the sense of absence of all moral stain, but of complacency in all moral good.” Shedd, Dogm. Theology, 1:362 — “Holiness in God is conformity to his own perfect nature. The only rule for the divine will is the divine reason; and the divine reason prescribes everything that is befitting an infinite Being to do. God is not under law, nor above law. He is law. He is righteous by nature and necessity… God is the source and author of law for all moral beings.” We may better Shedd’s definition by saying that holiness is that attribute in virtue of which God’s being and God’s will eternally conform to each other. In thus maintaining that holy being logically precedes holy willing, we differ from the view of Lotze, Philos. of Religion. 1:39 — “Such will of God no more follows from his nature as secondary to it, or precedes it as primary to it than. in motion, direction can be antecedent or subsequent to velocity.” Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 16 — “God’s nature = a fixed law of activity or mode of manifestation But laws of thought are no limitation, because they are simply modes of thought-activity. They do not rule intellect, but only express what intellect is.” In spite of these utterances of Lotze and of Bowne, we must maintain that, as truth of being logically precedes truth of knowing and as a loving nature precedes loving emotions, so purity of substance precedes purity of will. The opposite doctrine leads to such utterances as that of Whedon (On the Will, 316): God is holy, in that he freely chooses to make his own happiness in eternal right. Whether lie could not make himself equally happy in wrong is more than we can say… Infinite wisdom and infinite holiness consist in, and result from, God’s volition eternally.” Whedon therefore believes, not in God’s unchangeableness, but in God’s unchangingness. He cannot say whether motives may not at some time prove strongest for divine apostasy to evil. The essential holiness of God affords no basis for certainty. Here we have to rely on our faith, more than on the object of faith; see H. B. Smith, Review of Whedon, in Faith and Philosophy, 355-399. As we said with regard to truth, so here we say with regard to holiness, that to make holiness a matter of mere will, instead of regarding it as a characteristic of God’s being, is to deny that anything is holy in itself. If God can make impurity to be purity, then God in himself is indifferent to purity or impurity, and he ceases therefore to be God. Robert Browning, A Soul’s Tragedy, 223 — “I trust in God — the Right shall be the Right And other than the Wrong, while He endures.” P.

S. Moxom: “Revelation is a disclosure of the divine righteousness. We do not add to the thought when we say that it is also a disclosure of the divine love, for love is a manifestation or realization of that rightness of relations which righteousness is.” H. B. Smith, System, 223-231 — “Virtue = love for both happiness and holiness, yet holiness as ultimate, — love to the highest Person and to his ends and objects.” (b) Energy of will. — This purity is not simply a passive and dead quality; it is the attribute of a personal being; it is penetrated and pervaded by will.

Holiness is the free moral movement of the Godhead.

As there is a higher Mind than our mind, and a greater Heart than our heart, so there is a grander Will than our will. Holiness contains this element of will, although it is a will, which expresses nature, instead of causing nature. It is not a still and moveless purity, like the whiteness of the new fallen snow, or the stainless blue of the summer sky. It is the most tremendous of energies, in unsleeping movement. It is “a glassy sea” (Revelations 15:2), but “a glassy sea mingled with fire.” A. J. Gordon: “Holiness is not a dead white purity, the perfection of the faultless marble statue. Life, as well as purity, enters into the idea of holiness. They who are ‘without fault before the throne’ are they who ‘follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth’ — holy activity attending and expressing their holy state.” Martensen, Christian Ethics, 62, 63 — “God is the perfect unity of the ethically necessary and the ethically free”; “God cannot do otherwise than wilt his own essential nature.” See Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 141; and on the Holiness of Christ, see Godet, Defense of the Christian Faith, 203-241.

The center of personality is will. Knowing has its end in feeling, and feeling has its end in willing. Hence I must make feeling subordinate to willing, and happiness to righteousness. I must will with God and for God, and must use all my influence over others to make them like God in holiness. William James, Will to Believe, 123 — “Mind must first get its impression from the object; then define what that object is and what active measures its presence demands; and finally react… All faiths and philosophies, moods and systems, subserve and pass into a third stage, the stage of action.” What is true of man is even truer of God. All the wills of men combined, aye, even the whole moving energy of humanity in all climes and ages, is as nothing compared with the extent and intensity of God’s willing. The whole momentum of God’s being is behind moral law.

That law is his self-expression. His beneficent yet also his terrible arm is ever defending and enforcing it. God must maintain his holiness, for this is his very Godhead. If he did not maintain it, love would have nothing to give away, or to make others partakers of.

Does God will the good because it is the good, or is the good good because God wills it? In the former case, there would seem to be a good above God; in the latter case, good is something arbitrary and changeable.

Kaftan, Dogmatik, 186, 187, says that neither of these is true; he holds that there is no a priori good before the willing of it, and he also holds that will, without direction is not will; the good is good for God, not before, but in, his self-determination. Dorner, System Doctrine, 1:432, holds on the contrary that both these are true, because God has no mere simple form of being, whether necessary or free, but rather a manifoldly diverse being, absolutely correlated however, and reciprocally conditioning itself, — that is, a Trinitarian being, both necessary and free.

We side with Dorner here, and claim that the belief that God’s will is the executive of God’s being is necessary to a correct ethics and to a correct theology. Celsus justified polytheism by holding that whatever is a part of God reveals God, serves God, and therefore may rationally be worshiped.

Christianity he excepted from this wide toleration, because it worshiped a jealous God who was not content to be one of many. But this jealousy really signifies that God is a Being to whom moral distinctions are real.

The God of Celsus, the God of pantheism, is not jealous, because he is not the Holy One, but simply the Absolute. The category of the ethical is merged in the category of being; see Bruce, Apologetics, 16. The great lack of modern theology is precisely this ethical lack; holiness is merged in benevolence; there is no proper recognition of God’s righteousness. John 17:25 — “O righteous Father, the world knew thee not” — is a text as trite today as in Jesus’ time. Sec Issel, Begriff der Heiligkeit in New Testament, 41, 84, who defines holiness in God as “the ethical perfection of God in its exaltation above all that is sinful,” and holiness in men as “the condition corresponding to that of God, in which man keeps himself pure from sin.” (c) Self-affirmation. — Holiness is God’s self-willing. His own purity is the supreme object of his regard and maintenance. God is holy, in that his infinite moral excellence affirms and asserts itself as the highest possible motive and end. Like truth and love, this attribute can be understood only in the light of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Holiness is purity willing itself. We have an analogy in man’s duty of selfpreservation, self-respect, self-assertion. Virtue is bound to maintain and defend itself, as in the case of Job. In his best moments, the Christian feels that purity is not simply the negation of sin, but the affirmation of an inward and divine principle of righteousness. Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:137 — “Holiness is the perfect agreement of the divine willing with the divine being; for as the personal creature is holy when it wills and determines itself as God wills, so is God the holy one because he wills himself as what he is (or, to be what he is). In virtue of this attribute, God excludes from himself everything that contradicts his nature, and affirms himself in his absolutely good being — his being like himself.”

Tholuck on Romans, 5th ed., 151 — “The term holiness should be used to indicate a relation of God to himself. That is holy which, undisturbed from without, is wholly like itself.” Dorner, System of Doctrine, 1:456 — It is the part of goodness to protect goodness.” We shall see, when we consider the doctrine of the Trinity, that that doctrine has close relations to the doctrine of the immanent attributes. It is in the Son that God has a perfect object of will, as well as of knowledge and love.

The object of God’s willing in eternity past can be nothing outside of himself. It must be the highest of all things. We see what it must be, only when we remember that the right is the unconditional imperative of our moral nature. Since we are made in his image we must conclude that God eternally wills righteousness. Not all God’s acts are acts of love, but all are acts of holiness. The self-respect, self-preservation, self-affirmation, self-assertion, self-vindication, which we call God’s holiness, is only faintly reflected in such utterances as Job 27:5,6 — “Till I die I will not put away mine integrity from me. My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go”; 31:37 — “I would declare unto him the number of my steps; as a prince would I go near unto him.” The fact that the Spirit of God is denominated the Holy Spirit should teach us what is God’s essential nature, and the requisition that we should be holy as he is holy should teach us what is the true standard of human duty and object of human ambition. God’s holiness moreover since it is self-affirmation, furnishes the guarantee that God’s love will not fail to secure its end, and that all things will serve his purpose. Romans 11:26 — “For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever. Amen.” On the whole subject of Holiness, as an attribute of God. see A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 188-200, and Christ in Creation, 388-405; Delitzsch, art. Heiligkeit, in Herzog, Realencyclop.; Baudissin, Begriff der Heiligkeit im A. T., — synopsis in Studien und Kritiken, 1880:169; Robertson Smith, Prophets of Israel, 224-234; E. B.

Coe, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., Jan. 1890:42-47; and articles on Holiness in Old Testament, and Holiness in New Testament, in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary.

VI. RELATIVE OR TRANSITIVE ATTRIBUTES.

First Division. — Attributes having relation to Time and Space. 1. Eternity.

By this we mean that God’s nature (a) is without beginning or end; (b) is free from all succession of time; and (c) contains in itself the cause of time. Deuteronomy 22:40 — “For I lift up my hand to heaven, And say, As I live forever… “ Psalm 90:2 — “Before the mountains… from everlasting… thou art God”; 102:27 — “thy years shall have no end”; Isaiah 41:4 — “I Jehovah, the first, and with the last”; Corinthians 2:7 — pro< tw~n aijw>nwn — “before the worlds” or “ages” = pro< katabolh>v ko>smou — “before the foundation of the world” ( Ephesians 1:4). 1 Timothy 1:17 — Basilei~ tw~n aijw>nwn — “King of the ages (so also Revelations 15:8). 1 Timothy 6:16 — “who only hath immortality.” Revelations 1:8 — “the Alpha and the Omega.”

Dorner: “We must not make Kronos (time) and Uranos (space) earlier divinities before God.” They are among the “all things” that were “made by him” ( John 1:3). Yet time and space are not substances; neither are they attributes (qualities of substance); they are rather relations of finite existence. (Porter, Human Intellect, 568, prefers to call time and space “correlates to beings and events.”) With finite existence they come into being; they are not mere regulative conceptions of our minds; they exist objectively, whether we perceive them or not. Ladd: “Time is the mental presupposition of the duration of events and of objects. Time is not an entity, or it would be necessary to suppose some other time in which it endures. We think of space and time as unconditional, because they furnish the conditions of our knowledge. The age of a son is conditioned on the age of his father. The conditions themselves cannot be conditioned.

Space and time are mental forms, but not only that. There is an extramental something in the case of space and time, as in the case of sound.” Exodus 3:14 — “I am” — involves eternity. <19A212> Psalm 102:12-14 — “But thou, O Jehovah, wilt abide forever… Thou wilt arise, and have mercy upon Zion; for it is time to have pity upon her… For thy servants… have pity upon her dust” = because God is eternal, he will have compassion upon Zion: he will do this, for even we, her children, love her very dust. Jude 25 — “glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time, and now, and for evermore.” Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:165 — “God is ‘King of the eons’ ( 1 Timothy 1:17), because he distinguishes, in his thinking, his eternal inner essence from his changeable working in the world. He is not merged in the process.”

Edwards the younger describes timelessness as “the immediate and invariable possession of the whole unlimited life together and at once.”

Tyler, Greek Poets, 148 — “The heathen gods had only existence without end. The Greeks seem never to have conceived of existence without beginning.” On precognition as connected with the so called future already existing, and on apparent time progression as a subjective human sensation and not inherent in the universe as it exists in an infinite Mind, see Myers, Human Personality, 2:262 sq. Tennyson, Life, 1:322 — “For was and is and will be are but is: And all creation is one act at once, The birth of light; but we that are not all, As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, And live perforce from thought to thought, and make The act a phantom of succession: there Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time.”

Augustine: “Mundus non in tempore, sed cum tempore, factus est.” There is no meaning to the question: Why did creation take place when it did rather than earlier? or the question: What was God doing before creation?

These questions presuppose an independent time in which God created — a time before time. On the other hand, creation did not take place at any time, but God gave both the world and time their existence. Royce, World and Individual, 2:111-115 — “Time is the form of the will, as space is the form of the intellect (cf. 124, 133). Time runs only in one direction (unlike space), toward fulfillment of striving or expectation. In pursuing its goals, the self lives in time. Every now is also a succession, as is illustrated in any melody. To God the universe is ‘totum simul’, as to us any succession is one whole. 233 — Death is a change in the time span — the minimum of time in which a succession can appear as a completed whole. To God “a thousand years” are “as one day” ( 1 Peter 3:8). 419 — God, in his totality as the Absolute Being, is conscious not, in time, but of time, and of all that infinite time contains. In time there follows, in their sequence, the chords of his endless symphony. For him is this whole symphony of life at once… You unite present, past and future in a single consciousness whenever you hear any three successive words, for one is past, another is present, at the same time that a third is future. So God unites in timeless perception the whole succession of finite events… The single notes are not lost in the melody. You are in God, but you are not lost in God.” Mozart, quoted in Wm. James, Principles of Psychology, 1:255 — “All the inventing and making goes on in me as in a beautiful strong dream. But the best of all is the hearing of it all at once.” Eternity is infinity in its relation to time. It implies that God’s nature is not subject to the law of time. God is not in time. It is more correct to say that time is in God. Although there is logical succession in God’s thoughts, there is no chronological succession.

Time is duration measured by successions. Duration without succession would still be duration, though it would be immeasurable. Reid, Intellectual Powers, essay 3, chap. 5 — “We may measure duration by the succession of thoughts in the mind, as we measure length by inches or feet, but the notion or idea of duration must be antecedent to the mensuration of it, as the notion of length is antecedent to its being measured.” God is not under the law of time. Solly, The Will, 254 — “God looks through time as we look through space.” Murphy, Scientific Bases, 90 — “Eternity is not, as men believe, Before and after us, an endless line. No, it is a circle, infinitely great — All the circumference with creations thronged: God at the center dwells, beholding all. And as we move in this eternal round, The finite portion which alone we see Behind us, is the past; what lies before We call the future. But to him who dwells Far at the center, equally remote From every point of the circumference, Both are alike, the future and the past.” Vaughan (1655): “I saw Eternity the other night, Like a great ring of pure and endless light, And calm as it was bright; and round beneath it Time in hours, days, years, Driven by the spheres, Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world And all her train were hurled.”

We cannot have derived from experience our idea of eternal duration in the past, for experience gives us only duration that has had beginning. The idea of duration as without beginning must therefore be given us by intuition. Case, Physical Realism 879, 380 — “Time is the continuance, or continual duration, of the universe.” Bradley, Appearance and Reality, 39 — Consider time as a stream — under a spatial form: “If you take time as a relation between units without duration, then the whole time has no duration, and is not time at all. But if you give duration to the whole time, then [illegible] the units themselves are found to possess it, and they cease to be units.” The now is not time, unless it turns past into future, and this is a process. The now then consists of nows, and these nows are undiscoverable. The unit is nothing but its own relation to something beyond, something not discoverable. Time therefore is not real, but is appearance.

John Caird, Fund. Ideas, 1:185 — “That which grasps and correlates objects in space cannot itself be one of the things of space; that which apprehends and connects events as succeeding each other in time must itself stand above the succession or stream of events. In being able to measure them, it cannot be flowing with them. There could not be for selfconsciousness any such thing as time, if it were not, in one aspect of it, above time, if it did not belong to an order which is or has in it an element which is eternal… As taken up into thought, succession is not successive.” A. H. Strong, Historical Discourse, May 9, 1900 — “God is above space and time, and we are in God. We mark the passage of time, and we write our histories. But we can do this, only because in our highest being we do not belong to space and time, but have in us a bit of eternity.

John Caird tells us that we could not perceive the flowing of the stream if we were ourselves a part of the current; only as we have our feet planted on solid rock, can we observe that the water rushes by. We belong to God; we are akin to God; and while the world passes away and the lust thereof, he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” J. Estlin Carpenter and P.

H. Wicksteed, Studies in Theology, 10 — “Dante speaks of God as him in whom ‘every where and every when are focused in a point’, that is, to whom every season is now and every place is here.” Amiel’s Journal: “Time is the supreme illusion. It is the inner prism by which we decompose being and life, the mode by which we perceive successively what is simultaneous in idea… Time is the successive dispersion of being, just as speech is the successive analysis of an intuition, or of an act of the will. In itself it is relative and negative, and it disappears within the absolute Being… Time and space are fragments of the Infinite for the use of finite creatures. God permits them that he may not be alone. They are the mode under which creatures are possible and conceivable. If the universe subsists, it is because the eternal Mind loves to perceive its own content, in all its wealth and expression, especially in its stages of preparation… The radiations of our mind are imperfect reflections from the great show of fireworks set in motion by Brahma, and great art is great only because of its conformities with the divine order — with that which is.”

Yet we are far from saying that time, now that it exists, has no objective reality to God. To him, past, present, and future are ‘‘one eternal now,” not in the sense that there is no distinction between them, but only in the sense that he sees past and future as vividly as he sees the present. With creation time began, and since the successions of history are veritable successions, he who sees according to truth must recognize them.

Thomas Carlyle calls God “the Eternal Now.” Mason, Faith of the Gospel,30 — “God is not contemptuous of time… One day is with the Lord as a thousand years. He values the infinitesimal in time, even as lie does in space. Hence the patience, the long-suffering, the expectation, of God.” We are reminded of the inscription on the sundial, in which it is said of the hours: “Pereunt et imputantur” — “They pass by, and they are charged to our account.” A certain preacher remarked on the wisdom of God, which has so arranged that the moments of time come successively and not simultaneously, and thus prevent infinite confusion! Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:344, illustrates God’s eternity by the two ways in which a person may see a procession: first from a doorway in the street through which the procession is passing; and secondly, from the top of a steeple which commands a view of the whole procession at the same instant.

S. E. Meze, quoted in Royce, Conception of God,40 — “As if all of us were cylinders, with their ends removed, moving through the waters of some placid lake. To the cylinders the waters seem to move. What has passed is a memory, what is to come is doubtful. But the lake knows that all the water is equally real, and that it is quiet, immovable, unruffled.

Speaking technically, time is no reality. Things seem past and future, and, in a sense, non-existent to us, but, in fact, they are just as genuinely real as the present is.” Yet even here there is an order. You cannot play a symphony backward and have music. This qualification at least must be put upon the words of Berkeley: “A succession of ideas I take to constitute time, and not to be only the sensible measure thereof, as Mr. Locke and others think.”

Finney, quoted in Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct. 1877:722 — “Eternity to us means all past, present and future duration. But to God it means only now. Duration and space, as they respect his existence, mean infinitely different things from what they do when they respect our existence. God’s existence and his acts, as they respect finite existence, have relation to time and space. But as they respect his own existence, everything is here and now. With respect to all finite existences, God can say: I was, I am, I shall be, I will do; but with respect to his own existence, all that he can say is: I am, I do.”

Edwards the younger, Works, 1:386, 387 — “There is no succession in the divine mind; therefore no new operations take place. All the divine acts are from eternity, nor is there any time with God. The effects of these divine acts do indeed all take place in time and in a succession. If it should be said that on this supposition the effects take place not till long after the acts by which they are produced, I answer that they do so in our view, but not in the view of God. With him there is no time; no before or after with respect to time: nor has time any existence in the divine mind, or in the nature of things independently of the minds and perceptions of creatures; but it depends on the succession of those perceptions.” We must qualify this statement of the younger Edwards by the following from Julius Muller: “If God’s working can have no relation to time, then all bonds of union between God and the world are snapped asunder.”

It is an interesting question whether the human spirit is capable of timeless existence, and whether the conception of time is purely physical.

In dreams we seem to lose sight of succession; in extreme pain an age is compressed into a minute. Does this throw light upon the nature of prophecy? Is the soul of the prophet rapt into God’s timeless existence and vision? It is doubtful whether Revelations 10:6 — “there shall be time no longer” can be relied upon to prove the affirmative for the Revised Version margin and the American Revisers translate “there shall be delay no longer.” Julius Muller, Doct. Sin, 2:147 — All self-consciousness is a victory over time.” So with memory; see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 1:471.

On “the death vision of one’s whole existence,” see Frances Kemble Butler’s experience in Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:351 — “Here there is succession and series, only so exceedingly rapid as to seem simultaneous.” This rapidity however is so great as to show that each man can at the last be judged in an instant. On space and time as unlimited, see Porter, Hum. Intellect, 564-566. On the conception of eternity, see Mansel, Lectures, Essays and Reviews, 111-126, and Modern Spiritualism, 255-292; New Englander, April, 1875: art. on the Metaphysical Idea of Eternity. For practical lessons from the Eternity of God, see Park, Discourses, 137-154; Westcott, Some Lessons of the Revised Version, (Pott, N. Y., 1897), 187 — with comments on aijw~nev in Ephesians 3:21, Hebrews 11:3, Revelations 4; 10, 11 — “the universe under the aspect of time.” 2. Immensity.

By this we mean that God’s nature (a) is without extension; (b) is subject to no limitations of space; and (c) contains in itself the cause of space. 1 Kings 8:27 — “behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee.” Space is a creation of God; Romans 8:39 — “nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature.” Zahn, Bib. Dogmatik, 149 — “Scripture does not teach the immanence of God in the world, but the immanence of the world in God.” Dante does not put God, but Satan at the center; and Satan, being at the center, is crushed with the whole weight of the universe. God is the Being who encompasses all. All things exist in him. E. G. Robinson: “Space is a relation; God is the author of relations and of our modes of thought; therefore God is the author of space. Space conditions our thought, but it does not condition God’s thought.”

Jonathan Edwards: “Place itself is mental, and within and without are mental conceptions… When I say the material universe exists only in the mind, I mean that it is absolutely dependent on the conception of the mind for its existence, and does not exist as spirits do, whose existence does not consist in, nor in dependence on, the conception of other minds.” H. M.

Stanley, on Space and Science, in Philosophical Rev., Nov. 1898:615 — “Space is not full of things, but things are spaceful… Space is a form of dynamic appearance.” Bradley carries the ideality of space to an extreme, when, in his Appearance and Reality, 35-38, he tells us: Space is not a mere relation, for it has parts, and what can be the parts of a relation? But space is nothing but a relation, for it is length of lengths of — nothing that we can find. We can find no terms either inside or outside. Space, to be space, must have space outside itself Bradley therefore concludes that space is not reality but only appearance.

Immensity is infinity in its relation to space. God’s nature is not subject to the law of space. God is not in space. It is more correct to say that space is in God. Yet space has an objective reality to God. With creation space began to be, and since God sees according to truth, he recognizes relations of space in his creation.

Many of the remarks made in explanation of time apply equally to space.

Space is not a substance nor an attribute, but a relation. It exists so soon as extended Matter exists, and exists as its necessary condition, whether our minds perceive it or not. Reid, Intellectual Powers, essay 2, chap. — “Space is not so properly an object of sense, as a necessary concomitant of the objects of sight and touch.” When we see or touch body, we get the idea of space, in which the body exists, but the idea of space is not furnished by the sense; it is an a priori cognition of the reason. Experience furnishes the occasion of its evolution, but the mind evolves the conception by its own native energy.

Anselm, Proslogion, 19 — “Nothing contains thee, but thou containest all things.” Yet it is not precisely accurate to say that space is in God, for this expression seems to intimate that God is a greater space which somehow includes the less. God is rather unspatial and is the Lord of space. The notion that space and the divine immensity are identical leads to a materialistic conception of God. Space is not an attribute of God, as Clarke maintained, and no argument for the divine existence can be constructed from this premise (see pages 85, 86). Martineau, Types, 1:138, 139, 170 — “Malebranche said that God is the place of all spirits, as space is the place of all bodies… Descartes held that there is no such thing as empty space. Nothing cannot possibly have extension. Wherever extension is, there must be something extended. Hence the doctrine of a plenum, A vacuum is inconceivable.” Lotze, Outlines of Metaphysics, — “According to the ordinary view… space exists, and things exist in it; according to our view, only things exist, and between them nothing exists, but space exists in them.”

Case, Physical Realism, 379, 380 — “Space is the continuity, or continuous extension of the universe as one substance.” Ladd: “Is space extended? Then it must be extended in some other space. That other space is the space we are talking about. Space then is not an entity, but a mental presupposition of the existence of extended substance. Space and time are neither finite nor infinite. Space has neither circumference nor center — its center would be everywhere. We cannot imagine space at all. It is simply a precondition of mind enabling us to perceive things.” In Bibliotheca Sacra, 1890:415-444, art., Is Space a Reality? Prof. Mead opposes the doctrine that space is purely subjective, as taught by Bowne; also the doctrine that space is a certain order of relations among realities; that space is nothing apart from things; but that things, when they exist, exist in certain relations, and that the sum, or system, of these relations constitutes space.

We prefer the view of Bowne, Metaphysics 127, 137, 143, that “Space is the form of objective experience, and is nothing in abstraction from that experience… it is a form of intuition, and not a mode of existence.

According to this view, things are not in space and space-relations, but appear to be. In themselves they are essentially non-spatial; but by their interactions with one another, and with the mind, they give rise to the appearance of a world of extended things in a common space. Spacepredicates, then, belong to phenomena only, and not to things in themselves… apparent reality exists spatially; but proper ontological reality exists spacelessly and without spatial predicates.” For the view that space is relative, see also Cocker, Theistic Conception of the World, 66-96; Calderwood, Philos. of the Infinite, 331-335. Per contra, see Porter, Human Intellect, 662; Hazard, Letters on Causation in Willing, appendix; Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct. 1877:723; Gear, in Bap. Rev., July, 1880:434; Lowndes, Philos. of Primary Beliefs, 144-161.

Second Division — Attributes having relation to Creation. 1. Omnipresence.

By this we mean that God, in the totality of his essence, without diffusion or expansion, multiplication or division, penetrates and fills the universe in all its parts. <19D907> Psalm 139:7 sq. — “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” Jeremiah 23:23,24 — “Am I a God at hand, saith Jehovah, and not a God afar off… Do not I fill heaven and earth?” Acts 17:27,28 — “he is not far from each one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being.” Faber: “For God is never so far off As even to be near. He is within. Our spirit is The home he holds most dear. To think of him as by our side Is almost as untrue As to remove his shrine beyond Those skies of starry blue. So all the while I thought myself Homeless, forlorn and weary, Missing my joy, I walked the earth Myself God’s sanctuary.” Henri Amiel: “From every point on earth we are equally near to heaven and the infinite.” Tennyson, The Higher Pantheism: “Speak to him then, for he hears, and spirit with spirit can meet; Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.” “As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart.” The atheist wrote “God is nowhere,” but his little daughter read it “God is now here,” and it converted him. The child however sometimes asks: “If God is everywhere, how is there any room for us?” and the only answer is that God is not a material but a spiritual being, whose presence does not exclude finite existence but rather makes such existence possible. This universal presence of God had to be learned gradually. It required great faith in Abraham to go out from Ur of the Chaldees, and yet to hold that God would be with him in a distant land ( Hebrews 11:8). Jacob learned that the heavenly ladder followed him wherever he went ( Genesis 28:15). Jesus taught that “neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father” ( John 4:21). Our Lord’s mysterious comings and goings after his resurrection were intended to teach his disciples that he was with them “always, even unto the end of the world” ( Matthew 28:20). The omnipresence of Jesus demonstrates, a fortiori, the omnipresence of God, In explanation of this attribute we may say: (a) God’s omnipresence is not potential but essential. We reject the Socinian representation that God’s essence is in heaven, only his power on earth. When God is said to “dwell in the heavens,” we are to understand the language either as a symbolic expression of exaltation above earthly things, or as a declaration that his most special and glorious selfmanifestations are to the spirits of heaven. <19C301> Psalm 123:1 — “O thou that sittest in the heavens”; 113:5 — “That hath his seat on high”; Isaiah 57:15 — “the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity.” Mere potential omnipresence is Deistic as well as Socinian. Like birds in the air or fish in the sea, “at home, abroad, We are surrounded still with God.” We do not need to go up to heaven to call him down, or into the abyss to call him up ( Romans 10:6,7). The best illustration is found in the presence of the soul in every part of the body.

Mind seems not confined to the brain. Natural realism in philosophy, as distinguished from idealism, requires that the mind should be at the point of contact with the outer world, instead of having reports and ideas brought to it in the brain; see Porter, Human Intellect, 149. All believers in a soul regard the soul as at least present in all parts of the brain, and this is a relative omnipresence no less difficult in principle than its presence in all parts of the body. An animal’s brain may be frozen into a piece solid as ice, yet, after thawing, it will act as before although freezing of the whole body will cause death. If the immaterial principle were confined to the brain we should expect freezing of the brain to cause death. But if the soul may he omnipresent in the body or even in the brain, the divine Spirit may be omnipresent in the universe. Bowne, Metaphysics, 136 — “If finite things are modes of the infinite, each thing must be a mode of the entire infinite; and the infinite must be present in its unity and completeness in every finite thing, just as the entire soul is present in all its acts.” This idealistic conception of the entire mind as present in all its thoughts must be regarded as the best analogue to God’s omnipresence in the universe. We object to the view that this omnipresence is merely potential, as we fond it in Clarke, Christian Theology, 74 — “We know, and only know, that God is able to put forth all his power of action, without regard to place… omnipresence is an element in the immanence or God… a local God would be no real God. If he is not everywhere, he is not true God anywhere. Omnipresence is implied in all providence, in all prayer, in all communion with God and reliance on God.”

So long as it is conceded that consciousness is not confined to a single point in the brain, the question whether other portions of the brain or of the body are also the seats of consciousness may be regarded as a purely academic one and the answer need not affect our present argument. The principle of omnipresence is granted when once we hold that the soul is conscious at more than one point of the physical organism. Yet the question suggested above is an interesting one and with regard to it psychologists are divided. Paulsen, Einleitung in die Philosophie (1892), 133-159, holds that consciousness is correlated with the sum total of bodily processes, and with him agree Fechner and Wundt. “Pfluger and Lewes say that as the hemispheres of the brain owe their intelligence to the consciousness which we know to be there, so the intelligence of the spinal cord’s acts must really be due to the invisible presence of a consciousness lower in degree.” Professor Brewer’s rattlesnake, after several hours of decapitation, still struck at him with its bloody neck, when he attempted to seize it by the tail. From the reaction of the frog’s leg after decapitation may we not infer a certain consciousness? “Robin, on tickling the breast of a criminal an hour after decapitation, saw the arm and hand move toward the spot.” Hudson, Demonstration of a Future Life, 239-249, quotes from Hammond, Treatise on Insanity, chapter 2, to prove that the brain is not the sole organ of the mind. Instinct does not reside exclusively in the brain; it is seated in the medulla oblongata, or in the spinal cord, or in both these organs. Objective mind, as Hudson thinks, is the function of the physical brain, and it ceases when the brain loses its vitality. Instinctive acts are performed by animals after excision of the brain, and by human beings born without brain. Johnson, in Andover Rev., April, 1890:421 — “The brain is not the only seat of consciousness. The same evidence that points to the brain as the principal seat of consciousness points to the nerve centers situated in the spinal cord or elsewhere as the seat of a more or less subordinate consciousness or intelligence.” Ireland, Blot on the Brain, 26 — “I do not take it for proved that consciousness is entirely confined to the brain.”

In spite of these opinions, however, we must grant that the general consensus among psychologists is upon the other side. Dewey, Psychology, 349 — “The sensory and motor nerves have points of meeting in the spinal cord. When a stimulus is transferred from a sensory nerve to a motor without the conscious intervention of the mind, we have reflex action. If something approaches the eye, the stimulus is transferred to the spinal cord, and instead of being continued to the brain and giving rise to a sensation, it is discharged into a motor nerve and the eye is immediately closed… the reflex action in itself involves no consciousness.” William James, Psychology, 1:16, 66, 134, 214 — “The cortex of the brain is the sole organ of consciousness in man… if there be any consciousness pertaining to the lower centers, it is a consciousness of which the self knows nothing. In lower animals this may not be so much the case. The seat of the mind, so far as its dynamical relations are concerned, is somewhere in the cortex of the brain.” See also C. A.

Strong, Why the Mind has a Body. 40-50. (b) God’s omnipresence is not the presence of a part but of the whole of God in every place. This follows from the conception of God as incorporeal. We reject the materialistic representation that God is composed of material elements, which can be divided or sundered. There is no multiplication or diffusion of his substance to correspond with the parts of his dominions. The one essence of God is present at the same moment in all. 1 Kings 8:27 — “the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain (circumscribe) thee.” God must be present in all his essence and all his attributes in every place. He is “totus in omni parte.” Alger, Poetry of the Orient: “Though God extends beyond Creation’s rim Each smallest atom holds the whole of him.” From this it follows that the whole Logos can be united to and be present in the man Christ Jesus, while at the same time he fills and governs the whole universe; and so the whole Christ can be united to, and can be present in, the single believer, as fully as if that believer were the only one to receive of his fullness.

A.J. Gordon: “In mathematics the whole is equal to the sum of its parts.

But we know of the Spirit that every part is equal to the whole. Every church, every true body of Jesus Christ, has just as much of Christ as every other, and each has the whole Christ.” Matthew 13:20 — “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” “The parish priest of austerity Climbed up in a high church steeple, To be nearer God so that he might Hand his word down to the people. And In sermon script he daily wrote What he thought was sent from heaven, And he dropped it down on the people’s heads Two times one day in seven. In his age God said, ‘Come down and die,’ And he cried out from the steeple, ‘Where art thou, Lord?’ And the Lord replied, ‘Down here among my people.’” (c) God’s omnipresence is not necessary but free. We reject the pantheistic notion that God is bound to the universe as the universe is bound to God.

God is immanent in the universe, not by compulsion, but by the free act of his own will, and this immanence is qualified by his transcendence.

God might at will cease to be omnipresent, for he could destroy the universe; but while the universe exists, he is and must be in all its parts.

God is the life and law of the universe — this is the truth in pantheism.

But he is also personal and free — this pantheism denies. Christianity holds to a free as well as to an essential omnipresence — qualified and supplemented, however, by God’s transcendence. The boasted truth in pantheism is an elementary principle of Christianity, and is only the stepping stone to a nobler truth — God’s personal presence with his church. The Talmud contrasts the worship of an idol and the worship of Jehovah: “The idol seems so near, but is so far, Jehovah seems so far, but is so near!” God’s omnipresence assures us that he is present with us to hear, and present in every heart and in the ends of the earth to answer, prayer. See Rogers, Superhuman Origin of the Bible,10; Bowne, Metaphysics, 136; Charnock, Attributes, 1:363-405.

The Puritan turned from the moss-rose bud, saying: “I have learned to call nothing on earth lovely.” But this is to despise not only the workmanship but also the presence of the Almighty. The least thing in nature is worthy of study because it is the revelation of a present God. The uniformity of nature and the reign of law are nothing but the steady will of the omnipresent God. Gravitation is God’s omnipresence in space, as evolution is God’s omnipresence in time. Dorner, System of Doctrine, 1:73 — “God being omnipresent, contact with him may be sought at any moment in prayer and contemplation; indeed, it will always be true that we live and move and have our being in him, as the perennial and omnipresent source of our existence.” Romans 10:6-8 — “Say not in thy heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down) or, Who shall descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart.” Lotze, Metaphysics. 256, quoted in Illingworth, Divine Immanence, 135, 136. Sunday school scholar: “Is God in my pocket?” “Certainly.” “No, he isn’t, for I haven’t any pocket.” God is omnipresent so long as there is a universe, but he ceases to be omnipresent when the universe ceases to be. 2. Omniscience.

By this we mean God’s perfect and eternal knowledge of all things which are objects of knowledge, whether they be actual or possible, past, present, or future.

God knows his inanimate creation: <19E704> Psalm 147:4 — “counteth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names.” He has knowledge of brute creatures: Matthew 10:29 — sparrows — “not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father.” Of men and their works: Psalm 33:13-15 — “beholdeth all the sons of men… considereth all their works.” Of hearts of men and their thoughts: Acts 15:8 — “God, who knoweth the heart;” <19D902> Psalm 139:2 — “understandest my thought afar off.” Of our wants: Matthew 6:8 — knoweth what things ye have need of.” Of the least things: Matthew 10:30 — “the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Of the past: Malachi 3:16 — “book of remembrance.” Of the future: Isaiah 46:9,10 — “declaring the end from the beginning.” Of men’s future free acts: Isaiah 44:28 — “that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure.” Of men’s future evil acts: Acts 2:23 — “him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” Of the ideally possible: 1 Samuel 23:12 — “Will the man of Keilah deliver up me and my men into the hands of Saul? And Jehovah said, They will deliver thee up” (sc . if thou remainest); Matthew 11:23 — “if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in thee, it would have remained.” From eternity: Acts 15:18 — “the Lord, who maketh these things known from of old.” Incomprehensible: <19D906> Psalm 139:6 — “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me”; Romans 11:33 — “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God.” Related to wisdom: <19A424> Psalm 104:24 — “In wisdom hast thou made them all”; Ephesians 3:10 — “manifold wisdom of God.” Job 7:20 — “O thou watcher of men”; Psalm 56:8 — “Thou numberest my wanderings” = my whole life has been, one continuous exile; “Put thou my tears into thy bottle” the skin bottle of the east — there are tears enough to fill one; “Are they not in thy book?” — no tear has fallen to the ground unnoted — God has gathered them all. Paul Gerhardt: “Du zahlst wie oft ein Christe wein’, Und was sein Kummer sei; Kein stilles Thranlein ist so klein, Du hebst und legst es bei.” Hebrews 4:13 — “there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do” — tetrachlisme>na — with head bent back and neck laid bare, as animals slaughtered in sacrifice, or seized by the throat and thrown on the back, so that the priest might discover whether there was any blemish. Japanese proverb: “God has forgotten to forget.” (a) The omniscience of God may be argued from his omnipresence, as well as from his truth or self-knowledge, in which the plan of creation has its eternal ground, and from prophecy, which expresses God’s omniscience.

It is to be remembered that omniscience, as the designation of a relative and transitive attribute, does not include God’s self-knowledge. The term is used in the technical sense of God’s knowledge of all things that pertain to the universe of his creation. H. A. Gordon: “Light travels faster than sound. You can see the flash of fire from the cannon’s mouth, a mile away, considerably before the noise of the discharge reaches the ear. God flashed the light of prediction upon the pages of his word, and we see it.

Wait a little and we see the event itself.”

Royce, The Conception of God,9 — “An omniscient being would be one who simply found presented to him, not by virtue of fragmentary and gradually completed processes of inquiry, but by virtue of an allembracing, direct and transparent insight into his own truth — who found thus presented to him, I say, the complete, the fulfilled answer to every genuinely rational question.”

Browning, Ferishtah’s Fancies, Plot-culture: “How will it fare shouldst thou impress on me That certainly an Eye is over all And each, to make the minute’s deed, word, thought As worthy of reward and punishment?

Shall I permit my sense an Eye-viewed shame, Broad daylight perpetration — so to speak — I had not dared to breathe within the Ear, With black night’s help around me?” (b) Since it is free from all imperfection, God’s knowledge is immediate, as distinguished from the knowledge that comes through sense or imagination; simultaneous, as not acquired by successive observations, or built up by processes of reasoning; distinct, as free from all vagueness or confusion; true, as perfectly corresponding to the reality of things; eternal, as comprehended in one timeless act of the divine mind.

An infinite mind must always act, and must always act in an absolutely perfect manner. There is in God no sense, symbol, memory, abstraction, growth, reflection, reasoning — his knowledge is all direct and without intermediaries. The ancient Egyptians properly represented God, not as having eye, but as being eye. His thoughts toward us are “more than can be numbered”( Psalm 40:5), not because there is succession in them, now a remembering and now a forgetting, but because there is never a moment of our existence in which we are out of his mind; he is always thinking of us. See Charnock, Attributes, 1:406-497. Genesis 16:13 — “Thou art a God that seeth.” Mivart, Lessons from Nature, 374 — “Every creature of every order of existence, while its existence is sustained, is so complacently contemplated by God, that the intense and concentrated attention of all men of science together upon it could but form an utterly inadequate symbol of such divine contemplation.” So God’s scrutiny of every deed of darkness is more searching than the gaze of a whole Coliseum of spectators, and his eye is more watchful over the good than would be the united care of all his hosts in heaven and earth.

Armstrong, God and the Soul: “God’s energy is concentrated attention, attention concentrated everywhere. We can attend to two or three things at once; the pianist plays and talks at the same time; the magician does one thing while he seems to do another. God attends to all things, does all things, at once.” Marie Corelli, Master Christian, 104 — “The biography is a hint that every scene of human life is reflected in a ceaseless moving panorama somewhere, for the beholding of someone.” Wireless telegraphy is a stupendous warning that from God no secrets are hid, that “there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known” ( Matthew 10:26). The Rontgen rays, which take photographs of our insides, right through our clothes, and even in the darkness of midnight, show that to God “the night shineth as the day” ( <19D912> Psalm 139:12).

Professor Mitchel’s equatorial telescope, slowly moving by clockwork, toward sunset, suddenly touched the horizon and disclosed a boy in a tree stealing apples, but the boy was all unconscious that he was under the gaze of the astronomer. Nothing was so fearful to the prisoner in the French cachot as the eye of the guard that never ceased to watch him in perfect silence through the loophole in the door. As in the Roman Empire the whole world was to a malefactor one great prison, and in his flight to the most distant lands the emperor could track him, so under the government of God no sinner can escape the eye of his Judge. But omnipresence is protective as well as detective. The text ( Genesis 16:13 — “Thou, God, seest me” — has been used as a restraint from evil more than as a stimulus to good. To the child of the devil it should certainly be the former. But to the child of God it should as certainly be the latter. God should not be regarded as an exacting overseer or a standing threat, but rather as one who understands us, loves us, and helps us. <19D917> Psalm 139:17,18 — “How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: When I awake, I am still with thee.” (c) Since God knows things, as they are, he knows the necessary sequences of his creation as necessary, the free acts of his creatures as free the ideally possible as ideally possible.

God knows what would have taken place under circumstances not now present; knows what the universe would have been, had he chosen a different plan of creation; knows what our lives would have been, had we made different decisions in the past ( Isaiah 48:18 — “Oh that thou hadst hearkened… then had thy peace been as a river”). Clarke, Christian Theology, 77 — “God has a double knowledge of his universe. He knows it as it exists eternally in his mind, as his own idea; and he knows it as actually existing in time and space, a moving, changing, growing universe, with perpetual process of succession. In his own idea, he knows it all at once; but he is also aware of its perpetual becoming, and with reference to events as they occur he has foreknowledge, present knowledge, and knowledge afterwards. He conceives of all things simultaneously, but observes all things in their succession.”

Royce, World and Individual, 2:374 — holds that God does not temporally foreknow anything except as he is expressed in finite beings, but yet that the Absolute possesses a perfect knowledge at one glance of the whole of the temporal order, present, past and future. This, he says, is not foreknowledge, but eternal knowledge. Priestley denied that any contingent event could be an object of knowledge. But Reid says the denial that any free action can be foreseen involves the denial of God’s own free agency, since God’s future actions can be foreseen by men; also that while God foresees his own free actions, this does not determine those actions necessarily. Tennyson, In Memoriam, 26 — “And if that eye which watches guilt And goodness, and hath power to see Within the green the moldered tree, And towers fallen as soon as built — Oh, if indeed that eye foresee Or see (in Him is no before) In more of life true life no more And Love the indifference to be, Then might I find, ere yet the morn Breaks hither over Indian seas, That Shadow waiting with the keys, To shroud me from my proper scorn.” (d) The fact that there is nothing in the present condition of things from which the future actions of free creatures necessarily follow by natural law does not prevent God from foreseeing such actions, since his knowledge is not mediate, but immediate. He not only foreknows the motives, which will occasion men’s acts, but he directly foreknows the acts themselves. The possibility of such direct knowledge without assignable grounds of knowledge is apparent if we admit that time is a form of finite thought to which the divine mind is not subject.

Aristotle maintained that there is no certain knowledge of contingent future events. Socinus, in like manner, while he admitted that God knows all things that are knowable, abridged the objects of the divine knowledge by withdrawing from the number those objects whose future existence he considered as uncertain, such as the determinations of free agents. These, he held, cannot be certainly foreknown, because there is nothing in the present condition of things from which they will necessarily follow by natural law. The man who makes a clock can tell when it will strike. But freewill, not being subject to technical laws cannot have its acts predicted or foreknown. God knows things only in their causes — future events only in their antecedents. John Milton seems also to deny God’s foreknowledge of free acts: “So without least impulse or shadow of fate, or ought by me immutable foreseen, They trespass.”

With this Socinian doctrine some Armenians agree, as McCabe, in his Foreknowledge of God, and in his Divine Nescience of Future Contingencies a Necessity. McCabe, however, sacrifices the principle of free will, in defense of which he makes this surrender of God’s foreknowledge, by saying that in cases of fulfilled prophecy, like Peter’s denial and Judas’s betrayal, God brought special influences to bear to secure the result, so that Peter’s and Judas’s wills acted irresponsibly under the law of cause and effect. He quotes Dr. Daniel Curry as declaring that “the denial of absolute divine foreknowledge is the essential complement of the Methodist theology, without which its philosophical incompleteness is defenseless against the logical consistency of Calvinism.

See also article by McCabe in Methodist Review, Sept. 1892:760-773.

Also Simon, Reconciliation, 287 — “God has constituted a creature, the actions of which he can only know as such when they are performed. In presence of man, to a certain extent, even the great God condescends to wait; nay more, has himself so ordained things that he must wait, inquiring, ‘What will he do?”’ So Dugald Stewart: “Shall we venture to affirm that it exceeds the power of God to permit such a train of contingent events to take place as his own foreknowledge shall not extend to?” Martensen holds this view, and Rothe, Theologische Ethik, 1:212-234, who declares that the free choices of men are continually increasing the knowledge of God. So also Martineau, Study of Religion, 2:279 — “The belief in the divine foreknowledge of our future has no basis in philosophy. We no longer deem it true that even God knows the moment of my moral life that is coming next. Even he does not know whether I shall yield to the secret temptation at midday. To him life is a drama of which he knows not the conclusion.” Then, says Dr. A. J. Gordon, there is nothing so dreary and dreadful as to be living under the direction of such a God. The universe is rushing on like an express train in the darkness without headlight or engineer — at any moment we may be plunged into the abyss. Lotze does not deny God’s foreknowledge of free human actions, but he regards as insoluble by the intellect the problem of the relation of time to God, and such foreknowledge as “one of those postulates as to which we know not how they can be fulfilled.” Bowne, Philosophy of Theism, 159 — “Foreknowledge of a free act is a knowledge without assignable grounds of knowing. On the assumption of ‘a real time, it is hard to find a way out of this difficulty… The doctrine of the ideality of time helps us by suggesting the possibility of an all embracing present, or an eternal now, for God. In that case the problem vanishes with time, its condition.”

Against the doctrine of the divine nescience we urge not only our fundamental conviction of God’s perfection, but also the constant testimony of Scripture. In Isaiah 41:21,22, God makes his foreknowledge the test of his Godhead in the controversy with idols. If God cannot foreknow free human acts, then “the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world” ( Revelation 13:8) was only a sacrifice to be offered in case Adam should fall, God not knowing whether he would or not, and in case Judas should betray Christ, God not knowing whether he would or not. Indeed, since the course of nature is changed by man’s will when he burns towns and fells forests, God cannot on this theory predict even the course of nature. All prophecy is therefore a protest against this view.

How God foreknows free human decisions we may not be able to say but then the method of God’s knowledge in many other respects is unknown to us. The following explanations have been proposed. God may foreknow free acts: 1. Mediately, by foreknowing the motives of these acts, and this either because these motives induce the acts, (1) necessarily, or (2) certainly.

This last “certainly” is to be accepted, if either: since motives are never causes, but are only occasions, of action. The cause is the will, or the man himself. But it may be said that foreknowing acts through their motives is not foreknowing at all, but is reasoning or inference rather. Moreover, although intelligent beings commonly act according to motives previously dominant, they also at critical epochs, as at the fall of Satan and of Adam, choose between motives, and in such eases knowledge of the motives which have hitherto actuated them gives no clue to their next decisions.

Another statement is therefore proposed to meet these difficulties, namely, that God may foreknow free acts: — 2. Immediately, by pure intuition, inexplicable to us. Julius Muller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:203, 225 — “If God can know a future event as certain only by a calculation of causes it must be allowed that he cannot with certainty foreknow any free act of man; for his foreknowledge would then be proof that the act in question was the necessary consequence of certain causes, and was not in itself free. If, on the contrary, the divine knowledge be regarded as intuitive, we see that it stands in the same immediate relation to the act itself as to its antecedents, and thus the difficulty is removed.” Even upon this view there still remains the difficulty of perceiving how there can be in God’s mind a subjective certitude with regard to acts in respect to which there is no assignable objective ground of certainty. Yet, in spite of this difficulty, we feel bound both by Scripture and by our fundamental idea of God’s perfection to maintain God’s perfect knowledge of the future free acts of his creatures. With President Pepper we say: “Knowledge of contingency is not necessarily contingent knowledge.” With Whedon: “It is not calculation, but pure knowledge.” See Dorner, System of Doct., 1:332-337; 2:58-62; Jahrbuch fur deutsche Theologie. 1858:601-605; Charnock, Attributes. 1:429-446; Solly, The Will, 240-254. For a valuable article on the whole subject, though advocating the view that God foreknows acts by foreknowing motives, see Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct. 1883:655-694. See also Hill, Divinity, 517. (e) Prescience is not itself causative. lit is not to be confounded with the predetermining will of God. Free actions do not take place because they are foreseen, but they are foreseen because they are to take place.

Seeing a thing in the future does not cause it to be, more than seeing a thing in the past causes it to be. As to future events, we may say with Whedon: “Knowledge takes them, not makes them.” Foreknowledge may, and does, presuppose predetermination. but it is not itself predetermination. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa, 1:38:1:1, says that “the knowledge of God is the cause of things “; but he is obliged to add: “God is not the cause of all things that are known by God, since evil things that are known by God are not from him.” John Milton, Paradise lost, book 3 — “Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault, Which had no less proved certain unforeknown.” (f) Omniscience embraces the actual and the possible, but it does not embrace the self-contradictory and the impossible, because these are not objects of knowledge.

God does not know what the result would be if two and two made five, nor does he know “whether a chimera ruminating in a vacuum devoureth second intentions”; and that, simply for the reason that he cannot know self-contradiction and nonsense. These things are not objects of knowledge. Clarke, Christian Theology, 80 — “Can God make an old man in a minute? Could he make it well with the wicked while they remained wicked? Could he create a world in which 2+ 2 = 5?” Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 366 — “Does God know the whole number that is the square root of 65? or what adjacent hills there are that have no valleys between them? Does God know round squares, and sugar saltlumps, and Snarks and Boojums and Abracadabras?” (g) Omniscience, as qualified by holy will, is in Scripture denominated “wisdom.” In virtue of his wisdom God chooses the highest ends and uses the fittest means to accomplish them.

Wisdom is not simply “estimating all things at their proper value” (Olmstead); it has in it also the element of counsel and purpose. It has been defined as “the talent of using one’s talents.” It implies two things: first, choice of the highest ends; secondly, choice of the best means to secure this end. J. C. C. Clarke, Self and the Father,39 — “Wisdom is not invented conceptions, or harmony of theories with theories; but is humble obedience of mind to the reception of facts that are found in things.” Thus man’s wisdom, obedience and faith, are all names for different aspects of the same thing. And wisdom in God is the moral choice, which makes truth and holiness supreme. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, 26 — “Socialism pursues a laudable end by unwise or destructive means. It is not enough to mean well. Our methods must take some account of the nature of things, if they arc to succeed. We cannot produce well being by law. No legislation can remove inequalities of nature and constitution. Society cannot produce equality, any more than it can enable a rhinoceros to sing, or legislate a cat into a lion.” 3. Omnipotence.

By this we mean the power of God to do all things which are objects of power, whether with or without the use of means. Genesis 17:1 — “I am God Almighty.” He performs natural wonders: Genesis 1:1-3 — “Let there be Light”; Isaiah 44:24 — “stretcheth forth the heavens alone”; Hebrews 1:3 — “upholding all things by the word of his power”; Spiritual wonders: 2 Corinthians 4:6 — “God that said Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts”; Ephesians 1:19 — “exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe”; Ephesians 3:20 — “able to do exceeding abundantly. Power to create new things: Matthew 3:9 — “able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham” Romans 4:17 — “giveth life to the dead, and calleth the things that are not, as though they were.” After his own pleasure: <19B503> Psalm 115:3 — “He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased”; Ephesians 1:11 — “worketh all things after the counsel of his will.”

Nothing impossible: ( Genesis 18:14 — “Is anything too hard for Jehovah?” Matthew 19:26 — “with God all things are possible.” E. G.

Robinson, Christian Theology, 73 — “If all power in the universe is dependent on his creative will for its existence, it is impossible to conceive any limit to his power except that laid on it by his own will. But this is only negative proof; absolute omnipotence is not logically demonstrable, though readily enough recognized as a just conception of the infinite God, when propounded on the authority of a positive revelation.”

The omnipotence of God is illustrated by the work of the Holy Spirit, which in Scripture is compared to wind, water and fire. The ordinary manifestations of these elements afford no criterion of the effects they are able to produce. The rushing mighty wind at Pentecost was the analogue of the wind-Spirit who bore everything before him on the first day of creation ( Genesis 1:2; John 3:8; Acts 2:2). The pouring out of the Spirit is likened to the flood of Noah when the windows of heaven were opened and there was not room enough to receive that which fell (Hal. 3:10). And the baptism of the Holy Spirit is like the fire that shall destroy all impurity at the end of the world ( Matthew 3:11; 1 Peter 3:7-13). See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 307-310. (a) Omnipotence does not imply power to do that which is not an object of power; as, for example that, which is self-contradictory or contradictory to the nature of God.

Self-contradictory things: “facere factum infectum — “the making of a past event to have not occurred (hence the uselessness of praying: “May it be that much good was done”); drawing a shorter than a straight line between two given points; putting two separate mountains together without a valley between them. Things contradictory to the nature of God: for God to lie, to sin, to die. To do such things would not imply power, but impotence. God has all the power that is consistent with infinite perfection — all power to do what is worthy of himself. So man than this can say no greater thing: “I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none.’ Even God cannot make wrong to be right, nor hatred of himself to be blessed. Some have held that the prevention of sin in a moral system is not an object of power, and therefore that God cannot prevent sin in a moral system. We hold the contrary; see this Compendium:

Objections to the Doctrine of Decrees.

Dryden, Imitation of Horace, 3:29:71 — “Over the past not heaven itself has power; What has been has, and I have had my hour” — words applied by Lord John Russell to his own career. Emerson, The Past: “All is now secure and fast. Not the gods can shake the Past.” Sunday school scholar: “Say, teacher, can God make a rock so big that he can’t lift it?” Seminary Professor: “Can God tell a lie?” Seminary student: With God all things are possible.” (b) Omnipotence does not imply the exercise of all his power on the part of God. He has power over his power; in other words, his power is under the control of wise and holy will. God can do all he will, but he will not do all he can. Else his power is mere force acting necessarily, and God is the slave of his own omnipotence.

Schleiermacher held that nature not only is grounded in the divine causality, but fully expresses that causality; there is no causative power in God for anything that is not real and actual. This doctrine does not essentially differ from Spinoza’s natura naturans and natura naturata.

See Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 2:62-66. But omnipotence is not instinctive; it is a power used according to God’s pleasure. God is by no means encompassed by the laws of nature, or shut up to a necessary evolution of his own being, as pantheism supposes. As Rothe has shown, God has a willpower over his nature power, and is not compelled to do all that he can do. He is able from the stones of the street to “raise up children unto Abraham,” but he has not done it. In God are unopened treasures, an inexhaustible fountain of new beginnings, new creations, and new revelations. To suppose that in creation he has expended all the inner skirts of his ways: And how small a whisper do we hear of him I But the thunder of his power who can understand?” See Rogers, Superhuman Origin of the Bible,10; Hodgson, Time and Space, 579, 580. 1 Peter 5:6 — “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God” — his mighty hand of providence, salvation, blessing — “that he may exalt you in due time; casting all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you” “The mighty powers held under mighty control” — this is the greatest exhibition of power. Unrestraint is not the highest freedom.

Young men must learn that self-restraint is the true power. Proverbs 16:32 — “Ye that is slow to anger is better than the mighty: And he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city.” Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 2:3 — “We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a power that we have no power to do.” When dynamite goes off, it all goes off; there is no reserve.

God uses as much of his power as he pleases: the remainder of wrath in himself, as well as in others, he restrains. (c) Omnipotence in God does not exclude, but implies, the power of selflimitation.

Since all such self-limitation is free, proceeding from neither external nor internal compulsion, it is the act and manifestation of God’s power. Human freedom is not rendered impossible by the divine omnipotence, but exists by virtue of it. It is an act of omnipotence when God humbles himself to the taking of human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.

Thomasius: “If God is to be over all and in all, he cannot himself be all.” <19B305> Psalm 113:5,6 — “Who is like unto Jehovah our God… That humbleth himself to behold The things that are in heaven and in the earth?” Philippians 2:7,8 — “emptied himself… humbled himself.”

See Charnock, Attributes, 2:5-107. President Woolsey showed true power when he controlled his indignation and let an offending student go free, or Christ on the cross, says Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 116 — “It was the power [to retain his life, to escape suffering], with the will to hold it unused, which proved him to be what he was, the obedient and perfect man.” We are most like the omnipotent One when we limit ourselves for love’s sake. The attribute of omnipotence is the ground of trust, as well as of fear, on the part of God’s creatures. Isaac Watts: “His every word of grace is strong As that which built the skies; The voice that rolls the stars along Speaks all the promises.” Third Division — Attributes having relation to Moral Beings. 1. Veracity and Faithfulness, or Transitive Truth.

By veracity and faithfulness we mean the transitive truth of God, in its twofold relation to his creatures in general and to his redeemed people in particular. <19D802> Psalm 138:2 — “I will… give thanks unto thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth: For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name”; John 3:33 — “hath set his seal to this, that God is true”; Romans 3:4 — “let God be found true, but every man a liar”, Romans 1:25 — “the truth of God”; John 14:17 — “the Spirit of truth”; 1 John 5:7 — the Spirit is the truth”; 1 Corinthians 1:9 — “God is faithful”; 1 Thessalonians 5:24 — “faithful is he that calleth you”; 1 Peter 4:9 — “a faithful Creator”; 2 Corinthians 1:20 — “how many so ever be the promises of God, in him is the yea”; Numbers 23:19 — “God is not a man that he should lie”; Titus 1:2 — “God, who cannot lie, promised”; Hebrews 6:18 — “in which it is impossible for God to lie.” (a) In virtue of his veracity, all his revelations to creatures consist with his essential being and with each other.

In God’s veracity we have the guarantee that our faculties in their normal exercise do not deceive us; that the laws of thought are also laws of things; that the external world, and second causes in it, have objective existence; that the same causes will always produce the same effects; that the threats of the moral nature will be executed upon the unrepentant transgressor; that man’s moral nature is made in the image of God’s; and that we may draw just conclusions from what conscience is in us to what holiness is in him. We may therefore expect that all past revelations, whether in nature or in his word, will not only not be contradicted by our future knowledge, but will rather prove to have in them more of truth than we ever dreamed. Man’s word may pass away, but God’s word abides forever ( Matthew 5:18 — “one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law”; Isaiah 40:8 — “the word of God shall stand forever”). Matthew 6:16 — “be not as the hypocrites.” In God the outer expression and the inward reality always correspond. Assyrian wills were written on a small tablet encased in another upon which the same thing was written over again. Breakage, or falsification, of the outer envelope could be corrected by reference to the inner. So our outer life should conform to the heart within, and the heart within to the outer life. On the duty of speaking the truth, and the limitations of the duty, see Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, 386-403 — “Give the truth always to those who in the bonds of humanity have a right to the truth; conceal it, or falsify it, only when the human right to the truth has been forfeited, or is held In abeyance, by sickness, weakness, or some criminal intent.” (b) The virtue of his faithfulness that he fulfills all his promises to his people, whether expressed in words or implied in the constitution he has given them.

In God’s faithfulness we have the sure ground of confidence that he will perform what his love has led him to promise to those who obey the gospel. Since his promises are based, not upon what we are or have done, but upon what Christ is and has done our defects and errors do not invalidate them, so long as we are truly penitent and believing: 1 John 1:9 — “faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins” = faithful to his promise, and righteous to Christ. God’s faithfulness also ensures a supply for all the real wants of our being, both here and hereafter, since these wants are implicit promises of him who made us: Psalm 84:11 — “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly”; 91:4 — “His truth is a shield and a buckler”; Matthew 6:33 — “all these things shall be added unto you “; 1 Corinthians 2:9 — “Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, And which entered not into the heart of man, Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him.

Regulus goes back to Carthage to die rather than break his promise to his enemies. George William Curtis economizes for years, and gives up all hope of being himself a rich man, in order that he may pay the debts of his deceased father. When General Grant sold all the presents made to him by the crowned heads of Europe, and paid the obligations in which his insolvent son had involved him, he said: “Better poverty and honor, than wealth and disgrace.” Many a businessman would rather die than fail to fulfill his promise and let his note go to protest. “Maxwelton braes are bonnie, Where early falls the dew, And ‘twas there that Annie Laurie Gave me her promise true; Which ne’er forget will I; And for bonnie Annie Laurie I’d lay me down and dee.” Betray the man she loves? Not “Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi’ the sun.”

God’s truth will not be less than that of mortal man. God’s veracity is the natural correlate to our faith. 2. Mercy and Goodness, or Transitive Love.

By mercy and goodness we mean the transitive love of God in its twofold relation to the disobedient and to the obedient portions of his creatures. Titus 3:4 — “his love toward man”; Romans 2:4 — “goodness of God” Matthew 5:44,45 — love your enemies that ye may be sons of your Father”; John 3:16 — “God so loved the world”; 1 Peter 1:3 — “granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness”; Romans 8:32 — “freely give us all things”; John 4:10 — “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (a) Mercy is that eternal principle of God’s nature, which leads him to seek the temporal good and eternal salvation of those who, have opposed themselves to his will, even at the cost of infinite self-sacrifice.

Martensen: “Viewed in relation to sin, eternal love is compassionate grace.” God’s continued impartation of natural life is a foreshadowing, in a lower sphere, of what he desires to do for his creatures in the higher sphere — the communication of spiritual and eternal life through Jesus Christ. When he bids us love our enemies, he only bids us follow his own example. Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, 2:2 — “Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? Draw near them, then, in being merciful.” Twelfth Night, 3:4 — “In nature there’s no blemish but the mind; None can be called deformed but the unkind. Virtue is beauty.” (b) Goodness is the eternal principle of God’s nature, which leads him to communicate of his own life and blessedness to those who are like him in moral character. Goodness, therefore, is nearly identical with the love of complacency; mercy, with the love of benevolence.

Notice, however, that transitive love is but an outward manifestation of immanent love. The eternal and perfect object of God’s love is in his own nature. Men become subordinate objects of that love only as they become connected and identified with its principal object, the image of God’s perfections in Christ. Only in the Son do men become sons of God. To this is requisite an acceptance of Christ on the part of man. Thus it can he said that God imparts himself to men just so far as men are willing to receive him. And as God gives himself to men, in all his moral attributes, to answer for them and to renew them in character, there is truth in the statement of Nordell (Examiner, Jan. 17, 1884) that “the maintenance of holiness is the function of divine justice; the diffusion of holiness is the function of divine love.” We may grant this as substantially true, while yet we deny that love is a mere form or manifestation of holiness. Selfimpartation is different from self-affirmation. The attribute which moves ‘God to pour out is not identical with the attribute which moves him to maintain. The two ideas of holiness and of love are as distinct as the idea of integrity on the one hand and of generosity on the other. Park: “God loves Satan, In a certain sense, and we ought to.” Shedd: “This same love of compassion God feels toward the non-elect; but the expression of that compassion is forbidden for reasons which are sufficient for God, but are entirely unknown to the creature.” The goodness of God is the basis of reward, under God’s government. Faithfulness leads God to keep his promises; goodness leads him to make them.

Edwards, Nature of Virtue, in Works, 2:263 — Love of benevolence does not presuppose beauty in its object. Love of complacence does presuppose beauty. Virtue is not love to an object for its beauty. The beauty of intelligent beings does not consist in love for beauty, or virtue in love for virtue. Virtue is love for being in general, exercised in a general good will.

This is the doctrine of Edwards. We prefer to say that virtue is love, not for being in general, but for good being, and so for God, the holy One.

The love of compassion is perfectly compatible with hatred of evil and with indignation against one who commits it. Love does not necessarily imply approval, but it does imply desire that all creatures should fulfil the purpose of their existence by being morally conformed to the holy One; see Godet, in The Atonement, 339. Romans 5:8 — “God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” We ought to love our enemies, and Satan is our worst enemy. We ought to will the good of Satan, or cherish toward him the love of benevolence, though not the love of complacence. This does not involve a condoning of his sin, or an ignoring of his moral depravity, as seems implied in the verses of Win. C.

Gannett: “The poem hangs on the berry bush When comes the poet’s eye; The street begins to masquerade When Shakespeare passes by. The Christ sees white in Judas’ heart And loves his traitor well; The God, to angel his new heaven, Explores his deepest hell.” 3. Justice and Righteousness, or Transitive Holiness.

By justice and righteousness we mean the transitive holiness of God, in virtue of which his treatment of his creatures conforms to the purity of his nature — righteousness demanding from all moral beings conformity to the moral perfection of God, and justice visiting non-conformity to that perfection with penal loss or suffering. Genesis 18:25 — “shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Deuteronomy 32:4 — “All his ways are justice; A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, Just and right is he”; Psalm 5:5 — “Thou hatest all workers of iniquity”; 7:9-12 — “the righteous God trieth the hearts… saveth the upright… is a righteous judge, Yea, a God that hath indignation every day”; 18:24-26 — “Jehovah recompensed me according to my righteousness… With the merciful, thou wilt show thyself merciful… with the perverse thou wilt show thyself froward”; Matthew 5:48 — “Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; Romans 2:6 — “will render to every man according to his works”; 1 Peter 1:16 — “Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.”

These passages show that God loves the same persons whom he hates. It is not true that he hates the sin, but loves the sinner; he both hates and loves the sinner himself, hates him as he is a living and willful antagonist of truth and holiness, loves him as he is a creature capable of good and mined by his transgression.

There is no abstract sin that can be hated apart from the persons in whom that sin is represented and embodied. Thomas Fuller found it difficult to starve the profaneness but to feed the person of the impudent beggar who applied to him for food. Mr. Finney declared that he would kill the slave catcher, but would love him with all his heart. In our civil war Dr. Kirk said: “God knows that we love the rebels, but God also knows that we will kill them if they do not lay down their arms.” The complex nature of God not only permits but necessitates this same double treatment of the sinner, and the earthly father experiences the same conflict of emotions when his heart yearns over the corrupt son whom he is compelled to banish from the household. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 7 — “It is the sinner who is punished, not the sin.” (a) Since justice and righteousness are simply transitive holiness — righteousness designating this holiness chiefly in its mandatory, justice chiefly in its punitive, aspect, they are not mere manifestations of benevolence, or of God’s disposition to secure the highest happiness of his creatures, nor are they grounded in the nature of things as something apart from or above God.

Cremer, New Testament Lexicon: di>kaiov = “the perfect coincidence existing between God’s nature, which is the standard for all, and his acts.”

Justice and righteousness are simply holiness exercised toward creatures.

The same holiness, which exists in God in eternity past, manifests itself as justice and righteousness, so soon as intelligent creatures come into being.

Much that was said under Holiness, as an immanent attribute of God, is equally applicable here. The modern tendency to confound holiness with love shows itself in the merging of justice and righteousness in mere benevolence. Instances of this tendency are the following: Ritschl, Unterricht, ß16 — “The righteousness of God denotes the manner in which God carries out his loving will in the redemption alike of humanity as a whole and of individual men; hence his righteousness is indistinguishable from his grace”; see also Ritschl, Rechtf. mid Versohnung, 2:113; 3:296. Prof. George M. Forbes: “Only right makes love moral: only love makes right moral.” Jones, Robert Browning, 70 — “Is it not beneficence that places death at the heart of sin? Carlyle forgot this. God is not simply a great taskmaster. The power that imposes law is not an alien power.” D’Arcy, Idealism and Theology, 237-240 — “How can self-realization be the realization of others? Why must the true good be always the common good? Why is the end of each the end of all?….We need a concrete universal, which will unify all persons.”

So also, Harris, Kingdom of Christ on Earth, 39-42; God the Creator, 237, 299, 302 — “Love, as required and regulated by reason, may be called righteousness. Love is universal good will or benevolence, regulated in its exercise by righteousness, Love is the choice of God and man as the objects of trust and service. This choice involves the determination of the will to seek universal wellbeing, and in this aspect it is benevolence. It also involves the consent of the will to the reason, and the determination to regulate all action in seeking wellbeing by its truths, laws, and ideals; and in this aspect it is righteousness… Justice is the consent of the will to the law of love, in its authority, its requirements, and its sanctions. God’s wrath is the necessary reaction of this law of love in the constitution and order of the universe against the willful violator of it, and Christ’s sufferings atone for sin by asserting and maintaining the authority, universality, and inviolability of God’s law of love in his redemption of men and his forgiveness of their sins… Righteousness cannot be the whole of love, for this would shut us up to the merely formal principle of the law without telling us what the law requires.

Benevolence cannot be the whole of love, for this would shut us up to hedonism, in the form of utilitarianism, excluding righteousness from the character of God and man.”

Newman Smyth also, in his Christian Ethics, 227-231, tells us that “love, as self-affirming, is righteousness; as self-imparting, is benevolence; as self-finding in others, is sympathy. Righteousness, as subjective regard for our own moral being, is holiness; as objective regard for the persons of others, is justice. Holiness is involved in love as its essential respect to itself; the heavenly Father is the Holy Father ( John 17:11). Love contains in its unity a trinity of virtue. Love affirms its own worthiness, imparts to others its good, and finds its life again in the wellbeing of others. The ethical limit of self-impartation is found in self-affirmation.

Love in self-bestowal can not become suicidal. The benevolence of love has its moral bounds in the holiness of love. True love in God maintains its transcendence, and excludes pantheism.”

The above doctrine, quoted for substance from Newman Smyth, seems to us unwarrantably to include in love what properly belongs to holiness. It virtually denies that holiness has any independent existence as an attribute of God. To make holiness a manifestation of love seems to us as irrational as to say that self-affirmation is a form of self-impartation. The concession that holiness regulates and limits love shows that holiness cannot itself be love, but must be an independent and superior attribute.

Right furnishes the rule and law for love, but it is not true that love furnishes the rule and law for right. There is no such double sovereignty, as this theory would imply. The one attribute that is independent and supreme is holiness, and love is simply the impulse to communicate this holiness.

William Ashmore: “Dr. Clarke lays great emphasis on the character of ‘a good God’… but he is more than a merely good God, he is a just God, and a righteous God, and a holy God — a God who is ‘angry with the wicked,’ even while ready to forgive them, if they are willing to repent in his way, and not in their own. He is the God who brought in a flood upon the world of the ungodly, who rained down fire and brimstone from heaven, and who is to come in ‘flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God’ and obey not the gospel of his son. Paul reasoned about both the ‘goodness’ and the ‘severity’ of God.” (b) Transitive holiness, as righteousness, imposes law in conscience and Scripture, and may be called legislative holiness. As justice, it executes the penalties of law, and may be called distributive or judicial holiness. In righteousness God reveals chiefly his love of holiness; in justice, chiefly his hatred of sin.

The self-affirming purity of God demands a like purity in those who have been made in his image. As God wills and maintains his own moral excellence, so all creatures must will and maintain the moral excellence of God. There can be only one center in the solar system — the sun is its own center and the center for all the planets also. So God’s purity is the object of his own will — it must be the object of all the wills of all his creatures also. Bixby, Crisis in Morals, 282 — “It is not rational or safe for the hand to separate itself from the heart. This is a universe, and God is the heart of the great system. Altruism is not the result of society, but society is the result of altruism, It begins in creatures far below man. The animals, which know how to combine, have the greatest chance of survival. The unsociable animal dies out. The most perfect organism is the most sociable. Right is the debt which the part owes to the whole.”

This seems to us but a partial expression of the truth. Right is more than a debt to others — it is a debt to one’s self, and the self-affirming, selfpreserving, self-respecting element constitutes the limit and standard of all outgoing activity. The sentiment of loyalty is largely a reverence for this principle of order and stability in government. <19E505> Psalm 145:5 — “Of the glorious majesty of thine honor, And of thy wondrous works, will I meditate”; 97:2 — “Clouds and darkness are round about him:

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.”

John Milton, Elkonoklastes: “Truth and justice are all one; for truth is but justice in our knowledge, and justice is but truth in our practice…..for truth is properly no more than contemplation, and her utmost efficiency is but teaching; but justice in her very essence is all strength and activity, and hath a sword put into her hand to use against all violence and oppression on the earth. She it is who accepts no person, and exempts none from the severity of her stroke.” A. J. Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 320 — “Even the poet has not dared to represent Jupiter torturing Prometheus without the dim figure of Avenging Fate waiting silently in the background… Evolution working out a nobler and nobler justice is proof that God is just. Here is ‘preferential action’.” S. S. Times, June 9, 1900 — “The natural man is born with a wrong personal astronomy. Man should give up the conceit of being the center of all things. He should accept the Copernican theory, and content himself with a place on the edge of things — the place he has always really had. We all laugh at John Jasper and his thesis that ‘the sun do move.’ The Copernican theory is leaking down into human relations, as appears from the current phrase: ‘There are others’.” (c) Neither justice nor righteousness, therefore, is a matter of arbitrary will.

They are revelations of the inmost nature of God, the one in the form of moral requirement, the other in the form of judicial sanction. As God cannot but demand of his creatures that they be like him in moral character, so he cannot but enforce the law which he imposes upon them. Justice just as much binds God to punish as it binds the sinner to be punished.

All arbitrariness is excluded here. God is what he is — infinite purity. He cannot change. If creatures are to attain the end of their being, they must be like God in moral purity. Justice is nothing but the recognition and enforcement of this natural necessity. Law is only the transcript of God’s nature. Justice does not make law — it only reveals law. Penalty is only the reaction of God’s holiness against that which Is its opposite. Since righteousness and justice are only legislative and retributive holiness, God can cease to demand purity, and to punish sin only when he ceases to be holy, that is, only when he ceases to be God. “Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur.”

Simon, Reconciliation, 141 — “To claim the performance of duty is as truly obligatory as it is obligatory to perform the duty which is prescribed.” E. H. Johnson, Systematic Theology, 84 — “Benevolence intends what is well for the creature; justice insists on what is fit. But the well for us and the fit for us precisely coincide. The only thing that is well for us is our normal employment and development but to provide for this is precisely what is fitting and therefore due to us. In the divine nature the distinction between justice and benevolence is one of form.” We criticize this utterance as not sufficiently taking into account the nature of the right. The right is not merely the fit. Fitness is only general adaptation which may have in it no ethical element, whereas right is solely and exclusively ethical. The right therefore regulates the fit and constitutes its standard. The well for us is to be determined by the right for us, but not vice versa. George W. Northrup: “God is not bound to bestow the same endowments upon creatures, nor to keep all in a state of holiness forever, nor to redeem the fallen, nor to secure the greatest happiness of the universe. But he is bound to purpose and to do what his absolute holiness requires. He has no attributer no will, no sovereignty, above this law of his being. He cannot lie, he cannot deny himself, he cannot look upon sin with complacency, he cannot acquit the guilty without an atonement.” (d) Neither justice nor righteousness bestows rewards. This follows from the fact that obedience is due to God, instead of being optional or a gratuity. No creature can claim anything for his obedience. If God rewards, he rewards in virtue of his goodness and faithfulness, not in virtue of his justice or his righteousness. What the creature cannot claim, however, Christ can claim, and the rewards, which are goodness to the creature are righteousness to Christ. God rewards Christ’s work for us and in us.

Bruch, Eigenschaftslehr, 280-282, and John Austin, Province of Jurisprudence, 1:88-93, 220-223, both deny, and rightly deny, that justice bestows rewards. Justice simply punishes infractions of law. In Matthew 25:34 — “inherit the kingdom” — inheritance implies no merit; 46 — the wicked are adjudged to eternal punishment; the righteous, not to eternal reward, but to eternal life. Like 17:7-10 — “when ye shall have done all the things that are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do.” Romans 6:23 — punishment is the “wages of sin” but salvation is “the gift of God”; 2:6 — God rewards not on account of man’s work but “according to his works.” Reward is thus seen to be in Scripture a matter of grace to the creature; only to the Christ who works for us in atonement, and in us in regeneration and sanctification, is reward a matter of debt (see also John 6:27 and 2 John 8. Martineau, Types, 2:86, 244, — “Merit is toward man; virtue toward God.”

All mere service is unprofitable, because it furnishes only an equivalent to duty, and there is no margin. Works of supererogation are impossible, because our all is due to God. He would have us rise into the region of friendship, realize that he has been treating us not as Master but as Father, enter into a relation of uncalculating love. With this proviso that rewards are matters of grace, not of debt, we may assent to the maxim of Solon: “A republic walks upon two feet — just punishment for the unworthy and due reward for the worthy.” George Harris, Moral Evolution, 139 — “Love seeks righteousness, and is satisfied with nothing other than that.” But when Harris adopts the words of the poet: “The very wrath from pity grew, From love of men the hate of wrong,” he seems to us virtually to deny that God hates evil for any other reason than because of its utilitarian disadvantages, and to imply that good has no independent existence in his nature. Bowne, Ethics, 171 — “Merit is desert of reward, or better, desert of moral approval.” Tennyson: “For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to thee.” Baxter: “Desert is written over the gate of hell but over the gate of heaven only, The Gift of God.” (e) Justice in God, as the revelation of his holiness, is devoid of all passion or caprice. There is in God no selfish anger. The penalties he inflicts upon transgression are not vindictive but vindicative. They express the revulsion of God’s nature front moral evil, the judicial indignation of purity against impurity, the self-assertion of infinite holiness against its antagonist and would be destroyer. But because its decisions are calm, they are irreversible.

Anger, within certain limits, is a duty of man. Psalm 97:10 — “ye that love Jehovah, hate evil” Ephesians 4:26 — “Be ye angry, and sin not.”

The calm indignation of the judge, who pronounces sentence with tears, is the true image of the holy anger of God against sin. Weber, Zorn Gottes, 28, makes wrath only the jealousy of love. It is more truly the jealousy of holiness. Prof. W. A. Stevens, Com. on 1 Thessalonians 2:10 — “holily and righteously are terms that describe the same conduct in two aspects; the former, as conformed to God’s character in itself; the latter, as conformed to his law; both are positive.” Lillie, on 2 Thessalonians 1:6 — “Judgment is ‘a righteous thing with God. Divine justice requires it for its own satisfaction.” See Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:175-178, 365-385; Trench, Syn. New Testament, 1:180, 181.

Of Gaston de Foix, the old chronicler admirably wrote: “He loved what ought to be loved, and hated what ought to be hated, and never had miscreant with him.” Compare <19A105> Psalm 101:5,6 — “Him that hath a high look and a proud heart will I not suffer. Mine eyes shall he upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me.” Even Horace Bushnell spoke of the “wrath — principle” in God. 1 Kings 11:9 — “And Jehovah was angry with Solomon” because of his polygamy. Jesus’ anger was no less noble than his love. The love of the right involved hatred of the wrong. Those may hate who hate evil for its hatefulness and for the sake of God. Elate sin in yourself first, and then you may hate it in itself and in the world. Be angry only in Christ and with the wrath of God. W.

C. Wilkinson, Epic of Paul, 264 — “But we must purge ourselves of selfregard, Or we are sinful in abhorring sin.” Instance Judge Harris’s pity, as he sentenced the murderer; see A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 192, 193.

Horace’s “Ira furor brevis est” — “Anger is a temporary madness” — is true only of selfish and sinful anger. Hence the man who is angry is popularly called “mad.” But anger, though apt to become sinful, is not necessarily so. Just anger is neither madness nor is it brief. Instance the judicial anger of the church of Corinth in inflicting excommunication: Corinthians 7:11 — “what indignation, yea what fear, yea what longing, yea what zeal, yea what avenging!” The only revenge permissible to the Christian church is that in which it pursues and exterminates sin. To be incapable of moral indignation against wrong is to lack real love for the right. Dr. Arnold of Rugby was never sure of a boy who only loved good till the boy also began to hate evil; Dr. Arnold did not feel that he was safe. Herbert Spencer said that good nature with Americans became a crime. Lecky, Democracy and Liberty: “There is one thing worse than corruption, and that is acquiescence in corruption.”

Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 139 — “Xenophon intends to say a very commendable thing of Cyrus the Younger, when he writes of him that no one had done more good to his friends or more harm to his enemies.”

Luther said to a monkish antagonist: “I will break in pieces your heart of brass and pulverize your iron brains.” Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:175- 178 — “Human character is worthless in proportion as abhorrence of sin is lacking in it. It is related of Charles II that ‘he felt no gratitude for benefits, and no resentment for wrongs; he did not love anyone, and he did not hate any one.’ He was indifferent toward right and wrong, and the only feeling he had was contempt.” But see the deathbed scene of the “merry monarch,” as portrayed in Bp. Burnet, Evelyn’s Memoirs, or the Life of Bp. Ken. Truly “The end of mirth is heaviness” ( Proverbs 14:13).

Stout Manual of Psychology, 22 — “Charles Lamb tells us that his friend George Dyer could never be brought to say anything in condemnation of the most atrocious crimes, except that the criminal must have been very eccentric.” Professor Seeley: “No heart is pure that is not passionate.” D.

W. Simon, Redemption of Man, 249, 250, says that God’s resentment “is a resentment of an essentially altruistic character.” If this means that it is perfectly consistent with love for the sinner, we can accept the statement; if it means that love is the only source of the resentment we regard the statement as a misinterpretation of God’s justice, which is but the manifestation of his holiness and is not an mere expression of his love.

See a similar statement of Lidgett, Spiritual Principle of the Atonement, 251 — “Because God is love, his love coexists with his wrath against sinners, is the very life of that wrath, and is so persistent that it uses wrath as its instrument, while at the same time it seeks and supplies a propitiation.” This statement ignores the fact that punishment is never in Scripture regarded as an expression of God’s love, but always of God’s holiness. When we say that we love God, let us make sure that it is the true God, the God of holiness that we love, for only this love will make us like him.

The moral indignation of a whole universe of holy beings against moral evil, added to the agonizing self-condemnations of awakened conscience in all the unholy, is only a faint and small reflection of the awful revulsion of God’s infinite justice from the impurity and selfishness of his creatures, and of the intense, organic, necessary, and eternal reaction of his moral being in self-vindication and the punishment of sin; see Jeremiah 44:4 — “Oh do not this abominable thing that I hate!” Numbers 32:23 — “be sure your sin will find you out” Hebrews 10:30,31 — “For we know him that said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense.

And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” On justice as an attribute of a moral governor, see N. W. Taylor, Moral Government 2:253-293; Owen, Dissertation on Divine Justice, in Works, 10:483-624.

VII. RANK AND RELATIONS OF THE SEVERAL ATTRIBUTES.

The attributes have relations to each other. Like intellect, affection and will in man, no one of them is to be conceived of as exercised separately from the rest. Each of the attributes is qualified by all the others. God’s love is immutable, wise and holy. Infinity belongs to God’s knowledge, power and justice. Yet this is not to say that one attribute is of as high rank as another.

The moral attributes of truth, love, holiness, are worthy of higher reverence from men and God more jealously guards them than the natural attributes of omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. And yet even among the moral attributes one stands as supreme. Of this and of its supremacy we now proceed to speak.

Water is not water unless composed of oxygen and hydrogen. Oxygen cannot be resolved into hydrogen or hydrogen into oxygen. Oxygen has its own character, though only in combination with hydrogen does it appear in water. Will in man never acts without intellect and sensibility yet will, more than intellect or sensibility, is the manifestation of the man. So when God acts, he manifests not one attribute alone, but his total moral excellence. Yet holiness, as an attribute of God, has rights peculiar to itself; it determines the attitude of the affections; it more than any other faculty constitutes God’s moral being.

Clarke, Christian Theology, 83, 92 — “God would not be holy if he were not love, and could not be love if he were not holy. Love is an element in holiness. If this were lacking, there would be no perfect character as principle of his own action or as standard for us. On the other hand only the perfect being can be love. God must be free from all taint of selfishness in order to be love. Holiness requires God to act as love, for holiness Is God’s self-consistency. Love is the desire to impart holiness.

Holiness makes God’s character the standard for his creatures; but love, desiring to impart the best good, does the same. All work of love is work of holiness, and all work of holiness Is work of love. Conflict of attributes is impossible, because holiness always includes love, and love always expresses holiness. They never need reconciliation with each other.”

The general correctness of the foregoing statement is impaired by the vagueness of its conception of holiness. The Scriptures do not regard holiness as including love, or make all the acts of holiness to be acts of love. Self-affirmation does not include self-impartation, and sin necessitates an exercise of holiness which is not also an exercise of love.

But for the Cross and God’s suffering for sin of which the Cross is the expression, there would be conflict between holiness and love. The wisdom of God is most shown, not in reconciling man and God, but in reconciling the holy God with the loving God. 1. Holiness the fundamental attribute in God.

That holiness is the fundamental attribute in God, is evident: (a) From Scripture — in which God’s holiness is not only most constantly and powerfully impressed upon the attention of man, but is declared to be the chief subject of rejoicing and adoration in heaven.

It is God’s attribute of holiness that first and most prominently presents itself to the mind of the sinner, and conscience only follows the method of Scripture: 1 Peter 1:16 — “Ye shall be holy; for I am holy”; Hebrews 12:14 — “the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord”; cf. Luke 5:8 — “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Yet this constant insistence upon holiness cannot be due simply to man’s present state of sin, for in heaven, where there is no sin, there is the same reiteration: Isaiah 6:3 — “Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts”; Revelation 4:8 — “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty.”

Of no other attribute is it said that God’s throne rests upon it: Psalm 97:2 — “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne”; 99:4, 5, 9 — “The king’s strength also loveth justice… Exalt ye Jehovah our God… holy is he.” We would substitute the word holiness for the word love in the statement of Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, 45 — “We assume that love is lord in the divine will, not that the will of God is sovereign over his love. God’s omnipotence, as Dorner would say, exists for his love.” (b) From our own moral constitution — in which conscience asserts its supremacy over every other impulse and affection of our nature. As we may be kind, but must be righteous, so God, in whose image we are made, may be merciful, but must be holy.

See Bishop Butler’s Sermons upon Human Nature, Bohn’s ed., 385-414, showing “the supremacy of conscience in the moral constitution of man.”

We must be just, before we are generous. So with God, justice must be done always; mercy is optional with him. He was not under obligation to provide a redemption for sinners: 1 Peter 2:4 — God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell.” Salvation is a matter of grace, not of debt. Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 277-298 — “The quality of justice is necessary exaction; but ‘the quality of mercy is not (con) strained’” [cf. Denham: “His mirth is forced and strained”]. God can apply the salvation, after he has wrought it out, to whomsoever he will: Romans 9:18 — “he hath mercy on whom he will” Young, Night Thoughts, 4:233 — “A God all mercy is a God unjust.” Emerson: “Your goodness must have some edge to it; else it is none.” Martineau, Study, 2:100 — “No one can be just without subordinating Pity to the sense of Right.”

We may learn of God’s holiness a priori . Even the heathen could say “Fiat justitia, ruat cúlum,” or “pereat mundus.” But, for our knowledge of God’s mercy, we are dependent upon special revelation. Mercy, like omnipotence, may exist in God without being exercised. Mercy is not grace but debt, if God owes the exercise of it either to the sinner or to himself; versus G. B. Stevens, in New Eng., 1888:421-443 “But justice is an attribute which not only exists of necessity, but must be exercised of necessity; because not to exercise it would be injustice”; see Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:218, 219, 389, 390, 2:402, and Sermons to Nat.

Man, 368. If it were said that, by parity of reasoning, for God not to exercise mercy is to show himself unmerciful — we reply that this is not true so long as higher interests require that exercise to be withheld. I am not unmerciful when I refuse to give the poor the money needed to pay an honest debt; nor is the Governor unmerciful when he refuses to pardon the condemned and unrepentant criminal. Mercy has its conditions, as we proceed to show, and it does not cease to be when these conditions do not permit it to be exercised. Not so with justice: justice must always be exercised; when it ceases to be exercised, it also ceases to be.

The story of the prodigal shows a love that ever reaches out after the son in the far country, but which is ever conditioned by the father’s holiness and restrained from acting until the son has voluntarily forsaken his riotous living. A just father may banish a corrupt son from the household yet may love him so tenderly that his banishment causes exquisite pain.

E. G. Robinson: “God, Christ and the Holy Spirit have a conscience, that is, they distinguish between right and wrong.” E. H. Johnson, Syst.

Theology, 85, 86 — “Holiness is primary as respects benevolence; for (a) Holiness is itself moral excellence, while the moral excellence of benevolence can be explained. (b) Holiness is an attribute of being, while benevolence is an attribute of action; but action presupposes and is controlled by being. (c) Benevolence must take counsel of holiness, since for a being to desire ought contrary to holiness would be to wish him harm, while that which holiness leads God to seek, benevolence finds best for the creature. (d) The Mosaic dispensation elaborately symbolized, and the Christian dispensation makes provision to meet, the requirements of holiness as supreme; James 3:17 — “First pure, then [by consequence] peaceable.’” We are “to do justly,” as well as “to love kindness and to walk humbly with” our God ( Micah 6:8) Dr. Samuel Johnson: “It is surprising to find how much more kindness than justice, society contains.” There is a sinful mercy. A School Commissioner finds it terrible work to listen to the pleas of incompetent teachers begging that they may not be dismissed, and he can nerve himself for it only by remembering the children whose education may be affected by his refusal to do justice. Love and pity are not the whole of Christian duty, nor are they the ruling attributes of God. (c) From the actual dealings of God — in which holiness conditions and limits the exercise of other attributes. Thus, for example, in Christ’s redeeming work, though love makes the atonement, it is violated holiness that requires it; and in the eternal punishment of the wicked, the demand of holiness for self-vindication overbears the pleading of love for the sufferers.

Love cannot be the fundamental attribute of God, because love always requires a norm or standard, and this norm or standard is found only in holiness; Philippians 1:9 — “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more in knowledge and all discernment”; see A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 388-405. That which conditions all is highest of all.

Holiness shows itself higher than love, in that it conditions love. Hence God’s mercy does not consist in outraging his own law of holiness, but in enduring the penal affliction by which that law of holiness is satisfied.

Conscience in man is but the reflex of holiness in God. Conscience demands either retribution or atonement. This demand Christ meets by his substituted suffering. His sacrifice assuages the thirst of conscience in man, as well as the demand of holiness in God: John 6:55 — “For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” See Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 280, 291, 292; Dogmatic Theology, 1:377, — “The sovereignty and freedom of God in respect to justice relates not to the abolition, nor to the relaxation, but to the substitution, of punishment. It does not consist in any power to violate or waive legal claims. The exercise of the other attributes of God is regulated and conditioned by that of justice… Where then is the mercy of God, in case a vicarious person strictly satisfies justice? There is mercy in permitting another person to do for the sinner what the sinner is bound to do for himself; arid greater mercy in providing that person; and still greater mercy in becoming that person.”

Enthusiasm, like fire, must not only burn, but must be controlled. Man invented chimneys to keep in the heat but to let out the smoke. We need the walls of discretion and self-control to guide the flaming of our love.

The holiness of God is the regulating principle of his nature. The shores of his justice bound the ocean of his mercy. Even if holiness were God’s selflove, in the sense of God’s self-respect or self-preservation, still this selflove must condition love to creatures. Only as God maintains himself in his holiness, can he have anything of worth to give; love indeed is nothing but the self-communication of holiness. And if we say, with J. M. Whiton, that self-affirmation in a universe in which God is immanent is itself a form of self-impartation, still this form of self-impartation must condition and limit that other form of self-impartation which we call love to creatures. See Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:137-155, 346-353; Patton, art, on Retribution and the Divine Goodness, in Princeton Rev., Jan. 1878:8-16; Owen, Dissertation on the Divine Justice, In Works, 10:483-624. (d) From God’s eternal purpose of salvation — in which justice and mercy are reconciled only through the foreseen and predetermined sacrifice of Christ. The declaration that Christ is “the Lamb… slain from the foundation of the world” implies the existence of a principle in the divine nature which requires satisfaction, before God can enter upon the work of redemption. That principle can be none other than holiness.

Since both mercy and justice are exercised toward sinners of the human race, the otherwise inevitable antagonism between them is removed only by the atoning death of the God-man. Their opposing claims do not impair the divine blessedness, because the reconciliation exists in the eternal counsels of God. This is intimated in Revelation 13:8 — “the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world.” This same reconciliation is alluded to in Psalm 85:10 — “Mercy and truth are met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other”; and in Romans 3:26 — “that he might himself be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.” The atonement, then, if man was to be saved, was necessary, not primarily on man’s account, but on God’s account.

Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 279 — The sacrifice of Christ was an “atonement ab intra, a self-oblation on the part of Deity himself, by which to satisfy those immanent and eternal imperatives of the divine nature which without it must find their satisfaction in the punishment of the transgressor, or else be outraged.” Thus God’s word of redemption, as well as his word of creation, is forever “settled in heaven” ( <19B989> Psalm 119:89). Its execution on the cross was “according to the pattern” on high. The Mosaic sacrifice prefigured the sacrifice of Christ; but the sacrifice of Christ was but the temporal disclosure of an eternal fact in the nature of God. See Kreibig, Versohnung, 155, 156.

God requires satisfaction because he is holiness, but he makes satisfaction because he is love. The Judge himself, with all his hatred of transgression, still loves the transgressor, and comes down from the bench to take the criminal’s place and bear his penalty. But this is an eternal provision and an eternal sacrifice. Hebrews 9:14 — “the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God.”

Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 215, 216 — “Christ’s sacrifice was offered through the Spirit. It was not wrung from a reluctant soul through obedience to outward law; it came from the inner heart, from the impulse of undying love. It was a completed offering before Calvary began for the Father saw it before it was seen by the world. It was finished in the Spirit, ere it began in the flesh, finished in the hour when Christ exclaimed: ‘not as I will, but as thou wilt’ ( Matthew 26:39).”

Lang, Homer, 506 — “Apollo is the bringer of pestilence and the averter of pestilence, in accordance with the well known rule that the two opposite attributes should be combined in the same deity.” Lord Bacon, Confession of Faith: “Neither angel, man nor world, could stand or can stand one moment in God’s sight without beholding he same in the face of a Mediator; and therefore before him, with whom all things are present, the Lamb of God was slain before all worlds; without which eternal counsel of his, it was impossible for him to have descended to any work of creation.” Orr, Christian View of God and the World, 319 — “Creation is built on redemption lines” — which is to say that incarnation and atonement were included in God’s original design of the world. 2. The holiness of God the ground of moral obligation.

A. Erroneous Views. The ground of moral obligation is not (a) In power — whether of civil law ( Hobbes, Gassendi) or of divine will (Occam, Descartes). We are not bound to obey either of these, except upon the ground that they are right. This theory assumes that nothing is good or right in itself, and that morality is mere prudence. Civil law: See Hobbes, Leviathan, part i, chap. 6 and 13; part ii, chap. 30; Gassendi, Opera, 6:120. Upon this view, might makes right; the laws of Nero are always binding; a man may break his promise when civil law permits; there is no obligation to obey a father, a civil governor, or God himself, when once it is certain that the disobedience will be hidden, or when the offender is willing to incur the punishment. Martineau, Seat of Authority,67 — “Mere magnitude of scale carries no moral quality; nor could a whole population of devils by unanimous ballot confer righteousness upon their will, or make it binding upon a single Abdiel.”

Robert Browning, Christmas Eve, xvii — “Justice, good, and truth were still Divine if, by some demon’s will, Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed Law through the world, and right misnamed.” Divine will: See Occam, lib. 2, quæs. 19 (quoted in Porter, Moral Science, 125); Descartes (referred to in Hickok, Moral Science, 27,28); Martineau, Types, 148 — “Descartes held that the will of God is not the revealer but the inventor of moral distinctions. God could have made Euclid a farrago of lies, and Satan a model of moral perfection.” Upon this view, right and wrong are variable quantities. Duns Scotus held that God’s will makes not only truth but right. God can make lying to be virtuous and purity to be wrong. If Satan were God, we should be bound to obey him. God is essentially indifferent to right and wrong, good and evil. We reply that behind the divine will is the divine nature, and that in the moral perfection of that nature lies the only ground of moral obligation. God pours forth his love and exerts his power in accordance with some determining principle in his own nature. That principle is not happiness. Finney, Syst. Theology, 936, 937 — “Could God’s command make it obligatory upon us to will evil to him? If not, then his will is not the ground of moral obligation. The thing that is most valuable, namely, the highest good of God and of the universe must be both the end and the ground. It is the divine reason and not the divine will that perceives and affirms the law of conduct. The divine will publishes, but does not originate the rule. God’s will could not make vice to be virtuous.”

As between power or utility on the one hand and right on the other hand, we must regard right as the more fundamental. We do not, however, as will be seen further on, place the ground of moral obligation even in right, considered as an abstract principle; but place it rather in the moral excellence of him who is the personal Right and therefore the source of right. Character obliges, and the master often bows in his heart to the servant, when this latter is the nobler man. (b) Nor in utility — whether our own happiness or advantage present or eternal (Paley), for supreme regard for our own interest is not virtuous; or the greatest happiness or advantage to being in general (Edwards), for we judge conduct to be useful because it is right, not right because it is useful.

This theory would compel us to believe that in eternity past God was holy only because of the good he got from it — that is, there was no such thing as holiness in itself, and no such thing as moral character in God. Our own happiness: Paley, Mor. and Pol. Philos., book i, chap. vii — “Virtue is the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness.” This unites (a) and (b). John Stuart Mill and Dr. N. W. Taylor held that our own happiness is the supreme end. These writers indeed regard the highest happiness as attained only by living for others (Mill’s altruism), but they can assign no reason why one who knows no other happiness than the pleasures of sense should not adopt the maxim of Epicurus, who, according to Lucretius, taught that “ducit quemque voluptas.” This theory renders virtue impossible; for a virtue, which is mere regard to our own interest is not virtue but prudence. “We have a sense of right and wrong independently of all considerations of happiness or its loss.” James Mill held that the utility is not the criterion of the morality but itself constitutes the morality. G. B. Foster well replies that virtue is not mere egoistic sagacity, and the moral act is not simply a clever business enterprise. All languages distinguish between virtue and prudence. To say that the virtues are great utilities is to confound the effect with the cause. Carlyle says that a man can do without happiness. Browning, Red Cotton Nightcap Country: “Thick heads ought to recognize The devil, that old stager, at his trick Of general utility, who leads Downward perhaps, but fiddles all the way.” This is the morality of Mother Goose: “He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum, and said, ‘What a good boy am I!’” E. G. Robinson, Principles and Practice of Morality, 160 — “Utility has nothing ultimate in itself, and therefore can furnish no ground of obligation. Utility is mere fitness of one thing to minister to something else.” To say that things are right because they are useful is like saying that things are beautiful because they are pleasing. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, 2:170, 511, 556 — “The moment the appetites pass into the self-conscious state, and become ends instead of impulses, they draw to themselves terms of censure…. So intellectual conscientiousness or strict submission of the mind to evidence, has its inspiration in pure love of truth, and would not survive an hour if entrusted to the keeping either of providence or of social affection… Instincts, which provide for they know not what, are proof that want is the original impulse to action, instead of pleasure being the end.” On the happiness theory, appeals to self-interest on behalf of religion ought to be effective — as a matter of fact they move few.

Dewey, Psychology, 300, 362 — “Emotion turned inward eats up itself.

Live on feelings rather than on the things to which feelings belong, and you defeat your own end, exhaust your power of feeling commit emotional suicide. Hence arise cynicism, the nil admirari spirit, restless searching for the latest sensation. The only remedy is to get outside of self, to devote self to some worthy object, not for feeling’s sake but for the sake of the object… We do not desire an object because it gives us pleasure, but it gives us pleasure because it satisfies the impulse which, in connection with the idea of the object, constitutes the desire… Pleasure is the accompaniment of the activity or development of the self.” Salter, First Steps in Philosophy, 150 — “It is right to aim at happiness.

Happiness is an end. Utilitarianism errs in making happiness the only and the highest end. It exalts a state of feeling into the supremely desirable thing. Intuitionalism gives the same place to a state of will. The truth includes both. The true end is the highest development of being, self and others, the realization of the divine idea, God in man.” Bowne, Principles of Ethics, 96 — “The standard of appeal is not the actual happiness of the actual man but the normal happiness of the normal man… Happiness must have a law. But then also the law must lead to happiness… The true ethical aim as to realize the good. But then the contents of this good have to be determined in accordance with an inborn ideal of human worth and dignity… Not all good, but the true good, not the things which please, but the things which should please, are to be the aim of action.”

Bixby, Crisis of Morals, 223 — “The Utilitarian is really asking about the wisest method of embodying the ideal. He belongs to that second stage in which the moral artist considers through what material and in what form and color he may best realize his thought. What the ideal is, and why it is the highest, he does not tell us. Morality begins, not in feeling, but in reason. And reason is impersonal. It discerns the moral equality of personalities.” Genung, Epic of the Inner Life,20 — Job speaks out his character like one of Robert Browning’s heroes. He teaches that “there is a service of God which is not work for reward: it is a heart-loyalty, a hunger after God’s presence, which survives loss and chastisement which, in spite of contradictory seeming cleaves to what is godlike as the needle seeks the pole and which reaches up out of the darkness and hardness of this life into the light and love beyond.” Greatest good of being: Not only Edwards, but also Priestley, Bentham, Dwight, Finney, Hopkins, Fairchild, hold this view. See Edwards, Works, 2:261-304 — “Virtue is benevolence toward being in general”; Dwight, Theology, 3:150-162 — “Utility the foundation of Virtue”; Hopkins, Law of Love, 7-28; Fairchild, Moral Philosophy; Finney, Systematic Theology 42-135. This theory regards good as a mere state of the sensibility, instead of consisting in purity of being. It forgets that in eternity past “love for being in general” = simply God’s self-love, or God’s regard for his own happiness. This implies that God is holy only for a purpose; he is bound to be unholy, if greater good would result; that is, holiness has no independent existence in his nature. We grant that a thing is often known to be right by the fact that it is useful; but this is very different from saying that its usefulness makes it right. “Utility is only the setting of the diamond, which marks, but does not make, its value.” “If utility be a criterion of rectitude, it is only because it is a revelation of the divine nature.” See British Quarterly, July 1877, on Matthew Arnold and Bishop Butler. Bp. Butler, Nature of Virtue, in Works, Bohn’s ed., 334 — “Benevolence is the true self-love.” Love and holiness are obligatory in themselves, and not because they promote the general good. Cicero well said that they who confounded the honestum with the utile deserved to be banished from society. See criticism on Porter’s Moral Science, in Lutheran Quarterly, Apr. 1885:325-331; also F. L. Patton, on Metaphysics of Oughtness, in Presb. Rev., 1886:127-150.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 7:690, on Jonathan Edwards — “Being in general, being without any qualities, is too abstract a thing to be the primary cause of love. The feeling, which Edwards refers to, is not love but awe or reverence, and moreover, necessarily a blind awe. Properly stated therefore, true virtue, according to Edwards, would consist in a blind awe of being in general — only this would be inconsistent with his definition of virtue as existing in God. In reality, as he makes virtue merely the second object of love, his theory becomes identical with that utilitarian theory with which the names of Hume, Bentham and Mill are associated.” Hodge, Essays 275 — “If obligation is due primarily to being in general, then there is no more virtue in loving God — willing his good — than there is in loving Satan. But love to Christ differs in its nature from benevolence toward the devil.” Plainly virtue consists, not in love for mere being, but in love for good being, or in other words, in love for the holy God. Not the greatest good of being, but the holiness of God, is the ground of moral obligation.

Dr. E. A. Park interprets the Edwardian theory as holding that virtue is love to all beings according to their value, love of the greater therefore more than the less, “love to particular beings in a proportion compounded of the degree of being and the degree of virtue or benevolence to being which they have.” Love is choice. Happiness, says Park, is not the sole good, much less the happiness of creatures. The greatest good is holiness, though the last good aimed at is happiness. Holiness is disinterested love — free choice of the general above the private good. But we reply that this gives us no reason or standard for virtue. It does not tell us what is neither good nor why we should choose it. Martineau, Types, 2:70, 77, 471, 484 — “Why should I promote the general well being? Why should I sacrifice myself for others? Only because this is godlike. It would never have been prudent to do right, had it not been something infinitely more… It is not fitness that makes an act moral, but it is its morality that makes it fit.”

Herbert Spencer must be classed as a utilitarian. He says that justice requires that every man be free to do as he wills provided he infringes not the equal freedom of every other man.” But, since this would permit injury to another by one willing to submit to injury in return, Mr. Spencer limits the freedom to “such actions as subserve life.” This is practically equivalent to saying that the greatest sum of happiness is the ultimate end.

On Jonathan Edwards, see Robert Hall, Works. 1:43 sq .; Alexander, Moral Science, 194-198; Bib. Repertory (Princeton Review), 23:22; Bib.

Sacra, 9:176, 197; 10:403, 705. (c) Nor in the nature of things (Price) whether by this we mean their fitness (Clarke), truth (Wollaston), order (Jouffroy), relations (Wayland), worthiness (Hickok), sympathy (Adam Smith), or abstract right (Haven and Alexander); for this nature of things is not ultimate, but has its ground in the nature of God. We are bound to worship the highest; if anything exists beyond and above God, we are bound to worship that — that indeed is God.

See Wayland, Moral Science, 33-48; Hickok, Moral Science, 27-34; Haven, Moral Philosophy, 27-50; Alexander, Moral Science, 159-198. In opposition to all the forms of this theory, we urge that nothing exist independently of or above God. “If the ground of morals exist independently of God, either it has ultimately no authority, or it usurps the throne of the Almighty. Any rational being who kept the law would be perfect without God, and the moral center of all intelligences would be outside of God” (Talbot). God is not a Jupiter controlled by Fate. He is subject to no law but the law of his own nature. Noblesse oblige — character rules — purity is the highest. And therefore to holiness all creatures, voluntarily or involuntarily, are constrained to bow. Hopkins, Law of Love, 77 — “Right and wrong have nothing to do with things, but only with actions; nothing to do with any nature of things existing necessarily, but only with the nature of persons.” Another has said: “The idea of right cannot be original, since right means conformity to some standard or rule.” This standard or rule is not an abstraction, but an existing being — the infinitely perfect God.

Faber: “For right is right, since God is God; And right the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin.” Tennyson: “And because right is right to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.” Right is right, arid I should will the right, not because God wills it, but because God is it. E. G. Robinson, Principles and Practice of Morality, 178-180 — “Utility and relations simply reveal the constitution of things and so represent God. Moral law was not made for purposes of utility, nor do relations constitute the reason for obligation. They only show what the nature of God is who made the universe and revealed himself in it. In his nature is found the reason for morality.” S. S. Times, Oct. 17, 1891 — “Only that is level which conforms to the curvature of the earth’s surface. A straight-line tangent to the earth’s curve would at its ends be much further from the earth’s center than at its middle. Now equity means levelness. The standard of equity is not an impersonal thing, a ‘nature of things’ outside of God. Equity or righteousness is no more to be conceived independently of the divine center of the moral world than is levelness comprehensible apart from the earth’s center?”

Since God finds the rule and limitation of his action solely in his own being, and his love is conditioned by his holiness, we must differ from such views as that of Moxom: “Whether we define God’s nature as perfect holiness or perfect love is immaterial, since his nature is manifested only through his action, that is, through his relation to other beings. Most of our reasoning on the divine standard of righteousness, or the ultimate ground of moral obligation, is reasoning in a circle, since we must always go back to God for the principle of his action; which principle we can know only by means of his action. God, the perfectly righteous Being, is the ideal standard of human righteousness.

Righteousness in man therefore is conformity to the nature of God. God, in agreement with his perfect nature, always wills the perfectly good toward man. His righteousness is an expression of his love; his love is a manifestation of his righteousness.”

So Newman Smyth: “Righteousness is the eternal genuineness of the divine love. It is not therefore an independent excellence, to be contrasted with, or even put in opposition to, benevolence; it is an essential part of love.” In reply to which we urge as before that that which is the object of love, that which limits and conditions love, that which furnishes the norm and reason for love, cannot itself be love, nor hold merely equal rank with love, A double standard is as irrational in ethics as in commerce, and it leads in ethics to the same debasement of the higher values, and the same unsettling of relations, as has resulted in our currency from the attempt to make silver regulate gold at the same time that gold regulates silver.

B. The Scriptural View — According to the Scriptures, the ground of moral obligation is the holiness of God, or the moral perfection of the divine nature, conformity to which is the law of our moral being (Robinson, Chalmers, Calderwood, Gregory, Wuttke) We show this: (a) From the commands: “Ye shall be holy,” where the ground of obligation assigned is simply and only: “for I am holy” ( 1 Peter 1:16); and “Ye therefore shall be perfect,” where the standard laid down is: “as your heavenly Father is perfect” ( Matthew 5:48). Here we have an ultimate reason and ground for being and doing right, namely, that God is right, or, in other words, that holiness is his nature. (b) From the nature of the love in which the whole law is summed up ( Matthew 22:37 — “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God”; Romans 13:10 — “love therefore is the fulfillment of the law”). This love is not regard for abstract right or for the happiness of being, much less for one’s own interest, but it is regard for God as the fountain and standard of moral excellence, or in other words, love for God as holy. Hence this love is the principle and source of holiness in man. (c) From the example of Christ, whose life was essentially an exhibition of supreme regard for God, and of supreme devotion to his holy will. As Christ saw nothing good but what was in God ( Mark 10:18 — “none is good save one, even God”), and did only what he saw the Father do ( John 5:19; see also 30 — “I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me”), so for us, to be like God is the sum of all duty, and God’s infinite moral excellence is the supreme reason why we should be like him.

For statements of the correct view of the ground of moral obligation, see E. G. Robinson, Principles and Practice of Morality, 138-180; Chalmers, Moral Philosophy, 412-420; Calderwood, Moral Philosophy; Gregory, Christian Ethics, 112-122; Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 2:80-107; Talbot, Ethical Prolegomena, in Rap. Quar., July, 1877:257-274 — “The ground of all moral law is the nature of God, or the ethical nature of God in relation to the like nature in man, or the imperativeness of the divine nature.” Plato: “The divine will is the fountain of all efficiency; the divine reason is the fountain of all law; the divine nature is the fountain of all virtue.” If it be said that God is love as well as holiness, we ask: Love to what? And the only answer is: Love to the right, or to holiness. To ask why right is a good, is no more sensible than to ask why happiness is a good. There must be something ultimate. Schiller said there are people who want to know why ten is not twelve. We cannot study character apart from conduct, nor conduct apart from character. But this does not prevent us from recognizing that character is the fundamental thing and that conduct is only the expression of it.

The moral perfection of the divine nature includes truth and love, but since it is holiness that conditions the exercise of every other attribute, we must conclude that holiness is the ground of moral obligation. Infinity also unites with holiness to make it the perfect ground, but since the determining element is holiness, we call this, and not infinity, the ground of obligation. J. H. Harris, Baccalaureate Sermon, Bucknell University, 1590 — “As holiness is the fundamental attribute of God, so holiness is the supreme good of man. Aristotle perceived this when he declared the chief good of man to be energizing according to virtue. Christianity supplies the Holy Spirit and makes this energizing possible.” Holiness is the goal of man’s spiritual career; see 1 Thessalonians 3:13 — “to the end he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father.”

Arthur H. Hallam, in John Brown’s Rab and his Friends, 272 — “Holiness and happiness are two notions of one thing… Unless therefore the heart of a created being is at one with the heart of God, it cannot but be miserable.” It is more true to say that holiness and happiness are, as cause and effect, inseparably bound together. Martineau, Types, 1:xvi; 2:70-77 — “Two classes of facts it is indispensable for us to know: what are the springs of voluntary conduct, and what are its effects”; Study, 1:26 — “Ethics must either perfect themselves in Religion, or disintegrate themselves into Hedonism.” William Law remarks: “Ethics are not external but internal. The essence of a moral act does not lie in its result, but in the motive from which it springs. And that again is good or bad, according as it conforms to the character of God.” For further discussion of the subject see our chapter on The Law of God. See also Thornwell, Theology. 1:363-373, Hinton Art of Thinking, 47-62; Goldwin Smith, in Contemporary Review, March, 1882, and Jan. 1884; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 195-231, esp. 223.

CHAPTER 2. DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.

In the nature of the one God there are three eternal distinctions, which are represented to us under the figure of persons, and these three are equal.

This tri-personality of the Godhead is exclusively a truth of revelation. It is clearly, though not formally, made known in the New Testament, and intimations of it may be found in the Old.

The doctrine of the Trinity may be expressed in the six following statements: 1. In Scripture there are three who are recognized as God. 2. These three are so described in Scripture that we are compelled to conceive of them as distinct persons. 3. This tri-personality of the divine nature is not merely economic and temporal, but is immanent and eternal. 4. This tri-personality is not tri-theism; for while there are three persons, there is but one essence. 5. The three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are equal. 6. Inscrutable yet not self-contradictory, this doctrine furnishes the key to all other doctrines. — These statements we proceed now to prove and to elucidate.

Reason shows us the Unity of God; only revelation shows us the Trinity of God, thus filling out the indefinite outlines of this Unity and vivifying it. The term Trinity is not found in Scripture, although the conception it expresses is Scriptural. The invention of the term is ascribed to Tertullian.

The Montanists first defined the personality of the Spirit, and first formulated the doctrine of the Trinity. The term ‘Trinity’ is not a metaphysical one. It is only a designation of four facts: (1) the Father is God; (2) the Son is God: (3) the Spirit is God; (4) there is but one God.

Park: “The doctrine of the Trinity does not on the one hand assert that three persons are united in one person, or three beings in one being, or three Gods in one God (tri-theism); nor on the other hand that God merely manifests himself in three different ways (modal trinity, or trinity of manifestations); but rather that there are three eternal distinctions in the substance of God.’ Smyth, preface to Edwards, Observations on the Trinity: “The church doctrine of the Trinity affirms that there are in the Godhead three distinct hypo-stases or subsistences — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit — each possessing one and the same divine nature, though in a different manner. The essential points are (1) the unity of essence; (2) the reality of immanent or ontological distinctions.”

See Park on Edwards’s View of the Trinity, in Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1881:333. Princeton Essays, 1:28 — “There is one God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are this one God; there is such a distinction between Father, Son and Holy Spirit as to lay a sufficient ground for the reciprocal use of the personal pronouns.” Joseph Cook: “ (1) The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one God; (2) each has a peculiarity incommunicable to the others; (3) neither is God without the others; (4) each, with the others, is God.”

We regard the doctrine of the Trinity as implicitly held by the apostles and as involved in the New Testament declarations with regard to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while we concede that the doctrine had not by the New Testament writers been formulated. They held it, as it were in solution; only time, reflection, and the shock of controversy and opposition caused it to crystallize into definite and dogmatic form. Chadwick, Old and New Unitarianism, 59, 60, claims that the Jewish origin of Christianity shows that the Jewish Messiah could not originally have been conceived of as divine. If Jesus had claimed this, he would not have been taken before Pilate — the Jews would have dispatched him. The doctrine of the Trinity says Chadwick was not developed until the Council of Nice, 325. E. G.

Robinson: “There was no doctrine of the Trinity in the Patristic period, as there was no doctrine of the Atonement before Anselm.” The Outlook, Notes and Queries, March 30, 1901 — “The doctrine of the Trinity cannot be said to have taken final shape before the appearance of the so called Athanasian Creed in the 8th or 9th century. The Nicene Creed, formulated in the 4th century, is termed by Dr. Schaff, from the orthodox point of view, ‘semi-Trinitarian.’ The earliest time known at which Jesus was deified was, after the New Testament writers, in the letters of Ignatius, at the beginning of the second century.”

Gore, Incarnation, 179 — “The doctrine of the Trinity is not so much heard, as overheard, in the statements of Scripture.” George P. Fisher quotes some able and pious friend of his as saying: “What meets us in the New Testament is the disjecta membra of the Trinity.” G. B. Foster: “The doctrine of the Trinity is the Christian attempt to make intelligible the personality of God without dependence upon the world.” Charles Kingsley said that, whether the doctrine of the Trinity is in the Bible or no, it ought to be there, because our spiritual nature cries out for it. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, I:250 — “Though the doctrine of the Trinity is not discoverable by human reason, it is susceptible of a rational defense, when revealed.”

On New England Trinitarianism, see New World, June, 1896:272-295 — art, by Levi L. Paine. He says that the last phase of it is represented by Phillips Brooks, James M. Whiton and George A. Gordon. These hold to the essential divineness of humanity and preeminently of Christ, the unique representative of mankind, who was, in this sense, a true incarnation of Deity. See also, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 141, 287.

Neander declared that the Trinity is not a fundamental doctrine of Christianity. He was speaking however of the speculative, metaphysical form which the doctrine has assumed in theology. But he speaks very differently of the devotional and practical form in which the Scriptures present it, as in the baptismal formula and in the apostolic benediction. In regard to this he says: “We recognize therein the essential contents of Christianity summed up in brief.” Whiton, Gloria Patri, 10, 11, 55, 91, — “God transcendent, the Father, is revealed by God immanent, the Son.

This one nature belongs equally to God, to Christ, and to mankind, and in this fact is grounded the immutableness of moral distinctions and the possibility of moral progress… the immanent life of the universe is one with the transcendent Power; the filial stream is one with its paternal Fount. To Christ supremely belongs the name of Son, which includes all that life that is begotten of God. In Christ the before unconscious Sonship of the world awakes to consciousness of the Father. The Father is the Life transcendent, above all; the Son is Life immanent, through all; the Holy Spirit is the Life individualized, in all. In Christ we have collectivism; in the Holy Spirit we have individualism; as Bunsen says: ‘The chief power in the world is personality.’” For treatment of the whole doctrine, see Dorner, System of Doctrine, 1:344-465; Twesten, Dogmatik, and translation in Bibliotheca Sacra, 3:502; Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:145-199; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:57-135; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:203-229; Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:248-383, and History of Doctrine, 1:246-385; Farrar, Science and Theology. 139; Schaff. Nicene Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, in Theol. Eclectic, 4:209. For the Unitarian view, see Norton, Statement of Reasons, and J. F. Clarke, Truths and Errors of Orthodoxy.

I. IN SCRIPTURE THERE ARE THREE WHO ARE RECOGNIZED AS GOD.

1. Proofs from the New Testament A. The Father is recognized as God — and that in so great a number of passages (such as John 6:27 — “him the Father, even God, hath sealed,” and 1 Peter 1:2 — “foreknowledge of God the Father”) that we need not delay to adduce extended proof.

B. Jesus Christ is recognized as God. (a) He is expressly called God.

In John 1:1 — Qeogov — the absence of the article shows Qeocf . 4:24 pneu~ma oJ QeoGod, but was God’ (see Meyer and Luthardt, Comm. in loco) . “ Only oJ lo>gov can be the subject, for in the whole introduction the question is, not who God is, but who the Logos is” (Godet).

Westcott in Bible Commentary, in loco — “The predicate stands emphatically first. It is necessarily without the article, inasmuch as it describes the nature of the ‘Word and does not identify his person. It would be pure Sabellianism to say: ‘The Word was oJ Qeo(a) his existence: beyond time; (b) his personal existence: in active communion with God; (c) his nature: God in essence.” Marcus Dods, in Expositor’s Greek Testament, in loco : “The Word is distinguishable from God, yet Qeogov — the word was God, of divine nature: not ‘a God,’ which to a Jewish ear would have been abominable, nor yet identical with all that can be called God, for then the article would have been inserted (cf. 1 John 3:4).”

In John 1:18, monogenhv — ‘the only begotten God’ — must be regarded as the correct reading, and as a plain ascription of absolute Deity to Christ. He is not simply the only revealer of God, but he is himself God revealed. John 1:18 — “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” In this passage, although Tischendorf (8th ed.) has monogenh, Westcott and Hort (with a *BC*L Pesh. Syr.) read monogenhv , and the Revised Version puts “the only begotten God” in the margin, though it retains “the only begotten Son” in the text. Harnack says the reading monogenhv is “established beyond contradiction”; see Westcott, Bib. Com, on John, pages 32, 33. Here then we have a new and unmistakable assertion of the deity of Christ. Meyer says that the apostles actually call Christ God only in John 1:1 arid 20:28, and that Paul never so recognizes him. But Meyer is able to maintain his position only by calling the doxologies to Christ, in 2 Timothy 4:18, Hebrews 13:21 and Peter 3:18, post-apostolic. See Thayer, New Testament Lexicon, on Qeo>v , and on monogenh>v .

In John 20:28, the address of Thomas O ku>rio>v mou kai< oJ qeo>v mou , ‘My Lord and my God’ since it was unrebuked by Christ, is equivalent to an assertion on his own part of his claim to Deity. John 20:28 — “Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.” This address cannot be interpreted as a sudden appeal to God in surprise and admiration, without charging the apostle with profanity. Nor can it be considered a mere exhibition of overwrought enthusiasm, since Christ accepted it. Contrast the conduct of Paul and Barnabas when the heathen at Lystra were bringing sacrifice to them as Jupiter and Mercury ( Acts 14:11-18). The words of Thomas, as addressed directly to Christ and as accepted by Christ, can be regarded only as a just acknowledgment on the part of Thomas that Christ was his Lord and his God. Alford, Commentary, in loco : “The Socinian view that these words are merely an exclamation is refuted (1) by the fact that no such explanations were in use among the Jews; (2) by the ei=pen aujtw~|; (3) by the impossibility of referring the oJ ku>rio>v mou to another than Jesus: see verse 13; (4) by the New Testament usage of expressing the vocative by the nominative with an article; (5) by the psychological absurdity of such a supposition: that one just convinced of the presence of him Whom he dearly loved should, instead of addressing him, break out into an irrelevant cry; (6) by the further absurdity of supposing that, if such were the ease, the Apostle John, who of all the sacred writers most constantly keeps in mind the object for which he is writing, should have recorded anything so beside that object; (7) by the intimate conjunction of pepi>steukav .” Cf. Matthew 5:34 — “Swear not… by the heaven” — swearing by Jehovah is not mentioned, because no Jew did so swear. This exclamation of Thomas, the greatest doubter among the twelve, is the natural conclusion of John’s gospel. The thesis “the Word was God” ( John 1:1) has now become part of the life and consciousness of the apostles. Chapter 21 is only an Epilogue, or Appendix, written later by John, to correct the error that he “was not to die; see Westcott, Bible Com, in loco . The Deity of Christ is the subject of the apostle who best understood his Master Lyman Beecher: “Jesus Christ is the acting Deity of the universe.”

In Romans 9:5, the clause oJ w\n eJpi< pa>ntwn Qeov cannot be translated ‘blessed be the God over all,’ for w]n is superfluous if the clause is a doxology; “eujloghto>v ” precedes the name of God in a doxology, but follows it, as here, in a description” (Hovey). The clause can therefore justly be interpreted only as a description of the higher nature of the Christ who had just been said, to< kata< sa>rka , or according to his lower nature, to have had his origin from Israel (see Tholuck, Com. in loco ).

Sanday, Com, on Romans 9:5 — “The words would naturally refer to Christ unless ‘God’ is so definitely a proper name that it would imply a contrast in itself. We have seen that this is not so.” Hence Sanday translates: “of whom is the Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever.” See President T. Dwight, in Jour. Soc. Bib.

Exegesis, 1881:22-55; per contra , Ezra Abbot, in the same journal, 1881:1-19, and Denney, in Expositor’s G k. Test., in loco.

In Titus 2:13 ejpifa>neian th~v do>xhv tou~ mega>lou Qeou~ kai< swth~rov hJmw~n Ihsou~ Noistou~ we regard (with Ellicott) as “a direct, definite and even studied declaration of Christ’s divinity” = ‘‘the… appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (so English Revised Version). Epifa>neia is a term applied especially to the Son and never to the Father, and mega>lou is uncalled for if used of the Father, but peculiarly appropriate if used of Christ. Upon the same principles we must interpret the similar text 1 Peter 1:1 (see Huther, in Meyer’s Com.: “The close juxtaposition indicates the author’s certainty of the oneness of God and Jesus Christ”). Titus 2:13 “Looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ — “so the English Revised Version. The American Revisers however translate: “the glory of the great God and Savior”; and Westcott and Hort bracket the word hJmw~n. These considerations somewhat lessen the cogency of this passage as a proof text, yet upon the whole the balance of argument seems to us still to incline in favor of Ellicott’s interpretation as given above.

In Hebrews 1:8, pron oJ qro>nov sou oJ Qeoaddress to Christ, and verse 10 which follows “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth” — by applying to Christ an Old Testament ascription to Jehovah, shows that oJ Qeo>v , in verse 8, is used in the sense of absolute Godhead.

It is sometimes objected that the ascription of the name God to Christ proves nothing as to his absolute deity, since angels and even human judges are called gods, as representing God’s authority and executing his will. But we reply that, while it is true that the name is sometimes so applied, it is always with adjuncts and in connections, which leave no doubt of its figurative and secondary meaning. When, however, the name is applied to Christ, it is, on the contrary, with adjuncts and in connections which leave no doubt that it signifies absolute Godhead. See Exodus 4:16 — “thou shalt be to him as God”; 7:1 — “See, I have made thee as God to Pharaoh”; 22:28 — “Thou shalt not revile God, [margin, the judges], nor curse a ruler of thy people”; Psalm 82:1 — “God standeth in the congregation of God; He judgeth among the gods” [among the mighty]; 6 — “I said, Ye are gods, And all of you sons of the Most High”; 7 — “Nevertheless ye shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.” Cf. John 10:34-36 — “If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came” (who were Gods commissioned and appointed representatives), how much more proper for him who is one with the Father to call himself God.

As in Psalm 82:7 those who had been called gods are represented as dying, so in Psalm 97:7 — “Worship him, all ye gods” — they are bidden to fall down before Jehovah. Ann. Par. Bible: “Although the deities of the heathen have no positive existence, they are often described in Scripture as if they had, and are represented as bowing down before the majesty of Jehovah.” This verse is quoted in Hebrews 1:6 — “let all the angels of God worship him” — i.e., Christ. Here Christ is identified with Jehovah. The quotation is made from the Septuagint, which has “angels” for “gods.” “Its use here is in accordance with the Spirit of the Hebrew word, which includes all that human error might regard as objects of worship.” Those who are figuratively and rhetorically called “gods” are bidden to fall down in worship before him who is the true God, Jesus Christ. See Dick, Lectures on theology, 1:314; Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity,10.

In 1 John 5:20 — ejsmev ejstin oJ ajlhqinov — “it would be a flat repetition, after the Father had been twice called oJ ajlhqino>v , to say now again: ‘this is ‘oJ ajlhqinov .’ Our being in God has its basis in Christ his Son, and this also makes it more natural that oujtov should be referred to uiJw~| .

But ought not oJ aJlhqino>v then to be without the article (as in John 1:1 — Qeo>v h=n oJ lo>gov )? No, for it is John’s purpose in 1 John 5:20 to say, not what Christ is, but who he is. In declaring what one is, the predicate must have no article; in declaring who one is, the predicate must have the article. St. John here says that this Son, on whom our being in the true God rests, is this true God himself” (see Ebrard, Com. in loco).

Other passages might be here adduced, as Colossians 2:9 — “in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily”; Philippians 2:6 — “existing in the form of God”; but we prefer to consider these under other heads as indirectly proving Christ’s divinity. Still other passages, once relied upon as direct statements of the doctrine, must be given up for textual reasons. Such are Acts 20: 28, where the correct reading is in all probability not ejkklhsi>an tou~ Qeou~ , but ejkklhsi>an tou~ Kuri>ou (so ACDE Tregelles and Tischendorf; B and a , however, have tou~ Qeou~ .

The Revised Version continues to read “church of God”; Amer. Revisers, however, read “church of the Lord” — see Ezra Abbot’s investigation in Bibliotheca Sacra, 1876:313-352); and 1 Timothy 3:16, where o]v is unquestionably to be substituted for Qeo>v , though even here ejfanerw>qh intimates preexistence.

Rev. George E. Ellis, D. D., before the Unitarian Club, Boston, November, 1882 — “Fifty years of study, thought and reading given largely to the Bible and to the literature which peculiarly relates to it, have brought me to this conclusion, that the book — taken with the especial divine quality and character claimed for it, and so extensively assigned to it, as inspired and infallible as a whole, and in all its contents — is an Orthodox book. It yields what is called the Orthodox creed. The vast majority of its readers, following its letter, its obvious sense, its natural meaning, and yielding to the impression which some of its emphatic texts make upon them, find in it Orthodoxy. Only that kind of ingenious, special, discriminative and, in candor I must add, forced treatment, which in receives from us liberals can make the book teach anything but Orthodoxy. The evangelical sects, so called, are clearly right in maintaining that their view of Scripture and of its doctrines draws a deep and wide division of creed between them and us. In that earnest controversy by pamphlet warfare between Drs. Channing and Ware on the one side, and Drs. Worcester and Woods and Professor Stuart on the other — a controversy which wrought up the people of our community sixty years ago more than did our recent political campaign — I am fully convinced that the liberal contestants were worsted. Scripture exegesis, logic and argument were clearly on the side of the Orthodox contestants.

And this was so, mainly because the liberal party put themselves on the same plane with the Orthodox in their way of regarding and dealing with Scripture texts in their bearing upon the controversy. Liberalism cannot vanquish Orthodoxy, if it yields to the latter in its own way of regarding and treating the whole Bible. Martin Luther said that the Papists burned the Bible because it was not on their side. Now I am not about to attack the Bible because it is not on my side; but I am about to object as emphatically as I can against a character and quality assigned to the Bible, which it does not claim for itself, which cannot be certified for it: and the origin and growth and intensity of the fond and superstitious influences resulting in that view we can trace distinctly to agencies accounting for, but not warranting, the current belief. Orthodoxy cannot readjust its creeds till it readjusts its estimate of the Scriptures. The only relief which one who professes the Orthodox creed can timid is either by forcing his ingenuity into the proof-texts or indulging his liberty outside of them.”

With this confession of a noted Unitarian it is interesting to compare the opinion of the so — called Trinitarian, Dr. Lyman Abbott, who says that the New Testament nowhere calls Christ God, but everywhere calls him man, as in 1 Timothy 2:5 — “For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus.” On this passage Prof.

L. L. Paine remarks in the New World, Dec. 1894 — “That Paul ever confounded Christ with God himself or regarded him as in any way the Supreme Divinity, is a position invalidated not only by direct statements, but also by the whole drift of his epistles.” (b) Old Testament descriptions of God are applied to him.

This application to Christ of titles and names exclusively appropriated to God is inexplicable, if Christ was not regarded as being himself God. The peculiar awe with which the term ‘Jehovah’ was set apart by a nation of strenuous monotheists as the sacred and incommunicable name of the one self-existent and covenant-keeping God forbids the belief that the Scripture writers could have used it as the designation of a subordinate and created being. Matthew 3:3 — “Make ye ready the way of the Lord” is a quotation from Isaiah 40:3 — “Prepare ye… the way of Jehovah.” John 12:41 — “These things said Isaiah, because he saw his glory; and he spake of him” [i.e., Christ] — refers to Isaiah 6:1 — “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne.” So in Ephesians 4:7,8 — “measure of the gift of Christ… led captivity captive” — is an application to Christ of what is said of Jehovah in Psalm 68:18. In 1 Peter 3:15, moreover, we read, with all the great uncials, several of the Fathers, and all the best versions: “sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord”; here the apostle borrows his language from Isaiah 8:13, where we read: “Jehovah of hosts, him shall ye sanctify.”

When we remember that, with the Jews, God’s covenant title was so sacred that for the KethÓb ( = “written”) Jehovah there was always substituted the Keri ( = “read” — imperative) Adonai, in order to avoid pronunciation of the great Name, it seems the more remarkable that the Greek equivalent of ‘Jehovah’ should have been so constantly used of Christ. Cf. Romans 10:9 — “confess … Jesus as Lord”; Corinthians 12:3 — “no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit.” We must remember also the indignation of the Jews at Christ’s assertion of his equality and oneness with the Father. Compare Goethe’s, “Wer darf ihn nennen?” with Carlyle’s, “the awful Unnamable of this Universe.” The Jews, it has been said, have always vibrated between monotheism and money-theism. Yet James, the strongest of Hebrews, in his Epistle uses the word ‘Lord, freely and alternately of God the Father and of Christ the Son. This would have been impossible if James had not believed in the community of essence between the Son and the Father.

It is interesting to note that 1 Maccabees does not once use the word Qeoriov , or any other direct designation of God unless it be oujrano>v (cf. “swear… by the heaven” — Matthew 5:34). So the book of Esther contains no mention of the name of God, though the apocryphal additions to Esther, which are found only in Greek, contain the name of God in the first verse, and mention it in all eight times. See Bissell, Apocrypha, in Lange’s Commentary; Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 93; Max Muller on Semitic Monotheism, in Chips from a German Workshop, 1:337. (c) He possesses the attributes of God.

Among these are life, self-existence, immutability, truth, love, holiness, eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. All these attributes are ascribed to Christ in connections, which show that the terms are used in no secondary sense, nor in any sense predicable of a creature.

Life: John 1:4 — “In him was life”; 14:6 — “I am… the life.” Selfexistence: John 5:26 — “have life in himself”; Hebrews 7:16 — “power of an endless life.” Immutability: Hebrews 13:8 — “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yea and forever.” Truth: John 14:6 — “I am… the truth”; Revelations 3:7 — “he that is true”.

Love: 1 John 3:16 — “Hereby know we love” (thphn = the personal Love, as the personal Truth) “because he laid down his life for us.” holiness: Luke 1:35 — “that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God”; John 6:69 — “thou art the Holy One of God”; Hebrews 7:26 — “holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners.”

Eternity: John 1: — “In the beginning was the Word.” Godet says ejn ajrch~ = not ‘in eternity,’ but ‘in the beginning of the creation’; the eternity of the Word being an inference from the h=n — the Word was, when the world was created: cf. Genesis 1:1 — “In the beginning God created.”

But Meyer says, ejn ajrch~ here rises above the historical conception of “in the beginning” in Genesis (which includes the beginning of time itself) to the absolute conception of anteriority to time; the creation is something subsequent. He finds a parallel in Proverbs 8:23 — ejn ajrch~| pro< tou~ thJohn 17:5 — “glory which I had with thee before the world was”; Ephesians 1:4 — “chose us in him before the foundation of the world” Dorner also says that ejn ajrch~| in John 1:1 is not ‘the beginning of the world,’ but designates the point back of which it is impossible to go, i.e., eternity; the world is first spoken of in verse a John 8:58 — “Before Abraham was born, I am”; cf. 1:15; Colossians 1:17 — “he is before all things”; Hebrews 1:11 — the heavens “shall perish; but thou continuest”; Revelation 21:6 — “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” Omnipresence : Matthew 28:20 — “I am with you always”; Ephesians 1:23 — the fullness of him that filleth all in all” Omniscience: Matthew 9:4 — “Jesus knowing their thoughts”; John 2:24,25 — “knew all men… knew what was in man”; 16:30 — “knowest all things”; Acts 1:24 — “Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men” — a prayer offered before the day of Pentecost and showing the attitude of the disciples toward their Master; Corinthians 4:5 — “until the Lord come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts”; Colossians 2:3 — “in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.” Omnipotence: Matthew 27:18 — “All authority has been given unto me in heaven and on earth”; Revelation 1:8 — “the Lord God, which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty.”

Beyschlag. New Testament Theology, 1:249-260, holds that Jesus’ preexistence is simply the concrete form given to an ideal conception.

Jesus traces himself back, as everything else holy and divine was traced back in the conceptions of his time, to a heavenly original in which it preexisted before its earthly appearance; e g .: the tabernacle, in Hebrews 8:5; Jerusalem, in Galatians 4:25 and Revelation 21:10: the kingdom of God, in Matthew 13:24; much more the Messiah, in John 6:62 — “ascending where he was before”; 8:58 — “Before Abraham was born, I am; 17:4, 5 — “glory which I had with thee before the world was” 17:24 — “thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” This view that Jesus existed before creation only ideally in the divine mind, means simply that God foreknew him and his coming. The view is refuted by the multiplied intimations of a personal, in distinction from an ideal, preexistence.

Lowrie, Doctrine of St. John, 115 — “The words ‘In the beginning’ ( John 1:1) suggest that the author is about to write a second book of Genesis, an account of a new creation.” As creation presupposes a Creator, the preexistence of the personal Word is assigned as the explanation of the being of the universe. The h=n indicates absolute existence, which is a loftier idea than that of mere preexistence, although it includes this. While John the Baptist and Abraham are said to have arisen, appeared, come into being, it is said that the Logos eras, and that the Logos was God. This implies co-eternity with the Father. But, if the view we are combating were correct, John the Baptist and Abraham preexisted, equally with Christ. This is certainly not the meaning of Jesus in John 8:58 — “Before Abraham was born, I am” cf . Colossians 1:17 — “he is before all things” — aujto>v emphasizes the personality, while e]stin declares that the preexistence is absolute existence” (Lightfoot); John 1:15 — “He that cometh after me is become before me: for he was before me” = not that Jesus was born earlier than John the Baptist, for he was born six months later, but that he existed earlier. He stands before John in rank, because he existed long before John in time; 6:62 — “the Son of man ascending where he was before”; 16:28 — “I came out from the Father, and am come into the world.” So Isaiah 9:6,7, calls Christ “Everlasting Father” = eternity is an attribute of the Messiah. T. W. Chambers, in Jour. Soc. Bib. Exegesis, 1881:169-171 — “Christ is the Everlasting One, ‘whose goings forth have been from of old, even from the days of eternity’ ( Micah 5:2). Of the increase of his government… there shall be no end,’ just because of his existence them-c has been no beginning.” (d) The works of God are ascribed to him.

We do not here speak of miracles, which may be wrought by communicated power, but of such works as the creation of the world, the upholding of all things, the final raising of the dead, and the judging of all men. Power to perform these works cannot be delegated, for they are characteristic of omnipotence. Creation: John 1:3 — “All things were made through him”; Corinthians 8:6 — “one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things”; Colossians 1:6 — “all things have been created through him, and unto him”; Hebrews 1:10 — “Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of thy hands”; 3:3, 4 — “he that built all things is God” Christ, the builder of the house of Israel, is the God who made all things; Revelations 3:14 — “the beginning of the creation of God” (cf. Plato: “Mind is the ajrch> of motion “). Upholding: Colossians 1:17 — “in him all things consist” (margin “hold together”); Hebrews 1:3 — “upholding all things by the word of his power.” Raising the dead and judging the world: John 5:27-29 — “authority to execute judgment… all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth”; Matthew 25:31,32 — “sit on the throne of his glory; and before him shall he gathered all the nations.” If our argument were addressed wholly to believers, we might also urge Christ’s work in the world as Revealer of God and Redeemer from sin, as a proof of his deity. On the works of Christ, see Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 153; per contra , see Examination of Liddon’s Bampton Lectures, 72.

Statements of Christ’s creative and of his upholding activity are combined in John 1:3,4 — Pa>nta di aujtou~ ejge>neto kai< cwrineto oujde< e]n. o[ ge>gonen ejn aujtw~| zwh< h[n — “ All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made. That which hath been made was life in him” (margin). Westcott: “It would be difficult to find a more complete consent of ancient authorities in favor of any reading than that which supports this punctuation.” Westcott therefore adopts it. The passage shows that the universe 1. Exists within the bounds of Christ’s being; 2. Is not dead, but living; 3. Derives its life from him; see Inge, Christian Mysticism, 46. Creation requires the divine presence, as well as the divine agency. God creates through Christ. All things were made, not ujpo< aujtou~ “by him,” but di aujtou~ — “through him.”

Christian believers “Behind creation’s throbbing screen Catch movements of the great Unseen.”

Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, lv, lvi — “That which many a philosopher dimly conjectured, namely, that God did not produce the world in an absolute, immediate manner, but in some way or other, mediately, here presents itself to us with the luster of revelation, and exalts so much the more the claim of the Son of God to out deep and reverential homage.” Would that such scientific men as Tyndall and Huxley might see Christ in nature, and, doing his will might learn of the doctrine and be led to the Father! The humblest Christian who sees Christ’s hand in the physical universe and in human history knows more of the secret of the universe than all the mere scientists put together. Colossians 1:17 — “In him all things consist,” or “hold together,” means nothing less than that Christ is the principle of cohesion in the universe, making it a cosmos instead of a chaos. Tyndall said that the attraction of the sun upon the earth was as inconceivable as if a horse should draw a cart without traces. Sir Isaac Newton: “Gravitation must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws.”

Lightfoot: “Gravitation is an expression of the mind of Christ.” Evolution also is a method of his operation. The laws of nature are the habits of Christ, and nature itself is but his steady and constant will. He binds together man and nature in one organic whole, so that we can speak of a ‘universe.’ Without him there would be no intellectual bond, no uniformity of law, no unity of truth. He is the principle of induction that enables us to argue from one thing to another. The medium of interaction between things is also the medium of intercommunication between minds.

It is fitting that he who draws and holds together the physical and intellectual, should also draw and hold together the moral universe, drawing all men to himself ( John 12:32) and so to God, and reconciling all things in heaven and earth ( Colossians 1:20). In Christ “the law appears, Drawn out in living characters,” because he is the ground and source of all law, both in nature and in humanity. See A. H.

Strong, Christ in Creation, 6-12. (e) He receives honor and worship due only to God.

In addition to the address of Thomas, in John 20:28, which we have already cited among the proofs that Jesus is expressly called God, and in which divine honor is paid to him, we may refer to the prayer and worship offered by the apostolic and post-apostolic church. John 5:23 — “that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father”; 14:14 — “If ye shall ask me [so a and Tisch. 8th ed.] anything in my name, that will I do”; Acts 7:59 — “Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (cf . Luke 23:46 — Jesus’ words: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit); Romans 10:9 — “confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord” 13 — “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall he saved” (cf. Genesis 4:26 — “Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah”); 1 Corinthians 11:24,25 — “this do in remembrance of me” = worship of Christ; Hebrews 1:6 — “let all the angels of God worship him” Philippians 2:10,11 — “in the name of Jesus every knee should how… every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” Revelations 5:12-14 — “Worthy is the Lomb that hath been slain to receive the power; 2 Peter 3:18 — “Lord and Savior Jesus Christ To him be the glory”; 2 Timothy 4:18 and Hebrews 13:21 — “to whom be the glory for ever and ever — “these ascription’s of eternal glory to Christ imply his deity. See also 1 Peter 3.15 — “Sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord,” and Ephesians 5:21 — “subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.” Here is enjoined an attitude of mind towards Christ which would be idolatrous if Christ were not God. See Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 266-366 Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 154 — “In the eucharistic liturgy of the ‘Teaching’ we read: ‘Hosanna to the God of David’; Ignatius styles him repeatedly God ‘begotten and unbegotten, come in the flesh’; speaking once of ‘the blood of God’, in evident allusion to Acts 20:28; the epistle to Diognetus takes up the Pauline words and calls him the ‘architect and world builder by whom [God] created the heavens and names him God (chap. vii): Hermas speaks of him as ‘the holy preexistent Spirit, that created every creature’, which style of expression is followed by Justin, who calls him God, as also all the later great writers. In the second epistle of Clement (130-166, Harnack), we read: ‘Brethren, it is fitting that you should think of Jesus Christ as of God — as the Judge of the living and the dead.’ And Ignatius describes him as ‘begotten and unbegotten, passable and impassible… who was before the eternities with the Father.’” These testimonies only give evidence that the Church Fathers saw in Scripture divine honor ascribed to Christ. They were but the precursors of a host of later interpreters. In a lull of the awful massacre of Armenian Christians at Sassouan, one of the Kurdish savages was heard to ask: “Who was that ‘Lord Jesus’ that they were calling to?” In their death agonies, the Christians, like Stephen of old, called upon the name of the Lord. Robert Browning quoted, in a letter to a lady in her last illness, the words of Charles Lamb, when “in a gay fancy with some friends as to how he and they would feel if the greatest of the dead were to appear suddenly in flesh and blood once more — on the first suggestion, ‘And if Christ entered this room?’ changed his tone at once and stuttered out as his manner was when moved: ‘You see — if Shakespeare entered, we should all rise; if He appeared, we must kneel.’” On prayer to Jesus, see Liddon, Bampton Lectures, note F; Bernard, in Hastings’ Bib. Dictionary, 4:44; Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, 9, 288. (f) His name is associated with that of God upon a footing of equality.

We do not here allude to 1 John 5:7 (the three heavenly witnesses), for the latter part of this verse is unquestionably spurious; but to the formula of baptism, to the apostolic benedictions, and to those passages in which eternal life is said to be dependent equally upon Christ and upon God, or in which spiritual gifts are attributed to Christ equally with the Father. The formula of baptism Matthew 28:19 “baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; cf. Acts 2:38 — “be baptizes every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ”; Romans 6:3 — “baptized into Christ Jesus.” “In the common baptismal formula the Son and the Spirit are coordinated with the Father, and eiJv o]noma has religious significance.” It would be both absurd and profane to speak of baptizing into the name of the Father and of Moses. The apostolic benedictions : 1 Corinthians 1:3 — Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”; 2 Corinthians 13:14 — “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” “In the benedictions grace is something divine, and Christ has power to impart it. But why do we find ‘God,’ instead of simply ‘the Father,’ as in the baptismal formula? Because it is only the Father who does not become man or have a historical existence. Elsewhere he is specially called ‘God the Father,’ to distinguish him from God the Son and God the Holy Spirit ( Galatians 1:3 Ephesians 3:14; 6:23).” Other passages: John 5:23 — “that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father”; John 14:1 “believe in God, believe also in me” — double imperative (so Westcott, Bible Com., in loco ); 17:3 — “this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ”; Matthew 11:27 — “no one knoweth the Son save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him”; Corinthians 12:4-6 — “the same Spirit… the same Lord [Christ]… the same God” [the Father] I bestow spiritual gifts, e. g ., faith: Romans 10:17 — “belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ”; peace: Colossians 3:15 — “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” 2 Thessalonians 2:16,17 — “now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father… comfort your hearts” — two names with a verb in the singular intimate the oneness of the Father and the Son (Lillie). Ephesians 6:5 — “kingdom of Christ and God”; Colossians 3:1 — “Christ … seated on the right hand of God” = participation in the sovereignty of the universe — the Eastern divan held not only the monarch but his son; Revelations 20:6 “priests of God and of Christ”; 22:3 — “the throne of God and of the Lamb”; 16 — “the root and the offspring of David” = both the Lord of David and his son. Hackett: “As the dying Savior said to the Father, ‘Into thy hands I commend my spirit’ ( Luke 23:46), so the dying Stephen said to the Savior, ‘receive my spirit’ ( Acts 7:59).” (g) Equality with God is expressly claimed.

Here we may refer to Jesus’ testimony to himself, already treated of among the proofs of the supernatural character of the Scripture teaching (see pages 189, 190). Jesus does not only claim equality with God for himself, but his apostles claim it for him. John 5:18 — “called God his own Father, making himself equal with God”; Philippians 2:6 — “who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped” = counted not his equality with God a thing to be forcibly retained. Christ made and left upon his contemporaries the impression that he claimed to be God.

The New Testament has left, upon the great mass of those who have read it, the impression that Jesus Christ claims to be God. If he is not God, he is a deceiver or is self-deceived, and, in either case, Christus, si non Deus, non bonus. See Nicoll, Life of Jesus Christ, 187. (h) Further proof of Christ’s deity may be found in the application to him of the phrases: ‘Son of God,’ ‘Image of God’; in the declarations of his oneness with God; in the attribution to him of the fullness of the Godhead. Matthew 26:63,64 — “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said” — it is for this testimony that Christ dies. Colossians 1:15 — “the image of the invisible God”; Hebrews 1:3 — “the effulgence of his [the Father’s] glory, and the very image of his substance”; John 10:30 — “I and the Father are one”; 14:9 — “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father”; 17:11, 22 — “that they may be one, even as we are” — e]n , not ei+v ; unum, not unus ; one substance, not one person. “Unum is antidote to the Arian, sumus to the Sabellian heresy.” Colossians 2:9 — “in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily”; cf. 1:19 — “for it was the pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fullness dwell;” or (margin) “for the whole fullness of God was pleased to dwell in him.” John 16:15 — “all things whatsoever the Father hath are mine”; 17:10 — “all things that are mine are thine, and thine are mine.”

Meyer on John 10:30 — “I and the Father are one” — “Here the Arian understanding of a mere ethical harmony as taught in the words ‘are one’ is unsatisfactory, because irrelevant to the exercise of power.

Oneness of essence, though not contained in the words themselves, is, by the necessities of the argument, presupposed in them.” Dalman, The Words of Jesus: “Nowhere do we find that Jesus called himself the Son of God in such a sense as to suggest a merely religious and ethical relation to God — a relation which others also possessed and which they were capable of attaining or were destined to acquire.” We may add that while in the lower sense there are many ‘sons of God,’ there is but one ‘only begotten Son.’ (i) These proofs of Christ’s deity from the New Testament are corroborated by Christian experience.

Christian experience recognizes Christ as an absolutely perfect Savior, perfectly revealing the Godhead and worthy of unlimited worship and adoration; that is, it practically recognizes him as Deity. But Christian experience also recognizes that through Christ it has introduction and reconciliation to God as one distinct from Jesus Christ, as one who was alienated from the soul by its sin, but who is now reconciled though Jesus’ death. In other words, while recognizing Jesus as God, we are also compelled to recognize a distinction between the Father and the Son through whom we come to the Father.

Although this experience cannot be regarded as an independent witness to Jesus’ claims, since it only tests the truth already made known in the Bible, still the irresistible impulse of every person whom Christ has saved to lift his Redeemer to the highest place, and bow before him in the lowliest worship, is strong evidence that only that interpretation of Scripture can be true which recognizes Christ’s absolute Godhead. It is the church’s consciousness of her Lord’s divinity, indeed, and not mere speculation upon the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that has compelled the formulation of the Scripture doctrine of the Trinity.

In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians “quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere invicem.” The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding words of a prayer, “For Christ’s sake, Amen,” when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk’s church, Boston. These words, wherever tittered, imply man’s dependence and Christ’s deity. See New Englander, 1878:482. In Ephesians 4:32, the Revised Version substitutes “in Christ:” for “for Christ’s sake.” The exact phrase “for Christ’s sake” is not found in the New Testament in connection with prayer, although the Old Testament phrase “for my name’s sake” ( Psalm 25:11) passes into the New Testament phrase “in the name of Jesus” ( Philippians 2:10); cf . Psalm 72:15 — “men shall pray for him continually” = the words of the hymn: “For him shall endless prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.” All this is proof that the idea of prayer for Christ’s sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent.

A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass’s head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this ill-spelled inscription: “Alexamenos adores his God.”

Schleiermacher first made this appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness. William E. Gladstone: “All I write and all I think and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.” E. G. Robinson: “When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.” W. G. T. Shedd: “The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.” On the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514.

In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, in that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and subjection, we are to remember first, that our Lord was truly man, as well as truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated of him as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly, that the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during our Savior’s earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he was in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present glory; and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which is consistent with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the Father to be spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements will be further elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in subsequent examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ.

There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant: Mark 13:39 “of that day or the hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the father.” He was subject to physical fatigue: John 4:6 — “Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.” There was a limitation connected with Christ’s taking of human flesh: Philippians 2:7 — “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men”: John 14:28 — “the Father is greater than I.” There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with God; 1 Corinthians 15:28 — “then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.” This must be interpreted consistently with John 17:5 — “glory thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,” and with Philippians 2:6, where this glory is described as being “the form of God” and “equality with God.”

Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete — it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we must distinguish between what he intended to teach and what was merely incidental to his teaching.

When he said: Moses “wrote of me”( John 5:46) and “David in the Spirit called him Lord.” ( Matthew 22:43), if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only to locate the passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship.

Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136 — “If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor did the inappropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David.

There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.” Adamson rather more precariously suggests that “there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus’ mention of ‘Zechariah, son of Barachias’ ( Matthew 23:35) since this was a matter of no spiritual import.”

For assertions of Jesus’ knowledge, see John 2:24,25 — “he knew all men… he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man”; 6:64 — “Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray him”; 12:33 — “this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should die”; 21:19 — “Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he [Peter] should glorify God”; 13:1 — “knowing that his hour was come that he should depart”: Matthew 25:31 — “when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory” = he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49:1. Jesus’ knowledge of Peter ( John 1:42); 2. His finding Philip (1:43); 3. His recognition of Nathanael (1:47-50); 4. Of the woman of Samaria (4:17-19, 39); 5. Miraculous draughts of fishes ( Luke 5:6-9; John 21:6); 6. Death of Lazarus ( John 11:14); 7. The ass’s colt ( Matthew 21:2); 8. Of the upper room ( Mark 14:15); 9. Of Peter’s denial ( Matthew 26:34); 10. Of the manner of his own death ( John 12:33; 18:32); 11. Of the manner of Peter’s death ( John 21:19); 12. Of the fall of Jerusalem ( Matthew 24:2).

On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus’ ignorance: he did not know the day of the end ( Mark 13:32), though even here he intimates his superiority to angels; 5:30-34 — “Who touched my garments?” though even here power had gone forth from him to heal; John 11:34 — “Where have ye laid him?” though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead; Mark 11:13 — “seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereon” = he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus’ knowledge, we must assent to the judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33 — “We must decline to stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticism”; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195 — “That the use by our Lord of such a phrase as ‘Moses wrote of me’ binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.” See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244. Per Contra, see Swayne, Our Lord’s Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ’s authority and atonement.

It is inconceivable that any mere creature should say, “God is greater than I am,” or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming “subject to God.” In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit ( Acts 1:2) — “after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit”; 10:38 — “God anointed him with the Holy Spirit… for God was with him”; Hebrews 9:14 — “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God” — but in his state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (kuri>ou pneu>matov — 2 Corinthians 3:18 — Meyer), giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit. Hebrews 2:7, margin — Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.” On time whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 127, 207, 458; per contra, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.

C. The Holy Spirit is recognized as God (a) He is spoken of as God; (b) the attributes of God are ascribed to him, such as life, truth, love, holiness, eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence; (c) he does the works of God, such as creation, regeneration, resurrection; (d) he receives honor due only to God; (e) he is associated with God on a footing of equality, both in the formula of baptism and in the apostolic benedictions. (a) Spoken of as God. Acts 5:3,4 — “lie to the Holy Spirit… not lied unto men, but unto God”; 1 Corinthians 3:16 — “ye are a temple of God… the Spirit of God dwelleth in you”; 6:19 — “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit”; 12:4-6 “same Spirit… same Lord… same God, who worketh all things in all” — “The divine Trinity is here indicated in an ascending climax, in such a way that we pass from the Spirit who bestows the gifts to the Lord [Christ] who is served by means of them, and finally to God, who as the absolute first cause and possessor of all Christian powers works the entire sum of all charismatic gifts in all who are gifted” (Meyer in loco ). (b) Attributes of God. Life: Romans 8:2 — “Spirit of life.” Truth: John 16:13 “Spirit of truth.” Love: Romans 15:30 — “love of the Spirit.” Holiness: Ephesians 4:30 — “the Holy Spirit of God.”

Eternity: Hebrews 9:14 — “the eternal Spirit.” Omnipresence: <19D907> Psalm 139:7 — “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?” 4:30 — “the Holy Spirit of God” Eternity: Hebrews 9:14 — “the eternal Spirit.”

Omnipresence: Ps 139:7 — “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?”

Omniscience: 1 Corinthians 12:11 — “all these [including gifts of healings and miracles] worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally even as he will.” (c) Works of God. Creation: Genesis 1:2, margin — “Spirit of God was brooding upon the face of the waters.” Casting out of demons: Matthew 12:28 — “But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons.”

Conviction of sin: John 16:8 — “convict the world in respect of sin.”

Regeneration: John 3:8 — “born of the Spirit”; Titus 3:5 — “renewing of the Holy Spirit.” Resurrection: Romans 8:11 — “give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit”; 1 Corinthians 15:45 — “The last Adam became a life giving spirit.” (d) Honor due to God. 1 Corinthians 3:16 — “ye are a temple of God… the Spirit of God dwelleth in you” — he who inhabits the temple is the object of worship there. See also the next item. (e) Associated with God. Formula of baptism: Matthew 28:19 — “baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” If the baptismal formula is worship, then we have here worship paid to the Spirit. Apostolic benedictions: 2 Corinthians 13:14 — “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” If the apostolic benedictions are prayers, then we have here a prayer to the Spirit. Peter 1:2 — “foreknowledge of God the Father… sanctification of the Spirit… sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

On Hebrews 9:14, Kendrick, Com. in loco , interprets: “Offers himself by virtue of an eternal spirit which dwells within him and imparts to his sacrifice a spiritual and an eternal efficacy. The ‘spirit’ here spoken of was not, them, the ‘Holy Spirit’; it was not his purely divine nature; it was that blending of his divine nature with his human personality which forms the mystery of his being, that ‘spirit of holiness’ by virtue of which he was declared ‘the Son of God with power,’ on account of his resurrection from the dead.” Hovey adds a note to Kendrick’s Commentary, in loco , as follows: “This adjective ‘eternal’ naturally suggests that the word ‘Spirit’ refers to the higher and divine nature of Christ. His truly human nature, on its spiritual side, was indeed eternal as to the future, but so also is the spirit of every man. The unique and superlative value of Christ’s self-sacrifice seems to have been due to the impulse of the divine side of his nature.” The phrase ‘eternal spirit’ would then mean his divinity. To both these interpretations we prefer that which makes the passage refer to the Holy Spirit, and we cite in support of this view Acts 1:2 — “he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles”; 10:38 — “God anointed him with the Holy Spirit.” On 1 Corinthians 2:10, Mason, Faith of the Gospel,63, remarks: “The Spirit of God finds nothing even in God which baffles his scrutiny. His ‘search’ is not a seeking for knowledge yet beyond him… Nothing but God could search the depths of God.”

As spirit is nothing less than the inmost principle of life, and the spirit of man is man himself, so the spirit of God must be God (see 1 Corinthians 2:11 — Meyer). Christian experience, moreover, expressed as it is in the prayers and hymns of the church, furnishes an argument for the deity of the Holy Spirit similar to that for the deity of Jesus Christ. When our eyes are opened to see Christ as a Savior, we are compelled to recognize the work in us of a divine Spirit who has taken of the things of Christ and has shown them to us and this divine Spirit we necessarily distinguish both from the Father and from the Son. Christian experience, however, is not an original and independent witness to the deity of the Holy Spirit; it simply shows what the church has held to be the natural and unforced interpretation of the Scriptures, and so confirms the Scripture argument already adduced.

The Holy Spirit is God himself personally present in the believer. E. G.

Robinson: If ‘Spirit of God’ no more implies deity than does ‘angel of God,’ why is not the Holy Spirit called simply the angel or messenger, of God?” Walker, The Spirit and the Incarnation, 337 — “The Holy Spirit is God in his innermost being or essence, the principle of life of both the Father and the Son; that in which God, both as Father and Son, does everything, and in which he comes to us and is in us increasingly through his manifestations. Through the working and indwelling of this Holy Spirit, God in his person of Son was fully incarnate in Christ.” Gould, Am. Com, on 1 Corinthians 2:11 — “For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God” — “The analogy must not be pushed too far, as if the Spirit of God and God were coextensive terms, as the corresponding terms are, substantially, in man.

The point of the analogy is evidently self-knowledge, and in both eases the contrast is between the spirit within and anything outside.” Andrew Murray, Spirit of Christ, 140 — “We must not expect always to feel the power of the Spirit when it works. Scripture links power and weakness in a wonderful way, not as succeeding each other but as existing together. ‘I was with you in weakness my preaching was in power’ ( 1 Corinthians 2:3); ‘when I am weak then am I strong’ ( 2 Corinthians 12:10). The power is the power of God given to faith, and faith grows strong in the dark… He who would command nature must first and most absolutely obey her… We want to get possession of the Power, and use it. God wants the Power to get possession of us, and use us.”

This proof of the deity of the Holy Spirit is not invalidated by the limitations of his work under the Old Testament dispensation. John 7:39 — “for the Holy Spirit was not yet” — means simply that the Holy Spirit could not fulfill his peculiar office as Revealer of Christ until the atoning work of Christ should be accomplished. John 7:39 is to be interpreted in the light of other Scriptures which assert the agency of the Holy Spirit under the old dispensation ( Psalm 51:11 — “take not thy holy Spirit from me”) and which describe his peculiar office under the new dispensation ( John 16:14,15 — “he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you”). Limitation in the manner of the Spirit’s work in the Old Testament involved a limitation in the extent and power of it also. Pentecost was the flowing forth of a tide of spiritual influence, which had hitherto been dammed up. Henceforth the Holy Spirit was the Spirit of Jesus Christ, taking of the things of Christ and showing them, applying his finished work to human hearts, and rendering the hitherto localized Savior omnipresent with his scattered followers to the end of time.

Under the conditions of his humiliation, Christ was a servant. All authority in heaven and earth was given him only after his resurrection.

Hence he could not send the Holy Spirit until he ascended. The mother can show off her son only when he is fully-grown. The Holy Spirit could reveal Christ only when there was a complete Christ to reveal. The Holy Spirit could fully sanctify, only after the example and motive of holiness were furnished in Christ’s life and death. Archer Butler: “The divine Artist could not fitly descend to make the copy, before the original had been provided.”

And yet the Holy Spirit is “the eternal Spirit” ( Hebrews 9:14), and he not only existed, but also wrought, in Old Testament times. 2 Peter 1:21 — “men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit” — seems to fix the meaning of time phrase “the Holy Spirit,” where it appears in the Old Testament Before Christ “the Holy Spirit was not yet” ( John 7:29), just as before Edison electricity was not yet. There was just as much electricity in the world before Edison as there is now. Edison has only taught us its existence and how to use it. Still we can say that, before Edison, electricity, as a means of lighting, warming and transporting people had no existence. So until Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, as the revealer of Christ, “was not yet.” Augustine calls Pentecost the dies natalis , or birthday, of the Holy Spirit; and for the same reason that we call the day when Mary brought forth her first born son the birthday of Jesus Christ, though before Abraham was born, Christ was. The Holy Spirit had been engaged in the creation, and had inspired the prophets, but officially, as Mediator between men and Christ, “the Holy Spirit was not yet.” He could not show the things of Christ until the things of Christ were ready to be shown. See Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 10-25; Prof.

J. S. Gubelmann, Person and Work of the Holy Spirit in Old Testament Times. For proofs of the deity of the Holy Spirit, see Walker, Doctrine of the Holy Spirit; Hare, Mission of the Comforter; Parker, The Paraclete; Cardinal Manning, Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost; Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:341-350. Further references will be given in connection with the proof of the Holy Spirit’s personality. 2. Intimations of the Old Testament.

The passages, which seem to show that even in the Old Testament, there are three, who are implicitly recognized as God may be classed under four heads:

A. Passages which seem to teach plurality of some sort in the Godhead. (a) The plural noun syhil’ is employed, and that with a plural verb — a use remarkable, when we consider that the singular laæ was also in existence; (b) God uses plural pronouns in speaking of himself; (c) Jehovah distinguishes himself from Jehovah; (d) a Son is ascribed to Jehovah; (e) the Spirit of God is distinguished from God; (f) there are a threefold ascription and a threefold benediction. (a) Genesis 20:13 — “God caused [plural] me to wander from my father’s house”; 35:7 — “built there an altar and called the place El-Bethel; because there God was revealed [plural] unto him.” (b) Genesis 1:26 — “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”; 3:22 — “Behold, the man is become as one of us”; 11:7 — “Come, let us go down, and there confound their language”; Isaiah 6:8 — “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (c) Genesis 19:24 — “Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven”; Hosea 1:7 — “I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah, their God”; cf. 2 Timothy 1:18 — “The Lord grant unto him to find mercy of the Lord in that day” — though Ellicott here decides adversely to the Trinitarian reference. (d) Psalm 2:7 — “Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee”; Proverbs 30:4 — “Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou knowest?” (e) Genesis 1:1 and 2, margin — “God created… the Spirit of God was brooding”; Psalm 33:6 — “By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made, And all the host of them by the breath [spirit] of his mouth”; Isaiah 48:16 — the Lord Jehovah hath sent me, and his Spirit”; 63:7, 10 — “loving kindness of Jehovah… grieved his holy Spirit.” (f) Isaiah 6:3 — the trisagion: “Holy, holy, holy”; Numbers 6:24-26 — “Jehovah bless thee, and keep thee: Jehovah make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: Jehovah lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.”

It has been suggested that as Baal was worshiped in different places and under different names, as Baal-Berith, Baal-hanan, Baal-peor, Baalzeebub, and his priests could call upon any one of these as possessing certain personified attributes of Baal, while yet the whole was called by the plural term ‘Baalim,’ and Elijah could say: “Call ye upon your Gods,” so ‘Elohim’ may be the collective designation of the God who was worshiped in different localities; see Robertson Smith, Old Testament in the Jewish Church, 229. But this ignores the fact that Baal is always addressed in the singular, never on the plural, while the plural ‘Elohim’ is the term commonly used in addresses to God. This seems to show that ‘Baalim’ is a collective term, while ‘Elohim’ is not. So when Ewald, Lebre von Gott, 2:333, distinguishes five names of God, corresponding to five great periods of the history of Israel, viz ., the “Almighty” of the Patriarchs, the “Jehovah” of the Covenant, the “God of Hosts” of the Monarchy, the “Holy One” of the Deuteronomist and the later prophetic age, and the “Our Lord” of Judaism, he ignores the fact that these designations are none of them confined to the times to which they are attributed, though they may have been predominantly used in those times.

The fact that µyhloa’ is sometimes used in a narrower sense, as applicable to the Son ( Psalm 45:6, cf . Hebrews 1:8), need not prevent us from believing that the term was originally chosen as containing an allusion to a certain plurality in the divine nature. Nor is it sufficient to call this plural a simple pluralis majestaticus; since it is easier to derive this common figure from divine usage than to derive the divine usage from this common figure — especially when we consider the constant tendency of Israel to polytheism. Psalm 45:6; cf . Hebrews I:8 — “of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.” Here it is God who calls Christ “God” or “Elohim.” The term Elohim has here acquired the significance of a singular. It was once thought that the royal style of speech was a custom of a later date than the time of Moses. Pharaoh does not use it. In Genesis 41:41-44, he says: ‘I have set thee over all the land of Egypt… I am Pharaoh” But later investigations seem to prove that the plural for God was used by the Canaanites before the Hebrew occupation.

The one Pharaoh is called ‘my gods’ or ‘my god,’ indifferently. The word ‘master’ is usually found in the plural in the Old Testament (cf . Genesis 24:9,51; 39:19; 40:1) The plural gives utterance to the sense of awe. It signifies magnitude or completeness. (See The Bible Student, Aug. 1900:67.)

This ancient Hebrew application of the plural to God is often explained as a mere plural of dignity, one who combines in himself many reasons for adoration µyhila; from Hla’ to fear, to adore). Oehler, Old Testament Theology, 1:128-130, calls it a “quantitative plural,” signifying unlimited greatness. The Hebrews had many plural forms, where we should use the singular, as ‘heavens’ instead of ‘heaven,’ ‘waters’ instead of water.’ We too speak of ‘news,’ ‘wages,’ and say ‘you’ instead of ‘thou’; see F. W.

Robertson, on Genesis, 12. But the Church Fathers, such as Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Theophilus, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, saw in this plural an allusion to the Trinity, and we are inclined to follow them.

When finite things were pluralized to express man’s reverence, it would be far more natural to pluralize the name of God. And God’s purpose in securing this pluralization may have been more far-reaching and intelligent than man’s. The Holy Spirit who presided over the development of revelation may well have directed the use of the plural in general, and even the adoption of the plural name Elohim in particular, with a view to the future unfolding of truth with regard to the Trinity.

We therefore dissent from the view of Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 323, — “The Hebrew religion, even much later than the time of Moses, as it existed in the popular mind, was, according to the prophetic writings, far removed from a real monotheism, and consisted in the wavering acceptance of the preeminence of a tribal God, with a strong inclination towards a general polytheism. It is impossible therefore to suppose that anything approaching the philosophical monotheism of modern theology could have been elaborated or even entertained by primitive man… ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’ ( Exodus 20:3), the first precept of Hebrew monotheism, was not understood at first as a denial of the hereditary polytheistic faith, but merely as an exclusive claim to worship and obedience.” E. G. Robinson says, in a similar strain, “we can explain the idolatrous tendencies of the Jews only on the supposition that they had lurking notions that their God was a merely national god. Moses seems to have understood the doctrine of the divine unity, but the Jews did not.”

To the views of both Hill and Robinson we reply that the primitive intuition of God is not that of many, but that of One. Paul tells us that polytheism is a later and retrogressive stage of development, due to man’s sin ( Romans 1:19-25). We prefer the statement of McLaren: “The plural Elohim is not a survival from a polytheistic stage, but expresses the divine nature in the manifoldness of its fullnesses and perfections, rather than in the abstract unity of its being” — and, we may add, expresses the divine nature in its essential fullness, as a complex of personalities. See Conant, Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, 198; Green, Hebrew Grammar, 306; Girdlestone, Old Testament Synonyms, 38, 53; Alexander on Psalm 11:7; 29:1; 58:11.

B. Passages relating to the Angel of Jehovah. (a) The angel of Jehovah identifies himself with Jehovah; (b) he is identified with Jehovah by others; (c) he accepts worship due only to God. Though the phrase ‘angel of Jehovah’ is sometimes used in the later Scriptures to denote a merely human messenger or created angel, it seems in the Old Testament, with hardly more than a single exception, to designate the pre-incarnate Logos, whose manifestations in angelic or human form foreshadowed his final coming in the flesh. (a) ( Genesis 22:11,16 — “the angel of Jehovah called unto him [Abraham, when about to sacrifice Isaac] By myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah”; 31:11, 13 — “the angel of God said unto me [Jacob]… I am the God of Beth-el.” (b) Genesis 16:9,13 — “angel of Jehovah said unto her… and she called the name of Jehovah that spake unto her, Thou art a God that seeth”; 48:15,16 — “the God who bath fed me — the angel who hath redeemed me.” (c) Exodus 3:2,4,5 — “the angel of Jehovah appeared unto him… God called unto him out of the midst of the bush… put off thy shoes from off thy feet”; Judges 13:20-22 — “angel of Jehovah ascended Manoah and his wife… fell on their faces… Manoah said we shall surely die, because we have seen God.”

The “angel of the Lord” appears to be a human messenger Haggai, 1:13 — “Haggai, Jehovah’s messenger; a created angel in Matthew 1:20 — “an angel of the Lord [called Gabriel] appeared unto” Joseph; in Acts 8:26 — “an angel of the Lord spake unto Philip”; and in 12:7 — “an angel of the Lord stood by him” (Peter). But commonly, in the Old Testament, time “angel of Jehovah” is a theophany, a self-manifestation of God. The only distinction is that between Jehovah in himself and Jehovah in manifestation; the appearances of “the angel of Jehovah” seem to be preliminary manifestations of the divine Logos, as in Genesis 18:2,13 — “three men stood over against him [Abraham)… And Jehovah said unto Abraham”; Daniel 3:25,28 — “the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods… Blessed be the God… who hath seat his angel” The New Testament “angel of the Lord” does not permit, the Old Testament “angel of the Lord” requires worship ( Revelation 22:8, — “See thou do it not”; cf. Exodus 3:5 — “put off thy shoes.”) As supporting this interpretation, see Hengstenberg, Christology, l:107-123; J. Pye Smith, Scripture Testimony to the Messiah. As opposing it, see Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, 1:329, 378; Kurtz, History of Old Covenant, 1:181. On the whole subject, see Bibliotheca Sacra, 1879:593-615.

C. Descriptions of the divine Wisdom and Word. (a) Wisdom is represented as distinct from God, and as eternally existing with God; (b) the Word of God is distinguished from God, as executor of his will from everlasting. (a) Proverbs 8:1 — “Doth not wisdom cry?” Cf . Matthew 11:19 — “wisdom is justified by her works”; Luke 7:35 — “wisdom is justified of all her children”; 11:49 — “Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send unto them prophets and apostles”; Proverbs 8:22,30,31 — “Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way, Before his works of old… I was by him, as a master workman: And I was daily his delight… And my delight was with the sons of men”; cf. 3:19 — “Jehovah by wisdom founded the earth,” and Hebrews 1:2 — “his Son… through whom… he made the worlds.” (b) <19A720> Psalm 107:20 — “He sendeth his word, and healeth them”; 119:8 — “For ever, O Jehovah, Thy word is settled in heaven”; 147:15-18 — “He sendeth out his commandment… He sendeth out his word.”

In the Apocryphal book entitled Wisdom, 7:26, 28, wisdom is described as “the brightness of the eternal light,” “the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty,” and “the image of his goodness” — reminding us of Hebrews 1:3 — “the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance.” In Wisdom, 9:9, 10, wisdom is represented as being present with God when he made the world, and the author of the book prays that wisdom may be sent to him out of God’s holy heavens and from the throne of his glory. In 1Esdras 4:35-38, Truth in a similar way is spoken of as personal: “Great is the Truth and stronger than all things. All the earth calleth upon the Truth, and the heaven blesseth it; all works shake and tremble at it and with it is no unrighteous thing. As for the Truth, it endureth and is always strong; it liveth and conquereth forevermore.”

It must be acknowledged that in none of these descriptions is the idea of personality clearly developed. Still less is it true that John the apostle derived his doctrine of the Logos from the interpretations of these descriptions in Philo Judæus. John’s doctrine ( John 1:1-18) is radically different from the Alexandrian Logos idea of Philo. This last is a Platonizing speculation upon the mediating principle between God and the world. Philo seems at times to verge towards a recognition of personality in the Logos, though his monotheistic scruples lead him at other times to take back what he has given, and to describe the Logos either as the thought of God or as its expression in the world. But John is the first to present to us a consistent view of this personality, to identify the Logos with the Messiah, and to distinguish the Word from the Spirit of God.

Dorner, in his History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, I:13-45, and in his System of Doctrine, 1:348, 349, gives the best account of Philo’s doctrine of the Logos. He says that Philo calls the Logos ajrca>ggelov , ajrciereu>v deu>terov qeo>v . Whether this is anything more than personification is doubtful, for Philo also calls the Logos the ko>smov nohto>v. Certainly, so far as he makes the Logos a distinct personality, he makes him also a subordinate being. It is charged that the doctrine of the Trinity owes its origin to the Platonic philosophy in its Alexandrian union with Jewish theology. But Platonism had no Trinity. The truth is that by the doctrine of the Trinity Christianity secured itself against false heathen ideas of God’s multiplicity and immanence, as well as against false Jewish ideas of God’s unity and transcendence. It owes nothing to foreign sources.

We need not assign to John’s gospel a later origin, in order to account for its doctrine if the Logos, any more than we need to assign a later origin to the Synoptics in order to account for their doctrine of a suffering Messiah.

Both doctrines were equally unknown to Philo. Philo’s Logos does not and cannot become man. So says Dorner. Westcott, in Bible Commentary on John, Introduction, xv-xviii, and on John 1:1 — “The theological use of the term [in John’s gospel] appears to be derived directly from the Palestinian Memra, and not from the Alexandrian Logos .” Instead of Philo’s doctrine being a stepping stone from Judaism to Christianity, it was a stumbling stone. It had no doctrine of the Messiah or of the atonement. Bennett and Adeny, Bib. Introduction, 340 ‘The difference between Philo and John may be stated thus: Philo’s Logos is Reason, while John’s is Word; Philo’s is impersonal, while John’s is personal; Philo’s is not incarnate, while John’s is incarnate; Philo’s is not the Messiah, while John’s is the Messiah.”

Philo lived from 10 or 20 BC to certainly AD 40, when he went at the head of a Jewish embassy to Rome, to persuade the Emperor to abstain from claiming divine honor from the Jews. In his De Opifice Mundi he says: “The Word is nothing else but the intelligible world.” He calls the Word the “chainband,” “pilot,” “steersman,” of all things. Gore, Incarnation,69 — “Logos in Philo must be translated ‘Reason.’ But in the Targums, or early Jewish paraphrases of the Old Testament, the ‘ Word’ of Jehovah (Memra, Devra) is constantly spoken of as the efficient instrument of the divine action, in cases where the Old Testament speaks of Jehovah himself. ‘The Word of God’ had come to be used personally, as almost equivalent to God manifesting himself, or God in action.”

George H. Gilbert, in Biblical World, Jan. 1899:44 — “John’s use of the term Logos was suggested by Greek philosophy, while at the same time the content of the word is Jewish.”

Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 174-208 — “The Stoics invested the Logos with personality They were Monists and they made lo>gov and u[lh the active and the passive forms of the one principle. Some made God a mode of matter — natura naturata; others made matter a mode of God — natura nacturans = the world a self-evolution of God. A singular term, Logos, rather than the Logoi, of God expressed the Platonit forms, as manifold expressions of a single Adyos. From this Logos proceed all forms of mind or reason. So held Philo: ‘The mind is an offshoot from the divine and happy soul (of God), an offshoot not separated from him, for nothing divine is cut off and disjoined, but only extended.’ Philo’s Logos is not only form but force — God’s creative energy — the eldest born of the ‘I am,’ which robes itself with the world as with a vesture, the high priest’s robe, embroidered with all the forces of the seen and unseen worlds.”

Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 1:53 — “Philo carries the transcendence of God to its logical conclusions. The Jewish doctrine of angels is expanded in his doctrine of the Logos. The Alexandrian philosophers afterwards represented Christianity as a spiritualized Judaism. But a philosophical system dominated by the idea of the divine transcendence never could have furnished a motive for missionary labors like those of Paul. Philo’s belief in transcendence abated his redemptive hopes. But, conversely, the redemptive hopes of Orthodox Judaism saved it from some of the errors of exclusive transcendence.” See a quotation from Siegfried, in Schurer’s History of the Jewish People, article on Philo: “Philo’s doctrine grew out of God’s distinction and distance from the world. It was dualistic. Hence the need of mediating principles, some being less than God and more than creature. The cosmical significance of Christ bridged the gulf between Christianity and contemporary Greek thought. Christianity stands for a God who is revealed. But a Logos-doctrine like that of Philo may reveal less than it conceals. Instead of God incarnate for our salvation, we may have merely a mediating principle between God and the world, as in Arianism.”

Prof. William Adams Brown furnishes the preceding statement in substance. With it we agree, adding only the remark that the Alexandrian philosophy gave to Christianity, not the substance of its doctrine, but only the terminology for its expression. The truth which Philo groped after, the Apostle John seized and published, as only he could, who had heard, seen, and handled “the Word of life” ( 1 John 1:1). “The Christian doctrine of the Logos was perhaps before anything else an effort to express how Jesus Christ was God Qeo>v , and yet in another sense was not God oJ qeo>v ; that is to say, was not the whole Godhead” (quoted in Marcus Dods, Expositors’ Bible, on John 1:1). See also Kendrick, in Christian Review, 26:369-399; Gloag, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., 1891:45-57; Reville, Doctrine of the Logos in John and Philo; Godet on John, Germ.

Transi., 13, 135; Cudworth, Intellectual System, 2:320-333; Pressense, Life of Jesus Christ, 83; Hagenbach, list. Doct., 1:114-117; Liddon, Our Lord’s Divinity, 59-71; Conant on Proverbs, 53.

D. Descriptions of the Messiah. (a) He is one with Jehovah; (b) yet he is in some sense distinct from Jehovah (a) Isaiah 9:6 — unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”; Micah 5:2 — “thou Bethlehem… which art little… out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.” (b) Psalm 45:3,7 — “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever… Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee”; Malachi 3:1 — “I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant whom ye desire.” Henderson, in his Commentary on this passage, points out that the Messiah is here called “the Lord” or “the Sovereign — a title nowhere given in this form (with the article) to any but Jehovah; that he is predicted as coming to the temple as its proprietor; and that he is identified with the angel of the covenant, elsewhere shown to be one with Jehovah himself.

It is to be remembered, in considering this, as well as other classes of passages previously cited; that no Jewish writer before Christ’s coming had succeeded in constructing from them a doctrine of the Trinity. Only to those who bring to them the light of New Testament revelation do they show their real meaning.

Our general conclusion with regard to the Old Testament intimations must therefore be that, while they do not by themselves furnish a sufficient basis for the doctrine of the Trinity, they contain the germ of it and may be used in confirmation of it when its truth is substantially proved from the New Testament.

That the doctrine of the Trinity is not plainly taught in the Hebrew Scriptures is evident from the fact that Jews unite with Mohammedans in accusing Trinitarians of polytheism. It should not surprise us that the Old Testament teaching, on this subject is undeveloped and obscure. The first necessity was that the Unity of God should be insisted on. Until the danger of idolatry was past, a clear revelation of the Trinity might have been a hindrance to religious progress. The child now, like the race then, must learn the unity of God before it can profitably be taught the Trinity — else it will fall into tri-theism; see Gardiner, Old Testament and New Testament, 49. We should not therefore begin our proof of the Trinity with a reference to passages in the Old Testament. We should speak of these passages, indeed, as furnishing intimations of the doctrine rather than proof of it. Yet, after having found proof of the doctrine in the New Testament, we may expect to find traces of it in the Old, which will corroborate our conclusions. As a matter of fact, we shall see that traces of the idea of a Trinity are found not only in the Hebrew Scriptures but in some of the heathen religions as well. E. G. Robinson: “The doctrine of the Trinity underlay the Old Testament, unperceived by its writers, was first recognized in the economic revelation of Christianity, and was first clearly enunciated in the necessary evolution of Christian doctrine.”

II. THESE THREE ARE SO DESCRIBED IN SCRIPTURE THAT WE ARE COMPELLED TO CONCEIVE OF THEM AS DISTINCT PERSONS.

1. The Father and the Son are persons distinct from each other. (a) Christ distinguishes the Father from himself as ‘another’; (b) the Father and the Son are distinguished as the begetter and the begotten; (c) the Father and the Son are distinguished as the sender and the sent. (a) John 5:32,37 — “It is another that beareth witness of me… the Father that sent me, he hath borne witness of me.” (b) Psalm 2:7 — “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee”’ John 1:14 — “the only begotten from the Father”; 18 — “the only begotten Son”; 3:16 — “gave his only begotten Son.” (c) John 10:36 — “say ye of him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world. Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?” Galatians 4:4 — “when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son.” In these passages the Father is represented as objective to the son, the Son to the Father, and both the Father and Son to the Spirit. 2. The Father and the Son are persons distinct from the Spirit. (a) Jesus distinguishes the Spirit from himself and from the Father; (b) the Spirit proceeds from the Father; (c) the Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son. (a) John 14:16,17 — “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth” — or “Spirit of the truth,” = he whose work it is to reveal and apply the truth, and especially to make manifest him who is the truth.

Jesus had been their Comforter; he now promises them another Comforter. If he himself was a person, then the Spirit is a person. (b) John 15:26 — “the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father.” (c) John 14:26 — “the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name”; 15:26 — “when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father”; Galatians 4:6 — “God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” The Greek Church holds that the Spirit proceeds from the Father only; the Latin Church, that the Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son. The true formula is: The Spirit proceeds from the Father through or by (not ‘and’) the Son. See Hagenbach, History of Doctrine. 1:262, 263. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 195 — “The Filioque is a valuable defense of the truth that the Holy Spirit is not simply the abstract second Person of the Trinity, but rather the Spirit of the incarnate Christ, reproducing Christ in human hearts, and revealing in them the meaning of true manhood.” 3. The Holy Spirit is a person.

A. Designations proper to personality are given him. (a) The masculine pronoun ejkei~nov , though pneu~ma is neuter; (b) the name para>klhtov, which cannot be translated by ‘comfort’, or be taken as the name of any abstract influence. The Comforter, Instructor, Patron, Guide, Advocate, whom this term brings before us, must be a person. This is evident from its application to Christ in 1 John 2:1 — “we have an Advocate — para>klhton — with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (a) John 16:14 — “He ejkei~nov shall glorify me”; in Ephesians 1:14 also, some of the best authorities including Tischendorf (8th ed.), read o]v , the masculine pronoun: “who is an earnest of our inheritance.”

But in John 14:16-18, para>klhtov is followed by the neuters oJ and aujto>, because pneu~ma had intervened. Grammatical and not theological considerations controlled the writer. See G. B. Stevens, Johannine Theology, 189-217, especially on the distinction between Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is another person than Christ, in spite of Christ’s saying of the coming of the Holy Spirit: “I come unto you.” (b) John 16:7 — “I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.”

The word para>klhtov, as appears from 1 John 2:1 quoted above, is a term of broader meaning than merely “Comforter.” The Holy Spirit is, indeed, as has been said, “the mother principle in the Godhead,” and “as one whom his mother comforteth” so God by his Spirit comforts his children ( Isaiah 66:13). But the Holy Spirit is also an Advocate of God’s claims in the soul and of the soul’s interests in prayer ( Romans 8:26 — “maketh intercession for us.”) He comforts not only by being our advocate, but also by being our instructor, patron, and guide; and all these ideas are found attaching to the word para>klhtov in good Greek usage.

The word indeed is a verbal adjective, signifying ‘called to one’s aid,’ hence a ‘helper’; the idea of encouragement is included in it, as well as those of comfort and of advocacy. See Westcott, Bible Com., on John 14:16; Cremer, Lexicon of New Testament Greek, in loco .

T. Dwight, in S. S. Times, on John 14:16 — “The fundamental meaning of the word para>klhtov, which is a verbal adjective, is ‘called to one’s aid,’ and thus, when used as a noun, it conveys the idea of ‘helper.’ This mare general sense probably attaches to its use in John’s Gospel, while in the Epistle ( 1 John 2:1,2) it conveys the idea of Jesus acting as advocate on our behalf before God as a Judge.” So the Latin advocatus signifies one ‘called to’ i.e. called in to aid, counsel, plead. In this connection Jesus say’s “I will not leave you orphans” ( John 14:18). Gumming, Through the Eternal Spirit, 228 — “As the orphaned family, in the day of the parent’s death, need some friend who shall lighten their sense of loss by his own presence with them, so the Holy Spirit is ‘called in’ to supply the present love and help which the Twelve are losing in the death of Jesus.” A. A. Hodge, Pop. Lectures, 237 — “The Roman ‘client,’ the poor and dependent man, called in his ‘patron’ to help him in all his needs. The patron thought for, advised, directed, supported, defended, supplied, restored, comforted his client in all his complications. The client, though weak, with a powerful patron, was socially and politically secure forever.”

B. His name is mentioned in immediate connection with other persons, and in such a way as to imply his own personality. (a) In connection with Christians; (b) in connection with Christ; (c) in connection with the Father and the Son. If the Father and the Son are persons, the Spirit must be a person also. (a) Acts 15:23 — “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us.” (b) John 16:14 — “He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you”; cf. 17:4 — “I glorified thee on the earth.” (c) Matthew28:29 — “baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” 2 Corinthians 13:14 — “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all”; Jude 21 — “praying in the Holy Spirit keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 1:1,2 — “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” Yet it is noticeable in all these passages that there is no obtrusion of the Holy Spirit’s personality, as if he desired to draw attention to himself. The Holy Spirit shows not himself, but Christ. Like John the Baptist, he is a mere voice, and so is an example to Christian preachers, who are themselves “made… sufficient as ministers… of the Spirit” ( 2 Corinthians 3:6). His leading is therefore often unperceived; he so joins himself to us that we infer his presence only from the new and holy exercises of our own minds; he continues to work in us even when his presence is ignored and his purity is outraged by our sins.

C. He performs acts proper to personality.

That which searches, knows, speaks, testifies, reveals, convinces, commands, strives, moves, helps, guides, creates, recreates, sanctities, inspires, makes intercession, orders the affairs of the church, performs miracles, raises the dead — cannot be a mere power, influence, efflux, or attribute of God, but must be a person. Genesis 1:2, margin — “the Spirit of God was brooding upon the face of the waters”; 6:3 — “My Spirit shalt not strive with man for ever” Luke 12:12 — “the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say”; John 3:8 — “born of the Spirit” — here Bengel translates: “the Spirit breathes where he wills, and thou hearest his voice” — see also Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 166; 16:8 — “convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment”; Acts 2:4 — “the Spirit gave them utterance” 8:29 — “the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near”; 10:19, 20 — “the Spirit said unto him [Peter], Behold, three men seek thee… go with them … for I have sent them”; 13:2 — “the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul”; 16:6, 7 — “forbidden of the Holy Spirit… Spirit of Jesus suffered them not”; Romans 8:11 — “give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit”:26 — “the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity… maketh intercession for us”; 15:19 — “in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit”; 1 Corinthians 2:10,11 — “the Spirit searcheth all things… things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God”; 12:8-11 — distributes spiritual gifts “to each one severally even as he will” — here Meyer calls attention to the words “as he will,” as proving the personality of the Spirit; 2 Peter 1:21 — “men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit”; 1 Peter 1:2 — sanctification of the Spirit” How can a person be given in various measures? We answer, by being permitted to work in our behalf with various degrees of power. Dorner: “To be power does not belong to the impersonal.”

D. He is affected as a person by the acts of others.

That, which can be resisted, grieved, vexed, blasphemed, must be a person; for only a person can perceive insult and be offended. The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost cannot be merely blasphemy against a power or attribute of God, since in that case blasphemy against God would be a less crime than blasphemy against his power. That against which the unpardonable sin can be committed must be a person. Isaiah 63:10 — “they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit”; Matthew 12:31 — “Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven onto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven”; Acts 5:3,4,9 — “lie to the Holy Ghost… thou hast not lied unto men but unto God… agreed together to try the Spirit of the Lord”; 7:51 — “ye do always resist the Holy Spirit”; Ephesians 4:30 — “grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.” Satan cannot be ‘ grieved.’ Selfishness can be angered, but only love can be grieved. Blaspheming the Holy Spirit is like blaspheming one’s own mother. The passages just quoted show the Spirit’s possession of an emotional nature. Hence we read of “the love of the Spirit” ( Romans 15:30). The ‘unutterable sighing of the Christian in intercessory prayer ( Romans 8:26,27) reveal the mind of the Spirit, and show the infinite depths of feeling which are awakened in God’s heart by the sins and needs of men. These deep desires and emotions which are only partially communicated to us, and which only God can understand are conclusive proof that the Holy Spirit is a person. They are only the overflow into us of the infinite fountain of divine love to which the Holy Spirit unites us.

As Christ in the garden “began to be sorrowful and sore troubled” ( Matthew 26:37), so the Holy Spirit is sorrowful and sore troubled at the ignoring, despising, resisting of his work, on the part of those whom he is trying to rescue from sin and to lead out into the freedom and joy of the Christian life. Luthardt, in S. S. Times, May 26, 1888 — “Every sin can be forgiven — even the sin against the Son of man — except the sin against the Holy Spirit. The sin against the Son of man can be forgiven because he can be misconceived. For he did not appear as that which he really was. Essence and appearance, truth and reality, contradicted each other.” Hence Jesus could pray: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” ( Luke 23:34) The office of the Holy Spirit, however, is to show to men the nature of their conduct, and to sin against him is to sin against light and without excuse. See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 297-313. Salmond, in Expositor’s Greek Testament, on Ephesians 4:30 — “What love is in us points truly, though tremulously, to what love is in God. But in us love, in proportion as it is true and sovereign, has both its wrath-side and its grief-side; and so must it be with God, however difficult for us to think it out.”

E. He manifests himself in visible form as distinct from the Father and the Son, yet in direct connection with personal acts performed by them. Matthew 3:16,17 — “Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him; and lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”; Luke 3:21,22 — “Jesus also having been baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form, as a dove, upon him, and a voice came out of heaven, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.” Here is the prayer of Jesus, the approving voice of the Father, and the Holy Spirit descending in visible form to anoint the Son of God for his work. “I ad Jordanem, et videbis Trinitatem.”

F. This ascription to the Spirit of a personal subsistence distinct from that of the Father and of the Son cannot be explained as personification; for: (a) This would be to interpret sober prose by the canons of poetry. Such sustained personification is contrary to the genius of even Hebrew poetry, in which Wisdom itself is most naturally interpreted as designating a personal existence. (b) Such an interpretation would render a multitude of passages either tautological, meaningless, or absurd — as can be easily seen by substituting for the name Holy Spirit the terms which are wrongly held to be its equivalents; such as the power, or influence, or efflux, or attribute of God. (c) It is contradicted, moreover, by all those passages in which the Holy Spirit is distinguished from his own gifts. (a) The Bible is not primarily a book of poetry, although there is poetry in it. It is more properly a book of history and law. Even if the methods of allegory were used by the Psalmists and the Prophets, we should not expect them largely to characterize the Gospels and Epistles; Corinthians 13:4 — “Love suffereth long, and is kind” — is a rare instance in which Paul’s style takes on the form of poetry. Yet it is the Gospels and Epistles which most constantly represent the Holy Spirit as a person. ( Acts 10:38 — “God anointed him [Jesus] with the Holy Spirit and with power” = anointed him with power and with power? Romans 15:13 — “abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit” = in the power of the power of God? 19 — “in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit” = in the power of the power of God? Corinthians 4 — “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” demonstration of power and of power? (b) Luke 1:35 — “the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee”; 4:14 — “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee”; 1 Corinthians 12:4,8,11 — after mention of the gifts of the Spirit, such as wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues, all these are traced to the Spirit who bestows them: “all these worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally even as he will.” Here is not only giving but giving discreetly, in the exercise of an independent will such as belongs to a person. Romans 8:26 — “the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us” — must be interpreted, if the Holy Spirit is not a person distinct from the Father, as meaning that the Holy Spirit intercedes with himself.

The personality of’ the Holy Spirit was virtually rejected by the Arians, as it has since been by Schleiermacher, and it has been positively denied by the Socinians” (E. G. Robinson). Gould, Bib. Theol. New Testament, 83, 96 — “The Twelve represent the Spirit as sent by the Son, who has been exalted that he may send this new power out of the heavens. Paul represents the Spirit as bringing to us the Christ. In the Spirit Christ dwells in us. The Spirit is the historic Jesus translated into terms of universal Spirit. Through the Spirit we are in Christ and Christ in us. The divine Indweller is to Paul alternately Christ and the Spirit. The Spirit is the divine principle incarnate in Jesus and explaining his preexistence ( 2 Corinthians 3:17,18). Jesus was an incarnation of the Spirit of God.”

This seeming identification of the Spirit with Christ is to be explained upon the ground, that the divine essence is common to both and permits the Father to dwell in and to work through the Son, and the Son to dwell in and to work through the Spirit. It should not blind us to the equally patent Scriptural fact that there are personal relations between Christ and the Holy Spirit, and work done by the latter in which Christ is the object and not the subject; John 16:14 — “He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you.” The Holy Spirit is not some thing, but some one; not aujto> , but Aujto>v; Christ’s alter ego, or other self. We should therefore make vivid our belief in the personality of Christ and of the Holy Spirit by addressing each of them frequently in the prayers we offer and in such hymns as “Jesus, lover of my soul,” and “Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove!” On the personality of the Holy Spirit, see John Owen, in Works, 3:64-92; Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:341-350.

III. THIS TRIPERSONALITY OF THE DIVINE NATURE IS NOT MERELY ECONOMIC AND TEMPORAL, BUT IS IMMANENT AND ETERNAL.

1. Scripture proof that these distinctions of personality are eternal. We prove this (a) from those passages which speak of the existence of the Word from eternity with the Father; (b) from passages asserting or implying Christ’s preexistence; (c) from passages implying intercourse between the Father and the Son before the foundation of the world; (d) from passages asserting the creation of the world by Christ; (e) from passages asserting or implying the eternity of the Holy Spirit. (a) John 1:1,2 — “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. and the Word was God”; cf. Genesis 1:1 — “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”; Philippians 2:6 — “existing in the form of God… on an equality with God.” (b) John 8:58 — “before Abraham was born, I am”; 1:18 — “the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father” R. V.); Colossians 1:15-17 — “firstborn of all creation” or “before every creature… he is before all things.” In these passages “am” and ‘is” indicate an eternal fact; the present tense expresses permanent being. Revelation 22:13,14 — “1 am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (cf. John 17:5 — “Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was”; 24 — “Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” (d) John 1:3 — “All things were made through him”; 1 Corinthians 8:6 — “one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things”; Colossians 1:13 — “ all things have been created through him and unto him”; Hebrews 1:2 — through whom also he made the worlds”; 10 — “Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands” (e) Genesis 1:2 — “the Spirit of God was brooding” — existed therefore before creation; Psalm 33:8 — “by the word of Jehovah were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath [Spirit] of his mouth”; Hebrews 9:14 — “through the eternal Spirit.”

With these passages before us, we must dissent from the statement of Dr. E. G. Robinson: “About the ontological Trinity we know absolutely nothing. The Trinity we can contemplate is simply a revealed one, one of economic manifestations. We may suppose that the ontology underlies the economic.” Scripture compels us, in our judgement, to go further than this, and to maintain that there are personal relations between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, independently of creation and of time; in other words we maintain that Scripture reveals to us a social Trinity and an intercourse of love apart from and before the existence of the universe.

Love before time implies distinctions of personality before time. There are three eternal consciousness and three eternal wills in the divine nature. We here state only the fact — the explanation of it, and its reconciliation with the fundamental unity of God is treated in our next section. We now proceed to show that the two varying systems, which ignore this tripersonality, are unscriptural and at the same time exposed to philosophical objection. 2. Errors refuted by the foregoing passages.

A. The Sabellian.

Sabellius (of Ptolemais in Pentapolis, 250) held that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are mere developments or revelations to creatures, in time, of the otherwise concealed Godhead — developments which, since creatures will always exist, are not transitory, but which at the same time are not eternal a parte ante . God as united to the creation is Father; God as united to Jesus Christ is Son; God as united to the church is Holy Spirit. The Trinity of Sabernus is therefore an economic and not an immanent Trinity — a Trinity of forms or manifestations, but not a necessary and eternal Trinity in the divine nature.

Some have interpreted Sabellius as denying that the Trinity is eternal a parte post, as well as a parte ante, and as holding that, when the purpose of these temporary manifestations is accomplished, the Triad is resolved into the Monad. This view easily merges in another, which makes the persons of the Trinity mere names for the ever-shifting phases of the divine activity.

The best statement of the Sabellian doctrine, according to the interpretation first mentioned, is that of Schleiermacher, translated with comments by Moses Stuart, in Biblical Repository, 6:1-16. The one unchanging God is differently reflected from the world on account of the world’s different receptivity. Praxeas of Rome (200) Noetus of Smyrna (230), and Beryl of Arabia (250) advocated substantially the same views.

They were called Monarchians mo>nh ajrch> , because they believed not in the Triad, but only in the Monad. They were called Patripassians, because they held that as Christ is only God in human form, and this God suffers, therefore the Father suffers. Knight, Colloquia Peripatetica, xlii, suggests a connection between Sabellianism and Emanationism. See this Compendium, on Theories, which oppose Creation.

A view, similar to that of Sabellius, was held by Horace Bushnell, in his God in Christ, 113-115, 130 sq ., 172-175, and Christ in Theology, 119, 120 — “Father, Son and Holy Spirit, being incidental to the revelation of God, may be and probably are from eternity to eternity, inasmuch as God may have revealed himself from eternity, and certainly will reveal himself so long as there are minds to know him. It may be, in fact, the nature of God to reveal himself, as truly as it is of the sun to shine or of living mind to think.” He does not deny the immanent Trinity, but simply says we know nothing about it. Yet a Trinity of Persons in the divine essence itself he called plain tri-theism. He prefers instrumental Trinity” to “‘modal Trinity” as a designation of his doctrine. The difference between Bushnell on the one hand, and Sabellius and Schleiermacher on the other, seems then to be the following: Sabellius and Schleiermacher hold that the One becomes three in the process of revelation, and the three are only media or modes of revelation. Father, Son, and Spirit are mere names applied to these modes of the divine action, there being no internal distinctions in the divine nature. This is modalism, or a modal Trinity. Bushnell stands by the Trinity of revelation alone, and protests against any constructive reasoning with regard to the immanent Trinity. Yet in his later writings he reverts to Athanasius and speaks of God as eternally “threeing himself”; see Fisher, Edwards on the Trinity,73.

Lyman Abbott, in The Outlook, proposes as illustration of the Trinity,1. the artist working on his pictures; 2. the same man teaching pupils how to paint; 3. the same man entertaining his friends at home. He has not taken on these types of conduct. They are not masks (persona), nor offices, which he takes up and lays down. There is a threefold nature in him: he is artist, teacher, and friend. God is complex, and not simple. I do not know him, till I know him in all these relations. Yet it is evident that Dr. Abbott’s view provides no basis for love or for Society within the divine nature.

The three persons are but three successive aspects or activities of the one God. General Grant, when in office, was but one person, even though he was a father, a President and a commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States.

It is evident that this theory, in whatever form it may be held, is far from satisfying the demands of Scripture. Scripture speaks of the second person of the Trinity as existing and acting before the birth of Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit as existing and acting before the formation of the church.

Both have a personal existence, eternal in the past as well as in the future — which this theory expressly denies.

A revelation that is not a self-revelation of God is not honest. Stuart:

Since God is revealed as three, he must be essentially or immanently three, back of revelation; else the revelation would not be true. Dorner: A Trinity of revelation is a misrepresentation, if there is not behind it a Trinity of nature. Twesten properly arrives at the threeness by considering, not so much what is involved in the revelation of God to us, as what is involved in the revelation of God to himself. The unscripturalness of the Sabellian doctrine is plain, if we remember that upon this view the Three cannot exist at once: when the Father says “Thou art my beloved Son” ( Luke 3:22), he is simply speaking to himself; when Christ sends the Holy Spirit, he only sends himself. John 1:1 — “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” — “sets aside the false notion that the Word become personal first at the time of creation, or at the incarnation” (Westcott, Bib. Coin. in loco ).

Mason, Faith of the Gospel,50,51 — “Sabellius claimed that the Unity became a Trinity by expansion. Fatherhood began with the world. God is not eternally Father, nor does he love eternally. We have only an impersonal, unintelligible God, who has played upon us and confused our understanding by showing himself to us under three disguises. Before creation there is no Fatherhood, even in germ.”

According to Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:269, Origen held that the Godhead might be represented by three concentric circles; the widest, embracing the whole being, is that of the Father; the next, that of the Son, which extends to the rational creation; and the narrowest is that of the Spirit, who rules in the holy men of the church. King, Reconstruction of Theology, 192, 194 — “To affirm social relations in the Godhead is to assert absolute Tri-theism… Unitarianism emphasizes the humanity of Christ, to preserve the unity of God; the true view emphasizes the divinity of Christ, to preserve the unity.”

L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 141, 287, says that three things characterize New England Trinitarianism: 1. Sabellian Patripassianism; Christ is all the Father there is, and the Holy Spirit is Christ’s continued life; 2. Consubstantiality, or community of essence, of God and man; unlike the essential difference between the created and the uncreated which Platonic dualism maintained, this theory turns moral likeness into essential likeness; 3. Philosophical monism, matter itself being but an evolution of Spirit… In the next form of the scientific doctrine of evolution, the divineness of man becomes a vital truth, and out of it arises a Christology that removes Jesus of Nazareth indeed out of the order of absolute Deity, but at the same time exalts him to a place of moral eminence that is secure and supreme.”

Against this danger of regarding Christ as a merely economic and temporary manifestation of God we can guard only by maintaining the Scriptural doctrine of an immanent Trinity. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 86, 165 — “We cannot incur any Sabellian peril while we maintain — what is fatal to Sabellianism — that that which is revealed within the divine Unity is not only a distinction of aspects or of names, but a real reciprocity of mutual relation. One ‘aspect’ cannot contemplate, or be loved by, another… Sabellianism degrades the persons of Deity into aspects. But there can be no mutual relation between aspects. The heat and the light of flame cannot severally contemplate and be in love with one another.” See Bushnell’s doctrine reviewed by Hodge, Essays and Reviews, 433-473. On the whole subject, see Dorner, Hist. Doct. Person of Christ, 2:152-169; Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 1:259; Baur, Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit, 1:256-305; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk 1:83.

B. The Arian.

Arius (of Alexandria; condemned by Council of Nice, 325) held that the Father is the only divine being absolutely without beginning; the Son and the Holy Spirit, through whom God creates and recreates, having been themselves created out of nothing before the world was; and Christ being called God, because he is next in rank to God, and is endowed by God with divine power to create.

The followers of Arius have differed as to the precise rank and claims of Christ. While Socinus held with Arius that worship of Christ was obligatory, the later Unitarians have perceived the impropriety of worshiping even the highest of created beings, and have constantly tended to a view of the Redeemer which regards him as a mere man, standing in a peculiarly intimate relation to God.

For statement of the Arian doctrine, see J. Freeman Clarke, Orthodoxy, Its Truths and Errors. Per contra, see Schaffer, in Bibliotheca Sacra, 21:1, article on Athanasius and the Arian controversy. The so-called Athanasian Creed, which Athanasius never wrote, is more properly designated as the Symbolum Quicumque is. It has also been called though facetiously, ‘the Anathemasian Creed.’ Yet no error in doctrine can be more perilous or worthy of condemnation than the error of Arius ( Corinthians 16:22 — “If any man loveth not the Lord, let him be anathema”; 1 John 2:23 “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father”; 4:3 — “every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist”). It regards Christ as called God only by courtesy, much as we give to a Lieutenant Governor the title of Governor. Before the creation of the Son, the love of God, if there could be love, was expended on himself. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism: “The Arian Christ is nothing but a heathen idol, invented to maintain a heathenish Supreme in heathen isolation from the world. The nearer the Son is pulled down towards man by the attenuation of his Godhead, the more remote from man becomes the unshared Godhead of the Father. You have an ’tre supr’me who is practically unapproachable, a mere Oneand- all, destitute of personality.”

Gore, Incarnation, 90, 91, 110, shows the immense importance of the controversy with regard to oJmoou>sion and oJmoiou>sion . Carlyle once sneered that “the Christian world was torn in pieces over a diphthong.”

But Carlyle afterwards came to see that Christianity itself was at stake, and that it would have dwindled away to a legend, if the Arians had won.

Arius appealed chiefly to logic, not to Scripture. He claimed that a Son must be younger than his Father. But he was asserting the principle of heathenism and idolatry, in demanding worship for a creature. The Goths were easily converted to Arianism. Christ was to them a hero-god, a demigod, and the later Goths would worship Christ and heathen idols impartially.

It is evident that the theory of Arius does not satisfy the demands of Scripture. A created God, a God whose existence had a beginning and therefore may come to an end, a God made of a substance which once was not, and therefore a substance different from that of the Father, is not God, but a finite creature. But the Scripture speaks of Christ as being in the beginning God, with God, and equal with God.

Luther, alluding to John 1:1, says: “‘The Word was God’ is against Arius; ‘the Word was with God’ is against Sabellius.” The Racovian Catechism, Quaes. 183, 184, 211, 236, 237, 245, 246, teaches that Christ is to be truly worshiped, and they are denied to be Christians who refuse to adore him. Davidis was persecuted and died in prison for refusing to worship Christ; and Socinus was charged, though probably unjustly, with having caused his imprisonment. Bartholomew Legate, an Essexman and an Arian was burned to death at Smithfield, March 13, 1613. King James I asked him whether he did not pray to Christ. Legate’s answer was that “indeed he had prayed to Christ in the days of his ignorance, but not for these last seven years”; which so shocked James that “he spurned at him with his foot.” At the stake Legate still refused to recant, and so was burned to ashes amid a vast conflux of people. The very next month another Arian named Whiteman was burned at Burton-on-Trent.

It required courage, even a generation later, for John Milton, in his Christian Doctrine, to declare himself a high Arian. In that treatise he teaches that “the Son of God did not exist from all eternity, is not co-eval or co-essential or co-equal with the Father, but came into existence by the will of God to be the next being to himself, the first born and best loved, the Logos or Word through whom all creation should take its beginnings.”

So Milton regards the Holy Spirit as a created being, inferior to the Son and possibly confined to our heavens and earth. Milton’s Arianism, however, is characteristic of his later, rather than his earlier, writings; compare the Ode on Christ’s Nativity with Paradise Lost, 3:383-391; and see Masson’s Life of Milton, 1:39; 6:823, 824; A. H. Strong, Great Poets and their Theology, 260-262.

Dr. Samuel Clarke, when asked whether the Father who had created could not also destroy the Son, said that he had not considered the question.

Ralph Waldo Emerson broke with his church and left the ministry because he could not celebrate the Lord’s Supper — it implied a profounder reverence for Jesus than he could give him. He wrote: “It seemed to me at church today, that the Communion Service, as it is now and here celebrated, is a document of the dullness of the race. How these, my good neighbors, the bending deacons, with their cups and plates, would have straightened themselves to sturdiness, if the proposition came before them to honor thus a fellowman”; see Cabot’s Memoir, 314. Yet Dr. Leonard Bacon said of the Unitarians that “it seemed as if their exclusive contemplation of Jesus Christ in his human character as the example for our imitation had wrought in them an exceptional beauty and Christlikeness of living.”

Chadwick, Old and New Unitarian Belief, 20, speaks of Arianism as exalting Christ to a degree of inappreciable difference from God, while Socinus looked upon him only as a miraculously endowed man, and believed in an infallible book. The term “Unitarians,” he claims, is derived from the “Uniti,” a society in Transylvania, in support of mutual toleration between Calvinists, Romanists, and Socinians. The name stuck to the advocates of the divine Unity, because they were its most active members. B. W. Lockhart: “Trinity guarantees God’s knowableness.

Arius taught that Jesus was neither human nor divine, but created in some grade of being between the two, essentially unknown to man. An absentee God made Jesus his messenger, God himself not touching the world directly at any point, and unknown and unknowable to it. Athanasius on the contrary asserted that God did not send a messenger in Christ, but came himself, so that to know Christ is really to know God who is essentially revealed in him. This gave the Church the doctrine of God immanent, or Emanuel, God knowable and actually known by men, because actually present.” Chapman, Jesus Christ and the Present Age, — “The world was never further from Unitarianism than it is to-day; we may add that Unitarianism was never further from itself.” On the doctrines of the early Socinians, see Princeton Essays, 1:195. On the whole subject, see Blunt, Dictionary of Heretical Sects, art.: Arius; Guericke, Hist. Doctrine, 1:313, 319. See also a further account of Arianism in the chapter of this Compendium on the Person of Christ.

IV. THIS TRI-PERSONALITY IS NOT TRI-THEISM; FOR, WHILE THERE ARE THREE PERSONS, THERE IS BUT ONE ESSENCE.

(a) The term ‘person’ only approximately represents the truth. Although this word more nearly than any other single word expresses the conception which the Scriptures give us of the relation between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it is not itself used in this connection in Scripture and we employ it in a qualified sense, not in the ordinary sense in which we apply the word ‘person’ to Peter, Paul, and John.

The word ‘person’ is only the imperfect and inadequate expression of a fact that transcends our experience and comprehension. Bunyan: “My dark and cloudy words, they do but hold the truth, as cabinets encase the gold.” Three Gods, limiting each other, would deprive each other of Deity.

While we show that the persons articulate the unity, it is equally important to remember that the persons are limited by the unity. With us personality implies entire separation from all others — distinct individuality. But in the one God there can be no such separation. The personal distinctions in him must be such as are consistent with essential unity. This is the merit of the statement in the Symbolum Quicumque (or Athanasian Creed, wrongly so called): “The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God; and yet there are not three Gods but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Ghost is Lord; yet there are not three Lords but one Lord. For as we are compelled by Christian truth to acknowledge each person by himself to be God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the same truth to say that there are three Gods or three Lords.” See Hagenbach, History of Doctrine, 1:270.

We add that the personality of the Godhead as a whole is separate and distinct from all others and in this respect is more fully analogous to man’s personality than is the personality of the Father or of the Son.

The church of Alexandria in the second century chanted together: “One only is holy, the Father; One only is holy, the Son; One only is holy, the Spirit.” Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 154, 167, 168 — “The three persons are neither three Gods, nor three parts of God. Rather are they God threefoldly, tri-personally… The personal distinction in Godhead is a distinction within, and of, Unity: not a distinction which qualifies Unity, or usurps the place of it, or destroys it. It is not a relation of mutual exclusiveness, but of mutual inclusiveness. No one person is or can be without the others. The personality of the supreme or absolute Being cannot be without self-contained mutuality of relations such as Will and Love. But the mutuality would not be real, unless the subject which becomes object, and the object which becomes subject, were on each side alike and equally Personal. The Unity of all-comprehending inclusiveness is a higher mode of unity than the unity of singular distinctiveness… The disciples are not to have the presence of the Spirit instead of the Son, but to have the Spirit is to have the Son. We mean by the Personal God not a limited alternative to unlimited abstracts, such as Law, Holiness, Love, but the transcendent and inclusive completeness of them all. The terms Father and Son are certainly terms which rise more immediately out of the temporal facts of the incarnation than out of the eternal relations of the divine Being. They are metaphors, however, which mean far more in the spiritual than they do in the material sphere. Spiritual hunger is more intense than physical hunger. So sin, judgments, grace, are metaphors.

But in John 1:1-18 ‘Son’ is not used, but ‘Word.’” (b) The necessary qualification is that, while three persons among men have only a specific unity of nature or essence — that is, have the same species of nature or essence — the persons of the Godhead have a numerical unity of nature or essence — that is, have the same nature or essence. The undivided essence of the Godhead belongs equally to each of the persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each possesses all the substance and all the attributes of Deity. The plurality of the Godhead is therefore not a plurality of essence, but a plurality of hypostatical, or personal, distinctions. God is not three and one, but three in one. The one indivisible essence has three modes of subsistence.

The Trinity is not simply a partnership, in which each member can sign the name of the firm; for this is unity of council and operation only, not of essence. God’s nature is not an abstract but an organic unity. God, as living, cannot be a mere Monad. Trinity is the organism of the Deity. The one divine Being exists in three modes. The life of the vine makes itself known in the life of the branches, and this union between vine and branches Christ uses to illustrate the union between the Father and himself. (See John 15:10 — “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love”; cf. verse 5 — “I am the vine, ye are the branches; he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit”; 17:22,23 — “That they may be one, even as we are one; in them, and thou in me.”) So, in the organism of the body, the arm has its own life, a different life from that of the head or the foot, yet has this only by partaking of the life of the whole. See Dorner, System of Doctrine, 1:450-453 — “The one divine personality is so present in each of the distinctions, that these, which singly and by themselves would not he personal, yet do participate in the one divine personality, each in its own manner. This one divine personality is the unity of the three modes of subsistence which participate in itself. Neither is personal without the others. In each, in its manner, is the whole Godhead.”

The human body is a complex rather than a simple organism, a unity that embraces an indefinite number of subsidiary and dependent organisms.

The one life of the body manifests itself in the life of the nervous system, the life of the circulatory system, and the life of the digestive system. The complete destruction of either one of these systems destroys the other two.

Psychology as well as physiology reveals to us the possibility of a threefold life within the bounds of a single being, in the individual man there is sometimes a double and even a triple consciousness. Herbert Spencer, Autobiography, 1:459; 2:204 — “Most active minds have, I presume, more or less frequent experiences of double consciousness — one consciousness seeming to take note of what the other is about, and to applaud or blame.” He mentions an instance in his own experience. “May there not be possible a high cerebral thinking, as there is a binocular vision? In these cases it seems as though there were going on, quite apart from the consciousness which seemed to constitute myself, some process of elaborating coherent thoughts — as though one part of myself was an independent originator over whose sayings and doings I had no control, and which were nevertheless in great measure consistent; while the other part of myself was a passive spectator or listener, quite unprepared for many of the things that the first part said, and which were nevertheless, though unexpected, not illogical.” This fact that there can be more than one consciousness in the same personality among men should make us slow to deny that there can be three consciousness in the one God.

Humanity at large is also an organism, and this fact lends new confirmation to the Pauline statement of organic interdependence. Modern sociology is the doctrine of one life constituted by the union of many. “Unus homo, nullus homo” is a principle of ethics as well as of sociology.

No man can have a conscience to himself. The moral life of one results from and is interpenetrated by the moral life of all. All men moreover live, move and have their being in God. Within the bounds of the one universal and divine consciousness there are multitudinous finite consciousness.

Why then should it be thought incredible that in the nature of this one God there should be three infinite consciousness? Baldwin, Psychology, 53, — “The integration of finite consciousness in an all embracing divine consciousness may find a valid analogy in the integration of subordinate consciousness in the unit personality of man. In the hypnotic state, multiple consciousness may be induced in the same nervous organism. In insanity there is a secondary consciousness at war with that which normally dominates.” Schurman, Belief in God,26, 161 — “The infinite Spirit may include the finite, as the idea of a single organism embraces within a single life a plurality of members and functions… all souls are parts or functions of the eternal life of God, who is above all, and through all, and in all, and in whom we live, and move, and have our being.” We would draw the conclusion that, as in the body and soul of man, both as an individual and as a race, there is diversity in unity, so in the God in whose image man is made, there is diversity in unity, and a triple consciousness and will are consistent with, and even find their perfection in, a single essence.

By the personality of God we mean more than we mean when we speak of the personality of the Son and the personality of the Spirit. The personality of the Godhead is distinct and separate from all others, and is, in this respect, like that of man. Hence Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:394, says “it is preferable to speak of the personality of the essence rather than of the person of the essence; because the essence is not one person, but three persons. The divine essence cannot be at once three persons and one person, if ‘person’ is employed in one signification; but it can be at once three persons and one personal Being.” While we speak of the one God as having a personality in which there arc three persons, we would not call this personality a super-personality, if this latter term is intended to intimate that God’s personality is less than the personality of man. The personality of the Godhead is inclusive rather than exclusive.

With this qualification we may assent to the words of D’Arcy, Idealism and Theology, 93, 94, 218, 230, 254 — “The innermost truth of things, God, must be conceived as personal; but the ultimate Unity, which is his, must be believed to be super-personal. It is a unity of persons, not a personal unity. For us personality is the ultimate form of unity. It is not so in him. For in him all persons live and move and have their being… God is personal and also super-personal. In him there is a transcendent unity that can embrace a personal multiplicity… there is in God an ultimate super-personal unity in which all persons are one — [all human persons and the three divine persons]. Substance is more real than quality and subject is more real than substance. The most real of all is the concrete totality, the all-inclusive Universal… What human love strives to accomplish — the overcoming of the opposition of person to person — is perfectly attained in the divine Unity… The presupposition on which philosophy is driven back — [that persons have an underlying ground of unity] is identical with that which underlies Christian theology.” See Pfleiderer and Lotze on personality, in this Compendium, p. 104. (c) This oneness of essence explains the fact that, while Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as respects their personality, are distinct subsistences, there is an inter-communion of persons and an immanence of one divine person in another, which permits the peculiar work of one to be ascribed, with a single limitation, to either of the others, and the manifestation of one to be recognized in the manifestation of another. The limitation is simply this, that although the Son was sent by the Father and the Spirit by the Father and the Son, it cannot be said vice versa that the Father is sent either by the Son, or by the Spirit. The Scripture representations of this intercommunion prevent us from conceiving of the distinctions called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as involving separation between them.

Dorner adds that “in one is each of the others.” This is true with the limitation mentioned in the text above. Whatever Christ does, God the Father can be said to do; for God acts only in and through Christ the Revealer. Whatever the Holy Spirit does, Christ can be said to do; for the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit is the omnipresent Jesus, and Bengel’s dictum is true: “Ubi Spiritus, ibi Christus.” Passages illustrating this inter-communion are the following: Genesis 1:1 — “God created”; cf. Hebrews 1:2 — “through whom [the Son] also he made the worlds”; John 5:17,19 — “My Father worketh even until now, and I work… The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing; for what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner”; 14:9 — “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father”; 11 — “I am in the Father and the Father in me”; 18 — “I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you” (by the Holy Spirit); 15:26 — “when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth”; 17:21 — “that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee”; 2 Corinthians 5:19 — “God was in Christ reconciling”; Titus 2:10 — “God our Savior”; Hebrews 12:23 — “God the Judge of all’: cf. John 5:22 — “neither doth the Father judge any man, but he hath given all judgment unto the Son”; Acts 17:31 — “judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained.”

It is this inter-communion, together with the order of personality and operation to be mentioned hereafter, which explains the occasional use of the term ‘Father’ for the whole Godhead; as in Ephesians 4:6 — “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all [in Christ], and in you all” [by the Spirit]. This inter-communion also explains the designation of Christ as “the Spirit,” and of the Spirit as “the Spirit of Christ,” as in 1 Corinthians 15:45 “the last Adam became a life giving Spirit”; 2 Corinthians 3:17 — “Now the Lord is the Spirit”; Galatians 4:6 — “sent forth the Spirit of his Son”; Philippians 1:19 — “supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (see Alford and Lange on 2 Corinthians 5:17,18). So the Lamb, in Revelations 5:6, has “seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth” = the Holy Spirit, with his manifold powers, is the Spirit of the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Christ. Theologians have designated this inter-communion by the terms pericw>rhsiv , circumincessio, intercommunicatio, circulatio and inexistentia. The word oujsi>a was used to denote essence, substance, nature, being; and the words pro>swpon and uJpo>stasiv for person, distinction, mode of subsistence. On the changing uses of the words pro>swpon and uJpo>stasiv , see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:321, note 2. On the meaning of the word ‘person’ in connection with the Trinity, see John Howe, Calm Discourse of the Trinity; Jonathan Edwards, Observations on the Trinity; Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:194, 267-275, 299, 300.

The Holy Spirit is Christ’s alter ego, or other self. When Jesus went away, it was an exchange of his presence for his omnipresence; an exchange of limited for unlimited power; an exchange of companionship for indwelling. Since Christ comes to men in the Holy Spirit, he speaks through the apostles as authoritatively as if his own lips uttered the words.

Each believer, in having the Holy Spirit, has the whole Christ for his own; see A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit. Gore, Incarnation, 218 — “The persons of the Holy Trinity are not separable individuals. Each involves the others; the coming of each is the coining of the others. Thus the coming of the Spirit must have involved the coming of the Son. But the specialty of the Pentecostal gift appears to be the coming of the Holy Spirit out of the uplifted and glorified manhood of the incarnate Son. The Spirit is the life giver, but the life with which he works in the church is the life of the Incarnate, the life of Jesus.”

Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 85 — “For centuries upon centuries, the essential unity of God had been burnt and branded in upon the consciousness of Israel. It had to be completely established first, as a basal element of thought, indispensable, unalterable, before there could begin the disclosure to man of the reality of the eternal relations within the one indivisible being of God. And when the disclosure came, it came not as modifying, but as further interpreting and illumining, that unity which it absolutely presupposed.” E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology. 238 — “There is extreme difficulty in giving any statement of a tri-unity that shall not verge upon tri-theism on the one hand, or upon mere modalism on the other. It was very natural that Calvin should be charged with Sabellianism, and John Howe with tri-theism.”

V. THE THREE PERSONS, FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT, ARE EQUAL

In explanation, notice that: 1. These titles belong to the Persons. (a) The Father is not God as such; for God is not only Father but also Son and Holy Spirit. The term ‘Father’ designates that hypo-statically distinction in the divine nature in virtue of which God is related to the Son, and through the Son and the Spirit to the church and the world. As author of the believer’s spiritual as well as natural life, God is doubly his Father; but this relation which God sustains to creatures is not the ground of the title. God is Father primarily in virtue of the relation which he sustains to the eternal Son; only as we are spiritually united to Jesus Christ do we become children of God. (b) The Son is not God as such; for God is not only Son, but also Father and Holy Spirit. ‘The Son’ designates that distinction in virtue of which God is related to the Father, is sent by the Father to redeem the world and with the Father sends the Holy Spirit. (c) The Holy Spirit is not God as such; for God is not only Holy Spirit, but also Father and Son. ‘The Holy Spirit’ designates that distinction in virtue of which God is related to the Father and the Son, and is sent by them to accomplish the work of renewing the ungodly and of sanctifying the church.

Neither of these names designates the Monad as such. Each designates rather that personal distinction which forms the eternal basis and ground for a particular self-revelation. In the sense of being the Author and Provider of men’s natural life, God Is the Father of all. But Jesus Christ mediates even this natural sonship; see 1 Corinthians 8:6 — “one Lord, Jesus Christ through whom are all things, and we through him. The phrase “Our Father’ however, can be used with the highest truth only by the regenerate, who have been newly born of God by being united to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. See Galatians 2:26 — “For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Jesus Christ” 4:4-6 — “God sent forth his Son… that we might receive the adoption of sons… sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hears, crying, Abba, Father”; Ephesians 1:5 — “foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.” God’s love for Christ is the measure of his love for those who are one with Christ. Human nature in Christ is lifted up into the life and communion of the eternal Trinity. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:306- 310.

Human fatherhood is a reflection of the divine, not, vice versa, the divine a reflection of the human; cf. Ephesians 3:14,15 — “the Father from whom every fatherhood patri>a in heaven and on earth is named.”

Chadwick, Unitarianism, 77-83, makes the name ‘Father’ only a symbol for the great Cause of organic evolution, the Author of all being. But we may reply with Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, and 177 — “to know God outside of the sphere of redemption is not to know him in the deeper meaning of the term ‘Father’. It is only through the Son that we know the Father: Matthew 11:27 ‘Neither doth any know the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him.’” Whiton, Gloria Patri, 38 — “The Unseen can be known only by the seen which comes forth from it. The all-generating or Paternal Life, which is hidden from us, can be known only by the generated or Filial Life in which it reveals itself. The goodness and righteousness, which inhabits eternity, can be known only by the goodness and righteousness, which issues from it in time successive births of time. God above the world is made known only by God in the world. God transcendent, the Father, is revealed by God immanent, the Son.” Faber: “O marvelous, O worshipful! No song or sound is heard, But everywhere and every hour, In love, in wisdom and in power the Father speaks his dear eternal Word.”

We may interpret this, as meaning that self-expression is a necessity of nature to an infinite Mind. The Word is therefore eternal. Christ is the mirror, from which are flashed upon us the rays of the hidden Luminary.

So Principal Fairbairn says: “Theology must be on its historical side Christocentric, but on its doctrinal side Theocentric.”

Salmond, Expositor’s Greek Testament, on Ephesians 1:5 — “By ‘adoption’ Paul does not mean the bestowal of the full privileges of the family on those who are sons by nature, but the acceptance into the family of those who are not sons originally and by right in the relation proper of those who are sons by birth. Hence uiJoqesi>a is never affirmed of Christ, for he alone is Son of God by nature. So Paul regards our sonship, not as lying in the natural relation in which men stand to God as his children, but as implying a new relation of grace, founded on a covenant relation of God and on the work of Christ ( Galatians 4:5 sq .).” 2. Qualified sense of these titles.

Like the word ‘person’, the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not to be confined within the precise limitations of meaning, which would be required if they were applied to men. (a) The Scriptures enlarge our conceptions of Christ’s Sonship by giving to him in his preexistent state the names of the Logos, the Image, and the Effulgence of God. The term ‘Logos’ combines in itself the two ideas of thought and word, of reason and expression. While the Logos as divine thought or reason is one with God, the Logos as divine word or expression is distinguishable from God. Words are the means by which personal beings express or reveal themselves. Since Jesus Christ was “the Word” before there were any creatures to whom revelations could be made, it would seem to be only a necessary inference from this title that in Christ God must be from eternity expressed or revealed to himself; in other words, that the Logos is the principle of truth, or self-consciousness, in God. The term ‘Image’ suggests the ideas of copy or counterpart. Man is the image of God only relatively and derivatively. Christ is the Image of God absolutely and archetypally. As the perfect representation of the Father’s perfections, the Son would seem to be the object and principle of love in the Godhead. The term ‘Effulgence,’ finally, is an allusion to the sun and its radiance. As the effulgence of the sun manifests the sun’s nature, which otherwise would be unrevealed, yet is inseparable from the sun and ever one with it, so Christ reveals God, but is eternally one with God. Here is a principle of movement, of will, which seems to connect itself with the holiness, or self-asserting purity, of the divine nature.

Smyth, Introduction to Edwards’ Observations on the Trinity: “The ontological relations of the person of the Trinity are not a mere blank to human thought.” John 1:1 — “In the beginning was the Word” — means more than “in the beginning was the x, or the zero.” Godet indeed says that Logos = ‘reason’ only in philosophical writings, but never in the Scriptures. He calls this a Hegelian notion. But both Plato and Philo had made this signification a common one. On lo>gov as reason + speech, see Lightfoot on Colossians, 143, 144. Meyer interprets it as “personal subsistence, the self-revelation of the divine essence, before all time immanent in God.” Neander, Planting and Training, 369 — Logos = “the eternal Revealer of the divine essence.” Bushnell: “Mirror of creative imagination”; “form of God.”

Word = 1. Expression; 2. Definite expression; 3. Ordered expression; 4.

Complete expression. We make thought definite by putting it into language. So God’s wealth of ideas is in the Word formed into an ordered Kingdom, a true Cosmos; see Mason Faith of the Gospel,76. Max Muller: “A word is simply spoken thought made audible as sound. Take away from a word the sound and what is left is simply the thought of it.”

Whiton, Gloria Patri, 72, 73 — “The Greek saw in the word the abiding thought behind the passing form. The Word was God and yet finite — finite only as to form; infinite as to what the form suggests or expresses.

By Word, some form must be meant, and any form is finite. The Word is the form taken by the infinite Intelligence which transcends all forms.” We regard this identification of the Word with the finite manifestation of the Word as contradicted by John 1:1, where the Word is represented as being with God before creation, and by Philippians 2:6, where the Word is represented as existing in the form of God before his selflimitation in human nature. Scripture requires us to believe in an objectification of God to himself in the person of the Word prior to any finite manifestation of God to men. Christ existed as the Word, and the Word was with God, before the Word was made flesh and before the world came into being; in other words, the Logos was the eternal principle of truth or self-consciousness in the nature of God, Passages representing Christ as the Image of God are Colossians 1:15 — “who is the image of the invisible God”; 2 Corinthians 4:4 — “Christ who is the image of God” eijkw>n ; Hebrews 1:3 — “the very image of his substance” carakthsewv aujtou~; here carakth>r means ‘impress,’ ‘counterpart.’ Christ is the perfect image of God, as men are not. He therefore has consciousness and will. He possesses all the attributes and powers of God. The word ‘Image’ suggests the perfect equality with God, which the title ‘Son ‘might at first seem to deny. The living Image of God which is equal to himself and is the object of his infinite love can be nothing less than personal. As the bachelor can never satisfy his longing for companionship by lining his room with mirrors which furnish only a lifeless reflection of himself, so God requires for his love a personal as well as an infinite object. The Image is not precisely the repetition of the original. The stamp from the seal is not precisely the reproduction of the seal. The letters on the seal run backwards and can be easily read only when the impression is before us. So Christ is the only interpretation and revelation of the hidden Godhead. As only in love do we come to know the depths of our own being, so it is only in the Son that “God is love” ( 1 John 4:8).

Christ is spoken of as the Effulgence of God in Hebrews 1:3 — “who being the effulgence of his glory” ajpau>gasma th~v do>xhv ; cf. Corinthians 4:6 — “shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Notice that the radiance of the sun is as old as the sun itself, and without it the sun would not be sun. So Christ is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. Psalm 84:11 — “Jehovah God is a sun.” But we cannot see the sun except by the sunlight. Christ is the sunlight which streams forth from the Sun and which makes the Sun visible. If there be an eternal Sun, there must be also an eternal Sunlight, and Christ must be eternal. Westcott on Hebrews 1:3 — “The use of the absolute timeless term w=n, ‘being’, guards against the thought that the Lord’s sonship was by adoption, and not by nature. ajpau>gasma does not express personality, and carakth>r does not express co-essentiality. The two words are related exactly as oJmoou>siov and monogenh>v , and like those must be combined to give the fullness of the truth. The truth expressed thus antithetically holds good absolutely… In Christ the essence of God is made distinct; in Christ the revelation of God’s character is seen.” On Edwards’s view of the Trinity, together with his quotations from Ramsey’s Philosophical Principles, from which he seems to have derived important suggestions, see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 338-376; G. P. Fisher, Edwards’s Essay on the Trinity, 110- 116. (b) The names thus given to the second person of the Trinity, if they have any significance, bring him before our minds in the general aspect of Revealer, and suggest a relation of the doctrine of the Trinity to God’s immanent attributes of truth, love, and holiness. The prepositions used to describe the internal relations of the second person to the first are not prepositions of rest, but prepositions of direction and movement. The Trinity, as the organism of Deity, secures a life movement of the Godhead, a process in which God evermore objectifies himself and in the Son gives forth of his fullness. Christ represents the centrifugal action of the deity.

But there must be centripetal action also. In the Holy Spirit the movement is completed, and the divine activity and thought returns into itself. True religion, in reuniting us to God, reproduces in us, in our limited measure, this eternal process of the divine mind. Christian experience witnesses that God in himself is unknown; Christ is the organ of external revelation; the Holy Spirit is the organ of internal revelation — only he can give us an inward apprehension or realization of the truth. It is “through the eternal Spirit” that Christ “offered himself without blemish unto God,” and it is only through the Holy Spirit that the church has access to the Father, or fallen creatures can return to God.

Here we see that God is Life, self-sufficient Life, and infinite Life, of which the life of the universe is but a faint reflection, a rill from the fountain, a drop from the ocean. Since Christ is the only Revealer, the only outgoing principle in the Godhead, it is he in whom the whole creation comes to be and holds together. He is the Life of nature: all natural beauty and grandeur, all forces molecular and molar, all laws of gravitation and evolution, are the work and manifestation of the omnipresent Christ. He is the Life of humanity: the intellectual and moral impulses of man, so far as they are normal and uplifting, are due to Christ; he is the principle of progress and improvement in history. He is the Life of the church: the one and only Redeemer and spiritual Head of the race is also its Teacher and Lord.

All objective revelation of God is the work of Christ but all subjective manifestation of God is the work of the Holy Spirit. As Christ is the principle of outgoing, so the Holy Spirit is the principle of return to God.

God would take up finite creatures into himself, would breath into them his breath and would teach them to launch their little boats upon the infinite current of his life. Our electric cars can go up hill at great speed so long as they grip the cable. Faith is the grip, which connects us with the moving energy of God. “The universe is homeward bound” because the Holy Spirit is ever turning objective revelation into subjective revelation and is leading men consciously or unconsciously to appropriate the thought and love and purpose of Him, in whom all things find their object and end; “for of him and through him and unto him are all things”( Romans 11:36) — here there is allusion to the Father as the source, the Son as the medium, and the Spirit as the perfecting and completing agent, in God’s operations. But all these external processes are only signs and finite reflections of a life process internal to the nature of God.

Meyer on John 1:1 — “the Word was with God”: “pron does not = para< tw~| qew~| , but expresses the existence of the Logos in God in respect of intercourse. The moral essence of this essential fellowship is love, which excludes any merely modalistic conception.”

Marcus Dods, Expositor’s Greek Testament, ‘in loco : “This preposition implies intercourse and therefore separate personality.”

Mason, Faith of the Gospel,62 — “And the Word was toward God” = his face is not outwards, as if he were merely revealing, or waiting to reveal, God to the creation. His face is turned inwards. His whole Person is directed toward God, motion corresponding to motion, thought to thought… in him God stands revealed to himself. Contrast the attitude of fallen Adam, with his face averted from God. Godet, on John 1:1 — “ Pron intimates not only personality but movement… the tendency of the Logos ad extra rests upon an anterior and essential relation ad intra. To reveal God one must know him; to project him outwardly, one must have plunged into his bosom.” Compare John 1:18 — “the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father” (R.

V.) where we find, not ejn tw~| ko>lpw| , but eijv tolpon . As, h=n eijv thlin means ‘went into the city and was there,’ so the use of these prepositions indicates in the Godhead movement as well as rest. Dorner, System of Doctrine, 3:193, translates pro>v by ‘hingewandt zu,’ or turned toward.’ The preposition would then imply that the Revealer, who existed in the beginning, was ever over against God, in the life process of the Trinity, as the perfect objectification of himself. “Das Aussichselbstsein kraft des Durchsichselbstsein mit dem Fursichselbstsein zusammenschliesst.” Dorner speaks of “das Aussensichoderineinemandernsein; Sichgeltendmachen des Ausgeschlossenen; Sichnichtsogesetzt- haben; Stehenbleibenwollen.”

There is in all human intelligence a three-foldness which points toward a Trinitarian life in God. We can distinguish a Wissen, a Bewusstsein, a Selbstbewusstsein. In complete self-consciousness there are the three elements:1. We are ourselves; 2. We form a picture of ourselves; 3. We recognize this picture as the picture of ourselves. The little child speaks of himself in the third person: “Baby did it.” The objective comes before the subject; “me” comes first, and “I” is a later development “himself” still holds its place, rather than “heself.” But this duality belongs only to undeveloped intelligence; it is characteristic of the animal creation; we revert to it in our dreams; the insane are permanent victims of it; and since sin is moral insanity, the sinner has no hope until, like the prodigal, he “comes to himself” ( Luke 15:17). The insane person is mente alienatus, and we call physicians for the insane by the name of alienists.

Mere duality gives us only the notion of separation. Perfect selfconsciousness whether in man or in God requires a third unifying element.

And in God mediation between the “I” and the “Thou “must be the work of a Person also, and the Person who mediates between the two must be in all respects the equal of either, or he could not adequately interpret the one to the other; see Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 57-59.

Shedd, Dogm. Theol, 1:179-189, 276-283 — “It is one of the effects of conviction by the Holy Spirit to convert consciousness into selfconsciousness… conviction of sin is the consciousness of self as the guilty author of sin. Self-consciousness is trinal, while mere consciousness is dual… one and the same human spirit subsists in two modes or distinctions — subject and object. The three hypostatical consciousness in their combination and unity constitute the one consciousness of God… as the three persons make one essence.”

Dorner considers the internal relations of the Trinity (System, 1:412 sq .) in three aspects: 1. Physical. God is causa sui . But effect that equals cause must itself be causative. Here would be duality, were it not for a third principle of unity.

Trinitas dualitatem ad unitatem reducit. 2. Logical. Self-consciousness sets self over against self, yet the thinker must not regard self as one of many, and call himself ‘he,’ as children do; for the thinker would then be, not self-conscious, but mente alienatus, beside himself.’ He therefore ‘comes to himself’ in a third, as the brute cannot. 3. Ethical. God = self-willing right. But right based on arbitrary will is not right. Right based on passive nature is not right either. Right as being = Father. Right as willing = Son. Without the latter principle of freedom, we have a dead ethic, a dead God, an enthroned necessity. God finds the unity of necessity and freedom, as by the Christian, in the Holy Spirit.

The Father = I; the Son = Me; the Spirit the unity of the two; see C. C.

Everett, Essays, Theological and Literary, 32. There must be not only Sun and Sunlight but also an Eye to behold the Light. William James, in his Psychology, distinguishes the Me, the self as known, from the I, the self as knower.

But we need still further to distinguish a third principle, a subject-object, from both subject and Object. The subject cannot recognize the object as one with itself except through a unifying principle, which can be distinguished from both. We may therefore regard the Holy Spirit as the principle of self-consciousness in man as well as in God. As there was a natural union of Christ with humanity prior to his redeeming work, so there is a natural union of the Holy Spirit with all men prior to his regenerating work: Job 32:13 — “there is a spirit in man, And the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding” Kuyper, Work of the Holy Spirit, teaches that the Holy Spirit constitutes the principle of life in all living things, and animates all rational beings, as well as regenerates and sanctifies the elect of God. Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 75, remarks on Job 34:14,15 — “If he gather unto himself his Spirit and his breath; all flesh shall perish together” — that the Spirit is not only necessary to man’s salvation, but also to keep up even man’s natural life.

Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:172, speaks of the Son as the centrifugal, while the Holy Spirit is the centripetal movement of the Godhead. God apart from Christ is unrevealed ( John 1:18 — “No man hath seen God at any time”); Christ is the organ of external revelation (18 — “the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”); the Holy Spirit is the organ of internal revelation ( 1 Corinthians 2:10 — “unto us Christ revealed them through the Spirit”). That the Holy Spirit is the principle of all movement towards God appears from Hebrews 9:14 — Christ “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God”; Ephesians 2:28 — “access in one Spirit unto the Father”; Romans 8:26 — “the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity… the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us”; John 4:24 — “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit”; 16:8-11 — “convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” See Twesten, Dogmatik, on the Trinity; also Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:111. Mason, Faith of the Gospel,68 — “It is the joy of the Son to receive, his gladness to welcome most those wishes of the Father which will cost most to himself. The Spirit also has his joy in making known — in perfecting fellowship and keeping the eternal love alive by that incessant sounding of the deeps which makes the heart of the Father known to the Son, and the heart of the Son known to the Father.” We may add that the Holy Spirit is the organ of internal revelation even to the Father and to the Son. (c) In the light of what has been said, we may understand somewhat more fully the characteristic differences between the work of Christ and that of the Holy Spirit. We may sum them up in the four statements that, first, all outgoing seems to be the work of Christ, all return to God the work of the Spirit; secondly, Christ is the organ of external revelation, the Holy Spirit the organ of internal revelation; thirdly, Christ is our advocate in heaven, the Holy Spirit is our advocate in the soul; fourthly, in the work of Christ we are passive, in the work of the Spirit we are active. Of the work of Christ we shall treat more fully hereafter, in speaking of his Offices as Prophet, Priest, and King. The work of the Holy Spirit will be treated when we come to speak of the Application of Redemption in Regeneration and Sanctification. Here it is sufficient to say that the Holy Spirit is represented in the Scriptures as the author of life — in creation, in the conception of Christ, in regeneration, in resurrection; and as the giver of light — in the inspiration of Scripture writers, in the conviction of sinners, in the illumination and sanctification of Christians. Genesis 1:2 — “The Spirit of God was brooding”; Luke 1:35 — to Mary: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee”. John 3:8 — “born of the Spirit”; Ezekial 37:9, 14 — “Come from the four winds, O breath… I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live”; Romans 8:11 — “give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit.” 1 John 2:1 — “an advocate para>klhton with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”; John 14:16,17 — “another Comforter para>klhton that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth”; Romans 8:26 — “the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us. 2 Peter 1:21 — “men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit”; John 16:8 — “convict the world in respect of sin”; 13 — “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth”; Romans 8:14 — “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

McCosh: The works of the Spirit are Conviction, Conversion, Sanctification and Comfort. Donovan: The Spirit is the Spirit of conviction, enlightenment and quickening in the sinner; and of revelation, remembrance, witness, sanctification and consolation to the saint. The Spirit enlightens the sinner, as the flash of lightning lights the traveler stumbling on the edge of a precipice at night; enlightens the Christian, as the rising sun reveals a landscape which was all there before but which was hidden from sight until the great luminary made it visible. “The morning light did not create The lovely prospect it revealed; It only showed the real state Of what the darkness had concealed.” Christ’s advocacy before the throne is like that of legal counsel pleading in our stead; the Holy Spirit’s advocacy in the heart is like the mother s teaching her child to pray for himself.

J. W. A. Stewart: “Without the work of the Holy Spirit redemption would have been impossible, as impossible as that fuel should warm without being lighted, or that bread should nourish without being eaten. Christ is God entering into human history, but without the Spirit Christianity would be only history. The Holy Spirit is God entering into human hearts. The Holy Spirit turns creed into life. Christ is the physician who leaves the remedy and then departs. The Holy Spirit is the nurse who applies and administers the remedy, and who remains with the patient until the cure is completed.” Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 78 — “It is in vain that the mirror exists in the room, if it is lying on its face; the sunbeams cannot reach it till its face is upturned to them. Heaven lies about thee not only in thine infancy but at all times. But it is not enough that a place is prepared for thee; thou must be prepared for the place. It is not enough that thy light has come; thou thyself must arise and shine. No outward shining can reveal, unless thou art thyself a reflector of its glory. The Spirit must set thee on thy feet, that thou mayest hear him that speaks to thee ( Ezekiel 2:2).”

The Holy Spirit reveals not himself but Christ. John 16:14 — “He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you.”

So should the servants of the Spirit hide themselves while they make known Christ. E. H. Johnson, The Holy Spirit,40 — “Some years ago a large steam engine all of glass was exhibited about the country. When it was at work one would see the piston and the valves go; but no one could see what made them go. When steam is hot enough to be a continuous elastic vapor, it is invisible.” So we perceive the presence of the Holy Spirit, not by visions or voices, but by the effect he produces within us in the shape of new knowledge, new love and new energy of our own powers. Denney, Studies in Theology, 161 — “No man can bear witness to Christ and to himself at the same time. Espirit is fatal to unction; no man can give the impression that he himself is clever and also that Christ is mighty to save. The power of the Holy Spirit is felt only when the witness is unconscious of self, and when others remain unconscious of him.” Moule, Veni Creator, 8 — “The Holy Spirit, as Tertullian says, is the vicar of Christ. The night before the Cross, the Holy Spirit was present to the mind of Christ as a person.”

Gore, in Lux Mundi, 318 — “It was a point in the charge against Origen that his language seemed to involve an exclusion of the Holy Spirit from nature, and a limitation of his activity to the church. The whole of life is certainly his. And yet, because his special attribute is holiness, it is in rational natures, which alone are capable of holiness, that he exerts his special influence. A special in-breathing of the divine Spirit gave to man his proper being.” See Genesis 3:7 — “Jehovah God… breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man become a living soul” John 3:8 — “The Spirit breatheth where it will… so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” E. H. Johnson, on The Offices of the Holy Spirit, in Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1892: 381-382 — “Why is he specially called the Holy, when Father and Son are also holy, unless because he produces holiness, i.e., makes the holiness of God to be ours individually? Christ is the principle of collectivism, the Holy Spirit the principle of individualism. The Holy Spirit shows man the Christ in him. God above all = Father; God through all = Son; God in all = Holy Spirit ( Ephesians 4:6).”

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit has never yet been scientifically unfolded.

No treatise on it has appeared comparable to Julius Muller’s Doctrine of Sin, or to I. A. Dorner’s History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ.

The progress of doctrine in the past has been marked by successive stages. Athanasius treated of the Trinity, Augustine of sin, Anselm of the atonement, Luther of justification, Wesley of regeneration and each of these unfolding of doctrine has been accompanied by religious awakening.

We still wait for a complete discussion of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and believe that widespread revivals will follow the recognition of the omnipotent Agent in revivals. On the relations of the Holy Spirit to Christ, see Owen in Works, 3:152-159; on the Holy Spirit’s nature and work, see works by Faber, Smeaton, Tophel, G. Campbell Morgan, J. D.

Robertson, Biederwolf; also C. E. Smith, The Baptism of Fire; J. D.

Thompson, The Holy Comforter; Bushnell, Forgiveness and Law, last chapter Bp. Andrews, Works, 3:107-400; James S. Candish, Work of the Holy Spirit; Redford, Vox Dei; Andrew Murray, The Spirit of Christ; A.

J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit; Kuyper, Work of the Holy Spirit; J. E.

Cumming, Through the Eternal Spirit; Lechler, Lehre vom Heiligen Geiste; Arthur, Tongue of Fire; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 250-258, and Christ in Creation, 297-313. 3. Generation and procession consistent with equality.

That the Sonship of Christ is eternal, is intimated in Psalm 2:7. “This day have I begotten thee” is most naturally interpreted as the declaration of an eternal fact in the divine nature. Neither the incarnation, the baptism, the transfiguration nor the resurrection marks the beginning of Christ’s Sonship or constitutes him Son of God. These are but a recognition or manifestation of a preexisting Sonship inseparable from his Godhood. He is “born before every creature” (while yet no created thing existed — see Meyer on Colossians 1:15) and “by the resurrection of the dead” is not made to be, but only “declared to be,” “according to the Spirit of holiness” ( = according to his divine nature) “the Son of God with power” (see Philippi and Alford on Romans 1:3,4). This Sonship is unique — not predicable of, or shared with, any creature. The Scriptures intimate, not only an eternal generation of the Son but also an eternal procession of the Spirit. Psalm 2:7 — “I will tell of the decree: Jehovah said unto me, Thou art my Son; This day I have begotten thee” see Alexander, Com. in loco; also Com. on Acts 13:33 — “‘Today’ refers to the date of the decree itself; but this, as a divine act, was eternal — and so must be the Sonship which it affirms.” Philo says that “today” with God means “forever.” This begetting of which the Psalm speaks is not the resurrection for while Paul in Acts 13:33 refers to this Psalm to establish the fact of Jesus’ Sonship, he refers in Acts 13:34,35 to another Psalm, the sixteenth, to establish the fact that this Son of God was to rise from the dead. Christ is shown to be Son of God by his incarnation ( Hebrews 1:5,6 — “when he again bringeth in the firstborn into the world he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him”), his baptism ( Matthew 3:17 — “This is my beloved Son”), his transfiguration ( Matthew 17:5 — “This is my beloved Son”), his resurrection ( Acts 13:34,35 — “as concerning that he raised him up from the dead… he saith also in another psalm, Thou wilt not give thy Holy One to see corruption”). Colossians 1:15 — “the firstborn of all creation” — prwto>tokov pa>shv kti>sewv = “begotten first before all creation” (Julius Muller, Proof-texts, 14); or “first-born before every creature, i.e., begotten, and that antecedently to everything that was created” (Ellicott, Com. in loco). “Herein” (says Luthardt, Compend. Dogmatik, 81, on Colossians 1:15) “is indicated an ante-mundane origin from God — a relation internal to the divine nature.” Lightfoot, on Colossians 1:15, says that in Rabbi Bechai God is called the “primogenitus mundi.” On Romans 1:4 oJrisqe>ntov = “manifested to be the mighty Son of God”) see Lange’s Com., notes by Schaff on pages 56 and 61. Bruce, Apologetics, 404 — “The resurrection was the actual introduction of Christ into the full possession of divine Sonship so far as thereto belonged, not only the inner of a holy spiritual essence, but also the outer of an existence in power and heavenly glory.” Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 353, 354 — “Calvin waves aside eternal generation as an ‘absurd fiction.’

But to maintain the deity of Christ merely on the ground that it is essential to his making an adequate atonement for sin is to involve the rejection of his deity if ever the doctrine of atonement becomes obnoxious… such was the process by which, in the mind of the last century, the doctrine of the Trinity was undermined. Not to ground the distinctions of the divine essence by some immanent eternal necessity was to make easy the denial of what has been called the ontological Trinity, and then the rejection of the economical Trinity was not difficult or far away.”

If Westcott and Hort’s reading oJ monogenhv , “the only begotten God,” in John 1:18, is correct, we have a new proof of Christ’s eternal Sonship. Meyer explains eJautou~ in Romans 8:3 — “God, sending his own Son,” as an allusion to the metaphysical Sonship. That this Sonship is unique, is plain from John 1:14,18 — “the only begotten from the Father… the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father”; Romans 8:32 — “his own Son”; Galatians 4:4 — “sent forth his Son”; cf. Prov.8:22-31 — “When he marked out the foundations of the earth; Then I was by him as a master workman”; 30:4 — “Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou knowest?” The eternal procession of the Spirit seems to be implied in John 15:26 — “the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father” — see Westcott, Bib. Com., in loco; Hebrews 9:14 — “the eternal Spirit.” Westcott here says that para> (not ejx ) shows that the reference is to the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit, not to the eternal procession. At the same time he maintains that the temporal corresponds to the eternal.

The Scripture terms ‘generation’ and ‘procession,’ as applied to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, are but approximate expressions of the truth, and we are to correct by other declarations of Scripture any imperfect impressions which we might derive solely from them. We use these terms in a special sense, which we explicitly state and define as excluding all notion of inequality between the persons of the Trinity. The eternal generation of the Son to which we hold is (a) Not creation, but the Father’s communication of himself to the Son.

Since the names, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not applicable to the divine essence, but are only applicable to its hypostatical distinctions, they imply no derivation of the essence of the Son from the essence of the Father.

The error of the Nicene Fathers was that of explaining Sonship as derivation of essence. The Father cannot impart his essence to the Son and yet retain it. The Father is fons trinitatis, not fons deitatis. See Shedd, Hist. Doct., 1:308-311, and Dogmatic Theology, 1:287-299; per contra, see Bibliotheca Sacra, 41:698-760. (b) Not a commencement of existence, but an eternal relation to the Father — there never having been a time when the Son began to be, or when the Son did not exist as God with the Father.

If there had been an eternal sun, it is evident that there must have been an eternal sunlight also. Yet an eternal sunlight must have evermore proceeded from the sun.

When Cyril was asked whether the Son existed before generation, he answered: “The generation of the Son did not precede his existence, but he always existed, and that by generation.” (c) Not an act of the Father’s will, but an internal necessity of the divine nature — so that the Son is no more dependent upon the Father than the Father is dependent upon the Son and so that if it be consistent with deity to be Father, it is equally consistent with deity to be Son.

The sun is as dependent upon the sunlight as the sunlight is upon the sun for without sunlight the sun is no true sun. So God the Father is as dependent upon God the Son, as God the Son is dependent upon God the Father for without Son the Father would be no true Father. To say that aseity belongs only to the Father is logically Arianism and Subordinationism proper, for it implies a subordination of the essence of the Son to the Father. Essential subordination would be inconsistent with equality. See Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:115. Palmer, Theol.

Definitions, 66, 67, says that Father = independent life; Son begotten = independent life voluntarily brought under limitations; Spirit = necessary consequence of existence of the other two… the words and actions whereby we design to affect others are “begotten.” The atmosphere of unconscious influence is not “begotten,” but “proceeding.” (d) Not a relation in any way analogous to physical derivation, but a life movement of the divine nature, in virtue of which Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while equal in essence and dignity, stand to each other in an order of personality, office, and operation, and in virtue of which the Father works through the Son, and the Father and the Son through the Spirit.

The subordination of the person of the Son to the person of the Father, or in other words an order of personality, office, and operation which permits the Father to be officially first, the Son second, and the Spirit third, is perfectly consistent with equality. Priority is not necessarily’ superiority. The possibly of an order, which yet involves no inequality, may be illustrated by the relation between man and woman. In office man is first and woman second, but woman’s soul is worth as much as mans: see 1 Corinthians 11:3 — “the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man: and the head of Christ is God.” On John 14:28 — “the Father is greater than I” — see Westcott, Bib.

Com., in loco .

Edwards, Observations on the Trinity (edited by Smyth), 22 — “In the Son the whole deity and glory of the Father is as it were repeated or duplicated. Everything in the Father is repeated or expressed again, and that fully, so that there is properly no inferiority.” Edwards, Essay on the Trinity (edited by Fisher), 110-116 — “The Father is the Deity subsisting in the prime, unoriginated, and most absolute manner, or the Deity in its direct existence. The Son is the Deity generated by God’s understanding, or having an Idea of himself and subsisting in that Idea. The Holy Ghost is the Deity subsisting in act, or the divine essence flowing out and breathed forth in God’s infinite love to and delight in himself. And I believe the whole divine essence does truly and distinctly subsist both in the divine Idea and in the divine Love, and each of them are properly distinct persons. We find no other attributes of which it is said in Scripture that they are God, or that God is they, but logo>v and ajga>ph , the Reason and the Love of God, Light not being different from Reason… Understanding may be predicated of this Love… It is not a blind Love… The Father has Wisdom or Reason by the Son’s being in him… Understanding is in the Holy Spirit, because the Son is in him.” Yet Dr. Edwards A. Park declared eternal generation to be “eternal nonsense,” and is thought to have hid Edwards’s unpublished Essay on the Trinity for many years because it taught this doctrine.

The New Testament calls Christ Qeo>v , but not oJ Qeo>v. We frankly recognize an eternal subordination of Christ to the Father, but we maintain at the same time that this subordination is a subordination of order, office, and operation, not a subordination of essence. “Non de essentia dicitur, sed de ministeriis.” E. G. Robinson: “An eternal generation is necessarily an eternal subordination and dependence. This seems to be fully admitted even by the most orthodox of the Anglican writers, such as Pearson and Hooker. Christ’s subordination to the Father is merely official, not essential.” Whiton, Gloria Patri, 42, 96 — “The early Trinitarians by eternal Sonship meant, first that it is of the very nature of Deity to issue forth into visible expression. Thus next, that this outward expression of God is not something other than God, but God himself, in a self-expression as divine as the hidden Deity. Thus they answered Philip’s cry, ‘show us the Father, and it sufficeth us’ ( John 14:8), and thus they affirmed Jesus’ declaration, they secured Paul’s faith that God has never left himself without witness. They meant, ‘he that hath seen me hath seen the Father’ ( John 14:9)… The Father is the Life transcendent, the divine Source, ‘above all’; the Son is the Life immanent, the divine Stream, ‘through all the Holy Spirit is the Life individualized, ‘in all’ ( Ephesians 4:6). The Holy Spirit has been called ‘the executive of the Godhead.’” Whiton is here speaking of the economic Trinity; but all this is even truer of the immanent Trinity. On the Eternal Sonship, see Weiss, Bib. Theol. New Testament, 424, note; Treffrey, Eternal Sonship of our Lord; Princeton Essays, 1:30-56; Watson, Institutes, 1:530-577; Bibliotheca Sacra, 27:268. On the procession of the Spirit, see Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:300-304, and History of Doctrine, 1:387; Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:347-350.

The same principles upon which we interpret the declaration of Christ’s eternal Sonship apply to the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son, and show this to be not inconsistent with the Spirit’s equal dignity and glory.

We, therefore only formulate truth which is concretely expressed in Scripture, and which is recognized by all ages of the church in hymns and prayers addressed to Father, Son and Holy Spirit when we assert that, in the nature of the one God there are three eternal distinctions, which are best described as persons, and each of which is the proper and equal object of Christian worship.

We are also warranted in declaring that in virtue of these personal distinctions or modes of subsistence, God exists in the relations, respectively, first, of Source, Origin, Authority, and in this relation is the Father; secondly, of Expression, Medium, Revelation, and in this relation is the Son; thirdly, of Apprehension, Accomplishment, Realization, and in this relation is the Holy Spirit.

John Owen, Works. 3:64-92 — “The office of the Holy Spirit is that of concluding, completing, perfecting. To the Father we assign opera naturæ’; to the Son, opera gratiæ procuratæ ; to the Spirit, opera gratiæ applicatæ.” All God’s revelations are through the Son or the Spirit, and the latter includes the former. Kuyper, Work of the Holy Spirit, designates the three offices respectively as those of Causation, Construction, Consummation; the Father brings forth, the Son arranges, the Spirit perfects. Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 365-373 — “God is Life, Light, Love.

As the Fathers regarded Reason both in God and man as the personal, omnipresent second Person of the Trinity, so Jonathan Edwards regarded Love both in God and in man as the personal, omnipresent third Person of the Trinity. Hence the Father is never said to love the Spirit as he is said to love the Son — for this love is the Spirit. The Father and the Son are said to love men, but the Holy Spirit is never said to love them, for love is the Holy Spirit. But why could not Edwards also hold that the Logos or divine Reason also dwelt in humanity, so that manhood was constituted in Christ and shared with him in the consubstantial image of the Father?

Outward nature reflects God’s light and has Christ in it — why not universal humanity?”

Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 136, 202, speaks of “ 1. God, the Eternal, the Infinite, in his infinity, as himself; 2. God, as self-expressed within the nature and faculties of man — body, soul, and spirit — the consummation and interpretation and revelation of what true manhood means and is, in its very truth, in its relation to God; 3. God, as Spirit of Beauty and Holiness, which are himself present in things created, animate and inanimate, and constituting in them their divine response to God; constituting above all in created personalities the full reality of their personal response.

Or again: 1. What a man is invisibly in himself; 2 . his outward material projection or expression as body; and 3. the response which that which he is through his bodily utterance or operation makes to him, as the true echo or expression of himself.”

Moberly seeks thus to find in man’s nature an analogy to the inner processes of the divine.

VI. INSCRUTABLE, YET NOT SELF-CONTRADICTORY, THIS FURNISHES THE KEY TO ALL OTHER DOCTRINES.

1. The mode of this triune existence is inscrutable.

It is inscrutable because there are no analogies to it in our finite experience.

For this reason all attempts are vain adequately to represent it: (a) Front inanimate things — as the fountain, the stream, and the rivulet trickling from it (Athanasius); the cloud, the rain, and the rising mist (Boardman); color, shape, and size (F. W. Robertson); the actinic, luminiferous, and calorific principles in the ray of light (Solar Hieroglyphics, 34).

Luther: “When logic objects to this doctrine that it does not square with her rules, we must say: ‘Mulier taceat in ecclesia.’” Luther called the Trinity a flower, in which might be distinguished its form, its fragrance, and its medicinal efficacy; see Dorner, Gesch. Prot. Theol., 189. In Bap.

Rev., July, 1880:434, Geer finds an illustration of the Trinity in infinite space with its three dimensions. For analogy of the cloud, rain, mist, see W. B. Boardman, Higher Christian Life. Solar Hieroglyphics, (reviewed in New Englander, Oct. 1874:789) — “The Godhead is a tripersonal unity, and the light is a trinity. Being immaterial and homogeneous, and thus essentially one in its nature, the light includes a plurality of constituents, or in other words is essentially three in its constitution, its constituent principles being the actinic, the luminiferous, and the calorific; and in glorious manifestation the light is one, and is the created, constituted, and ordained emblem of the tri-personal God” — of whom it is said that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all “( John 1:5). The actinic rays are in themselves invisible; only as the luminiferous manifest them, are they seen; only as the calorific accompany them, are they felt.

Joseph Cook: “Sunlight, rainbow, heat — one solar radiance; Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one God. As the rainbow shows what light is when unfolded, so Christ reveals the nature of God. As the rainbow is unraveled light, so Christ is unraveled God, and the Holy Spirit, figured by heat, is Christ’s continued life.” Ruder illustrations are those of Oom Paul Kruger: the fat, the wick, the flame, in the candle; and of Augustine: the root, trunk, branches, all of one wood, in the tree. In Geer’s illustration, mentioned above, from the three dimensions of space, we cannot demonstrate that there is not a fourth, but besides length, breadth, and thickness, we cannot conceive of its existence. As these three exhaust, so far as we know, all possible modes of material being, so we cannot conceive of any fourth person in the Godhead. (b) From the constitution or processes of our own minds — as the psychological unity of intellect, affection, and will (substantially held by Augustine); the logical unity of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (Hegel); the metaphysical unity of subject, object, and subject-object (Melanchthon, Olshausen, Shedd).

Augustine: “Mens meminit sui, intelligit se, diligit se; si hoc cernimus, Trinitatem cernimus.”… I exist, I am conscious, I will; I exist as conscious and willing. I am conscious of existing and willing, I will to exist and be conscious; and these three functions, though distinct, are inseparable and form one life, one mind, one essence… “Amor autem alicujus amantis est, et amore aliquid amatur. Ecce tria sunt, amans, et quod amatur, et amor. Quid est ergo amor, nisi quædam vita duo aliqua copulans, vel copulare appetans, amantem scilicet et quod amatur.”

Calvin speaks of Augustine’s view as “a speculation far from solid.” But Augustine himself had said: “If asked to define the Trinity, we can only say that it is not this or that.” John of Damascus: “All we know of the divine nature is that it is not to be known.” By this, however, both Augustine and John of Damascus meant only that the precise mode of God’s triune existence is unrevealed and inscrutable.

Hegel. Philos. Relig., transl., 3:99, 100 — “God is but is at the same time the Other, the self-differentiating, the Other in the sense that this Other is God himself and has potentially the Divine nature in it, and that the abolishing of this difference of this otherness, this return, this love, is Spirit.” Hegel calls God “the absolute Idea, the unity of Life and Cognition, the Universal that thinks itself and thinkingly recognizes itself in an infinite Actuality, from which, as its Immediacy, it no less distinguishes Itself again”; see Schwegler, History of Philosophy, 321, 331. Hegel’s general doctrine is that the highest unity is to be reached only through the fullest development and reconciliation of the deepest and widest antagonism. Pure being is pure nothing; we must die to live. Light is thesis, Darkness is antithesis, Shadow is synthesis, or union of both.

Faith is thesis, Unbelief is antithesis, Doubt is synthesis, or union of both. Zweifel comes from Zwei, as doubt from du>o . Hegel called Napoleon “ein Weltgeist zu Pferde” — “a world-spirit on horseback.” Ladd, Introduction to Philosophy, 202, speaks of “the monotonous tit-tat-too of the Hegelian logic.” Ruskin speaks of it as “pure, definite, and highly finished nonsense.” On the Hegelian principle good and evil cannot be contradictory to each other; without evil there could be no good. Stirling well entitled his exposition of the Hegelian Philosophy “The Secret of Hegel,” and his readers have often remarked that, if Stirling discovered the secret, he never made it known.

Lord Coleridge told Robert Browning that he could not understand all his poetry. “Ah, well,” replied the poet, “if a reader of your caliber understands ten per cent, of what I write, he ought to be content.” When Wordsworth was told that Mr. Browning had married Miss Barrett, he said: “It is a good thing that these two understand each other, for no one else understands them.” A pupil once brought to Hegel a passage in the latter’s writings and asked for an interpretation. The philosopher examined it and replied: “When that passage was written, there were two who knew its meaning — God and myself. Now, alas! there is but one, and that is God.” Heinrich Heine, speaking of the effect of Hegelianism upon the religious life of Berlin, says: “I could accommodate myself to the very enlightened Christianity, filtrated from all superstition, which could then be had in the churches, and which was free from the divinity of Christ, like turtle soup without turtle.” When German systems of philosophy die, their ghosts take up their abode in Oxford. But if I see a ghost sitting in a chair and then sit down boldly in the chair, the ghost will take offence and go away. Hegel’s doctrine of God as the only begotten Son is translated in the Journ. Spec. Philos., 15:395-404.

The most satisfactory exposition of the analogy of subject, object, and subject-object is to be found in Shedd, History of Doctrine, 1:365, note 2.

See also Olshausen on John 1:1; H. N. Day, Doctrine of Trinity in Light of Recent Psychology, in Princeton Rev., Sept. 1882:156-179:

Morris, Philosophy and Christianity, 122-163. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 174, has a similar analogy:1. A man’s invisible self; 2. the visible expression of himself in a picture or poem; 3. the response of this picture or poem to himself. The analogy of the family is held to be even better, because no man’s personality is complete in itself; husband, wife, and child are all needed to make perfect unity. Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 372, says that in the early church the Trinity was a doctrine of reason; in the Middle Ages it was a mystery; in the 18th century it was a meaningless or irrational dogma; again in the 19th century it becomes a doctrine of the reason, a truth essential to the nature of God. To Allen’s characterization of the stages in the history of the doctrine we would add that even in our day we cannot say that a complete exposition of the Trinity is possible. Trinity is a unique fact, different aspects of which may be illustrated, while, as a whole, it has no analogies. The most we can say is that human nature, in its processes and powers, Points towards something higher than itself, and that Trinity in God is needed in order to constitute that perfection of being which man seeks as an object of love, worship and service.

No one of these furnishes any proper analogue of the Trinity, since in no one of them is there found the essential element of tri-personality. Such illustrations may sometimes be used to disarm objection, but they furnish no positive explanation of the mystery of the Trinity, and, unless carefully guarded, may lead to grievous error. 2. The Doctrine of the Trinity is not self-contradictory.

This it would be, only if it declared God to be three in the same numerical sense in which he is said to he one. This we do not assert. We assert simply that the same God who is one with respect to his essence is three with respect to the internal distinctions of that essence, or with respect to the modes of his being. The possibility of this cannot be denied, except by assuming that the human mind is in all respects the measure of the divine.

The fact that the ascending scale of life is marked by increasing differentiation of faculty and function should rather lead us to expect in the highest of all beings a nature more complex than our own. In man many faculties are united in one intelligent being, and the more intelligent man is, the more distinct from each other these faculties become; until intellect and affection, conscience and will assume a relative independence, and there arises even the possibility of conflict between them. There is nothing irrational or sell-contradictory in the doctrine that in God the leading functions are yet more markedly differentiated, so that they become personal, while at the same time these personalities are united by the fact that they each and equally manifest the one indivisible essence.

Unity is as essential to the Godhead as threeness. The same God who in one respect is three, in another respect is one. We do not say that one God is three Gods, nor that one person is three persons, nor that three Gods are one God, but only that there is one God with three distinctions in his being. We do not refer to the faculties of man as furnishing any proper analogy to the persons of the Godhead; we rather deny that man’s nature furnishes any such analogy. Intellect, affection, and will in man are not distinct personalities. If they were personalized, they might furnish such an analogy. F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 3:58, speaks of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as best conceived under the figure of personalized intellect, affection and will. With this agrees the saying of Socrates, who called thought the soul’s conversation with itself. See D. W. Simon, in Bibliotheca Sacra, Jan. 1857. Psalm 86:11 — “Unite my heart to fear thy name” intimates a complexity of powers in man, and a possible disorganization due to sin.

Only the fear and love of God can reduce our faculties to order and give us peace, purity, and power. When William after a long courtship at length proposed marriage, Mary said that she “unanimously consented.” “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind” ( Luke 10:27).

Man must not lead a dual life, a double life, like that of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The good life is the unified life. H. H. Bawden: “Theoretically, symmetrical development is the complete criterion. This is the old Greek conception of the perfect life. The term which we translate ‘temperance’ or ‘self-control’ is better expressed by ‘whole-mindedness.’” Illingworth, Personality Divine and Human, 54-80 — “Our sense of divine personality culminates in the doctrine of the Trinity. Man’s personality is essentially triune, because it consists of a subject, an object, and their relation. What is potential and unrealized triunity in man is complete in God… Our own personality is triune, but it is a potential unrealized triunity, which is incomplete in itself and must go beyond itself for completion, as for example in the family… But God’s personality has nothing potential or unrealized about it… Trinity is the most intelligible mode of conceiving of God as personal.”

John Caird, Fundamental Ideas of Christianity, 1:59, 80 — “The parts of a stone are all precisely alike; the parts of a skillful mechanism are all different from one another. In which of the two cases is the unity more real — in that in which there is an absence of distinction, or in that in which there is essential difference of form and function, each separate part having an individuality and activity of its own? The highest unities are not simple but complex.” Gordon, Christ of Today, 106 — “All things and persons are modes of one infinite consciousness. Then it is not incredible that there should be three consciousness in God. Over against the multitudinous finite personalities are three infinite personalities. This socialism in Deity may be the ground of human society.”

The phenomena of double and even of triple consciousness in one and the same individual confirm this view. This fact of more than one consciousness in a finite creature points towards the possibility of a threefold consciousness in the nature of God. Romanes, Mind and Motion, 102, intimates that the social organism, if it attained the highest level of psychical perfection, might be endowed with personality, and that it now has something resembling it — phenomena of thought and conduct which compel us to conceive of families and communities and nations as having a sort of moral personality which implies responsibility and accountability. “The Zeitgeist,” he says, “is the product of a kind of collective psychology, which is something other than the sum of all the individual minds of a generation.” We do not maintain that any one of these fragmentary or collective consciousness attains personality in men, at least in the present life. We only maintain that they indicate that a larger and more complex life is possible than that of which we have common experience, and that there is no necessary contradiction in the doctrine that in the nature of the one and perfect God there are three personal distinctions. H. H. Button: “A voluntary self-revelation of the divine mind may be expected to reveal even deeper complexities of spiritual relations in his eternal nature and essence than are found to exist in our humanity — the simplicity of a harmonized complexity, not the simplicity of absolute unity.” 3. The doctrine of the Trinity has important relations to other doctrines.

A. It is essential to any proper theism.

Neither God’s independence nor God’s blessedness can be maintained upon grounds of absolute unity. Anti-Trinitarianism almost necessarily makes creation indispensable to God’s perfection, tends to a belief in the eternity of matter, and ultimately leads, as in Mohammedanism, and in modern Judaism and Unitarianism, to Pantheism. “Love is an impossible exercise to a solitary being.” Without Trinity we cannot hold to a living Unity in the Godhead.

Brit. and For. Evang. Rev., Jan. 1882:35-63 — “The problem is to find a perfect objective, congruous and fitting, for a perfect intelligence, and the answer is: ‘a perfect intelligence.” The author of this article quotes James Martineau, the Unitarian philosopher, as follows: “There is only one resource left for completing the needful objectivity for God, viz., to admit in some form the coeval existence of matter, as the condition or medium of the divine agency or manifestation. Failing the proof [of the absolute origination of matter] we are left with the divine cause, and the material condition of all nature, in eternal co-presence and relation, as supreme object and rudimentary object.” See also Martineau, Study, 1:405 — “in denying that a plurality of self-existences is possible, I mean to speak only of self-existent causes. A self-existence which is not a cause is by no means excluded, so far as I can see, by a self-existence which is a cause; nay, is even required for the exercise of its causality.” Here we see that Martineau’s Unitarianism logically drove him into Dualism. But God’s blessedness, upon this principle, requires not merely an eternal universe but an infinite universe, for nothing less will afford fit object for an infinite idea. Yet a God who is necessarily bound to the universe, or by whose side a universe, which is not himself, eternally exists, is not infinite, independent, or free. The only exit from this difficulty is in denying God’s self-consciousness and self-determination, or in other words, exchanging our theism for dualism, and our dualism for pantheism.

E. H. Johnson, in Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1892:379, quotes from Oxenham’s Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement, 108, 109 — “Forty years ago James Martineau wrote to George Macdonald: ‘Neither my intellectual preference nor my moral admiration goes heartily with the Unitarian heroes, sects or productions, of any age. Ebionites, Arians, Socinians, all seem to me to contrast unfavorably with their opponents, and co-exhibit a type of thought far less worthy, on the whole, of the true genius of Christianity.’ In his paper entitled A Way out of the Unitarian Controversy, Martineau says than the Unitarian worships the Father; the Trinitarian worships the Son: ‘But he who is the Son in one creed is the Father in the other… the two creeds are agreed in that which constitutes the pith and kernel of both. The Father is God in his primeval essence.

But God, as manifested, is the Son.”’ Dr. Johnson adds: “So Martineau, after a lifelong service in a Unitarian pulpit and professorship, at length publicly accepts for truth the substance of that doctrine which, in common with the church, he has found so profitable, and tells Unitarians that they and we alike worship the Son, because al that we know of God was revealed by act of the Son.” After he had reached his eightieth year, Martineau withdrew from the Unitarian body, though he never formally united with any Trinitarian church.

H. C. Minton, in Princeton Rev., 1903:655-659, has quoted some of Martineau’s most significant utterances, such as the following: “The great strength of the orthodox doctrine lies, no doubt, in the appeal it makes to the inward ‘sense of sin,’ — that sad weight whose burden oppresses every serious soul. And the great weakness of Unitarianism has been its insensibility to this abiding sorrow of the human consciousness. But the orthodox remedy is surely the most terrible of all mistakes, viz., to get rid of the burden, by throwing it on Christ or permitting him to take it… For myself I own that the literature to which I turn for the nurture and inspiration of Faith, Hope and Love is almost exclusively the product of orthodox versions of the Christian religion. The Hymns of the Wesleys, the Prayers of the Friends, the Meditations of Law and Tauler, have a quickening and elevating power which I rarely feel in the books on our Unitarian shelves… Yet I can less than ever appropriate, or even intellectually excuse, any distinctive article of the Trinitarian scheme of salvation.”

Whiton, Gloria Patri, 23-26, seeks to reconcile the two forms of belief by asserting that “both Trinitarians and Unitarians are coming to regard human nature as essentially one with the divine. The Nicene Fathers built better than they knew, when they declared Christ homoousios with the Father. We assert the same of mankind.” But here Whiton goes beyond the warrant of Scripture. Of none but the only begotten Son can it be said that before Abraham was born he was, and that in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily ( John 3:57; Colossians 2:9).

Unitarianism has repeatedly demonstrated its logical insufficiency by this “facilis descensus Averno,” this lapse from theism into pantheism. In New England the high Arianism of Channing degenerated into the half-fledged pantheism of Theodore Parker, and the full-fledged pantheism of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Modern Judaism is pantheistic in its philosophy, and such also was the later Arabic philosophy of Mohammedanism. Single personality is felt to be insufficient to the mind conception of Absolute Perfection. We shrink from the thought of an eternally lonely God. “We take refuge in the term Godhead.’ The literati find relief in speaking of ‘the gods.’” Twesten (translated in Bibliotheca Sacra, 3:502) — “There may be in polytheism an element of truth, though disfigured and misunderstood. John of Damascus boasted that the Christian Trinity stood midway between the abstract monotheism of the Jews and the idolatrous polytheism of the Greeks.” Twesten, quoted in Shedd, Dogm. Theology, 1:255 — “There is a plh>rwma in God. Trinity does not contradict Unity, but only that solitariness which is inconsistent with the living plenitude and blessedness ascribed to God in Scripture, and which God possesses in himself and independently of time finite.” Shedd himself remarks: “The attempt of the Deist and the Socinian to construct the doctrine of divine Unity is a failure, because it fails to construct doctrine of the divine Personality. It contends by implication that God can be self-knowing as a single subject merely, without an object; without the distinctions involved in the subject contemplating, the object contemplated, and the perception of the identity of both.”

Mason, Faith of the Gospel,75 — “God is no sterile and motionless unit.” Bp. Phillips Brooks: “Unitarianism has got the notion of God as tight and individual as it is possible to make it, and is dying of its meager Deity.” Unitarianism is not the doctrine of one God — for the Trinitarian holds to this; it is rather the uni-personality of this one God. The divine nature demands either an eternal Christ or an eternal creation. Dr. Calthorp, the Unitarian, of Syracuse, therefore consistently declares that “Nature and God are the same.” It is the old worship of Baal and Ashtaroth — the deification of power and pleasure. For “Nature” includes everything — all bad impulses as well as good. When a man discovers gravity, he has not discovered God, but only one of the manifestations of God.

Gordon, Christ of Today, 112 — “The supreme divinity of Jesus Christ is but the sovereign expression in human history of the great law of difference in identity that runs through the entire universe and that has its home in the heart of the Godhead.” Even James Freeman Clarke, in his Orthodoxy, its Truths and Errors, 434, admits that “there is an essential truth hidden in the idea of the Trinity. While the church doctrine, in every form which it has taken, has failed to satisfy the human intellect, the human heart has clung to the substance contained in them all.” William Adams Brown: “If God is by nature love, he must be by nature social.

Fatherhood and Sonship must be immanent in him. In him the limitations of finite personality are removed.” But Dr. Brown wrongly adds: “Not the mysteries of God’s being, as he is in himself, but as he is revealed, are opened to us in this doctrine.” Similarly P. S. Moxom: “I do not know how it is possible to predicate any moral quality of a person who is absolutely out of relation to other persons. If God were conceived of as solitary in the universe, he could not be characterized as righteous.” But Dr. Moxom erroneously thinks that these other moral personalities must be outside of God. We maintain that righteousness, like love, requires only plurality of persons within the Godhead. See Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:105, 156. For the pantheistic view, see Strauss, Glaubenslehre, 1:462-524.

W. L. Walker, Christian Theism, 317, quotes Dr. Paul Carus, Primer of Philosophy, 101 — “We cannot even conceive of God without attributing trinity to him. An absolute unity would be non-existence. God, if thought of as real and active, involves an antithesis, which may be formulated as God and World, or natura naturans and natura naturata, or in some other way. This antithesis implies already the trinity conception. When we think of God, not only as that which is eternal and immutable in existence, but also as that which changes, grows, and evolves, we cannot escape the result and we must progress to a triune God-idea. The conception of a God man, of a Savior, of God revealed in evolution, brings out the antithesis of God-Father and God-Son, and the very conception of this relation implies God the Spirit that proceeds from both.” This confession of an economic Trinity is a rational one only as it implies a Trinity immanent and eternal.

B. It is essential to any proper revelation.

If there be no Trinity, Christ is not God, and cannot perfectly know or reveal God. Christianity is no longer the one, all-inclusive, and final revelation, but only one of many conflicting and competing systems, each of which has its portion of truth, but also its portion of error; so too with the Holy Spirit. “As God can be revealed only through God, so also can he be appropriated only through God. If the Holy Spirit be not God, then the love and self-communication of God to the human soul are not a reality.”

In other words, without the doctrine of the Trinity we go back to mere natural religion and the far off God of deism — and this is ultimately exchanged for pantheism in the way already mentioned.

Martensen, Dogmatics, 104; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 156.

If Christ be not God, he cannot perfectly know himself, and his testimony to himself has no independent authority. In prayer the Christian has practical evidence of the Trinity, and can see the value of the doctrine; for he comes to God the Father, pleading the name of Christ, and taught how to pray aright by the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to identify the Father with either the Son or the Spirit. See Romans 8:27 — “he that searcheth the hearts [i.e., God] knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” See also Godet on John 1:18 — “No man hath seen God at anytime; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”; notice here the relation between oJ w[n and ejxhgh>sato .

Napoleon I: “Christianity says with simplicity, No man hath seen God, except God.’” John 16:15 — “All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he taketh of mine, and shall declare it unto you”; here Christ claims for himself all that belongs to God, and then declares that the Holy Spirit shall reveal him. Only a divine Spirit can do this, even as only a divine Christ can put out an unpresumptuous hand to take all that belongs to the Father. See also Westcott, on John 14:9 — “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou, Show us the Father?”

The agnostic is perfectly correct in his conclusions, if there be no Christ, no medium of communication, no principle of revelation in the Godhead.

Only the Son has revealed the Father. Even Royce, in his Spirit of Modern Philosophy, speaks of the existence of an infinite Self, or Logos, or World-mind, of which all individual minds are parts or bits, and of whose timeless choice we partake. Some such principle in the divine nature must be assumed, if Christianity is the complete and sufficient revelation of God’s will to men. The Unitarian view regards the religion of Christ as only “one of the day’s works of humanity” — an evanescent moment in the ceaseless advance of the race. The Christian on the other hand regards Christ as the only Revealer of God, the only God with whom we have to do, the final authority in religion, the source of all truth and the judge of all mankind. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” ( Matthew 24:35). The resurrection of just and unjust shall be his work ( John 5:28), and future retribution shall be “the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelations 6:16). Since God never thinks, says, or does any thing, except through Christ, and since Christ does his work in human hearts only through the Holy Spirit, we may conclude that the doctrine of the Trinity is essential to any proper revelation.

C. It is essential to any proper redemption.

If God be absolutely and simply one, there can be no mediation or atonement, since between God and the most exalted creature the gulf is infinite. Christ cannot bring us nearer to God than he is himself. Only one who is God can reconcile us to God. So, too, only one who is God can purify our souls. A God who is only unity, but in whom is no plurality, may be our Judge, but, so far as we can see, cannot be our Savior or our Sanctifier. “God is the way to himself.” “Nothing human holds good before God, and nothing but God himself can satisfy God.” The best method of arguing with Unitarians, therefore, is to rouse the sense of sin; for the soul that has any proper conviction of its sins feels that only an infinite Redeemer can ever save it. On the other hand, a slight estimate of sin is logically connected with a low view of the dignity of Christ. Twesten, translated in Bibliotheca Sacra, 3:510 — “It would seem to be not a mere accident that Pelagianism, when logically carried out, as for example among the Socinians, has also always led to Unitarianism.” In the reverse order, too, it is manifest that rejection of the Deity of Christ must tend to render more superficial men’s views of the sin and guilt and punishment from which Christ came to save them, and with this to deaden religious feeling and to cut the sinews of all evangelistic and missionary effort ( John 12:44: Hebrews 10:26). See Arthur, on the Divinity of our Lord in relation to his work of Atonement, in Present Day Tracts, 6: no. 35; Ellis, quoted by Watson, Theol. Inst., 23; Gunsaulus, Transfig. of Christ,13 — “We have tried to see God in the light of nature, while he said: ‘In thy light shall we see light’ ( Psalm 36:9).” We should see nature in the light of Christ.

Eternal life is attained only through the knowledge of God in Christ ( John 16:9). Hence to accept Christ is to accept God; to reject Christ is to turn one’s back on God: John 12:44 — “He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me”; Hebrews 10:26,29 — “there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sin… [for him] who hath trodden under foot the Son of God.”

In The Heart of Midlothian, Jeanie Deans goes to London to secure pardon for her sister. She cannot in her peasant attire go direct to the King, for he will not receive her. She goes to a Scotch housekeeper in London; through him to the Duke of Argyle; through him to the Queen; through the Queen she gets pardon from the King, whom she never sees.

This was medieval mediatorship. But now we come directly to Christ, and this suffices us, because he is himself God (The Outlook). A man once went into the cell of a convicted murderer, at the request of the murderer’s wife and pleaded with him to confess his crime and accept Christ, but the murderer refused. The seeming clergyman was the Governor, with a pardon which he had designed to bestow in case he found the murderer penitent. A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 86 — “I have heard that, during our Civil War, a swaggering, drunken, blaspheming officer insulted and almost drove from the dock at Alexandria, a plain unoffending man in citizen’s dress; but I have also heard that that same officer turned pale, fell on his knees, and begged for mercy, when the plain man demanded his sword, put him under arrest and made himself known as General Grant. So we may abuse and reject the Lord Jesus Christ, and fancy that we can ignore his claims and disobey his commands with impunity; but it will seem a more serious thing when we find at the last that he what we have abused and rejected is none other than the living God before whose judgment bar we are to stand.”

Henry B. Smith began life under Unitarian influences, and had strong prejudices against evangelical doctrine, especially the doctrines of human depravity and of the divinity of Christ. In his senior year in College he was converted. Cyrus Hamlin says: “I regard Smith’s conversion as the most remarkable event in College in my day.” Doubts of depravity vanished with one glimpse into his own heart; and doubts about Christ’s divinity could not hold their own against the confession: “Of one thing I feel assured: I need an infinite Savior.” Here is the ultimate strength of Trinitarian doctrine. When the Holy Spirit convinces a man of his sin, and brings him face to face with the outraged holiness and love of God, he is moved to cry from the depths of his soul: “Non but an infinite Savior can ever save me!” Only in a divine Christ. Christ for us upon the Cross-, and Christ in us by his Spirit — can the convicted soul find peace and rest.

And so every revival of true religion gives a new impulse to the Trinitarian doctrine. Henry B. Smith wrote in his later life: “When the doctrine of the Trinity was abandoned, other articles of the faith, such as the atonement and regeneration, have almost always followed, by logical necessity, as, when one draws the wire from a necklace of gems, the gems all fall asunder.”

D. It is essential to any proper model for human life.

If there be no Trinity immanent in the divine nature, then Fatherhood in God has had a beginning and it may have an end; Son-ship, moreover, is no longer a perfection, but an imperfection, ordained for a temporary purpose.

But if fatherly giving and filial receiving are eternal in God, then the law of love requires of us conformity to God in both these respects as the highest dignity of our being.

See Hutton, Essays, 1:232 — “The Trinity tells us something of God’s absolute and essential nature; not simply what he is to us, but what he is in himself. If Christ is the eternal Son of the Father, God is indeed and in essence a Father; the social nature, the spring of love is of the very essence of the eternal Being; the communication of life, the reciprocation of affection dates from beyond time, belongs to the very being of God.

The Unitarian idea of a solitary God profoundly affects our conception of God, reduces it to mere power, identifies God with abstract cause and thought. Love is grounded in power, not power in love. The Father is merged in the omniscient and omnipotent genius of the universe.” Hence 1 John 2:23 — ““Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.” D’Arcy, Idealism and Theology, 204 — “If God be simply one great person, then we have to think of him as waiting until the whole process of creation has been accomplished before his love can find an object upon which to bestow itself. His love belongs, in that case, not to his inmost essence, but to his relation to some of his creatures. The words ‘God is love’ ( 1 John 4:8) become a rhetorical exaggeration, rather than the expression of a truth about the divine nature.”

Hutton, Essays, 1:230 — “We need also the inspiration and help of a perfect filial will. We cannot conceive of the Father, as sharing in that dependent attitude of spirit which is our chief spiritual want. It is a Father’s perfection to originate — a Son’s to receive. We need sympathy and aid in this receptive life; hence, the help of the true Son. Humility, self-sacrifice and submission are heavenly, eternal and divine. Christ’s filial life is the root of all filial life in us. See Galatians 2:19,20 — “it is no longer I that live, but Christ lived in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.” Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, The Spiritual Order, 233 — “There is nothing degrading in this dependence, for we share it with the eternal Son.” Gore, Incarnation, 162 — “God can limit himself by the conditions of manhood, because the Godhead contains in itself eternally the prototype of human self-sacrifice and self-limitation, for God is love.” On the practical lessons and uses of the doctrine of the Trinity, see Presb. and Ref. Rev., Oct. 1902:524-550, art, by R. M.

Edgar; also sermon by Ganse, in South Church Lectures, 300-310. On the doctrine in general, see Robie, in Bibliotheca Sacra, 27:262-289; Pease, Philosophy of Trinitarian Doctrine; N. W. Taylor, Revealed Theology, 1:133; Schultz, Lehre von der Gottheit Christi.

On heathen trinities, see Bib. Repos., 6:116; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt and Christian Belief, 266, 267 — “Lao-tse says, 600 BC, ‘Tao, the intelligent principle of all being, is by nature one; the first begat the second; both together begat the third; these three made all things.’” The Egyptian triad of Abydos was Osiris, Isis his wife, and Horus their Son. But these were no true persons; for not only did the Son proceed from the Father but also the Father proceeded from the Son; the Egyptian trinity was pantheistic in its meaning. See Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, 29; Rawlinson, Religions of the Ancient World,46,47. The Trinity of the Vedas was Dyaus, Indra and Agni. Derived from the three dimensions of space? Or from the family — father, mother, son? Man creates God in his own image, and sees family life in the Godhead?

The Brahman Trimurti or Trinity, to the members of which are given the names Brahma, Vishnu, Siva — source, supporter, end — is a personification of the pantheistic All, which dwells equally in good and evil, in god and man. The three are represented in the three mystic letters of the syllable Om , or Aum, and by the image at Elephanta of the three heads and one body; see Hardwick, Christ and Other Masters, 1:276. The places of the three are interchangeable. Williams: “In the three persons the one God is shown; Each first in place, each last, not one alone; Of Siva, Vishnu, Brahma, each may be, first, second, third, among the blessed three.” There are ten incarnations of Vishnu for men’s salvation in various times of need; and the one Spirit which temporarily invests itself with the qualities of matter is reduced to its original essence at the end of the Æon (Kalpa). This is only a grosser form of Sabellianism, or of a modal Trinity. According to Renouf it is not older than AD 1400. Buddhism in later times had its triad. Buddha or Intelligence, the first principle, associated with Dharma or Law, the principle of matter, through the combining influence of Sangha or Order, the mediating principle. See Kellogg, The Light of Asia and the Light of the World, 184, 355. It is probably from a Christian source.

The Greek trinity was composed of Zeus, Athena and Apollo. Apollo or Loxias lo>gov utters the decisions of Zeus, “These three surpass all the other gods in moral character and in providential care over the universe.

They sustain such intimate and endearing relations to each other, that they may be said to ‘agree in one’”; see Tyler, Theol. of Greek Poets, 170, 171; Gladstone, Studies of Homer, vol. 2, sec. 2. Yet the Greek trinity, while it gives us three persons, does not give us oneness of essence. It is a system of tri-theism. Plotinus, AD300, gives us a philosophical Trinity in his to< e[n oJ nou~v hJ yuch>.

Watts, New Apologetic, 195 — The heathen trinities are “residuary fragments of the lost knowledge of God, not different stages in a process of theological evolution, but evidence of a moral and spiritual degradation.” John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 92 — “In the Vedas the various individual divinities are separated by no hard and fast distinction from each other. They are only names for one indivisible whole, of which the particular divinity invoked at any one time is the type or representative. There is a latent recognition of a unity beneath all the multiplicity of the objects of adoration. The personal or anthropomorphic element is never employed as it is in the Greek and Roman mythology.

The personality ascribed to Mitra, Varuna, Indra or Agni is scarcely more real than our modern smiling heaven or whispering breeze or sullen moaning restless sea. ‘There is but one,’ they say, ‘though the poets call him by different names.’ The all-embracing heaven, mighty nature, is the reality behind each of these partial manifestations. The pantheistic element, which was implicit in the Vedic phase of Indian religion becomes explicit in Brahmanism, and in particular in the so-called Indian systems of philosophy and in the great Indian epic poems. They seek to find in the flux and variety of things the permanent underlying essence. That is Brahms. So Spinoza sought rest in the one eternal substance and he wished to look at all things ‘under the form of eternity.’ All things and beings are forms of one whole, of the infinite substance which we call God.” See also L. L. Paine, Ethnic Trinities.

The groping of the heathen religions after a trinity in God, together with their inability to construct a consistent scheme of it, are evidence of a rational want in human nature which only the Christian doctrine is able to supply. This power to satisfy the inmost needs of the believer is proof of its truth. We close our treatment with the words of Jeremy Taylor: “He who goes about to speak of the mystery of the Trinity and does it by words and names of man’s invention, talking of essence and existences, hypo-stases and personalities, priority in co-equality, and unity in pluralities, may amuse himself and build a tabernacle in his head, and talk something — he knows not what; but the renewed man, that feels the power of the Father, to whom the Son is become wisdom, sanctification and redemption, in whose heart the love of the Spirit of God is shed abroad — this man, though he understands nothing of what is intelligible, yet he alone truly understands the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.”

CHAPTER 3. THE DECREES OF GOD.

I. DEFINITION OF DECREES.

By the decrees of God we mean that eternal plan by which God has rendered certain all the events of the universe, past present, and future.

Notice in explanation that (a) The decrees are many only to our finite comprehension; in their own nature they are but one plan, which embraces not only effects but also causes, not only the ends to be secured but also the means needful to secure them.

In Romans 8:28 — “called according to his purpose” — the many decrees for the salvation of many individuals are represented as forming but one purpose of God. Ephesians 1:11 — “foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will” — notice again the word purpose, “in the singular. Ephesians 3:11 — “according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This one purpose or plan of God includes both means and ends, prayer and its answer and labor and its fruit. Tyrolese proverb: “God has his plan for every man.” Every man, as well as Jean Paul, is “der Einzige” — the unique. There is a single plan which embraces all things; “we use the word ‘decree’ when we think of it partitively” (Pepper). See Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 1st ed., 165; 2d ed., 200 — “In fact, no event is isolated — to determine one involves determination of the whole concatenation of causes and effects which constitutes the universe.” The word “plan” is preferable to the word “decrees,” because “plan” excludes the ideas of (1) plurality, (2) shortsightedness, (3) arbitrariness and (4) compulsion. (b) The decrees, as the eternal act of an infinitely perfect will, though they have logical relations to each other, have no chronological relation. They are not therefore the result of deliberation in any sense that implies shortsightedness or hesitancy.

Logically, in God’s decree the sun precedes the sunlight, and the decree to bring into being a father precedes the decree that there shall be a son. God decrees man before he decrees man’s act; he decrees the creation of man before he decrees man’s existence. But there is no chronological succession. “Counsel” in Ephesians 1:11 — “the counsel of his will” means, not deliberation, but wisdom. (c) Since the will, in which the decrees have their origin is a free will, the decrees are not a merely instinctive or necessary exercise of the divine intelligence or volition, such as pantheism supposes.

It belongs to the perfection of God that he has a plan, and the best possible plan. Here is no necessity, but only the certainty that infinite wisdom will act wisely. God’s decrees are not God; they are not identical with his essence; they do not flow from his being in the same necessary way in which the eternal Son proceeds from the eternal Father. There is free will in God, which acts with infinite certainty, yet without necessity.

To call even the decree of salvation necessary is to deny grace, and to make an unfree God. See Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:355; lect. 34. (d) The decrees have reference to things outside of God. God does not decree to be holy or to exist as three persons in one essence.

Decrees are the preparation for external events — the embracing of certain things and acts in a plan. They do not include those processes and operations within the Godhead which have no reference to the universe. (e) The decrees primarily respect the acts of God himself, in Creation, Providence and Grace; secondarily, the acts of free creatures, which he foresees will result therefrom.

While we deny the assertion of Whedon, that “ the divine plan embraces only divine actions,” we grant that God’s plan has reference primarily to his own actions and that the sinful acts of men, in particular, are the objects, not of a decree that God will efficiently produce them, but of a decree that God will permit men, in the exercise of their own free will, to produce them. (f) The decree to act is not the act. The decrees are an internal exercise and manifestation of the divine attributes, and are not to be confounded with Creation, Providence and Redemption, which is the execution of the decrees.

The decrees are the first operation of the attributes, and the first manifestation of personality of which we have any knowledge within the Godhead. They presuppose those essential acts or movements within the divine nature which we call generation and procession. They involve by way of consequence that execution of the decrees, which we call Creation, Providence and Redemption, but they are not to be confounded with either of these. (g) The decrees are therefore not addressed to creatures; are not of the nature of statute law; and lay neither compulsion nor obligation upon the wills of men.

So ordering the universe that men will pursue a given course of action is a very different thing from declaring, ordering, or commanding that they shall. “Our acts are in accordance with the decrees, but not necessarily so — we can do otherwise and often should” (Park). The Frenchman who fell into the water and cried: “I will drown, — no one shall help me!” was very naturally permitted to drown; if he had said: “I shall drown, — no one will help me!” he might perchance have called some friendly person to his aid. (h) All human acts, whether evil or good, enter into the divine plan and so are objects of God’s decrees, although God’s actual agency with regard to the evil is only a permissive agency.

No decree of God reads: “You shall sin.” For (1) no decree is addressed to you, (2) no decree with respect to you says shall and (3) God cannot cause sin, or decree to cause it. He simply decrees to create, and himself to act, in such a way that you will, of your own free choice, commit sin. God determines upon his own acts, foreseeing what the results will be in the free acts of his creatures, and so he determines those results.

This permissive decree is the only decree of God with respect to sin. Man, of himself, is capable of producing sin. Of himself he is not capable of producing holiness. In the production of holiness two powers must concur, God’s will and man’s will, and God’s will must act first. The decree of good, therefore, is not simply a permissive decree, as in the case of evil. God’s decree, in the former ease, is a decree to bring to bear positive agencies for its production, such as circumstances, motives and influences of his Spirit. But, in the case of evil, God’s decrees are simply his arrangement that man may do as he pleases, God all the while foreseeing the result.

Permissive agency should not be confounded with conditional agency or permissive decree with conditional decree. God foreordained sin only indirectly. The machine is constructed not for the sake of the friction, but in spite of it. In the parable Matthew 13:24-30, the question “Whence then hath it tares?” is answered, not by saying,” I decreed the tares,” but by saying: “An enemy hath done this” Yet we must take exception to Principal Fairbairn, Place of Christ in Theology, 456, when he says: “God did not permit sin to be; it is, in its essence, the transgression of his law, and so his only attitude toward it is one of opposition. It is, because man has contradicted and resisted his will.” Here the truth of God’s opposition to sin is stated so sharply as almost to deny the decree of sin in any sense.

We maintain that God does decree sin in the sense of embracing in his plan the foreseen transgressions of men, while at the same time we maintain that these foreseen transgressions are chargeable wholly to men and not at all to God. (i) While God’s total plan with regard to creatures is called predestination, or foreordination, his purpose so to act that certain will believe and be saved is called election, and his purpose so to act that certain will refuse to believe and be lost is called reprobation. We discuss election and reprobation, in a later chapter, as a part of the Application of Redemption.

God’s decrees may be divided into decrees with respect to nature, and decrees with respect to moral beings. These last we call foreordination, or predestination; and of these decrees with respect to moral beings there are two kinds, the decree of election, and the decree of reprobation; see our treatment of the doctrine of Election. George Herbert: “We all acknowledge both thy power and love To be exact, transcendent, and divine: Who dost so strongly and so sweetly move, While all things have their will — yet none but thine. For either thy command or thy permission Lays hands on all; they are thy right and left. The first puts on with speed and expedition; the other curbs sin’s stealing pace and theft. Nothing escapes them both; all must appear And be disposed and dressed and tuned by thee Who sweetly temperest all. If we could hear Thy skill and art, what music it would be!” On the whole doctrine, see Shedd, Presb. and Ref. Rev., Jan. 1890:1-25.

II. PROOF OF THE DOCTRINE OF DECREES.

1. From Scripture.

A. The Scriptures declare that all things are included in the divine decrees.

B. They declare that special things and events are decreed; as, for example, (a) the stability of the physical universe, (b) the outward circumstances of nations, (c) the length of human life, (d) the mode of our death and (e) the free acts of men, both good acts and evil acts.

C. They declare that God has decreed (a) the salvation of believers, (b) the establishment of Christ’s kingdom and (c) the work of Christ and of his people in establishing it.

A. Isaiah 14:26,27 — “This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations; for Jehovah of hosts hath purposed… and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?” 46:10, 11 — “declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure… yea, I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed, I will also do it.” Daniel 4:35 — “doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” Ephesians 1:11 — “the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will” B (a) <19B989> Psalm 119:89-91 — “For ever, O Jehovah, thy word is settled in heaven Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: Thou hast established the earth and it abideth They abide this day according to thine ordinances; for all things are thy servants” (b) Acts 17:26 — “he made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation” cf. Zechariah 5:1 — “came four chariots out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass” = the fixed decrees from which proceed Gods providential dealings? (c) Job 14:5 — “Seeing his days are determined, The number of his months is with thee And thou hast determined his bounds that he cannot pass” (d) John 21:19 — “this he spake, signifying of what manner of death he should glorify God” (e) Good acts: Isaiah 44:28 — “that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and of the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid”: Ephesians 2:10 — “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them” Evil acts: Genesis 50:20 — “as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive”; 1 Kings 12:15 — “So the king hearkened not unto the people, for it was a thing brought about of Jehovah”; 24 — “for this thing is of me”; Luke 22:22 — “For the Son of man indeed goeth, as it hath been determined: but woe unto that man through whom he is betrayed” Acts 2:23 — “him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay”; 4:27, 28 — “of a truth in this city against thy holy Servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel foreordained to come to pass”; Romans 9:17 — “For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power”; 1 Peter 2:8 — “They stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed”; Revelation 17:17 — “For God did put in their hearts to do his mind, and to come to one mind, and to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God should be accomplished” C. (a) 1 Corinthians 2:7 — “the wisdom which hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory”; Ephesians 3:10, — “manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Ephesians 1 is a pæan in praise of God’s decrees. (b) The greatest decree of all is the decree to give the world to Christ. Psalm 2:7,8 — “I will tell of the decree:… I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance”; cf. verse 5 — “I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion”; 1 Corinthians 15:25 — “he must reign, till he hath put all his enemies under his feet.” (c) This decree we are to convert into our decree; God’s will is to be executed through our wills. Philippians 2:12,13 — “work out your on salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.” Revelation 5:1,7 — “I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the back, close sealed with seven seals… And he [the Lamb] came, and he taketh it out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne”; verse 9 — “Worthy art thou to take the book, and to open the seals thereof” = Christ alone has the omniscience to know, and the omnipotence to execute, the divine decrees. When John weeps because there is none in heaven or earth to loose the seals and to read the book of God’s decrees, the Lion of the tribe of Judah prevails to open it. Only Christ conducts the course of history to its appointed end. See A. H. Strong, Christ In Creation, 268-283, on The Decree of God as the Great Encouragement to Missions. 2. From Reason. (a) From the divine foreknowledge.