BX9225.H6 S3 1888 
 Salmond, Charles A. 1853- 
 1932. 
 
 Princetoniana 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/princetonianachaOOsalm_0 
 
PRINCETONIANA. 
 
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PRINCE TON I A NA. 
 
 / 
 
 CHARLES & A. A. HODGE 
 
 WITH 
 
 CLASS AND TABLE TALK 
 
 OF 
 
 HODGE THE YOUNGER. 
 
 BY 
 
 A SCOTTISH^^INCETONIAN. 
 
 (rev. c. a. salmond, m.a.) 
 
 f[ yap Trarpds daWovros evKXkas t^kpols &ya\p.a piel^ov, fj tl irpos Traidcop 
 
 TrarpL’, —(Sophoc. Antig.) 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 SCRIBNER & WELFORD, 
 
 743 and 745 BROADWAY. 
 

 r|^ 
 
 •VTI 
 
 
 6 
 
 r:\, 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 
 
TO 
 
 PROF. WILLIAM HENRY GREEN, D.D = , LL.D., 
 
 AND 
 
 HIS COLLEAGUES IN PRINCETON SEMINARY, 
 
 THIS TRIBUTE TO GRATEFUL MEMORIES 
 
 IS WITH MUCH RESPECT INSCRIBED 
 
 BY 
 
 AN OLD ALUMNUS. 
 
 “ Optima autem hereditas, gloria virtutis rerumque gestarum. . . . 
 Quod enim munus reipublicse afferre majus meliusve possumus, quam 
 si docemus atque erudimus juventutem.” (Cic.) 
 
4 
 
 
 T 
 
 
 I 
 
 1 '* * 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 T his volume consists, as will be seen, of two parts. 
 
 In the first part, which is biographical, I have 
 sought briefly but clearly to delineate in character 
 and life two of the greatest and best men it has been 
 my happiness anywhere to meet. In the second 
 part, I have undertaken the humbler, but perhaps 
 more important task of conveying some impressions 
 of a singularly gifted teacher, whose help was valued 
 and whose memory is loved, through the simple 
 report of things he uttered in my hearing. 
 
 In the first division, I have made free use of former 
 contributions by myself to magazines * and various 
 newspapers, and have also freely availed myself of 
 “ The Life of Charles Hodge,” written by his son, and 
 of the “Funeral Address ” and “Memorial Discourse,” 
 written, respectively, with reference to that son, by 
 Prof. William M. Paxton, D.D., formerly of New 
 York, now of Princeton, and Prof. F. L. Patton, D.D., 
 LL.D., formerly of Chicago, now likewise of Prince¬ 
 ton. In the second division, my one source of in¬ 
 formation has been my old Princeton notebook, in 
 which I took jottings, at the time they were uttered, 
 of the sayings now for the first time printed liere. 
 
 * Viz. : The Sunday at Home (April, 1879), The Catholic Presby¬ 
 terian (January, 1881), and The Christian (August, 1887). 
 
8 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Friends well competent to judge have encouraged 
 me in the belief that this little book may have its 
 use. To those already acquainted with the father 
 and the son of whom it treats, it may be a Avelcome 
 memento of men they would not willingly forget. 
 To those who, as yet, are acquainted only by name 
 Avith either the older or the younger Hodge, it may 
 serve as a somewhat fuller introduction to two of 
 God’s servants, to either of whom, in his place, old 
 Chaucer’s delineation of the “ good man of religion ” 
 might be very justly applied— 
 
 “ But Christes lore, and his apostles twelve. 
 
 He taught, but first he folowed it himselve.” 
 
 To theologians,—including laymen with a fondness 
 for theological study,—the book, it is hoped, will have 
 an additional interest, as a presentation in the con¬ 
 crete of some of the elements of influence in that 
 school of Christian thought, which, according to the 
 judgment of a penetrating cis-Atlantic critic, “ more 
 and more manifestly is destined to be the dominant 
 thought of Christian America.” 
 
 C. A. S. 
 
 Rothesay, Isle of Bute, 
 January^ 1888. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BIOGRAPHY— pack 
 
 1 . Princeton and its Institutions . ir 
 
 II. Charles Hodge’s Parentage, Youth, 
 
 AND Education . . . 15 
 
 III. Ordination, Marriage, Editorship . 20 
 
 IV. Lehrjahre in Europe ... 24 
 
 V. The Zenith reached : and the Day of 
 
 Jubilee ... .31 
 
 VI. The Evening Time : and the New Day’s 
 
 Dawn ..... 40 
 
 VII. Dr Charles Hodge as Tfacher, Church¬ 
 
 man, AND Theologian ... 44 
 
 VIII. HOdge the Younger contrasted with 
 
 HIS Father • • • • 53 
 
 IX. Sea-sickness : but not in Theology . 56 
 
 X. Birth and Boyhood of A. A. Hodge . 59 
 
 XI. His Student Days, and departure for 
 
 India ..... 63 
 
 XII. A. A. Hodge as Missionary . . 68 
 
 XIII. Pastor, Preacher, and Pluralist Pro¬ 
 
 fessor ..... 73 
 
 XIV. A True Apostolic Succession . . 78 
 
lO 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XV. The Princeton School, and A. A. 
 
 Hodge’s place in it . . . 87 
 
 XVI. Varied glimpses of the younger Hodge 92 
 
 XVII. Ripened in Usefulness, and Ripe for 
 
 Glory ..... 99 
 
 XVIII. Dr a. a. Hodge among his Students . 104 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA— 
 
 I. Obiter Dicta . . . .113 
 
 11 . Reason and Revelation . . . 123 
 
 III. The Universe . . . -137 
 
 IV. The Being and Attributes of God . 152 
 
 V. The Holy Trinity .... 162 
 
 VI. Sovereignty, Free-Will, and Salvation 168 
 
 VII. Providence, Ordinary AND Miraculous 179 
 
 VHI. Man as Man .... 187 
 
 IX. Man as Sinner . . . -193 
 
 X. God’s Law and Man’s Duty . . 213 
 
 XI. Death and after Death . . 229 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 I. 
 
 PRINCETON AND ITS INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 “ An old University town . . . 
 Kirk and College keeping time, 
 
 Faith and Learning, chime for chime.” 
 
 Borland Hall. 
 
 RINCETON is a pleasant little town of fully 
 
 six thousand inhabitants. It is situated on 
 the slopes of New Jersey, half-way between New 
 York and Philadelphia, being about forty miles, or 
 two hours by rail, from each. Its population is mixed, 
 including perhaps one thousand or more of coloured 
 people. The country round is fertile, but somewhat 
 flat. In the neighbourhood is the scene of a decisive 
 battle in the War of Independence ; and a patent 
 proof of the fate which befell the “ Britishers” there 
 is still found in the presence of some British cannon 
 within the College grounds,—not to speak of a picture 
 in the Museum, whose frame now environs the 
 immortal Washington, in place of the visage of 
 infatuated King George. 
 
 “The Kingdom of Jersey,” as Americans plea¬ 
 santly call the state to which the little town belongs, 
 is noted for three things : its fruit, its legislation, and 
 
12 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 its theology. The last it gets from Princeton : and 
 throughout the United States “ Princeton theology” 
 has long been regarded as a synonym for orthodoxy. 
 
 The village has an unmistakably academic look, 
 clustering as it does about its seats of learning. 
 These are two,—the College and the Theological 
 Seminary. The College, which counts on its roll 
 of presidents the names of Witherspoon, Jonathan 
 Edwards, and M‘Cosh, has risen to front rank among 
 the many colleges of America, alongside of Harvard 
 and Yale. The Seminary has for a long period held 
 a unique place of influence among the similar institu¬ 
 tions of the United States, owing to the remarkably 
 gifted and devoted men who, up to and including the 
 present, have composed its professorial staff. Con¬ 
 spicuous among these have been two names of quite 
 outstanding lustre,—each name suggestive of a 
 binary star in the Princeton firmament—the names 
 of Alexander and Hodge. 
 
 Of the two Alexanders, much that is interesting 
 might be told. It will be a long time before the 
 savour evaporates which still hangs about their name 
 in Princeton. But it is not my present purpose to 
 speak about them. Nor shall I say anything of the 
 living; else one who still worthily maintains the 
 family name within the Seminary professoriate might 
 have been included in this sketch—Dr Caspar Wistar 
 Hodge, the accomplished successor of his father in 
 the chair of New Testament exegesis. The design 
 of this little volume is to offer a humble contribution 
 
1 
 
PRINCETON AND ITS INSTITUTIONS. I 3 
 
 to the elucidation of Princeton dogmatics : and the 
 purpose of the present brief memoir will be served if 
 it conveys some living impression of the character¬ 
 istics, as man and teacher, of each of the two Hodges, 
 father and son, who in succession occupied, with such 
 distinction to themselves and such advantage to the 
 Christian cause, the chair of Systematic Theology in 
 Princeton, from 1840 to 1886. 
 
 It was in the autumn of 1877 that, having previously 
 enjoyed a session at Gottingen under Ritschl and 
 others, I was led to spend a year at Princeton, NJ. 
 I attended and greatly relished the post-graduate 
 course in contemporary philosophy taught by Presi¬ 
 dent M‘Cosh in the College—an institution for which, 
 and in connection with which, he has rendered such 
 signal service during the trans-Atlantic chapter of 
 his distinguished career. But my main purpose 
 was to settle for a year within the Theological 
 Seminary there—that ancient Seminary, as antiquity 
 is measured in America, one of whose leading 
 boasts it is, that no novelty in theology ever 
 emanated from within its walls.* And certainly 
 I have seen no reason to regret the step. The 
 late Dr William Cunningham, Principal of the New 
 College, Edinburgh, being once asked by a student, 
 whether a year under Hodge in Princeton would 
 count for a session in the home curriculum, replied 
 —“ Count ! undoubtedly; the only question is, 
 
 * Dr Charles Hodge at his jubilee, in 1872, declared—“I am not 
 afraid to say, that a new idea never originated in this Seminary ” 
 [Life, p. 521), In what sense this was true, the present volume may 
 help to shew. 
 
14 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 ought it not to count for two ? ’’ Modesty may 
 have somewhat coloured this estimate by the Scot¬ 
 tish divine, who considered Dr Charles Hodge the 
 greatest of living theologians, and who, in turn, was 
 regarded at Princeton as “ beyond question the 
 greatest logician, polemic, and theologian of the 
 second heroic age of the Church of Christ in 
 Scotland.” But the opinion may be hazarded 
 that young “ divinities ” who think of having a 
 session abroad, and who perhaps covet the dis¬ 
 tinction of coming back from Germany with a 
 sufficient so2ipqon of neology about them to make 
 them interesting rather than dangerous, would do 
 unquestionably well to cross the Atlantic Ocean as 
 well as the German Sea. Not only would such 
 find a corrective for incipient erraticism in the New 
 World’s old theology : they would benefit in various 
 ways by mingling for a time in American society. 
 A number of the leading preachers of Philadelphia 
 and New York, for example, visit Princeton during 
 the session—to listen to whom is itself no mean 
 educational advantage for a future preacher. Prac¬ 
 tical hints in church organisation also may be readily 
 acquired from our eminently practical trans-Atlantic 
 cousins, to be afterwards turned to good account by 
 the future pastor. And, better still, the student can 
 hardly fail to be impressed and personally stimulated 
 by contact with the earnest religious life of Christian 
 America, which is a kind of thing that German 
 theology, whatever its excellences are, seems little 
 calculated to produce or foster. 
 
11 . 
 
 CHARLES HODGE’S PARENTAGE, YOUTH, AND 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 “ The son of parents passed into the skies.” 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 “ Heaven lies about us in our infancy. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 t • • • • 
 
 “ Deeper, deeper let us toil 
 In the mines of knowledge ; 
 
 Nature’s wealth and learning’s spoil 
 Win from school and college ; 
 
 Delve we there for richer gems 
 Than the stars of diadems.” 
 
 Montgomery. 
 
 I N the year 1730 there emigrated from the north 
 of Ireland three young men whose parents had 
 recently died—William, Andrew, and Hugh Hodge. 
 America was their destination, and Philadelphia 
 became their home. All the three prospered ; and 
 Andrew, the second of the brothers, besides being a 
 successful merchant, became in due time an active 
 churchman, and the respected parent of fifteen 
 children. The eighth of these, Hugh by name, who 
 was born in 1755, and who followed the medical 
 
I 6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 profession, was Charles Hodge’s father. He was a 
 man highly esteemed for character and intelligence. 
 His wife, a lady of Huguenot extraction, was “ the 
 beautiful Mary Blanchard of Boston,” whom he 
 married in 1790. Of their children, the first three 
 died in infancy; the fourth was Hugh, afterwards a 
 distinguished Philadelphia physician ; the fifth and 
 last was Charles—born on the 28th December 1797 
 —of whom we are now to speak. 
 
 Six months after the birth of her youngest son, 
 Mrs Hodge was left a widow. She seems to have 
 been a lady of strong character, as well as of sincere 
 piety and active benevolence. Her income from the 
 property left by her husband was more limited than 
 it might otherwise have been, owing to the troubled 
 state of the country; but by keeping boarders and 
 exercising a self-denying economy, she was enabled 
 to accomplish her cherished wish of providing 
 both her boys with a first-class education. They in 
 turn recognised that “ to their mother, under God, 
 they owed everything,” and they regarded her with 
 a beautiful devotion till her death in 1832. How 
 early and successfully she had imbued the minds of 
 her children with religious principles may be gathered 
 from the following interesting extract from Dr 
 Hodge’s autobiographic record :— 
 
 “ There has never been anything remarkable in 
 my religious experience, unless it be that it began 
 very early. I think that in my childhood I came 
 nearer to conforming to the apostle’s injunction, 
 
parp:ntage, youth, and education. 17 
 
 ‘ Pray without ceasing,’ than in any other period of 
 my life. As far back as I can remember, I had the 
 habit of thanking God for everything I received, 
 and asking him for everything I wanted. If I lost a 
 book, or any of my playthings, I prayed that I might 
 find it. I prayed walking along the streets, in school 
 and out of school, whether playing or studying. I 
 did not do this in obedience to any prescribed rule. 
 It seemed natural. I thought of God as an every- 
 where-present Being, full of kindness and love, who 
 would not be offended if children talked to Him. I 
 knew he cared for sparrows. I was as cheerful and 
 happy as the birds, and acted as they did.” 
 
 After attending primary schools in Philadelphia 
 and elsewhere, Charles Hodge entered Princeton 
 Academy in 1812, which happened to be the year in 
 which the Theological Seminary there was founded. 
 He always retained a lively recollection of lying on 
 the rail of the gallery in the old Presbyterian Church, 
 listening to the inaugural address of his future men¬ 
 tor, Dr Archibald Alexander, to whom he was intro¬ 
 duced the same summer, when Dr Alexander walked 
 into the schoolroom one day and found him stam¬ 
 mering over a verse in the Greek Testament. In 
 September of that year, he entered Princeton College, 
 then under the presidency of Dr Ashbel Green. His 
 opportunities in some branches cannot have been 
 first-rate, judging from what he tells of one professor 
 who “ had a favourite idea that civilisation had 
 
 reached its highest stage before the deluge,” and who 
 
 B 
 
i8 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 had a pleasant way of enforcing duty, by telling his 
 pupils that “ one of the best preparations for death 
 was a thorough knowledge of the Greek Grammar! ” 
 Yet his acquisitions were considerable by the time 
 he graduated in September 1815, as was shown by 
 his sharing the second highest honour, and being 
 chosen to deliver the valedictory address on behalf 
 of his class. 
 
 Meanwhile, his religious life had been advancing. 
 In January 1815, the news went round in student 
 circles that “ Hodge had enlisted.” This was soon 
 discovered to mean, not that he had sworn to fight 
 the British, but that he had enlisted under the banner 
 of Christ, by making an open profession of faith in 
 Him. These were blessed days for Princeton, to 
 which, long years afterwards, the old man sometimes 
 referred with deep emotion. His companions, Johns 
 and M‘Ilvaine, and many others, afterwards eminent 
 for ability and godliness, came under the influence 
 of that revival, and helped, along with him, to 
 extend it.* 
 
 After the close of his college course Charles Hodge 
 had to spend a year in general reading, in order to 
 recruit his overtaxed physical strength; but he never 
 wavered in his choice of a profession, and was eager to 
 enter on definite preparation for the ministry. It was 
 
 * The writer can fully endorse a recent remark of Professor Drum¬ 
 mond’s, that the atmosphere of American colleges is still, at least in 
 certain instances, including Princeton, to a noteworthy extent a 
 religious atmosphere. 
 
PARENTAGE, YOUTH, AND EDUCATION. 
 
 19 
 
 with intense satisfaction, therefore, that he enrolled his 
 name, on 9th November, 1816, as one of the twenty- 
 six students attending Princeton Seminary that year. 
 He soon showed himself an earnest and successful 
 student—diligent at his books, ardently devoted to 
 his professors (then only two in number), and warmly 
 attached to his comrades. His friendship for John 
 Johns (afterwards Bishop of Virginia), already begun 
 at college, here grew into an intimacy of mutual 
 affection, that seemed steadily to deepen during the 
 fifty years and more that followed. There are many 
 beautiful glimpses of this life-long attachment scat¬ 
 tered through his biography ; and nothing, indeed, 
 was more characteristic of Dr Hodge than the ten¬ 
 derness and tenacity of his friendships. 
 
 On 28th September, 1819, he graduated from 
 Princeton Seminary; and, a month later, the presby¬ 
 tery of Philadelphia licensed him to preach the 
 Gospel. 
 
III. 
 
 ORDINATION, MARRIAGE, EDITORSHIP. 
 
 “ Onward, onward may we press 
 Through the path of duty ; 
 
 Virtue is true happiness, 
 
 Excellence true beauty. 
 
 Minds are of celestial birth ; 
 
 Make we, then, a heaven of earth. ” 
 
 Montgomery. 
 
 HOUGH Hodge, apart from occasional bursts 
 
 J- of eloquence, was never to become an eminent 
 preacher, the quiet but deep enthusiasm with which 
 he regarded the work of the ministry was abundantly 
 evinced both in his missionary labours at this time, 
 and in the view he took of a proposal already mooted, 
 that he should be assumed as assistant-teacher of 
 Biblical literature and exegesis in Princeton Semin¬ 
 ary. We find him writing: “ Did the duties of the 
 contemplated office require me to give up the pros¬ 
 pect of preaching altogether, I think I should not 
 hesitate in declining it; for I believe that preaching 
 the Gospel is a privilege superior to any other 
 entrusted to men ; ” and again : “ I would give the 
 world, were my desire of honouring Christ and of 
 
ORDINATION, MARRIAGE, AND EDITORSHIP. 2 1 
 
 saving souls so strong that I should be indifferent to 
 what related merely to myself.” 
 
 He accepted his appointment to the Seminary 
 assistantship in 1820, at the munificent salary of ;^8o 
 (400 dols.) a-year; and so well did he acquit himself 
 in it during the two following sessions, that his two 
 senior professors—Dr Alexander and Dr Samuel 
 Miller—resolved to ask the Assembly to elevate him 
 to a regular professorial chair. Here is how he him¬ 
 self viewed the proposal : “ I believe that I would 
 rather be homeless and penniless through life, than 
 in any way whatever enter such an office unsent of 
 God.” At the same time, he confesses that the 
 fondest wishes of his heart would be accomplished 
 in being called to such a post, which he would prefer 
 to any other situation with the largest salary in the 
 country. This disregard for pecuniary emolument 
 was another distinguishing mark of his whole subse¬ 
 quent career. 
 
 Happily, the ^80 were increased to £ 200 , when, 
 in May 1822, he was actually made Professor of 
 Oriental and Biblical Literature; otherwise, the step 
 he took a month later would hardly have been 
 possible. This was his marriage to Sarah Bache, 
 great-grand-daughter of Benjamin Franklin, a young 
 lady of unusual beauty both of person and character, 
 whom he had met, for the first time, nine years 
 before, in his mother’s house at Philadelphia. She 
 always attributed her religious life to his instru¬ 
 mentality ; and the following, written by her on 
 
22 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 4th August 1820, may be taken as a specimen of 
 the serious ‘‘ love-letters ” that passed between 
 them— 
 
 “ I love to feel myself bound to you by indis¬ 
 soluble ties that not even the grave can change 
 —to feel that after being cherished and guided by 
 you through time, I shall, through your instru¬ 
 mentality, stand by you, purified, before the throne 
 of our Heavenly Father when time shall be no 
 more. Can any conception comprehend the ecstacy 
 of such a moment, or any earthly happiness equal it ? 
 Am I guilty of detracting from the true source and 
 first cause of all happiness, when I suppose that 
 even in heaven it may be augmented by the reflec¬ 
 tion that a beloved partner was the means of our 
 attaining it ? ” 
 
 After living for a short time in apartments at 
 Princeton, the young pair “ began housekeeping ” 
 on 1st January 1825, in the new house built for 
 them close to the Seminary—that familiar home 
 where Dr Hodge lived, and loved, and laboured for 
 more than half a century to come. There his eight 
 children, except the eldest, were born, and there 
 his loved partner was reft from him by death in 
 1849. As the trees grew up which his own hands 
 had planted, and the walls turned old which were 
 then so new, and every familiar object became 
 entwined with the dearest associations, we cannot 
 wonder that' he came to feel as though the place 
 were 'almost part of himself His biographer in- 
 
ORDINATION, MARRIAGE, AND EDITORSHIP. 23 
 
 stances, as a characteristic trait of conservatism, 
 that he went on “ for forty-five years reclining and 
 sitting, reading, writing, praying, and talking in one 
 spot of one room ; ” and that he said pathetically a 
 few years before he died, “ This chair and I for 
 forty years have been growing to each other very 
 closely.” It is also mentioned that he could never 
 be induced to have his clothes made anywhere else 
 than at the same old shop which he had patronised 
 from the first; for “ there was no element of his 
 nature inclined to new measures any more than to 
 new doctrines.” It ought, however, to be added, 
 that to the very last the outlook from this home 
 of many years was keenly observant and warmly 
 sympathetic. He continued to be intelligently 
 alive to all the movements of the day, and brought 
 to bear on the most distant of them a telescopic 
 interest that made the remote near and then 
 surveyed it with honest appreciation. 
 
 We may regard as the closing event of this first 
 period of his life, his inauguration, in 1825, of the 
 Biblical Repertory. It was at first a mere reprint 
 of foreign articles; but it assumed an original 
 character four years later, and afterwards developed 
 into the well-known Prineeton Reviezv, which, for 
 forty-three years in all. Dr Hodge made the medium 
 of exerting an untold influence in his own country 
 on the great religious and social questions of the 
 day. 
 
IV. 
 
 LEHRJAHRE IN EUROPE. 
 
 “ One who of such a height hath built his mind, 
 
 And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong, 
 
 As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame 
 Of his resolved powers.” 
 
 Samuel Daniel. 
 
 I T was a somewhat startling announcement for 
 Hugh Hodge to receive from his steady-going 
 brother Charles in 1826: “I want to leave you all 
 for two years, wife and child, mother and brother.” 
 This desire was prompted by the experience already 
 gained in his brief professoriate, which, as it had 
 raised his ideal of the work, had served at the same 
 time to convince him of the necessity for a fuller 
 personal equipment for it, by a period of private 
 and uninterrupted study under the most eminent 
 living teachers of Biblical science. His proposal 
 was cordially taken up by the senior professors, and, 
 on their recommendation, agreed to by the Board 
 of Directors ; so that, in October, 1826, he sailed 
 for Havre, leaving his wife and young family at his 
 mother’s home in Philadelphia. 
 
 While he was away, his “ paternal professors ” 
 bore him constantly and anxiously on their hearts ; 
 
LEHRJAHRE IN EUROPE. 
 
 25 
 
 but they had in him a confidence which, as his after¬ 
 life showed, was in no way misplaced. Dr Alex¬ 
 ander’s letters show only a natural and becoming 
 solicitude when he writes :— 
 
 “ Remember that you breathe a poisoned atmos¬ 
 phere. If you lose the lively and deep impression 
 of Divine truth—if you fall into scepticism or even 
 into coldness—you will lose more than you gain 
 from all the German professors and libraries . . . 
 The air which you breathe in Germany will either 
 have a deleterious effect on your moral constitution, 
 or else, by the strength of faith required to resist 
 its effects, your spiritual health will be confirmed.” 
 His prayer, that his young colleague “ might be 
 kept from the poison of neology,” was certainly 
 fulfilled; and there cannot be a doubt that Hodge’s 
 stay in Europe had an expanding and consolidating 
 influence on his mind, which impressed itself after¬ 
 wards on all his work. 
 
 He first spent three months in Paris, studying 
 French, Arabic, and Syriac with De Sacy, keenly 
 observing Old World institutions, and preaching 
 occasionally in the English Chapel, where he had 
 Thomas Guthrie one day as an appreciative hearer. 
 Then he proceeded to Germany, where he had first 
 seven months in Halle, and then nearly a year in 
 Berlin. His journal and letters at this time abound 
 in interesting references to the state of religious and 
 philosophical opinion then prevalent in the country, 
 and also in lively personal impressions of the dif- 
 
26 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 ferent men of the day. His German tutor in Halle 
 was George Muller, afterwards of Bristol. There he 
 became acquainted with Gesenius, Jacob, Niemeyer, 
 and, above all, with Tholuck, between whom and 
 himself a lifelong friendship sprang up. His descrip¬ 
 tion of Gesenius—afterwards modified, however, on 
 hearing his clear and animated prelections in the 
 class-room—is somewhat amusing :— 
 
 “ When viewed from the other side of the Atlantic, 
 these men seemed something out of the ordinary 
 course of things, but here, whatever their minds 
 may be, their bodies are made of very vulgar clay. 
 I have never been so disappointed in my life as in 
 the appearance of Gesenius, who is the first Hebrew 
 scholar probably in the world. He is not more 
 than forty years old, frivolous^ and, what is a 
 wonder here, rather foppish in his appearance. He 
 has a silly laugh for everything he says, and is in 
 short the last man I should have selected from ten 
 thousand as a distinguished philologist.” 
 
 Hodge’s regard for Tholuck was strong from the 
 first, and it was thoroughly reciprocated. They were 
 both young men, under thirty, and in their long 
 discussions and frequent walks together, found much 
 that they held in common, and not a little that they 
 could learn from one another. Tholuck, being from 
 his evangelical piety a kind of rara avis, and even 
 an object of suspicion and talebearing in Halle, was 
 glad to find in the young American a congenial 
 spirit. He afterwards writes to Hodge in Berlin :— 
 
LEHRJAHRE IN EUROPE. 
 
 27 
 
 “You have been sent to me through God’s mercy as 
 a messenger of glad tidings, as a comforter in cheer¬ 
 less hours, as an elder brother to show me the simple 
 way to heaven.” And as late as 1877, Tholuck sent 
 his friend a copy of his own photograph, with warm 
 expressions of undying love. 
 
 Hodge came more or less into contact with such 
 men as Twesten, Ritter, Baumgarten - Crusius, 
 Schleusner, Heubner, Blumenbach, Liicke, Nitzsch, 
 and Krummacher, his references to whom are inter¬ 
 esting, but cannot here be instanced. In Berlin he 
 heard Hengstenberg, Schleiermacher, Marheinecke, 
 Baron Humboldt, and others. But there he especially 
 came under the influence of Neander, that prince of 
 German theologians, who not only valued him as a 
 pupil, but received him warmly as a personal friend. 
 Tholuck was for a time in Berlin, and the three 
 used to have long and animated discussions on 
 questions such as inspiration and predestination, 
 after which Neander would say kindly to Tholuck, 
 at parting—“Tell our friend Hodge that though we 
 dispute with him, we belong to the same Lord, and 
 are one at heart.” Here is how Neander outwardly 
 impressed Hodge the first time he saw him :— 
 
 “He is rather an old-looking man for thirty-five, 
 has much of the Jewish countenance, and his man¬ 
 ners, though peculiar and awkward, arc exceedingly 
 kind. The poor man has studied himself almost to 
 death.” 
 
 Tholuck had introduced Hodge to Otto v. Gerlach, 
 
28 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 “ the Wesley of Berlin,” and other leaders of the 
 revival movement which about that time was stirring 
 in parts of Germany. Hodge’s sympathies were, of 
 course, entirely with the movement, while he was 
 quite alive to its dangers. These he describes, in 
 connection with a sermon he heard by Krummacher, 
 as being twofold —-firsts a tendency among some few 
 of the preachers to Antinomian principles; and 
 second, a fondness for extravagant allegorical inter¬ 
 pretations of the Old Testament. 
 
 He did what he could to advance the cause of 
 true religion while in Berlin. In this endeavour he 
 had the warm co-operation of his house-companion, 
 Monod of Paris, and the cordial approval of Heng- 
 stenberg, who felt closely drawn to the young 
 American from his “simplicity, modesty, and sin¬ 
 cerity,” and made a personal friend of him in spite 
 of the fact that there were “ the wildest and most 
 wonderful stories about Hodge and Monod ” circulat¬ 
 ing among their fellow-students. 
 
 But the time came for leaving Berlin. How much 
 his residence there had been appreciated we learn 
 from Hodge’s own words—“ When I bade my friends 
 farewell, I cried like a child. Neander’s farewell I 
 shall never forget.” He took with him, and left 
 behind him, many happy memories. On his home¬ 
 ward way he visited Gottingen and Bonn. In the 
 former he saw, among others, Llicke and Ewald. Of 
 the latter he writes :—“ I regard him as one of the 
 most remarkable men I have seen in Europe. He is 
 
LEHRJAHRE IN EUROPE. 
 
 29 
 
 about twOnty-four, looks much younger, is modest in 
 his manner even to bashfulness, though confident 
 even to arrogance in his writings.” At Bonn, then a 
 university of about only ten years’ standing, he heard 
 Schlegel lecture, but was disappointed in his appear¬ 
 ance and manner. 
 
 Before returning to America, Hodge paid his only 
 visit to England. “ With a swelling heart,” he says, 
 “ I trod upon the soil of the mother-country, which, 
 with all her faults, is the most wonderful and admir¬ 
 able the world has ever seen.” This is exactly in 
 accord with the frequently-expressed sentiments 
 of his mature life, and falls in with what his bio¬ 
 grapher afterwards says of his attitude to “ the old 
 country: ”— 
 
 “ Although heartily and conscientiously an Ameri¬ 
 can patriot, maintaining that the United States is a 
 nation, and loving it and admiring its institutions as 
 more excellent than those of any other, he was ever 
 proud of his part in the inheritance of Anglo-Saxon 
 traditions and glories. Great Britain was loved and 
 honoured as the mother-country, and her history and 
 prestige were sacred to him. Above all was he a 
 life-long admirer of the Duke of Wellington, and the 
 history of all his campaigns and battles was known 
 to him in all its various versions and critical details.” 
 
 His stay in Britain was unfortunately brief. He 
 had time to see a little of London and of the English 
 universities, and to hear a debate in the House of 
 Commons; but British parliamentary eloquence does 
 
30 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 not appear to have impressed him very favourably, 
 for he says he “ never heard so much poor speaking 
 in his life.” Edinburgh he rapidly visited, before his 
 vessel sailed from Liverpool; but not a line of record 
 concerning that visit survives, and unfortunately it 
 was never to be repeated. About fifty years later, he 
 would fain have been back in the Scottish capital, in 
 order to be present at the first General Presbyterian 
 Council, held at Edinburgh in July 1877 ; but failing 
 health by that time prevented the fulfilment of his 
 wish. 
 
 On 18th September 1828, he reached his home in 
 Princeton, where family and friends were met to give 
 him their heartiest greeting. In his introductory 
 lecture, the following winter, he enforced three con¬ 
 siderations which his stay in Europe had impressed 
 upon himself These were, the value of civil and 
 religious liberty, the importance of religious instruc¬ 
 tion in the public schools, and the intimate con¬ 
 nection between speculative opinion and moral 
 character. Under the last head, he bore the 
 following decided testimony:—“ Whenever you find 
 vital piety — that is, penitence and a devotional 
 spirit—there you find the doctrines of the fall, of 
 depravity, of regeneration, of atonement, and of the 
 Deity of Christ. I never saw or heard of a single 
 individual, exhibiting a spirit of piety, who rejected 
 any one of these doctrines.” 
 
V. 
 
 THE ZENITH REACHED : AND THE DAY OF JUBILEE. 
 
 “ Why grieve that time has brought so soon 
 The sober age of manhood on ? 
 
 As idly should I weep at noon, 
 
 To see the blush of morning gone.” 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 HE third period of Hodge’s life (1829-40) now 
 
 began. Into the details of it and of those 
 which follow, we cannot and need not enter at any 
 length. It was a time of considerable literary 
 activity, carried on under serious physical disad¬ 
 vantages—a protracted malady in one of his limbs 
 keeping him repeatedly, for months together, on his 
 couch. His students had to assemble in his study : 
 and his well-known commentary on “ Romans ” had 
 to be written, for the most part, as he lay on his 
 back with his leg in a splint. 
 
 His fame both as a writer and as a teacher now 
 steadily increased. In 1834, he received the title of 
 Doctor of Divinity from Rutgers College, New 
 Jersey; and he soon began to earn an European 
 reputation, as a sound theologian and able contro¬ 
 versialist. He took his due share in politics as an 
 
32 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 old Whig, while that party lasted, and then as a 
 Republican—believing that, “ when connected with 
 morality and the character and interest of a 
 country, politics is a subject second only to religion 
 in importance.” 
 
 He likewise put forth his full influence in the eccle¬ 
 siastical domain, in order to guide the Church through 
 the fierce storms of the Disruption controversy. Dr 
 Hodge led the Princeton wing of the Old School 
 party, which took such a temperate view of the 
 question at issue as to fall under the displeasure 
 of the opposing extremes. While thoroughly Old 
 School in sympathy, they were not in favour of the 
 Disruption policy of some of the leaders ; and per¬ 
 haps the best vindication of the position they then 
 took up has since been given in the reunion of 1870. 
 At this later date, Hodge dared to repeat the same 
 policy of independence ; because, while he would not 
 divide the Church, he saw no sufficient reason then 
 for uniting the actually and long-divided branches, 
 and thereby sinking what he had come to regard as 
 the peculiar and valuable testimony of the Old School 
 Presbyterian Church for strict Calvinistic doctrine. 
 
 In all his controversies, he was, however emphatic, 
 consistently impersonal and even generous towards 
 his opponents. Strife was certainly not congenial to 
 his nature. He could not, and would not, shun con¬ 
 troversy ; but he always engaged in it as a means, 
 not as an end. The glimpses we have into his home 
 life during this period are of the most attractive 
 
THE ZENITH REACHED. 
 
 O J 
 
 kind. The supposed grim Calvinist there softens 
 into the most lovable of men. His study is the 
 home of his wife, and not only the gathering place 
 of the entire family but the highway of the children 
 between the outside world and the other apartments 
 of the house. As was remarked by the editor of the 
 Sunday at Horne^ to whose pages the writer sent 
 some Princeton reminiscences a few years ago— 
 “ I have seldom seen a man more genial and attrac¬ 
 tive than this representative of the American 
 Presbyterians. Clear light did not interfere with 
 warm love in good old Dr Hodge ; and I remember 
 his parlour-study as one of the cheeriest glimpses 
 I had of an American interior.” 
 
 It may be here parenthetically remarked, that 
 they in truth greatly err, who think or speak of Dr 
 Hodge as a “hard and dry Calvinist.” In him it 
 was conspicuously seen, how warm and loving a 
 heart may beat beneath what some would regard as 
 the cold steel of a Calvinistic coat of mail. A Cal¬ 
 vinist, indeed, he was to the backbone—no member 
 of the genus invertebrata theologica; but he was 
 neither hard nor dry. This sufficiently appears in 
 his writings to all candid minds. Of them it is 
 true that “ while there is not one point of the Cal¬ 
 vinistic system that he obscures, he lets in upon it 
 the full light of God’s love and mercy, till the 
 heart melts into submission to His sovereignty.” 
 But only those who knew him personally could 
 appreciate the man. While he did not seek to 
 
 C 
 
34 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 minimise truth or explain it away, he certainly did 
 not revel in what some consider the obnoxious doc¬ 
 trines of the Calvinistic system. These he pro¬ 
 pounded with all humility, and with infinite tender¬ 
 ness. His senior colleague, Dr Archibald Alexan¬ 
 der, once aptly said, that the mental constitution of 
 Dr Hodge was “like that of John Calvin without 
 his severity.” 
 
 His biographer records, that Dr Hodge wrote in 
 pencil, with trembling lines, on one of his Confer- 
 e7ice Papers^ shortly before his death, that he 
 believed the vast majority of the human race were 
 to share the beatitudes and glories of his Lord’s 
 redemption.* Certainly the haters of Calvinistic 
 theology, who wrongly deem narrowness and acer¬ 
 bity its necessary accompaniments, were never 
 further from the mark than in assuming that “the 
 pontifex maximus of this creed ” was “ the incarna¬ 
 tion of these amiable qualities.” The very reverse 
 was the case. The mention of the love of Christ 
 would sometimes, even in the class-room, affect him 
 to tears ; and it is in no spirit of exaggeration 
 that Dr Boardman of Philadelphia, his life-long 
 friend, declares—“ Not Rutherford himself was more 
 absorbed with the love of Christ.” His students 
 know, on the other hand, how touching it was to 
 hear him treat of a subject so affectingly solemn as 
 
 * The salvation, through the merit of the Redeemer, of all children 
 dying in infancy was one of the “recurring fervours” of Dr Hodge 
 in his theological teaching. 
 
THE ZENITH REACHED. 
 
 35 
 
 the reprobation of the finally impenitent. They 
 could not fail to see in their teacher a true disciple 
 of Him who wept over lost Jerusalem. 
 
 During what may be called the fourth section of 
 his life (1840-72), Dr Hodge was at his best. Like 
 the grandest trees, he was slow in reaching his fullest 
 development. In 1847, though he had already 
 achieved no mean reputation on both sides of the 
 ocean, he himself writes:—“ I feel that almost all 
 the usefulness of my life is to be crowded into the 
 coming ten years, should I live so long.” 
 
 The events of this period in the Princeton calendar 
 are easily told, but the importance of some of them 
 is not so easily measured. In 1840, much against 
 his own wish at first. Dr Hodge was transferred 
 to the Chair of Exegetical and Didactic Theology, 
 which subsequent experience proved to be his proper 
 sphere, and for which the previous twenty years of 
 linguistic and exegetical study and practice had been 
 a most valuable preparation. In 1841, his “Way of 
 Life ” appeared. Then came numerous papers in 
 the Princeton Review, to which he contributed one 
 hundred and forty-two articles in all, and through 
 whose pages, as already hinted, he continued for 
 about half a century, from first to last, to mould the 
 current opinions of his Church and country—and 
 that in the face of opposition from very diverse 
 quarters. His articles embraced a great variety of 
 theological and ecclesiastical problems and relations: 
 and the independence of his judgment often received 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 36 
 
 striking testimony from the very contrariety of the 
 criticisms he had to encounter. His work in the 
 Prmceton Reviezv alone would justify the public 
 declaration of Dr Shedd, that “ Dr Hodge has done 
 more for Calvinism than any other man in America.” 
 A specimen of the influence his papers wielded was 
 seen in the eager absorption, by thousands of copies, 
 of his article on “ The State of the Country during 
 the Warand at more than one crisis it was found 
 that the single pen of Dr Hodge, in his Review — 
 like that of Hugh Miller in The Witness —could 
 outbid the Babel of a thousand tongues in its influ¬ 
 ence on public opinion and even on public policy. 
 As early as the year 1846, his Church conferred 
 on him a high token of its respect and confldence by 
 choosing him moderator of the Assembly, held 
 that year in Philadelphia. 
 
 In 1849, his wife died. She was followed by his 
 colleagues, Dr Samuel Miller, in 1850, and Dr Archi¬ 
 bald Alexander, in 1851. These successive bereave¬ 
 ments DrHodge felt most keenly. Returningfrom his 
 last interview with Dr Alexander, he exclaimed to his 
 son in an agony of weeping—“ It is all past; the 
 glory of our Seminary has departed.” This feeling 
 was natural for him at such a moment, though others 
 even then were comforted by the thought which was 
 afterwards fittingly expressed, that if their Elijah had 
 ascended, Elisha still remained with his mantle and 
 a double portion of his spirit. In 1852, Dr Hodge 
 married Mrs Stockton, a noble Christian lady, who 
 
THE ZENITH REACHED. 37 
 
 became a true mother to his children as well as an 
 admirable helpmeet for all his later life. 
 
 In 1856-7, he wrote his commentaries on “Ephe¬ 
 sians” and “Corinthians.” In i860, came what he 
 regarded as the second greatest sorrow of his life, 
 the unexpected death of Dr Joseph Addison Alex¬ 
 ander, who had been appointed to his former Chair of 
 Oriental and Biblical Literature twenty years before, 
 and during all that time had been to him a kind of 
 second self. 
 
 On the events of his public life it is unnecessary 
 to dwell. There are few more impressive scenes 
 in it than the occasion when, in the National Presby¬ 
 terian Convention held in Philadelphia, November 
 1867, he was brought forward to respond, in the 
 name of all, to the Episcopalian delegation which 
 was headed by Bishop M‘Ilvaine, of Ohio, his old 
 school and college friend. His closing words breathe 
 the true eloquence of a loving and catholic spirit, 
 and were delivered with such feeling that “ there was 
 scarcely a dry eye in the house.” We may be par¬ 
 doned for adding them, as one more quotation :— 
 
 “And now, sir, after these fifty odd years, here we 
 stand, grey-headed, side by side, for the moment 
 representatives of these two great bodies of organised 
 Christians, feeling for each other the same intimate 
 cordial love, and mutual confidence; looking, not 
 backward,—not downward to the grave beneath 
 our very feet,—but onward to the coming glory. 
 Brethren, pardon this personal allusion, but is there 
 
38 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 not something that may be regarded as symbolical 
 in this ? Has not your Church and our Church 
 been rocked in the same cradle ? Did they not pass 
 through the same Red Sea, receiving the same bap¬ 
 tism of the Spirit, and of fire ? Have they not 
 uttered, from those days of the Reformation to the 
 present time, the same great testimony for Christ 
 and His Gospel ? What difference, sir, is there 
 between your Thirty-nine Articles and our Con¬ 
 fession of Faith, other than the difference between 
 one part and another of the same great cathedral 
 anthem rising to the skies ? Does it not seem to 
 indicate that these Churches are coming together ? 
 We stand here, sir, to say to the whole world, that 
 we are one in faith, one in baptism, one in life, and 
 one in allegiance to our common Lord.” 
 
 Dr Hodge’s own jubilee celebration furnished the 
 most unique evidence of the high place he held in 
 the esteem and affection of all the Churches. It was 
 the most oecumenical affair of its kind, perhaps, 
 that has occurred in the individual annals of Pro¬ 
 testant Christendom. Though, as everybody knew. 
 Dr Hodge was both a staunch Calvinist and a loyal 
 Presbyterian, it was appropriately recognised that he 
 was a man belonging to the universal Church rather 
 than to any particular sect; and hence Lutherans as 
 well as Calvinists—Episcopalians, Methodists, Bap¬ 
 tists, and Independents, as well as Presbyterians— 
 vied with each other in showing the value they set 
 upon such a life. 
 
THE ZENITH REACHED. 
 
 39 
 
 During most of the congratulatory addresses, he 
 was reclining, out of sight, in the pulpit sofa behind 
 the stage. When a friend asked him, as they closed 
 —‘‘ How did you stand all that } ” “ Why,” said he, 
 
 with a pleasant smile, “ very quietly ; it did not 
 seem at all to be me they were talking about. I 
 heard it all as of some other man.” It was the 
 testimony that day borne to the unity of the faith, 
 and to the common love of all for the same Gospel 
 and the same Lord, that he was thinking about. 
 His humility was of the most deep and unaffected 
 kind. When one was saying to him, “ You ought to 
 be a very happy man, considering what you have 
 accomplished, and the universal feeling toward 
 
 you-” “ Now, stop ! ” said he, with a wave of 
 
 the hand ; “ all that can be said is, that God has 
 been pleased to take up a poor little stick and do 
 something with it. What I have done is as nothing 
 compared with what is done by a man who goes to 
 Africa, and labours among a heathen tribe, and 
 reduces their language to writing. I am not worthy 
 to stoop down and unloose the shoes of such a man.” 
 His sympathy with foreign missions, here indicated, 
 was intense all through his life. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE EVENING TIME, AND THE NEW DAY’S DAWN. 
 
 “ But an old age, serene and bright, 
 And lovely as a Lapland night, 
 Shall lead thee to thy grave.” 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 “ Hast thou not glimpses in the twilight here 
 
 Of mountains where immortal morn prevails ? 
 
 Comes there not through the silence to thine ear 
 A gentle rustling of the morning gales? ” 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 HARLES HODGE’S closing years were singu- 
 
 larly beautiful. The reviewer had laid down 
 his pen, the controversialist had put aside his armour ; 
 there was the calm of evening and the mellowness of 
 autumn all about his life. The writer, who was a 
 member of his last class in 1878, can testify that his 
 outward form was even at that time still erect, his 
 intellect vigorous and clear, his emotional nature un¬ 
 blunted by age. Only his body was growing weary, 
 and there was an evident ripening for rest and for 
 glory. There was in his face an incomparable 
 blending of sweetness and strength. If the massive 
 brow, the keen eye, and the firm-set mouth bespoke 
 the theologian, there was a tender softening radi- 
 
EVENING TIME, AND THE NEW DAy’s DAWN. 4 1 
 
 ance, an indescribable something about the natural 
 expression of the face which as clearly bespoke the 
 mellowed saint. Stedfast on behalf of the truth, he 
 was, in the view of his students, so meek, and 
 gentle, and blameless in life, as almost to seem to 
 belie the doctrine of universal depravity, which was 
 a fundamental tenet of his creed. 
 
 He had many of the characteristics of “ the disciple 
 whom Jesus loved; ” and as we knew him in his ripe 
 old age, he seemed already to live more than half in 
 heaven. Yet, as before stated, he took a lively 
 interest still in everything which concerned the pro¬ 
 gress of Christ’s Church on earth, and he looked 
 abroad upon the world with a hopeful, though some¬ 
 times anxious eye. We find him writing to a friend 
 toward the close of his life :—“ I am not inclined to 
 be a laudator temporis acti ; for I really believe that 
 the world, on the whole, is getting better, and that 
 the cause of Christ is on the advance. Yet, at times, 
 I am somewhat startled at the decay of faith, or the 
 prevalence of broad churchism among all denomina¬ 
 tions, and of scepticism among men of the world. 
 Among the masses, speculative faith seemed a few 
 years ago to be the rule. I fear the reverse is true 
 now.” As for himself, he was increasingly absorbed 
 in holy contemplation on the things unseen, and 
 especially on the character of Him whom he con¬ 
 stantly followed, and whose spirit, in the eyes of 
 others, though not his own, he so beautifully mirrored. 
 
 I have never had a harsh word from one of my 
 
42 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 students,” Dr Hodge could say, after more than fifty 
 years among them. And what wonder, since he won 
 from them a filial regard, in which reverence itself 
 was swallowed up of love ! The kindly humanity 
 that beamed habitually in his face was a true 
 and influential yoke-fellow to the integrity and 
 piety which exhaled from his character and life. 
 His very presence seemed to bring a benison. Who 
 among his pupils does not remember still the glance 
 he was wont to cast upon the class as he entered 
 the class-room in the morning and took his seat 
 upon the chair—“a glance,” as one of even his earlier 
 pupils well says, “of such beaming benevolence, 
 mingled with such quiet peace, that we all felt he 
 had come in the spirit of the apostle John to teach 
 us, out of his own deep spiritual intuitions, the 
 mystery of the Kingdom of God.” 
 
 And, while his closing years were spent in almost 
 unbroken calm—tranquil in that faith which is the 
 substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
 not seen—the end, when it came, was perfect peace. 
 The aged patriarch gently passed, on the 19th of 
 June 1878, from the midst of those he loved on 
 earth to the bosom of his Lord. His last consecu¬ 
 tive utterance, designed to comfort a weeping rela¬ 
 tive, was worthy of the expiring m.oments of the 
 saintly logician :—“To be absent from the body is 
 to be present with the Lord ; to be present with the 
 Lord is to see Him ; to see Him is to be like 
 Him.” Likeness to Christ was what he sought in 
 
EVENING TIME, AND THE NEW DAy’s DAWN. 43 
 
 life, and death itself was made his (i Cor. iii. 22) to 
 further that blessed end. To him, if to any man, the 
 words of his country’s poet might be fittingly ap¬ 
 plied— 
 
 “ This is not Death ! What seems so is transition ; 
 
 This life of mortal breath 
 Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 
 
 Whose portal we call Death.” 
 
VIL 
 
 DR CHARLES HODGE AS TEACHER, CHURCHMAN, 
 
 AND THEOLOGIAN. 
 
 “ Man goeth forth unto his work, and to his labour until the even¬ 
 ing.— Psalm civ. 23. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Life is too short to waste 
 In critic peep or cynic bark, 
 Quarrel or reprimand ; 
 
 ’Twill soon be dark ; 
 
 Ay, mind thine own aim, and 
 God speed the mark.” 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 FEW words may be added upon Dr Hodge 
 
 ^ as a teacher. Multifarious as his duties were, 
 it may be truly said that his professorial work was 
 never pushed by him into a corner, but took with 
 him the precedence of all his other work. Through¬ 
 out his long career he was, first of all, and all through, 
 a teacher; and certainly his fifty years of patient 
 and enthusiastic labour in this capacity, among the 
 three thousand or more students who came under his 
 personal influence, will continue to be productive 
 long after the din of the controversies, which now 
 and again perforce engaged him, has been not only 
 hushed but quite forgotten. 
 
 In his class, where his work on Systematic The- 
 
AS TEACHER, CHURCHMAN, THEOLOGIAN. 45 
 
 ology was latterly used as a text-book, Dr Hodge 
 conducted the teaching with weight, zeal, and pre¬ 
 cision to the very last. He was always ready to 
 answer questions and to face reasonable difficulties 
 presented by the students. His mind was stored 
 with interesting reminiscences of notable men and 
 remarkable scenes and episodes; and he had a 
 peculiar delight in recalling the experiences of those 
 early days which he spent in Germany with men 
 like Tholuck and Scheiermacher, and in company 
 with such fellow-students as Julius Muller, who died 
 about the same time as himself at Halle. 
 
 Professor Benjamin B. Warfield, now himself the 
 honoured occupant of Dr Hodge’s theological chair, 
 gives an apt description of his mode of teaching 
 exegesis, which, with necessary modifications arising 
 out of the nature of the subject, very vividly recalls 
 his style in the class of Didactic Theology as well:— 
 “ After his always strikingly appropriate prayer had 
 been offered, and we were settled back into our seats, 
 he would open his well-thumbed Greek Testament— 
 on which it was plain that there was not a single 
 marginal note—look at the passage for a second, and 
 then, throwing his head back and closing his eyes, 
 begin his exposition. He scarcely again glanced 
 at the Testament during the hour : the text was 
 evidently before his mind, verbally, and the matter of 
 his exposition thoroughly at his command. In an 
 unbroken stream it flowed from subject to subject, 
 simple, clear, cogent, unfailingly reverent. Now and 
 
46 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 then he would pause a moment, to insert an illustra¬ 
 tive anecdote—now and then lean forward suddenly 
 with tearful, wide-open eyes to press home a quick- 
 risen inference of the love of God to lost sinners. 
 But the web of his discourse—for discourse it really 
 was—was calm, critical, and argumentative. We 
 were expected to take notes upon it, and to recite on 
 them at our next meeting.” 
 
 Always earnest in the class-room, he was never 
 morose. His powerful face wore a habitual expres¬ 
 sion of refined geniality, which at times would relax 
 into a smile, as a student recalled unwittingly some 
 incident of the past. The writer, for instance, who 
 happens to be a Scotchman, was being examined one 
 day on the Sacraments. He was asked to give the 
 Shorter Catechism definition of baptism, and had 
 proceeded a little way, when, under the impression 
 that he had begun the wrong answer, he stopped 
 short. Doctor Hodge, with a naive smile, remarked 
 —‘‘You are the first Scotchman I ever caught!” 
 But by this time the student had got on the rails 
 again, and glided swiftly to the end, without further 
 let or hindrance, to the amusement of the class. 
 “ That reminds me,” said the Doctor quietly, “ of a 
 Scotch lady I once knew, who, when asked to repeat 
 the sixth commandment, replied : ‘ I’ll soon do that, 
 if you’ll only start me.’ ” It is related that, on 
 another occasion, he asked a student what the 
 Apostle Paul meant by the expression—“ I am sold 
 under sin.” “ That he was taken in or deceived by 
 
AS TEACHER, CHURCHMAN, THEOLOGIAN. 47 
 
 sin,” said the student. “ Oh no,” replied the Doctor, 
 with a quiet twinkle in his eye—“ Paul wasn’t a 
 Yankee.” 
 
 The professors and students of Princeton Semin¬ 
 ary are wont, on Sunday afternoons, to hold a con¬ 
 ference together on some religious theme. In these 
 meetings it was fully seen that Dr Hodge’s theology 
 had, at all points, a warm living religion correspond¬ 
 ing with it. And there it was, as nowhere else 
 perhaps, that the “ old Doctor ” made his power felt, 
 as, with glistening eye and quivering lip, he bent 
 forward to press home some practical truth that had 
 a powerful hold on his own inner experience. He 
 seemed to yearn over his young disciples as Paul did 
 over Timothy; and every week he spoke as ear¬ 
 nestly and tenderly as though it might be his last. 
 
 It is no part of the object of this paper to gauge, 
 in any judicial sense, the general worth of the elder 
 Hodge. The language of eulogy rises so naturally 
 to the lips of every pupil of the venerated Princeton 
 divine, as to require distinct repression in speaking 
 of him to those who did not come under the spell of 
 his personality. Enough, if this sketch serve to 
 focus some of the leading outlines of the character 
 and influence of one whom it is a joy unspeakable to 
 have known and loved. 
 
 Nor is it sought to give a formal estimate here of 
 his place either as a churchman or as a theologian. 
 
 Those desirous to study Hodge in the former 
 
 * See note, p. 118. 
 
48 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 capacity cannot do better than turn to the volume 
 on “ The Church and its Polity,” which, though 
 published after his death, was compiled during 
 Dr Hodge’s lifetime, and with his cordial approval, 
 chiefly from the long series of ‘‘Assembly Articles” 
 contributed by him to the Prmceton Review between 
 the years 1835 and 1867. It is in a sense the com¬ 
 plement to his “Systematic Theology”—to which 
 the author, but for the infirmities of age, would him¬ 
 self have appended a fourth volume on Ecclesiology. 
 To some minds the work as it stands may present 
 even certain advantages over a more fully rounded 
 and ostensibly complete treatise on so large a theme. 
 The first part, indeed, deals in a systematic way 
 with Preliminary Principles—discussing such themes 
 as the idea of the Church, its visibility, perpetuity, 
 and relations. But the volume is chiefly occupied 
 with the Application of Principles, and exhibits the 
 author as he thought and acted in the various stages 
 of his long ecclesiastical career. It presents him, 
 not as the abstract systematizer, but as the keen and 
 influential churchman — face to face with living 
 questions and causes celebres^ the principles underly¬ 
 ing which it was his business to elucidate, for the 
 guidance of minds less calm, or less penetrative and 
 far-reaching than his own. The whole structure of 
 Dr Hodge’s mind not only enabled but impelled him 
 to disentangle the permanent and guiding element 
 in such cases from its temporary, circumstantial 
 setting; but the circumstances serve to give a 
 
AS TEACHER, CHURCHMAN, THEOLOGIAN. 49 
 
 historic root to the discussion, and a human interest 
 and verve to the style, which make the book a highly 
 acceptable as well as valuable legacy of practical 
 wisdom to the churches. 
 
 As regards Dr Hodge’s place as a theologian, the 
 opinion may be simply recorded that, confining our 
 view even to one of his works—his magnum op2is 
 on ‘‘ Systematic Theology ”—the name of Charles 
 Hodge is not likely to be dimmed for many a decade 
 by the name of any other English-speaking authority 
 on the great subject he so comprehensively and 
 learnedly treats. We once heard a young gentle¬ 
 man, of the twentieth Century school, declare, that 
 Hodge was the greatest incubus on theological 
 “ progress ” that this century has seen. Even here 
 there was an unintended tribute to the strong quali¬ 
 ties and sterling services of the Princeton divine, 
 and a sincere, albeit rather petulant, acknowledg¬ 
 ment of his wide and lasting influence. 
 
 The testimony of a man like Prof C. P. Krauth— 
 the greatest Lutheran authority in the English 
 language—to the ability and fairness of Dr Hodge’s 
 great work, is worth more than an infinite number of 
 such verdicts as the one just quoted. After praising 
 its luminous style, in opposition to “ those who think 
 that nothing is deep but what is unintelligible,” and 
 commenting on the evidences of enormous yet reflec¬ 
 tive reading with which the work abounds—“ read¬ 
 ing among the best books and the worst books : a 
 gathering of honey for stores and of poisons for the 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 study of antidotes ”—he gives expression without 
 stint to his deep sense of “ the value of Dr Hodge’s 
 book to our common Christianity, nay, in a wide 
 sense, to religion, on that broader definition in which 
 the believing Jew has a common interest with the 
 Christian.” Its prevailing character, according to 
 this discriminating critic, is mild, quiet, firm, 
 judicious,” while its general tone is ‘‘profoundly 
 devout.” Then he adds: “Its solid judgment and 
 learning will mark it to scholars as the ablest work 
 in its department in English literature; but it is more 
 than this, better than this. The graces of Christian 
 life are not repressed in it, as they have often been 
 in the arid formulating of systems. ... In Dr 
 Hodge’s body of Divinity there is a heart whose 
 beat is that of the fullest health—and you can touch 
 the system nowhere without feeling a pulse. It is a 
 book for the affections.” Especially noteworthy is 
 the attribution to Dr Hodge, from such a quarter, 
 of indisputable fairness. “ Even in its relative 
 isolation as distinctively Calvinistic, Dr Hodge’s 
 book is invaluable. It is the gauge of the type 
 of Calvinism which is considered by its ablest 
 living representatives as tenable; a Calvinism so 
 gentle in its spirit as to furnish irenical elements 
 of the most hopeful kind. . . . Next to having 
 Dr Hodge on one’s side, is the pleasure of having 
 him for an antagonist; for where conscientious 
 men must discuss a subject, who can express the 
 comfort of honourable, magnanimous dealing on 
 
AS TEACHER, CHURCHMAN, THEOLOGIAN. 5 I 
 
 both sides ? . . . Dr Hodge constitutes in himself a 
 distinct evidence of Christianity, and alike in what 
 he writes and what he is, vindicates the supremacy of 
 Protestant culture.” 
 
 The “ Systematic Theology ” has no doubt its 
 faults. There is a tendency to overlapping sometimes 
 in divisions, and a certain occasional diffuseness, 
 which may be readily explained, we believe, by the 
 circumstances of its composition. The work might 
 perhaps, with advantage, be considerably condensed 
 by a competent hand ; and a one-volume analysis, 
 we have often thought, would be a useful accompani¬ 
 ment to the complete work. But, after all that may 
 be said, the fact remains, that Hodge’s “ Systematic 
 Theology ” is the modern masterpiece of English 
 dogmatic, and its detractors will have to try very 
 hard and very long before they will dislodge it 
 with anything more useful and abiding. It will 
 live, in spite of nibbling critics, as the greatest 
 systematic work in theology of the age—the produc¬ 
 tion of an imperial intellect, which was balanced, 
 amid laborious research and abstruse speculation, by 
 rare soundness and sagaciousness of natural judg¬ 
 ment, and by what, though less common, is not less 
 important, an all - pervading reverence for, and 
 sympathy with, the revealed truth of God. 
 
 This last feature of sympathic reverence for God’s 
 word was distinctive of Dr Charles Hodge alike as 
 teachj^r and as man. It was a trait that could not 
 ‘ fail to impress every one of the successive companies 
 
52 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 of young men who found in him their Christian 
 Gamaliel. Investigation, he would say, is good. 
 Search the Scriptures: prove all things. But see 
 that your search is reverent, and that your proof 
 is sound.. It has been truly said of him that he 
 was a philosopher as well as a theologian, but that 
 he never sought to ally philosophy as on equal 
 terms with Bible truth—his very mastery of philo¬ 
 sophy enabling him to keep it in its proper place. 
 
 On the last New Year’s Day of the old Doctor’s 
 life, I visited him in his study, and asked him 
 for a motto. With a kindly smile, the old man 
 wrote in a firm hand, “ Thy Word is truth.” Ere half 
 the year had run its course, the hand that wrote it 
 was mouldering in the dust. But the treasured motto 
 still abides. It was at once the motto of Charles 
 Hodge’s inner life, and the key to his theological 
 method. It is the motto he has bequeathed to 
 the younger generation, who are entering on an 
 age of new proclivities, and are called to grapple 
 with problems of their own — “Thy Word is 
 TRUTH.” 
 
VIIL 
 
 HODGE THE YOUNGER CONTRASTED WITH HIS 
 
 FATHER. 
 
 “ Both, heirs to some six feet of sod, 
 
 Are equal in the earth at last; 
 
 Both, children of the same dear God, 
 
 Proved title to an heirship vast 
 By record of a well-filled past; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 Well worth a life to hold in fee.” 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 I T has sometimes been found that a distinguished 
 paternity is more of a burden than of an advan¬ 
 tage in the race of life. But Archibald Alexander 
 Hodge, to whom the reader’s attention is now called, 
 held a place all his own in the affection and esteem of 
 the Church, and his was an individuality too great to 
 be dwarfed by comparison with even such a father. 
 
 In some departments, indeed, the younger Hodge 
 did not so much as come into competition with the 
 elder. Even had he lived as long, he would never, 
 for instance, have been as voluminous an author; 
 for he was constitutionally averse to “ the drudgery 
 of writing.” The editorial tact and patience which 
 carried TJie Princeton Review, “ball and chain,” for 
 well-nigh half-a-century, and made a success of it 
 
54 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 all the time, were doubtless quite beyond him. Nor 
 would he ever have grown into the ecclesiastical 
 statesman his father was ; for, although when he 
 spoke in church courts his voice was always listened 
 to with marked respect, the guidance of church 
 polity and the settlement of cases did not lie much 
 in his way. 
 
 On the other hand. Dr A. A. Hodge showed a 
 capacity at times to travel where his father might 
 admire more easily than follow him. Not only may 
 it be said that the great qualities of Dr Charles 
 Hodge as a theological thinker were inherited at their 
 best by his eldest born—his intuitive insight, his 
 analytic power, his logical force, his comprehensive¬ 
 ness of vision with respect to the relations of truth, 
 his absolute intellectual honesty. Not only may it 
 be added that, on the emotional side of his nature, 
 when the upper crust was pierced, the younger 
 Hodge was even more tender and warmly devo¬ 
 tional, if that were possible, than the saintly 
 patriarch who by eight brief years preceded him to 
 heaven. But there was in him, besides, an unmis¬ 
 takable dash of that indescribable something which 
 we call ge 7 tius; giving to his other faculties their 
 peculiar range, and to his other qualities their quite 
 peculiar charm; playing in eccentric humour, or 
 flashing in occasional great thoughts; glowing in 
 pathos or in scorn, or calmly beaming in the 
 luminousness of some poetic fancy. Dr Paxton, 
 who gave the address at his funeral on November 
 
HODGE THE YOUNGER. 
 
 55 
 
 15th, 1886, referred to this “transcendent some¬ 
 thing ” in Dr A. A. Hodge, which those who really 
 knew him—not the readers of his books, but his 
 personal intimates and his students—could not fail 
 to recognise:—“ the peculiarities and the eccen¬ 
 tricities of genius, but also its sublimities, the 
 mighty elements of great thinking, the higher attri¬ 
 butes of power and influence.”* 
 
 * “Funeral Address,” by William M. Paxton, D.D. (Anson D. 
 Randolph & Co., New York), p. 16. 
 
IX. 
 
 SEA-SICKNESS, BUT NOT IN THEOLOGY. 
 
 “We sail the sea of life ; a calm one finds, 
 
 And one a tempest.” 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 ‘ ‘ A wide sea voyage severs us at once. It makes us conscious of 
 being cast loose from the secure anchorage of settled life, and sent 
 adrift upon a doubtful world.” Washington Irving. 
 
 I T was in August 1877 that I first met the 
 younger Hodge. It happened in this wise. As 
 I entered the office of the Anchor Line in Glasgow 
 to secure a berth for New York, another intending 
 passenger, as could be gathered from his enquiries, 
 was just leaving it. He was a man of about middle 
 height and moderate portliness, with a brow both 
 broad and high, and a face marked with deep re¬ 
 flective lines, and rather sombre otherwise, but lit 
 up by an eye of great kindliness and deep-seeing 
 intelligence. One could not have detected the cleri¬ 
 cal profession beneath the rather nonchalant tra¬ 
 veller’s attire, though perhaps the epaulette-looking 
 shoulders of the coat—broadened a la Ainericaine — 
 and certain indications of manner and address 
 
SEA-SICKNESS, BUT NOT IN THEOLOGY. 57 
 
 might have suggested the nationality of the wearer, 
 even had the spoken accent not revealed it. He was 
 plainly an American, and we were not long on board 
 the good ship Devojiia without discovering in him 
 Dr Archibald Alexander flodge. 
 
 It cannot be said that on the voyage out I came 
 to know much of my future teacher. It was the year 
 of the first Pan-presbyterian council in Edinburgh, 
 and there were trans-Atlantic divines on board who 
 took a much more prominent place than he in the 
 transient ship-board “society.” To speak frankly, the 
 Professor was but a sorry sailor; and though there 
 were lucid intervals, when he might be heard enter¬ 
 ing with much zest and power into discussion with 
 Dr Sloane of Alleghany and other clerical com¬ 
 patriots, he presented for the most part a rather 
 woe-begone appearance, which was the reverse- of 
 prepossessing to an intending catechumen. I 
 could afterwards appreciate, better than most of 
 the students, the deep experimental sincerity of 
 his seeming playful irony—“There’s a great deal of 
 sea-sickness in theology, till you get your sea 
 legs on,—sky, and land, and water all mixed ! ” 
 
 He would be a bold man who would guarantee that 
 the Professor ever did completely find his sea legs 
 during that voyage. But when, after the interval of 
 a few weeks from disembarking, I met him again in 
 the class-room, he was plainly, in colloquial phrase, 
 another man. There was no sea-sickness with him 
 there: he manifestly was “ himself again.” And 
 
58 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 from the beginning of the session to its close, it was 
 a daily enjoyment to sit at his feet. 
 
 More will be said later of his characteristic merits 
 as a teacher. In the meantime, some biographical 
 particulars may be appropriately inserted here. 
 
■ / 
 
 
 ' *» 
 
 
 J 
 
 • 
 
 f 
 
 
 
J 
 
 * 
 
 i 
 
 j 
 
 I 
 
 ( 
 
X. 
 
 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD OF A. A. HODGE. 
 
 ‘ ‘ A sudden rush from the stairway, 
 
 A sudden raid from the hall ! 
 
 By the doors I have left unguarded 
 They enter my castle wall ! 
 
 “ They climb up into my turret, 
 
 O’er the arms and backs of my chair ; 
 
 If I try to escape, they surround me. 
 
 They seem to be everywhere. 
 
 “ I have you fast in my fortress. 
 
 And will not let you depart. 
 
 But put you into the dungeon 
 In the round tower of my heart. 
 
 “ And there will I keep you for ever. 
 
 Yes, for ever and a day. 
 
 Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, 
 
 And moulder in dust away ! ” 
 
 Longfellow's “Children’s Hour.” 
 
 A rchibald Alexander Hodge was born in 
 Princeton, New Jersey, on the i8th of July 
 1823. It was in the preceding year that his father. 
 Dr Charles Hodge, had been appointed with his re¬ 
 vered former teacher. Dr Archibald Alexander, as Pro¬ 
 fessor of Oriental and Biblical Literature in Princeton 
 Seminary ; and after this great and good man, the 
 
6o 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 Socrates ” of the Princeton school, he named his 
 first-born son. The boy’s mother, as noted in the 
 foregoing sketch, was Sarah Bache, the great-grand¬ 
 daughter of Benjamin Franklin : and it is possible 
 that some of his distinctive qualities may be trace¬ 
 able to her. 
 
 He had the untold advantage in early years of 
 nurture in a genuinely pious home. As appears from 
 his biography of his father, his memories of his child¬ 
 hood continued through life to be of the sunniest 
 kind. What could be more beautiful than the follow¬ 
 ing picture of home life, in the glimpse it gives of 
 Charles Hodge among his little ones :—“ They were, 
 at every age and at all times, allowed free access 
 to him. If they were sick, he nursed them. If 
 they were well, he played with them. If he were 
 busy, they played about him. His study had two 
 doors, one opening outward toward the Seminary for 
 the convenience of the students, and a second one 
 opening inward, into the main hall of the home. 
 Hence his study was always the family thoroughfare, 
 through which the children, boys and girls, went in 
 and out for work and play. When he was too lame, 
 and afterwards when he was too busy, to be inter¬ 
 rupted by that action, he took the latch from the 
 doors and caused them to swing in obedience to 
 gentle springs, so that the least child might toddle in 
 at will unhindered.” 
 
 As is often in such circumstances the case, Archi¬ 
 bald never could recall the time when he was not 
 
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD OF A. A. HODGE. 6 I 
 
 under religious impressions. Though all must be 
 born again to enter the Kingdom, it is not laid upon 
 all to pass consciously through the throes that some 
 natures have to suffer in the day of their regenera¬ 
 tion : and what minister does not know that among 
 his flock some of the most devoted and living 
 members—those in whom, if in any, the image of 
 Christ is seen and the power of Christ’s resurrection 
 manifested—are they in whom, for aught that they 
 themselves can tell, the new birth was contem¬ 
 poraneous with the old ? Young Hodge did not by 
 his own act ‘‘join the Church” till 1842; but long 
 before that time God’s spirit had been making His 
 power felt within him, in connection with the sacred 
 influences exerted on his young heart within the 
 home. The bright picture just given of Charles 
 Hodge among his family had its distinctively re¬ 
 ligious side, to bring out which we have but to con¬ 
 tinue the quotation :—“ He prayed for us all at 
 family prayers, and singly, and with such soul-felt 
 tenderness taught us to pray at his knees, that, 
 however bad we were, our hearts all melted to his 
 touch. During later years he always caused his 
 family to repeat after him at morning worship the 
 Apostles’ Creed, and a formula of his own composi¬ 
 tion, professing personal consecration to the Father, 
 and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. But that 
 which makes those days sacred in the retrospect of 
 his children is the person and character of the 
 father himself, as discovered in the privacy of his 
 
62 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 home, all radiant as that was with love, with un¬ 
 wavering faith, and with unclouded hope.” ^ 
 
 Another important influence brought to bear on 
 young Hodge within his father’s house was, the 
 contact into which he was naturally brought there 
 with some of the brightest intellects of his time. It 
 was a valuable, though partly unconscious education, 
 to be allowed, even from “the shadowy corners” of 
 the doctor’s study, to look out upon the scenes trans¬ 
 acted in that sanctum :—“ Here almost every night, 
 for long years, came Professors Dod and Maclean, 
 and frequently Professors J. W. Alexander, Joseph 
 Henry, and the older professors, A. Alexander, and 
 Samuel Miller, President Carnahan, and frequently, 
 when visiting the town. Professors Vethake and 
 .Torrey, and Dr John W. Yeomans. Thus, at least in 
 the eyes of the young sons gleaming out from the 
 corners, from the shadows of which they looked on 
 with breathless interest, this study became the scene 
 of the most wonderful debates and discourses on 
 the highest themes of philosophy, science, literature, 
 theology, morals, and politics.” f 
 
 * “Life of Charles Hodge, D.D., LL.D.,” by his son, A. A. 
 Hodge (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York), p. 227. 
 
 t Ibid., 204. 
 
XL 
 
 HIS STUDENT DAYS AND DEPARTURE FOR INDIA. 
 
 “ Some men serve God through their ambitions. 
 His ambition was to serve God.” 
 
 Patton. 
 
 '“A man’s life is an appendix to his heart.” 
 
 South. 
 
 RCHIBALD’S early intellectual development 
 
 ^ ^ appears, nevertheless, to have been compara¬ 
 tively slow. He was by no means a bookish boy^ 
 and though he could enjoy to some extent a gladia¬ 
 torial contest of wits among his seniors in the study, 
 it was more to his personal liking to try for the 
 certaminis gaudia in the field than to wear out his 
 brain in the pursuit of knowledge. But the time of 
 mental quickening came—and not, after all, so very 
 late. For we find that he graduated in Arts in 1841, 
 and had shown, through his course, such aptitude for 
 Mathematics and Natural Science, that his services 
 were retained for some time in Princeton College in 
 the capacity of tutor. Though his mind was of a 
 decidedly metaphysical cast, the love of physical 
 science was also planted deep within him, and it 
 was but natural that this taste, which continued with 
 
64 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 him all through life, should have shown itself earlier 
 than his even more marked subsequent aptitude for 
 abstract speculation. Among his treasured recollec¬ 
 tions to the end, was his early association with 
 Professor Henry in the laboratory, and his lasting 
 friendship with that distinguished man. 
 
 In the year 1843—the Scottish Disruption year— 
 the name of Archibald Alexander Hodge was entered 
 on the roll of the Princeton Seminary as a student 
 in theology. Here new tastes and new capacities in 
 him began to unfold themselves. In particular, he 
 entered with enthusiasm into the study of Christian 
 doctrine; and it was the opening of a new era in his 
 life when he one day surprised his father by sending 
 in an essay on a difficult question of theology, of 
 such originality and vigour of thinking, that he was 
 requested to read it to the class. 
 
 About this time (1844) a Scottish visitor came to 
 Princeton, on whom young Hodge looked with a more 
 eager interest, doubtless, than if he had seen him 
 even a few years before—for he could now appreciate 
 in him the Systematic Theologian as well as the 
 ecclesiastical chief—Dr William Cunningham, of 
 Edinburgh. We find the following interesting re¬ 
 ference in Dr Charles Hodge’s biography to the 
 meeting of these two giants —par nobile fratriun :— 
 
 I can well remember the pleased excitement of 
 our father as he lay back upon his easy chair listen¬ 
 ing to Dr Cunningham, as he strode gesticulating 
 through the study with his long arms, laying down 
 
HIS STUDENT DAYS. 
 
 65 
 
 the principles and narrating the story of the great 
 Free Church exodus; or when our father walked 
 with him in the larger parlour, or, once or twice, 
 when the February sun shone clear, in the paths 
 around the house, laying down the principles and 
 narrating the story of the great controversies, as to 
 slavery. New England theology, and voluntary 
 societies, in which his own part had not been 
 insignificant.’’^ We have heard the younger Hodge 
 declare that no man sent by Scotland to Princeton 
 had left behind him so marked and favourable an 
 impression as Principal Cunningham ; and certainly 
 what he saw and heard of him on the occasion of this 
 visit made a lasting impression on himself. 
 
 Archibald Hodge graduated in 1846, and was 
 licensed in October of that year. To the joy of 
 his father—who did more for the heathen abroad 
 than the world knows—he gave himself promptly 
 and decisively to the foreign field. There was 
 burning at the young man’s heart a yearning desire 
 to make the Saviour known to those who had never 
 heard His name before, though to his friends “ he 
 would say, in his peculiar semi-serious way, that he 
 could never preach at home—that he did not know 
 enough to instruct intelligent people, but might 
 possibly teach the heathen the rudiments of Christian 
 knowledge.’’i* 
 
 The Mission Board thankfully accepted him, and 
 
 * “Life of Charles Hodge, D.D., LL.D.,” p. 354. 
 
 t “ Funeral Address,” p. 9. 
 
66 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCPI. 
 
 he was ordained at Princeton, by the Presbytery of 
 New Brunswick, in May 1847, for service at Alla¬ 
 habad. It was an occasion that deeply stirred his 
 father’s heart; and one who was present at a meet¬ 
 ing held in connection with the departure of the 
 missionary and his young wife {iiee Elizabeth B. 
 Holliday, of Winchester, Virginia) for India, records 
 that “ his son’s choice called forth from him one of 
 those bursts of emotional eloquence that thrilled the 
 whole assembly, and produced impressions which 
 can never be forgotten by those who heard it.” 
 
 The voyage to India, in August 1847, had few 
 incidents, but it furnished Hodge with a notable 
 illustration, in a sermon on the Resurrection, 
 which, from the account still given of it,^ must 
 have been throughout a remarkable one. We refer 
 to a description of “ the albatross that followed his 
 ship on the way to India, breasting the storm day 
 after day, and when the gale was most furious hold¬ 
 ing itself on outstretched wings ”—an incident which 
 was sublimely used to convey conceptions regarding 
 the Resurrection body. 
 
 We have searched almost in vain for traces of the 
 son in his biography of his father—so religiously 
 does he keep himself in the background—but he 
 does make mention of his own departure for India 
 as the first break in the family circle—the first 
 experience of the inevitable separations which await 
 us all—adding : “ Such an experience makes an 
 
 * “ Funeral Address,” p. 2i. 
 
HIS STUDENT DAYS. 
 
 67 
 
 epoch in any family, leaving it changed for ever. 
 Our family was never completely regathered on 
 earth again, for before the son returned from India 
 the mother was making the beginnings of the home 
 in heaven. The parting was the occasion of the 
 utter pouring forth of the treasures of love of both 
 parents’ hearts. To us these are unspeakably pre¬ 
 cious, but they are too sacred to be given here.” 
 Dr Charles Hodge records concerning his wife, in 
 his diary, at the time of his bereavement—“ Her 
 death was calm, peaceful, and holy. She was full of 
 humility, faith, and grateful, admiring love to God. 
 Her children, save the eldest, were all about her.” 
 And, after quoting the epithets of affection graven 
 on her tombstone by the sorrowing husband in 1849, 
 the son, in whose heart such a mother had all these 
 years been enshrined, and who has now gone to join 
 both where there are no partings, writes in 1880— 
 “ This is indeed the outpouring of a bereaved heart. 
 But it is all true. And now when, after twenty-nine 
 years, we, their children, lay our father by our 
 mother’s side, and read this inscription on her tomb, 
 we all say, ‘ Amen ! ’ ” * 
 
 * “ Life of Charles Hodge, D.D., LL.D.,” pp. 370-1. 
 
XII. 
 
 A. A. HODGE AS MISSIONARY. 
 
 “ Thy kingdom come, O God ; 
 
 Thy rule, O Christ, begin j 
 Break with Thine iron rod 
 The tyrannies of sin. . . . 
 
 “ O’er heathen lands afar. 
 
 Thick darkness broodeth yet; 
 
 Arise, O Morning Star, 
 
 Arise, and never set.” 
 
 Hensley. 
 
 “ Making his life a prayer.” 
 
 Whittier. 
 
 M r HODGE did valuable service at Allahabad, 
 while permitted to remain there; and his 
 example in setting forth was indirectly fruitful in 
 inspiring others to a like resolve. But it was soon 
 seen that India was not to be his life sphere. His 
 own health suffered, and his wife’s, by-and-bye, so 
 completely gave way that there was no alternative 
 but to return with their two children to America, 
 after a residence of less than three years in the 
 East. 
 
 There were two effects of Hodge’s stay in India 
 upon himself, which never left him. The one was, 
 an intense admiration for British rule, which often 
 
HODGE AS MISSIONARY. 
 
 69 
 
 showed itself in a half-earnest, half-jocular dispar¬ 
 agement of the institutions of the Model Republic. 
 The other was, an abiding impression of the im¬ 
 portance and hopefulness of the missionary cause, 
 which, from the time he set foot in India, if it did 
 not in the same sense exist even before then, 
 became an ineradicable part of himself, and made 
 him, wherever he might afterwards go, a living 
 missionary force. 
 
 The first feature just alluded to may be illus¬ 
 trated by the quotation of the opening sentences of 
 a characteristic letter,—alas, the last received from 
 him by the writer, of date the 24th June 1886, the 
 summer "before he" died :—Dear friend Salmond, 
 “ Excuse me for not writing sooner. I am very 
 desirous of hearing from you. Please write often. 
 I have a good deal of it to do, and am old and 
 lazy. We are all well, and have just got through 
 ‘ commencement ’ in college. All things are advanc¬ 
 ing prosperously, and portend favourably for the 
 future. You must not judge American opinion of 
 British politics from our newspapers. Under the 
 degrading conditions of modern civilisation, the 
 contents of newspapers are dictated by those in¬ 
 spired by the passions of the lower classes. This 
 has long been so in America, and it has now 
 become so in Great Britain. Poor souls! You 
 people who believe in George Washington instead 
 of George IIP, who believe in extended suffrage, 
 and who move for disestablishment, are the re- 
 
70 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 sponsible fellows. All gentlemen in America sym¬ 
 pathize with the Unionists and Protestants of Ulster. 
 But we have no newspaper. All gentlemen are 
 monarchists and aristocrats. ‘ Liberty ’ leads to 
 social confusion, to secular education, to atheism, 
 to chaos,—to the howling void.” This letter will 
 be understood at once by all who were in any real 
 sense acquainted with the writer. Others must 
 read it in connection with what a colleague calls 
 “ the oriental luxuriance of speech ” he sometimes 
 allowed himself, when unbending after serious effort: 
 and all may find in it an illustration of Professor 
 Patton’s further discriminating observation, that 
 “ aristocratic sympathies were very strong in him, 
 and found expression sometimes in an extravagant 
 avowal of Toryism, that was partly jest and partly 
 based upon a real conservatism of sentiment re¬ 
 specting the philosophy of social life.” * 
 
 The other feature — his ardent and sustained 
 missionary zeal—found expression in ways which 
 left no room for question either as to the absolute 
 sincerity or the profound depth of his convictions. 
 Long after his return from India,—aye, even to 
 his last breath—he was a missionary at heart; and 
 he would on occasion speak to his students on the 
 subject of the evangelisation of the world, not only 
 with the authority of personal experience, but with 
 the glow of an enthusiasm which had manifestly 
 
 * “Memorial Discourse,” by Francis L. Patton, D.D., LL.D. 
 (John Wanamaker, Philadelphia), p. 55. 
 
HODGE AS MISSIONARY. 
 
 71 
 
 felt it a greater sacrifice to leave the mission-field 
 than to give up home to enter it. In his prayers, 
 too, the same spirit of wide-embracing love for the 
 perishing souls of heathendom most touchingly 
 appeared. At a Missionary Convention in Prince¬ 
 ton, not long before his death, when he was asked 
 to lead the devotions, ‘‘the fountain of his heart 
 seemed broken up,” as it is recorded,* “ and a 
 gush of tender moving petition melted the whole 
 assembly to tears.” Prof Patton’s statement is 
 here again so pertinent that we cannot refrain 
 from giving it hi extenso : “ His experience in the 
 mission-field enhanced his zeal for the mission 
 cause, gave him a grasp of the missionary 
 problem, and an interest in missionaries that 
 made him always the trusted counsellor of all 
 those among his pupils who contemplated a mis¬ 
 sionary career. If the students wished advice, 
 they went to him ; if the Sunday evening mission¬ 
 ary meeting was to be addressed, he was called 
 upon ; if, at the Monthly Concert, the expected 
 speaker failed to arrive, he was called upon ; if the 
 son of a converted Brahmin was sent here to be 
 educated, he was his guardian ; if a penniless 
 Oriental, bent on knowledge, and seeking it that 
 he might carry back the Gospel to his countrymen, 
 sought premature admission to the Seminary, he 
 found an eager advocate in Dr Hodge, if anything 
 could be said in his behalf; and if, as sometimes 
 
 * “ Funeral Address,” p. 20. 
 
72 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 happened, it was necessary to let him know that his 
 coming was a mistake, kind words from Dr Hodge, 
 and not infrequently a draft upon his exchequer, 
 sent him away in peace ; if the Interseminary Mis¬ 
 sionary Conference held its meetings at Hartford, 
 Dr Hodge must make an address ; if it met in 
 Princeton, Dr Hodge at least must pray.”* In 
 ways like these, it will be seen, his early disappoint¬ 
 ment was overruled for good. It was “ not in vain 
 in the Lord.” Not improbably he did actually 
 more for missions, in a wide sense, than if he had 
 been allowed to stay on at Allahabad. 
 
 * “ Memorial Discourse,” p. 13. 
 
XIII. 
 
 PASTOR, PREACHER, AND PLURALIST PROFESSOR. 
 
 “ O use me, Lord, use even me, 
 
 Just as Thou wilt, and when, and where, 
 
 Until Thy blessed face I see. 
 
 Thy rest. Thy joy, Thy glory share,” 
 
 Havergal. 
 
 S OON after his return from India, in May 1850, 
 Mr Hodge received a call to a small rural 
 charge in Maryland, called Lower West Notting¬ 
 ham. There, on a salary of fully six hundred 
 dollars (;^I20) a year, he settled quietly down to 
 ministerial duty. About five years later, in Septem¬ 
 ber 1855, he was called to Fredericksburg, Virginia. 
 Here, as before, he greatly endeared himself to the 
 people under his pastoral care ; and he now dis¬ 
 covered in himself, and soon made others see in him, 
 an unsuspected gift. This was the faculty of apt 
 and interesting extemporaneous speech in the expo¬ 
 sition of theology—a gift which, when discovered, 
 he turned to such good account that, by the time he 
 was removed to his next charge, in Wilkesbarre, 
 Pennsylvania (July 1861), he and his Virginian flock 
 had travelled together, in church and class, over 
 
74 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 
 
 the whole field of an exact though popularised 
 theology. 
 
 His “ Outlines of Theology ”—since translated 
 into various languages, and used as a text-book in 
 many Divinity Halls—is one very tangible outcome 
 of that course of lectures by the Fredericksburg 
 pastor. In the preface to the first edition, which 
 has been considerably augmented since, he himself 
 affirms :—“ The several chapters were, in the first 
 instance, prepared and used in the same form in 
 Avhich they are now printed, as the basis of a lecture 
 delivered otherwise extemporaneously to my con¬ 
 gregation every Sabbath night. In this use of them, 
 I found these preparations successful beyond my 
 hopes. The congregation, as a whole, were induced 
 to enter with interest upon the study even of the 
 most abstruse questions.” 
 
 It may be doubted whether many preachers could 
 carry through an entire course, such as Hodge 
 mapped out, so successfully as he ; for it is to be 
 feared that the audience would be exhausted, and 
 possibly the preacher, long before the subject. But 
 it is worthy of consideration by those who are called 
 to conduct weekly pulpit ministrations, whether en¬ 
 couragement may not be found in Dr Hodge’s 
 experience for a more systematic style of preaching 
 than is commonly in vogue, and whether an ordi¬ 
 nary church audience may not have more appetite 
 than is generally supposed for doctrine. It is cer¬ 
 tainly important to shun what some esteem the one 
 
PASTOR, PREACHER, PLURALIST PROFESSOR. 75 
 
 unpardonable sin in the pulpit—to be “ dry; ” but 
 possibly the admonition is more needed in these 
 days, to avoid, by a suitable stiffening of doctrine, 
 what is in reality a yet graver fault—to be “watery ” 
 and limp. Dr Hodge knew how to strike the 
 golden mean. He not only gave a judicious ad¬ 
 mixture of doctrine in his discourses ; he preached 
 a whole system of doctrine. But there was heart 
 as well as head in his preaching. While the teach¬ 
 ing was made perspicuous by analogy, and the 
 hearer was led on to the acquisition of Bible dog¬ 
 mata by the allurements of a fancy that could give 
 to every theme it touched a setting of clear light, 
 the conscience also was appealed to, and the affec¬ 
 tions moved, and the will bent, as the truth 
 expounded was at the same time applied ; or, at 
 the least, the enquiry was stirred within the breast 
 —“ Is this truth anything to me ? ” 
 
 It must not for a moment be supposed that Dr 
 Hodge’s preaching, because systematic, was either 
 ponderous or unproductive. It was weighty, but not 
 heavy. It was fitted to edify, but was also blessed to 
 quicken. His ministry, whatever his stipend might 
 be, was in the highest and directest sense a remu¬ 
 nerative one. It was not without seasons when the 
 pastor’s heart was gladdened by a marked revival of 
 religion, during which “ many were added to the 
 church of such as were being saved.” 
 
 Dr Hodge was not permitted to remain more than 
 three years in his third charge, at Wilkesbarre. His 
 
76 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 reputation, both as an oral instructor and as a writer, 
 had by this time begun to spread. In 1862 he re¬ 
 ceived the degree of D.D. from the college of New 
 Jersey (followed by that of LL.D. from Wooster 
 University in 1876), and in July 1864, he was unani¬ 
 mously elected to the Chair of Didactic Theology in 
 Allegheny Seminary, Pennsylvania. Thus was de¬ 
 finitively opened the influential professorial career, 
 which continued to grow in eminence and power till 
 the autumn of 1886, when, to speak after the manner 
 of men, it was cut off so prematurely, and the hearts 
 of the many who admired and loved him were be- 
 gloomed, by his “ sun going down as at noonday.” 
 Miiltis ille Jiehilh occidit: nulli Jiebilior qiiam mihi. 
 
 At Allegheny, Dr Hodge remained for thirteen 
 years ; and many a student here caught the inspira¬ 
 tion of his enthusiasm for theology. He published 
 at this time his monograph on the “ Atonement ” (in 
 1867), and his admirable ^‘Exposition of the Con¬ 
 fession of Faith ” (in 1869), besides a suggestive little 
 book less widely known, his “ Questions in Theology.” 
 It is interesting also to note, that during nearly the 
 whole of this period he was preacher as well as 
 professor. His powers of instructive and stimulat¬ 
 ing popular address were not suffered to lie fallow. 
 He held first an interim pastorate, for about a year, 
 in a church in the town of Pittsburg, not far from 
 Allegheny, and then, from 1866, the regular pastorate 
 of the North Church in Allegheny itself, where men 
 of mark in various walks of life gathered every week 
 
PASTOR, PREACHER, PLURALIST PROFESSOR. 77 
 
 to hear him. Whatever may be said in general 
 about pluralities, those best qualified to judge 
 declare, that in this case, at least, the pulpit and the 
 chair so far from hindering seemed only to inspire 
 each other. 
 
 It was while he was in Allegheny that, his first 
 wife having died, he was married on Dec. 20th, 
 1869, to Mrs Margaret McLaren Woods, of Detroit, 
 who continued to be the sympathetic and amiable 
 partner of his life till his death, and who, with two 
 daughters by his first marriage, still survives him. 
 
XIV. 
 
 A TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 
 
 “ God gives such men. A time like this demands 
 Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands ; 
 
 Men whom the lust of office does not kill; 
 
 Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy ; 
 
 Men who possess opinions, and a will; 
 
 Men who have honour—men who will not lie.”— Anon. 
 
 “ Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children.”— Psalm xlv. i6. 
 
 I N 1877,* what Hodge regarded as the crowning 
 honour of his life, and what was certainly a high 
 mark of his Church’s confidence in him, was con¬ 
 ferred, in the call which transferred him from Alle¬ 
 gheny to be the associate of Dr Charles Hodge in the 
 Chair of Didactic and Polemic Theology in Princeton. 
 
 This step had been contemplated by the Board of 
 Directors four years previously—with the intention 
 that Dr A. A. Hodge should take the branch of His¬ 
 toric Theology, and, while assisting his father so long 
 as the latter lived,should be regarded as his appointed 
 successor. At that time, however. Dr Charles Hodge 
 threw cold water on the scheme. We find him writ¬ 
 ing—“ The fidelity of the Seminary to our standards 
 is the great object which, I doubt not, the Directors 
 feel conscience-bound to secure. If that end can be 
 
 * “Memorial Discourse,” p. 17. 
 
A TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 
 
 79 
 
 obtained as well without Alexander as with him^ I 
 have always thought it would be better to let him 
 remain where he is. According to all accounts, he 
 is doing good there. We do not know that he would 
 be equally successful in Princeton. I see no harm in 
 allowing things to remain as they are. At my age, 
 life or fitness for service hangs by a thread. Provi¬ 
 dence may soon make the path of duty plain.” 
 
 The proposal was thereupon, for the time, allowed 
 to drop ; but, in the spring of 1877, the question of 
 a successor was again started by Dr Charles Hodge 
 himself, on whom the infirmities of age had by that 
 time begun to press more heavily. He spontaneously 
 offered to the Directors either his total resignation, 
 if that were deemed best in the interests of the Sem¬ 
 inary, or his partial resignation, with the prospect of 
 assistance in one or other of the departments of 
 teaching whose responsibility had so long devolved 
 on him. The latter alternative was, of course, most 
 heartily adopted by the Board ; and his son was 
 elected Associate Professor of Didactic Theology, it 
 being understood that he should come to the relief 
 of his father otherwise, whenever and wherever that 
 might be found desirable. 
 
 The view taken by “ the old Doctor ” beforehand 
 of his son’s possible appointment appears in the 
 following propositions embodied in a letter which he 
 wrote to him on February i6th, 1877,—“My dear 
 Alexander .... 
 
 “ I. Our Board is bound to take that course which 
 
8 o 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 it thinks will best promote the interests of this Sem¬ 
 inary, and the general interest of this Church. 
 
 “ 2. If our Directors think there is any other man 
 available as well qualified to fill the position as you, 
 they ought to leave you where you are. 
 
 “ 3. But if they are satisfied that you are the best 
 man to keep up the character of this institution for 
 fidelity to our doctrinal standards, I, if a Director, 
 although your father, would vote for your election. 
 
 “ 4. I would do this, because I think that this Sem¬ 
 inary, not because of any superiority of its Faculty, 
 but simply because of providential circumstances, is 
 for the present, at least, of special importance. It 
 therefore should be specially considered. 
 
 ^‘5. All such considerations as delicacy, your per¬ 
 sonal wishes, cheapness of living here or there, are 
 not of any serious weight. 
 
 “6. The question whether you are the best available 
 man to fill the place here is for our Directors to 
 decide. Their decision, however, is subject to a 
 veto from your own ‘inner consciousness,’ if your 
 conscience constrains you to exercise it. ‘ Commit 
 your way unto the Lord, and He will direct your 
 steps.’— Your FatherT * 
 
 But there can be no doubt that, however judicial 
 he might strive to be. Dr Charles Hodge must have 
 felt it no ordinary gratification to see his eldest son 
 installed as his colleague and successor in a chair 
 which had been occupied only by Dr Archibald 
 * “Life of Charles Hodge, D.D., LL.D.,” p. 573. 
 
A TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 
 
 8l 
 
 Alexander and himself, and that for a period (from 
 August 12, 1812, to November 18, 1877) of more 
 than sixty-five years. 
 
 The writer was present at Dr A. A. Hodge’s in¬ 
 duction at Princeton, on the 8th November 1877, 
 and had the inestimable privilege of studying under 
 both the Hodges during the one session in which 
 Providence was to permit their joint services to the 
 Church. It was, as we conceive, a thankful day for 
 the father to have associated with him such a son. 
 It was a humble rather than a proud day for the son 
 to be called to succeed to such a father. 
 
 Dr W. M. Paxton, then of New York, as represent¬ 
 ing the Directors, spoke in his charge to the new 
 Professor with much eloquence and effect; although, 
 with comely diffidence, he compared himself, in his 
 opening sentences, to ^‘a corporal commanded 
 to teach a general how to marshal an army.” 
 He pointed out various differences between the 
 age in which the newly-inducted teacher’s lot 
 was cast, and that of his two distinguished 
 predecessors, and indicated how the special neces¬ 
 sities and dangers of the time might best be met. 
 He finely described a theological seminary as at once 
 a school of learning and a cradle of piety, and urged 
 that the aim of each professor should be to produce 
 a vitalising impression on the students—giving to 
 them theology, exposition, demonstration, ortho¬ 
 doxy, learning, but giving all this to them warm. 
 And in conclusion, he reminded the entrant Pro- 
 
82 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 fessor of the historic position in which he stood : 
 
 “ The name of this Seminary is known in all the 
 world. Its chief distinction is its Biblical teaching. 
 The ground of its faith is the Bible. Its only 
 question is—‘ What has God said ^ ’ Its only proof 
 is God’s Word. Its professors have never reached 
 the point of thinking that they knew more than the 
 Bible. This Seminary has alway taught that there 
 are but two questions to be considered—(i) Is this 
 the Word of God } and (2), What does it mean ? 
 This ascertained, there is nothing left but to believe 
 and adore. The preaching which has always been 
 taught in this Seminary, and illustrated in the pulpits 
 of its graduates, has been simple Biblical-preaching; 
 not that kind of Biblical preaching which strings 
 texts together and repeats them like a Romish saint 
 his beads, in an endless rote and in a sacred mono¬ 
 tone which charms to sleep, but that intelligent 
 Biblical preaching which makes the text emit 
 thought as the sun emits light, which couples God’s 
 Word and man’s doctrine like voice and echo, and 
 which puts such life and interest into discussion as 
 to make the Word a living oracle.” * 
 
 Dr A. A. Hodge’s Inaugural Address was directed 
 to showing that dogmatic Christianity is the essen¬ 
 tial ground of practical theology. • This he demon¬ 
 strated along various lines of proof, all running up to 
 the same conclusion. One thing he conclusively 
 proved in addition to his main point, viz. this, that 
 * “ Princeton Inaugural Addresses” (Sherman & Co., Philadelphia). 
 
A TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 
 
 83 
 
 Princeton had that day got indeed a vitalising 
 teacher, a worthy successor of those who had gone 
 before him—not merely a master of sound, compact, 
 theological reasoning, but a Rabbi both disposed 
 and in every way qualified to perpetuate the best 
 traditions of the Princeton school. 
 
 “ We claim,” said he, “ to be sincere advocates of 
 free investigation, in the true sense of that word, in 
 every direction open to man. The believer in the 
 supernatural revelation contained in God’s Word is 
 placed on a higher and more central point of vision 
 than that of the mere naturalist, and he is thus 
 rendered free of the whole sphere of truth. The true 
 relations of the successive realms of the universe of 
 being and knowledge can be read by one looking 
 upon them from within outward, and not from 
 without inward ; from above downward, and in the 
 direction in which the supreme light of revelation 
 radiates, and not from below upward upon the side 
 on which the shadows fall. 
 
 “ But it is absurd to suppose that true intellectual 
 progress consists in a mere change of opinions, or 
 that it is consistent with the destruction of the 
 foundations which have been laid in the verified 
 knowledge of the past. Truth once adequately 
 established must be held fast for ever, while we stand 
 prepared to add to it all new truth substantiated by 
 equal evidence. And it is a law which all educated 
 men should be ready to acknowledge as axiomatic, 
 that truth in any department, once established, must 
 
84 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 ever after hold the place of valid presumptions, 
 influencing the course of new investigations in 
 every department Ruskin well testifles, ‘ It is the 
 law of progressive human life that we shall not build 
 in the air, but in the already high-storied temple of 
 the thoughts of our ancestors.’ ...” 
 
 Regarding the Church’s attitude to science, he 
 continued—“We should unquestionably open our 
 doors wide, with a joy equal to her own, for all the 
 facts which science gathers in her harvest time. But 
 is it not absurd to ask the believers in the great 
 Church Creeds of Christendom to abandon, to 
 modify, or to mask that ancient and coherent mass 
 of knowledge which roots itself in the profoundest 
 depths of human nature and in all human history, 
 which has verifled itself to reason and every phase 
 of experience for two thousand years, which has 
 moulded the noblest characters, inspired the most 
 exalted lives, and inaugurated the very conditions 
 which made modern science and civilisation possible 
 —to modify or abandon all this in deference to the 
 variant and transient speculations which each in his 
 little day claims to speak in the venerable name of 
 science.? . . . When we recall the obvious distinc¬ 
 tion between facts and theories, between established 
 knowledge and provisional hypothesis, we are readily 
 reassured by the recollection it suggests, that the 
 historic track of human thought is strewn with the 
 wreck of systems, of cosmogonies, and anthro¬ 
 pologies, as certainly believed, and as influential in 
 
A TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 85 
 
 their day, as any of the anti-theological systems of 
 the present.” 
 
 The genuine personal diffidence with which the 
 new Professor closed his address was all the more 
 striking, because of the firmness and force as well 
 as keen ability he had just displayed in handling 
 principles and enunciating truth :—“ Fathers and 
 brethren of the Board of Directors, your represen¬ 
 tative in his charge has reminded me that the chair 
 to which I am called is historical, having for sixty- 
 five years from the beginning been occupied only by 
 Archibald Alexander and Charles Hodge. Alas, 
 sirs, when I think of myself, I often cry—Woe is 
 me, that such an one as I should be called to inherit 
 the responsibilities descending in such a line ! And 
 when I think of the Church, I cry with a far sorer 
 wonder—What times are these, when such a man as 
 I should be made to stand in such a place ? But 
 God has done it. He has chosen a vessel, earthen 
 indeed, that the excellency of the power may be 
 the more conspicuously shown forth to be His 
 alone. Directors, since your responsibilities in the 
 matter are at least equal to my own, I can surely 
 claim your prayers, that in this service, to-day in¬ 
 augurated, God’s strength may be made perfect in 
 weakness.” ^ 
 
 These were no mere words of course, but were 
 felt at the time to be a kind of wail of cordial self¬ 
 depreciation, the echo of which sounds still in the 
 
 * “Princeton Inaugural Addresses” (Sherman & Co., Philadelphia). 
 
86 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 ear, after the lapse of the years since it was uttered. 
 But every successive week confirmed the more the 
 wisdom of the appointment that day made. The 
 Junior Professor of Theology had very soon a firm 
 hold alike on the affection and on the admiration of 
 his students ; and although none could ever dislodge 
 “ the old Doctor ” from their hearts, it is much to say 
 that, ere that one year of colleagueship had run its 
 course, the son was enthroned along with him there. 
 None rejoiced more than he in his colleague’s accep¬ 
 tability, and in the pledge which that opening session 
 gave of continued prosperity of the best kind for the 
 Institution he so long had served, and still so deeply 
 loved. 
 
XV. 
 
 THE PRINCETON SCHOOL, AND A. A. HODGE’S 
 
 PLACE IN IT. 
 
 “Allusion has been made to the type of theology taught in this 
 Seminary. The principle upon which it rests is—the absolute, univer¬ 
 sal, and exclusive supremacy of the Word of God as the rule of faith 
 and practice. ... A censorious critic said the other day, derisively : 
 
 ‘ It is enough for Dr Hodge to believe a thing to be true, that he 
 finds it in the Bible ! ’ We accept the token. Dr Hodge has never 
 got beyond the Bible. It contains every jot and tittle of his theology.” 
 
 Semi-centennial Address. 
 
 “ See, thou that countest reason ripe 
 In holding by the law within. 
 
 Thou fail not in a world of sin. 
 
 And even for want of such a type.” 
 
 In Memoriam. 
 
 D r CHARLES HODGE, as has already been 
 recorded, died on the 19th of June 1878. 
 His was indeed a pleasant lot, when old age came 
 upon him—“ to stand between two strong sons who 
 lightened his labours, and afterwards divided between 
 them the work that he left behind.” 
 
 The department of New Testament exegesis was 
 now fully committed to his younger son. Of Dr 
 
88 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 C. W. Hodge, though he is less known as yet on the 
 European side of the Atlantic than he is likely by- 
 and-bye to be, it may be truly said, that he has 
 inherited in a marked degree his father’s gift of 
 prompt analytical insight, with a more practised 
 skill in dealing with the details of exegesis, and un¬ 
 deniably more patience and tact in handling ques¬ 
 tions of textual criticism. His masterly treatment 
 of the Gospel History during the writer’s session in 
 Princeton afforded ample illustration of exegetical 
 qualifications, analytic and synthetic, from which, 
 slow as he is to publish, valuable results according to 
 the safe anticipation of his pupils must one day be 
 given to the world. 
 
 It is with Dr A. A. Hodge, however, the elder 
 brother, that we are now more immediately con¬ 
 cerned ; and, as regards his occupancy of the Chair 
 of Dogmatic Theology, it is not saying little, but it 
 is in the fullest sense true, that “ he filled his father’s 
 place.” From what I saw of them—father and son 
 —during the one session in which they taught side 
 by side, I would without hesitation say, that Dr A. 
 A. Hodge was the more impressive teacher. But 
 comparison at that stage were palpably unfair to the 
 beloved veteran—the Nestor of Princeton and of the 
 Church. 
 
 The two were alike, and yet different. Alike in 
 their strength of conviction ; alike in their loyalty to 
 the Word of God; alike in the vitality of thinking, 
 which made them anything rather than shallow 
 
THE PRINCETON SCHOOL. 
 
 89 
 
 enunciators of well-worn formulae; alike, moreover, 
 in the sobriety of thinking which was careful to hold 
 the speculative faculty controlled by reason, and to 
 rein the imagination in by common-sense—they had 
 each, at the same time, his own way of viewing 
 truth, and his own way of presenting it. With a regard 
 for his father, which very literally was a part of his 
 piety, the younger Hodge, in holding by the same 
 theology, had independence enough to think out for 
 himself every topic that came up for treatment, and 
 to state to others his views upon it with unmistak¬ 
 able freshness and individuality of expression, as 
 well as with the force of sincere personal adhesion. 
 What Dr Hetherington said of Dr Charles Hodge 
 was as manifestly true of his son, that his orthodoxy 
 was “ not merely a passive impression, but the attain¬ 
 ment of a mind vigorously exercised in the search of 
 truth.” 
 
 “ He fought his doubts and gathered strength, 
 
 He would not make his judgment blind, 
 
 He faced the spectres of the mind 
 And laid them : thus he came at length 
 To find a stronger faith his own.” 
 
 Speaking of the eight years of Dr A. A. Hodge’s 
 Princeton professoriate as a whole—his last eight 
 years of life—they were years of ripened power and 
 ever widening influence. They gave ample proof of 
 his fitness, in every sense, to be the hereditary exponent 
 of the Princeton School, to which he was attached not 
 only by birth and tradition but by strong and staunchly 
 
90 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 vindicated individual conviction. That school is very 
 aptly characterised by Dr James Macgregor, then 
 Professor in the New College, Edinburgh, in The 
 British and Foreign Evaiigelical Review, when he 
 pronounces it markedly Biblical in its thinking, and 
 magyianimoiis in its contending. Speaking, under 
 this last head, of the surprising revelations of charac¬ 
 ter that controversy brings, he says—“ Some men, 
 heretofore supposed to be simply saints, will betray 
 a frailness in the fibre of their manhood. Other 
 men will evince a firm fibre of manhood, either by 
 sweet and uncomplaining acceptance of defeat, or by 
 magnanimous forbearance and kindness toward those 
 over whom they have got the upper hand. This 
 greatness of nature has been exhibited in remark¬ 
 able measure, from first to last, by the Princeton 
 School. They have, in their controversies, been 
 earnest, eloquent, warm, even passionate ; but, so 
 far as we know, they have invariably spoken as true 
 Christian gentlemen, who in relation to adversaries 
 make due allowance for the fact that—speaking more 
 Americano —‘there’s a good deal of human nature 
 in man.’ ” ^ The same critic, writing at a time when 
 Dr Charles Hodge himself still “ held the field,” 
 pronounces Dr Alexander “ the Socrates of the 
 Princeton School,” and says that “ Hodge has proved 
 to be its Plato and Aristotle.” We venture to sub¬ 
 mit, however, that if these latter sentences had been 
 
 * British and Foreign Evangelical Review for July 1874. 
 
THE PRINCETON SCHOOL. 
 
 91 
 
 penned in view of the leading characteristics of the 
 later professorial career of Dr A. A. Hodge, the 
 place of the Stagirite would, for other than mere 
 chronological reasons, have been accorded rather to 
 him in the Princeton triumvirate. 
 
XVI. 
 
 VARIED GLIMPSES OF THE YOUNGER HODGE. 
 
 “ Tongues of the dead, not lost, 
 But speaking from death’s frost. 
 Like fiery tongues of Pentecost.” 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 HE younger Hodge, like his two eminent prede- 
 
 dh cessors, sought to serve his own generation by 
 the will of God. He was quite alive to all the lead¬ 
 ing movements of the time in the world of thought. 
 If able conscientiously to concur, he gave his con¬ 
 
 currence with all his heart. If he found it needful 
 
 to oppose, his opposition was uncompromisingly 
 frank. He was as heedless as those who had gone 
 before him of the taunts of the ilhmiinati, who 
 affected to regard Princeton Seminary as “very um¬ 
 brageous and impenetrable to any new ray of light.” 
 He kept true to the last to the aim set forth in the 
 preface to his work on the Atonement—“ I would 
 pray and labour that in gaining breadth we may not 
 lose height, and in gaining peace and love we may 
 not lose purity and truth.” 
 
 It was no part of his method, and was indeed alien 
 
VARIED GLIMPSES OF THE YOUNGER HODGE. 93 
 
 to his nature, to import rancour into the discussion 
 of theological differences. He loved to meet an 
 open foe right openly, and knew how to wield upon 
 him the weapons alike of hard logic and of effective 
 plaisanterie. 
 
 One thing, however, never failed to rouse all the 
 manhood in him to a white heat of moral indignation, 
 which used great plainness of speech in exposing 
 what he regarded as a cruel wrong—and that was, 
 what he deemed to be the wounding of Christianity 
 in the house of its friends. He loved Calvinism 
 much, and could give a good account of any anta¬ 
 gonist who might impugn even the subordinate 
 tenets of that system ; but he loved Christianity 
 more than any of its bulwarks, and when he saw it 
 subjected at the centre to assault, and especially to 
 a covert assault, his whole soul was stirred to its 
 defence. 
 
 A notable instance of this was given in his dissec¬ 
 tion of “ Dean Stanley’s Latest Views,” in an article 
 published in the Catholic Presbyterian of March 1882. 
 None could appreciate better than he the attractive 
 personal qualities of the accomplished and amiable 
 Dean; yet he regarded the views enunciated in his 
 ‘‘Christian Institutions” (1881) as so subversive of 
 all that is vital in our Christian religion, that he felt 
 constrained to give utterance, with full reasons 
 annexed, to the distinct judgment, that, in this new 
 volume from Westminster, “ all the characteristic 
 and distinguishing elements of the religion of Jesus 
 
94 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 Christ are quietly eliminated, and that the residuum 
 barely comes up, either in content or in spirit, to the 
 baldest historical Socinianism.” 
 
 We cannot refer in detail to the trenchant expos¬ 
 ure of the bristling heresies of the Dean’s remarkable 
 treatise, with which the sorrowful yet emphatic con¬ 
 clusion is supported, that “ all this is something 
 essentially different from Christianity.” What we 
 are at present illustrating is Dr Hodge’s unflinching 
 courage in the utterance of his convictions, and that 
 in cases where others, in a spirit of laissez faire^ 
 might have been tempted to pass by with a shrug 
 what they too, as well as he, could not but regard as 
 pernicious error. And it needed courage, in a theo¬ 
 logian of reputation, who was at the same time one 
 of the most tender and generous-hearted of men, to 
 utter, in times like these, a note like this, amid the 
 chorus of adulation accorded to Arthur Penrhyn 
 Stanley—“ In the exercise of that power which his 
 practised talents, his acquisitions, and his unparal¬ 
 leled advantages of position gave him, ex cathedra of 
 the central Church of all the Protestant world, he 
 finished his life by deliberately substituting the 
 essence of natural deism into the place, and disguis¬ 
 ing it under the sacred name and symbols, of the 
 historical religion of Jesus Christ. Claiming that the 
 essence of Christianity is morality, he did this 
 immoral thing.” * 
 
 Lest it be supposed by any that we have here the 
 
 * The Catholic Presbyterian for March 1882 (Nisbet & Co., London). 
 
VARIED GLIMPSES OF THE YOUNGER HODGE. 95 
 
 mere vituperation of a narrow bigotry, it should be 
 added that a remarkable confirmation of the justness 
 of Dr Hodge’s verdict was given, as he himself 
 shows, from a very different quarter—in the pages of 
 the Westminster Review. But apart from this, the 
 spirit of candour as well as fervour in which the 
 article was penned will sufifciently appear from the 
 quotation of the following paragraph: “We also 
 believe in development. All things out of God 
 grow. Revelation itself was brought forth gradually 
 through a historic process. And by another process, 
 no less historical, since the close of revelation, its 
 contents have been gradually more and more 
 perfectly apprehended in the thought and life of the 
 Church. Theology, or the human science of the 
 contents of revelation, has been gradually perfected 
 through the last two thousand years, and will doubt¬ 
 less continue to advance until the second coming of 
 the Lord. . . . But, observe—(i) Our contention 
 with the last book of Dean Stanley does not relate 
 to theology, but simply to the essence of the 
 Christian religion. (2) The Christian religion is 
 essentially, not a philosophy, nor a scientific theo¬ 
 logy, but a practical method of saving men, provided 
 and executed by God, and revealed to man for his 
 intelligent acceptance and use: it must therefore be 
 a single, simple, practical method, identical from the 
 beginning to the end of the world, in spite of all 
 accidental complications. (3) All true development, 
 while it unfolds and perfects, also preserves the 
 
g6 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 essential identity of the things developed, from the 
 ovum to the accomplished end. Substitution is not 
 development, and to put one thing for another is the 
 trick of the magician, not the experimentum crucis of 
 the philosopher.” The impersonal nature of the dis¬ 
 cussion, though conducted with such hre, abundantly 
 appears also, in his references to the Dean himself: 
 ‘‘ He personally realised in an eminent degree his 
 friend Matthew Arnold’s phrase of ‘sweetness and 
 light’ His was a fine nature, refined by exquisite 
 culture—intellectual, learned, full of grace and power, 
 in virtue of that tact which is the talent for using 
 all the talents most effectively. He radiated a fine 
 human sympathy, and hence attracted and bound all 
 kinds of human brethren to himself”* Thus could 
 Hodge the man appreciate Stanley the man, while 
 yet he regarded and treated the statements of the 
 Dean as the meet object of the odium theologicum 
 totius cordis. 
 
 But, to return from this “ aside,” Dr A. A. Hodge, 
 as professor in Princeton Seminary, not only sus¬ 
 tained from a theological point of view the old 
 renown of the chair he filled, but, as has already 
 been hinted, conquered for himself a place in the 
 affection and esteem of his students and brother 
 professors akin to that which his father had held 
 before him. We find one of these latter testifying, 
 that within the faculty he was everything that col¬ 
 leagues could desire : “ not opinionative, nor arrogant, 
 * The Catholic Presbyteria 7 i for March 1882 (Nisbet & Co., London). 
 
VARIED GLIMPSES OF TPIE YOUNGER PIODGE. 97 
 
 nor reticent, nor indifferent—he pressed his views 
 with manly confidence in their correctness, but could 
 yield gracefully to an adverse decision.” * One of his 
 students, again, may be taken as speaking for all the 
 rest when he says: “His patience and intellectual 
 charity were large, and he allowed the greatest free¬ 
 dom of debate to his scholars. In these contests he 
 was always chivalrous, and dismounted to meet his 
 adversary on equal terms. His many peculiarities 
 of speech and manner never impaired his courtesy 
 
 o 
 
 as a gentleman, or his dignity as a professor. He 
 had a powerful brain, a large heart, and the simple 
 faith of a little child.” ^ Of his social qualities. Pro¬ 
 fessor Warfield, the distinguished alumnus of Prince¬ 
 ton who has since been appointed his successor in 
 the Princeton chair, has well said : “ Nothing can 
 give the faintest conception of the beauty of his 
 Christian character, or of the astounding greatness of 
 his ordinary conversation. His intimate acquaint¬ 
 ances feel that a great light has gone out from their 
 lives in his departure. No one can enter in where 
 he entered into our hearts, and no one can rule as he 
 ruled by our firesides, and at our tables. But unless 
 you have lived under the same roof with him, I 
 should despair of conveying to you any adequate 
 idea of what he was.” 
 
 It may be added that Hodge’s life, like his the- 
 ology, centred in Christ. With all his pleasantry in 
 private — exuberant enough sometimes — his deep 
 
 * “ Memorial Discourse,” pp. 23 and 48. 
 
 G 
 
98 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 personal piety was never brought into question. We 
 have 'in view, while we write, a visit he paid to our 
 Scottish home in the summer of 1884, which is one 
 of the oases of memory ever fragrant, ever green. 
 His prayers at the family altar, and indeed every¬ 
 where, were the outpouring of a profoundly religious 
 spirit : full of an adoration without awe, and of a 
 confidence without unseemly familiarity, they were 
 suffused with the glow of a love that embraced 
 together God and the world for which Christ died. 
 
I 
 
 XVIL 
 
 RIPENED IN USEFULNESS AND RIPE FOR GLORY. 
 
 “ And doubtless unto thee is given 
 A life that bears immortal fruit, 
 In such great offices as suit 
 
 The full-grown energies of heaven.” 
 
 In Memoriam, 
 
 HE influence of Dr A. A. Hodge was a steady 
 
 growth, and was never so great as just before 
 he died. 
 
 Enough has been said to indicate that his 
 published writings are no adequate representa¬ 
 tion of the varied gifts of their author, or of the 
 power wielded through his personality. Several of 
 his books will live. The “ Outlines of Theology ’’ 
 will be used long and widely as a class-book; for it 
 will be difficult to find a work of the same size 
 where so much theology is so clearly presented, or at 
 once so briefly and so interestingly discussed. Some 
 of the many notable contributions of his pen to 
 encyclopaedias and theological reviews are of per¬ 
 manent value. But Hodge was greater than any of 
 his writings, and none could come into close contact 
 with him without becoming conscious of a latency of 
 power in him from which yet higher results, had he 
 
lOO 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 been longer spared, might have been confidently 
 expected. The great work he did was the work he 
 accomplished in human intellects and hearts, and is 
 to this hour accomplishing through these in every 
 part of his own great country and in many quarters 
 of the world. 
 
 It is admitted by his warmest admirers, that 
 on the public platform he could sometimes be 
 disappointing enough. He was susceptible while 
 speaking to surrounding influences, and it was soon 
 apparent whether or not he felt “ at home.” If he 
 did not, he was almost sure to be disappointing— 
 to none so much as to those who knew him best. 
 His appearance at the Pan-Presbyterian Council 
 in Belfast may, we rather think, be taken as a case 
 in point. We heard it described by one critic as 
 rather “wooden”—an adjective which, however it 
 might apply to that particular “ appearance,” is one 
 of the last adjectives in the dictionary to be ap¬ 
 positely applied to the man. 
 
 He frequently, on the other hand, rose to the heights 
 of genuine and spontaneous eloquence. As a speaker, 
 he had few adventitious charms. His presence was 
 not imposing ; his face,—not so handsome as his 
 father’s though quite as expressive in its way,—some¬ 
 times in repose looked sombre; his voice was lack¬ 
 ing both in tone and compass ; and he had none of 
 the orator’s arts. Yet his audience, as a rule, was 
 interested, and oftentimes it was enthralled. One of 
 his latest achievements, which gave promise of great 
 
RIPENED IN USEFULNESS. 
 
 lOI 
 
 future service of a similar kind, was the delivery, 
 in Philadelphia, of twelve lectures on the most 
 abstract theological subjects, to a miscellaneous 
 audience of ladies and gentlemen which remained 
 crowded to the end. 
 
 The unique power of Dr A, A. Hodge as a 
 preacher, when in one of his best moods, is thus 
 graphically described by Professor Patton :— 
 
 “ It was a union of theology, philosophy, Christian 
 experience, knowledge of human nature, quaint 
 humour, elaborate description, a metaphor dropped 
 as a diamond unobserved might fall out of a casket, 
 facile utterance, a disdain of elocution, few gestures, 
 the face lighted up, the eye opened wide, as though 
 the speaker saw a vision of glory, the voice trem¬ 
 bling when the Saviour’s name is mentioned, the 
 sensitive frame responding to the pressure of emo¬ 
 tion, and emotion finding vent at last in involuntary 
 tears.” 
 
 This is no fancy sketch. It was fully realised in 
 a sermon preached by Dr Hodge in my pulpit. 
 Free St Matthew’s Church,^' Glasgow, in June 1884, 
 on the occasion of his visit to the said Presbyterian 
 Council in Belfast. None who were present on that day 
 will readily forget it. The theme was, “ My Father’s 
 house of many mansions,” and in its treatment the 
 theology of the intellect was permeated with the 
 chastened tenderness of deep and catching Christian 
 
 * The Congregation now ministered to by the Rev. James Stalker, 
 
 M.A. 
 
ro 2 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 emotion; so that, while the hearer’s mind was en¬ 
 larged with wonderful thoughts of Christ and heaven, 
 his heart was yet more touched, and not a few of the 
 listeners were seen to join their tears with the 
 preacher’s, who never in a church were seen to weep 
 before. 
 
 The variety of heaven was one of Dr Hodge’s 
 favourite topics ; and he has now gone to the place 
 —a bright and influential place it will be—which 
 Christ has prepared for him. On the last Sabbath 
 of his mortal life he was discoursing with even more 
 than usual fervour, in Princeton College Chapel; he 
 caught a chill, which resulted .in uraemia, and before 
 the week was over, on nth November 1886, he had 
 gone to be for ever with the Lord. “ We shall not 
 meet here any more,” were his last words in his 
 closing lecture in Philadelphia, “ let us pledge one 
 another to reassemble in heaven. We part as pil¬ 
 grims part upon the road. Let us take our way 
 heavenward ; for, if we do, we shall soon, some of us 
 very soon, be at home with the Lord.” 
 
 To Dr Wm. M. Paxton, who had heralded Dr A. 
 A. Hodge’s succession to his father in the theologi¬ 
 cal chair, the duty was suitably assigned of signalis¬ 
 ing with sorrow his early succession to the grave. 
 This affecting task he lovingly discharged in his 
 funeral address on the 15th November, as they 
 committed the mortal remains of Archibald Alex¬ 
 ander Hodge to the sweet little cemetery in Princeton, 
 which also keeps, till the Resurrection Day, the 
 
RIPENED IN USEFULNESS. 
 
 103 
 
 hallowed dust of Witherspoon, and Edwards, and 
 the two Alexanders, and Charles Hodge, his father. 
 
 Having briefly recorded what Dr Hodge had 
 accomplished, he touched on what he was as well ; 
 and the closing words of Dr Paxton were such as to 
 find a response in every breast. 
 
 He spoke of the transparent honesty of the de¬ 
 parted ; and everybody knew that “ he was trans¬ 
 parent as a mountain lake. He had no policy, no 
 concealments, no stratagem. He never deceived. 
 You could look into the workings of his mind and 
 heart as into a mirror.” 
 
 He spoke of his sympathy; and all gave inward 
 assent when the orator said : “ The great world of 
 humanity, with its wants and woes, was the habitual 
 theme of his thought and prayer; his heart, like his 
 intellect, moved in vast circles, and encompassed the 
 world.” 
 
 He spoke of the simplicity of his faith ; and many 
 in the audience, besides the speaker, could attest 
 that, ‘‘ while God had created him with a giant in¬ 
 tellect, grace had made him a child, in the simple, 
 sincere, undoubting exercises of piety.” 
 
 Nor, in the view of those best acquainted with his 
 theme was the elegist a mere fond eulogist when he 
 summed up his characterization of Archibald Alex¬ 
 ander Hodge in the words : “ Christian—Philosopher 
 —Theologian—Orator—Poet—Child.” 
 
XVIIL 
 
 THE YOUNGER HODGE AMONG HIS STUDENTS. 
 
 “When one would aim an arrow fair, 
 
 But send it slackly from the string ; 
 
 And one would pierce an outer ring, 
 
 And one an inner, here and there ; 
 
 “ And last the master bowman, he 
 
 Would cleave the mark. A willing ear 
 We lent him. Who but hung to hear 
 The rapt oration flowing free 
 
 “ From point to point, with power and grace 
 And music in the bounds of law. 
 
 To those conclusions when we saw 
 The God within him light his face.” 
 
 In Memoriam. 
 
 HIS closing chapter may serve as a kind of 
 
 transition to the second portion of the volume, 
 by calling somewhat closer attention to Dr A. A. 
 Hodge’s characteristic excellences as a teacher. 
 
 Reviewing our own reminiscences of him, we 
 certainly would say, that it was in the class-room 
 that he shone, or in a company small enough and 
 congenial enough for him to “commit himself unto 
 them.” His extraordinary analytic acumen, wedded 
 
THE YOUNGER HODGE AND HIS STUDENTS. IO5 
 
 as it was to a singular faculty for apt illustration ; 
 his contagious earnestness, with its other side of 
 playful humour and quaint hyperbole ; his burning 
 sympathy with all that is good, and burning indig¬ 
 nation at everything false or mean; his personal 
 modesty, amounting even to shyness, with its counter¬ 
 part of fearless and candid courage in defence of the 
 truth—qualities like these made him a model Pro¬ 
 fessor and an invaluable friend. To those who knew 
 him, his personal character gave added force to all 
 his utterances ; and those who knew him best could 
 best appreciate the utter candour of his spirit and 
 the utter generosity of his heart. 
 
 Professor Patton distinguishes professors into three 
 classes.^ There is first the man of leisurely research, 
 whose aim in his lecture is, to give in some sense a 
 completed contribution to his subject, and with 
 whom, as he dictates his results to the diligent 
 note-taking of his students, the matter, apart from 
 the manner of presenting it, is everything. Then 
 there is the instructor who relies much on the 
 brilliant mode of presentation he has elaborated, to 
 fire the minds of his students with a desire for further 
 investigation into the subject, some special phase 
 of which has been so suggestively handled in the 
 lecture. Then there is the teacher, whose grand 
 object it is, “safely and surely to transfer a certain 
 definite body of instruction from his own mind to 
 the minds of his scholars, incorporating it into their 
 
 * “Memorial Discourse,” p. 43. 
 
io6 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 mental life as something which can never be for¬ 
 gotten—a %rri!J.a sg as/, something that is their own, 
 part of their very self-hood.” 
 
 We entirely agree with the verdict of his colleague, 
 that Dr A. A. Hodge belonged pre-eminently to the 
 third of these classes. Yet, though he did not seek 
 merely to pour out the results of his own cogitations 
 and investigations regarding the subject under dis¬ 
 cussion ; and though his method of presenting what 
 he had to say in the class-room bore no marks 
 whatever of elaborate premeditation as to form, but 
 seemed to be of the most impromptu character, he 
 may indeed be said, in taking front rank as a pro¬ 
 fessor of the third class, to have combined in a sense 
 the characteristic excellences of the other two. What¬ 
 ever was the topic for the day, he had some distinct 
 contribution of his own to offer for its elucidation ; 
 and while the fulness and readiness, as well as clear¬ 
 ness, with which he handled every theme could not 
 fail to instruct, the interest which his enthusiasm 
 always imparted to the discussion could as little 
 fail to stimulate. 
 
 Like his predecessor he strongly believed in the 
 importance of the living teacher, along with the text¬ 
 book, for the satisfactory impartation of Didactic 
 Theology, and in the active drill of oral question and 
 debate, along with some practice in writing on theo¬ 
 logical theses. Having opened the class with prayer 
 —brief but comprehensive, earnest and vital—he at 
 once called on some student, in order, to “recite.” 
 
THE YOUNGER HODGE AND HIS STUDENTS. I07 
 
 This meant in effect, not that he was to parrot over 
 by rote what he had acquired from the “ Systematic 
 Theology ” as a text-book the night before, but that 
 he was to give evidence of an intelligent apprehen¬ 
 sion of what he had learned, and to give, probably 
 enough, at the same time, incidental occasion to the 
 professor to show, in the most graciously spontaneous 
 way, that he knew next to nothing yet as he ought 
 to know. The Socratic method adopted in the 
 “ recitations ” was attended with great interest and 
 permanent advantage. The young men left the 
 class-room not only possessing the truth taught, but 
 with it possessing them. “ The students saw every 
 doctrine, as it presented itself to his vision. They 
 benefited by his power of concise statement and clear 
 definition. He held up the representative systems of 
 theology with such sharpness of outline and such 
 accuracy of articulation, that they knew them as one 
 knows the face of a familiar friend. They questioned 
 him, and he answered their questions. They raised 
 objections, and so woke in him the hot fires of his 
 polemic. They failed sometimes to comprehend a 
 dogma, and he swept the universe for illustrations, 
 and poured them out so copiously, and with such 
 manifest spontaneity, that they overwhelmed him 
 with their applause.”^' 
 
 Students are proverbially critical of their teachers 
 and their prelections, counting themselves wiser than 
 all the former, and dismissing the latter with the 
 
 * “Memorial Discourse,” p. 47. 
 
io8 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 faint praise, or sometimes less, which the immense 
 potentiality of undeveloped genius feels justified in 
 bestowing on the respectable performances of seniors 
 who have given their actual best But with respect 
 to such a teacher, the affectation of a superior 
 potentiality was too ridiculous for even the most 
 self-complacent to assume, and if the voice of dis¬ 
 paragement ever reached a whisper, it was left 
 unheard atnid the chorus of praise, which young 
 enthusiasm, when it is enlisted, yields in no reluctant 
 or half-hearted way. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, we cannot do better than 
 submit one more quotation from the same high 
 authority to whom appeal has been already so often 
 made, as summing up in few words the special 
 qualifications and characteristics of Professor A. A. 
 Hodge as a teacher of theology. Professor Patton 
 says: “Think then of Dr A. A. Hodge as having 
 an acute mind; interested in theological specu¬ 
 lation ; rethinking independently the old ques¬ 
 tions ; analytic in his mental processes; full of 
 scholastic subtleties; bold, confident, intense in his 
 convictions; filled with reverence for good tradi¬ 
 tions ; holding the reformed faith as a sacred trust, 
 and also as a personal possession ; pervaded by this 
 faith, and living on terms of easy familiarity with it; 
 able to distinguish between essence and accident, 
 and knowing when harmless idiosyncrasy runs into 
 serious doctrinal divergence; strong in his convic¬ 
 tions, but not litigious; tenacious of principle, but 
 
THE YOUNGER HODGE AND HIS STUDENTS. IO 9 
 
 never sticking in the bark ; a sturdy, robust thinker, 
 always ready to defend the faith ; a brilliant thinker, 
 so that, as circumstances required, he could send 
 truth out in the shining drapery of soft and beauti¬ 
 ful speech, or shoot it forth like forked lightning, hot 
 and scathing, to leave on the face of error the scarred 
 record of its presence—think of him, I say, as 
 exhibiting this many-sided mental expression, and 
 you have my conception of the type of theologians to 
 which Dr Hodge belonged. Beyond all question he 
 takes his place among the great men of America, and 
 the great theologians of the world.” * 
 
 This is no stinted praise. Yet such language is 
 but sober truth to one who has studied under him of 
 whom it speaks. 
 
 The brevia theologica which follow are not, of 
 course, submitted as by any means a full representa¬ 
 tion of Dr A. A. Hodge’s theological system. They 
 are nothing more than the pencil notes of a single 
 student, in a single session, and that the first session 
 of his Princeton professorship. Nor must these notes 
 be expected to furnish a sufficient clue to the remark¬ 
 able influence which is justly ascribed to the younger 
 Hodge as a teacher, in the foregoing pages. They 
 are simply a few of the sparks struck out in the 
 class-room, in the course of discussion on the theo¬ 
 logical topic of the day; or some of the fragments 
 which remain from what in its fulness was often a 
 
 * “Memorial Discourse,” p. 31. 
 
I lo 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 rich and satisfying feast. The annotator is glad, for 
 his own sake at least, that he was led to preserve 
 these reminiscences of helpful hours. Neither he nor 
 the speaker imagined, at the time, that the sen- 
 tenticB would be placed thus on printed record. But 
 the end in view will be served, and what is now 
 done justified, if as sparks they shed some light, 
 however feeble, on the enthusiasm of regard in 
 which a great though unobtrusive career that has 
 recently passed from sight will long continue to be 
 held by those who came directly under its magnetic 
 influence ; or even if, as fragments, they do nothing 
 more than enable others to taste and appreciate the 
 kind of fare provided for the young manhood 
 gathered round his table, by Professor A. A. Hodge 
 of Princeton, their “ guide, philosopher, and friend.” 
 
BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 I. Obiter Dicta . . . . 
 
 II. Reason and Revelation 
 
 III. The Universe . . . . 
 
 IV. The Being and Attributes of God 
 
 V. The Holy Trinity . . . . 
 
 VI. Sovereignty, Freewill, and Salvation . 
 
 VII. Providence: Ordinary and Miraculous 
 
 VIII. Man as Man . . * . . 
 
 IX. Man as Sinner . . . . 
 
 X. God’s Law and Man’s Duty 
 
 XI. Death and after Death 
 
 Pack 
 
 II5 
 
 123 
 
 137 
 
 152 
 
 162 
 
 168 
 
 179 
 
 187 
 
 193 
 
 213 
 
 229 
 
 H 
 
NOTE. 
 
 These hrevia are given as far as possible in Dr Hodge’s own words. 
 For the headings, the Editor is wholly responsible, and also for the 
 order of arrangement. The latter might, in places, have been made 
 more strictly consecutive, but the attempt at close articulation of mis¬ 
 cellanea like these might be the opposite of an advantage from the 
 reader’s point of view. All the utterances are not, of course, of equal 
 value. A few are inserted less for their theological than for their 
 biographical significance, and are to be read in the light of the pre¬ 
 ceding sketch. C. A. S. 
 
1 . 
 
 OBITER DICTA. 
 
 A Theological Semmary. 
 
 I REGARD a theological seminary as the organ of 
 communication between the Church of the past, 
 and the rising ministry of the present. 
 
 The Value of Definitions. 
 
 The truth of God is a boundless expanse. Defini¬ 
 tions are made for man; not man for definitions. 
 They are like ring-fences out on the prairies. They 
 are useful, and I am fond of them. But they have 
 to be learned and unlearned. 
 
 Warnmg about Illustrations. 
 
 You are not to think that illustrations run like 
 lines parallel with their subject to all eternity; they 
 are rather like circles which osculate at particular 
 points. 
 
 Single Texts. 
 
 I do not like to ground a doctrinal argument upon 
 merely a single text. Two posts afford you a line 
 of perspective, which one point cannot. 
 
BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 116 
 
 Ultimate Truths. 
 
 Ultimate truths, which cannot be proved, are the 
 surest of all. The cylinder is firmer than any of the 
 links of the chain descending from it into the well— 
 of which each lower link has its own weakness plus 
 the weakness of the link above it. 
 
 Science^ so-called^ often Metaphysics. 
 
 A great deal of so-called science in our day is 
 really metaphysics, and very poor metaphysics too, 
 —illogical and one-sided : vainly trying to explain 
 the spiritual by material causes,—making joy in the 
 Holy Ghost a resultant of the disposition of the 
 molecules. 
 
 Plausible Intellectual Generalisations. 
 
 Generalisations of the intellect may be very mis¬ 
 leading, however persuasive. It is not the under¬ 
 standing but the moral sense that determines, e.g.., 
 what is right or wrong. An intellectual generalisa¬ 
 tion like “ Ability limits obligation ” has a plausible 
 look. But if you go about applying it to moral dis¬ 
 tinctions, you will be very like a man trying to test - 
 music by the nose. The answer of your understand¬ 
 ing may not be worth sixpence, where your moral 
 sense will tell you right. Nobody would be so 
 absurd as to go through life trying to hear smells 
 or to smell sounds. Yet this is precisely what men 
 
OBITER DICTA. 
 
 II7 
 
 are often trying to do, in applying logic to casuistical 
 questions of duty, for instance. 
 
 Latin Terms. 
 
 I like you to get a good Latin phrase now and 
 then. Wherever you meet a Latin term, do not fail 
 to acquire it, for you may be sure it is worth several 
 Yankee words. 
 
 The Early Fathers not complimented. 
 
 These old patristic fellows were, in one aspect of 
 the case, the babies of the Church. 
 
 The Greek and the Latin Churches compared. 
 
 The Greek Church crystallized much sooner than 
 the Latin ; and, though in some respects more dead, 
 it is not so corrupt. 
 
 Course of Thought in Germany. 
 
 Dogmatism, deism, pantheism, materialism—this 
 has been the order in Germany. 
 
 A Common Tendency in Heresy. 
 
 There is a tendency in all heresy to simplification, 
 by denying parts of the truth. 
 
 The Boundaries of Truth. 
 
 In considering and defining a doctrine, you should 
 know what lies beyond. To bound Pennsylvania, 
 
I 1 8 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 you have to tell what is on the north—New York; 
 on the west—Ohio ; on the east—this kingdom of 
 Jersey, &c. And so with a doctrine. It is well 
 that we should know about the heresies beyond 
 its boundaries, that we may, by negation, exclude 
 them. I shall sometimes ask you to come with me 
 to the edge, and get the alternatives. 
 
 Occident and Orie7it. 
 
 Bible statements are not always perspicuous to a 
 Western mind. Of all men in the world the typical 
 Yankee* would be the stupidest as to insight into 
 orientalisms. With all his highly developed nine¬ 
 teenth century occidental acuteness, he would be in 
 a strange region there, and often at a loss. 
 
 Over Fervour in Debate. 
 
 Men often, in disputation, overshoot the mark. 
 A materialist denying the reliability of conscious¬ 
 ness is like the Irishman sawing off the branch on 
 which he sat astride; or like a very choleric boy I 
 used to know in my youth, who when he fought 
 used to kick with both feet at one time. Result—a 
 tumble. 
 
 Testing a Theory, 
 
 If you burn the end of an idealist’s nose, you 
 disturb his dream. If you infringe a pantheist’s 
 
 * A name specifically applied in America to the New Englander, 
 and indicative of uncommon “smartness.” 
 
OBITER DICTA. 
 
 II9 
 
 rights, he will somehow refuse to regard you as 
 “ a mere moment of infinite existence ” ; he will 
 recognise your personal responsibility. 
 
 The Nexus of Doctrines. 
 
 The doctrines of the Bible are not isolated, but 
 interlaced; and the view of one doctrine must 
 necessarily affect the view taken of another. A 
 difference on such a fundamental question as the 
 divinity of Christ will produce an entirely different 
 system. This is found so in fact. 
 
 Here are triads which, as is natural, have gone 
 together:— 
 
 Christ a man; 
 
 Human nature not depraved; 
 
 Salvation merely education. 
 
 or— 
 
 Christ a divine person ; 
 
 Human nature depraved ; 
 
 Salvation by the almighty power of God. 
 
 You may begin your argument from the correla¬ 
 tion of doctrine at either end. Beginning with a 
 diagnosis of the nature of the disease, you may infer 
 the kind of treatment and the sort of physician 
 necessary. Or, if you find a certain physician apply¬ 
 ing a certain remedy, you may infer the nature and 
 gravity of the disease. 
 
I 20 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 Sea-sickness in Theology. 
 
 There is a great deal of sea-sickness in theology 
 till you get your sea-legs on—sky and land and 
 water all mixed. 
 
 The Fmal Conflict of Systems. 
 
 The last issue must be between Atheism in its 
 countless forms and Calvinism. The other systems 
 will be crushed as the half-rotten ice between two 
 great bergs. Two things you may be quite sure of, 
 viz.: —I. That you won’t get rid of your difficulties 
 by putting away Christianity, because they will come 
 up under philosophy itself; and 2. That you won’t 
 get rid of the difficulties of Calvinism by turning 
 Arminian j therefore don’t potter with half-measures, 
 but be on one side or the other, out and out. 
 
 All Objectionahle Orthodoxy. 
 
 I am afraid of Calvinism when it is alone. A 
 mere Calvinist who is not a man and a Christian 
 had better be shut up in Bedlam. But if he is 
 human and Christian, then his Calvinism is a good 
 thing. In this day we require perhaps to emphasize 
 man’s free will rather than God’s sovereignty. At 
 the same time, we must not lose sight of the latter, 
 or allow our theological system to centre wrongly. 
 
 Heliocentrical Theology. 
 
 If you study astronomy geocentrically, you will 
 bring everything into confusion; if you study it 
 
OBITER DICTA. 
 
 I 2 I 
 
 heliocentrically, then everything will be right. Dr 
 Krauth once said to me—“If you begin with God, 
 you must be a Calvinist; if you begin with man, 
 you must be an Arminian. We Lutherans do neither ; 
 we begin with the Bible.’* It is, however, impossible 
 to keep clear of both Arminianism and Calvinism ; 
 every theological idea is of the one colour or the 
 other. This I perceive in our classes here, where 
 you talk about as much Arminianism as Calvinism. 
 We are all Arminians in the natural grit; but Scrip¬ 
 ture comes in to correct this—showing the con¬ 
 demnation of all to be just, and the salvation of any 
 to be of grace. 
 
 1 
 
 Truth Many sided. 
 
 - Men often start with wrong or imperfect premises, 
 and go right on, like a horse with blinders, not per¬ 
 ceiving what lies on either hand. But it is a mistake 
 to suppose that logic goes only in a straight line. 
 Truth is manysided, and it radiates from above and 
 beneath, from north, south, east, and west. It is not 
 a line, but to be compared rather to a surface or a 
 solid. There is a sense, though not the popular 
 sense, in which it is well to be “ broad church,” and 
 “ catholic.” 
 
 Mails Imperfect Comprehension. 
 
 An engineer and an intellectual fly would form 
 very different conceptions of the machinery in one 
 
122 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 of our England cotton factories, supposing 
 
 them to enter together. The engineer would see 
 the whole in every part. The fly, settling on a 
 single cog, would see only parts in the whole. We 
 are the flies, relatively to the system of the universe 
 and the plan of God ; and very poor flies we often 
 are too. 
 
REASON AND REVELATION. 
 
 A// Knoivledge is based on Faith. 
 
 O MNIA exeunt e mysteria: all knowledge is 
 ultimately based on faith in the unintelligible. 
 This is true of so ordinary a thing, for instance, as 
 the assimilation of food. 
 
 The Uses of Reason. 
 
 Under this head you must distinguish between 
 these three:— 
 
 (1) The tisus organicus of reason— i.e.^ its use as a 
 prehensile, an organ of apprehension. 
 
 (2) The judicium contradictionis — i.e., its use in 
 determining as to the possibility of a thing. 
 
 (3) The judicmm testimonii — i.e., its use in judg¬ 
 ing of the evidence in any special case. 
 
 Essentials to Faith. 
 
 In the first place, truth must be apprehended in 
 order to be believed: for instance, a Chinese pro- 
 
BREVIA TPIEOLOGICA. 
 
 1 24 
 
 verb to you and to me would be meaningless, and 
 could not therefore be believed. In the next place, 
 an evident impossibility cannot be believed ; for it 
 cannot be a truth, and therefore cannot be an object 
 of faith. And in the third place, faith must have 
 adequate evidence : else it is mere superstition. 
 
 Importance of Appropriate Evidence. 
 
 The quality as well as quantity of evidence is of 
 prime importance. It is to the ear, not to the eye, 
 we turn for evidence about a sound : and to the con¬ 
 science rather than the intellect for the evidence of 
 moral truth. 
 
 Mind a7id Nature. 
 
 Logically, the science of mind precedes the science 
 of nature. Established facts in either of these cannot 
 be ignored by theologians. 
 
 The Proof of a Divine Revelatiofi. 
 
 The order of proof should be : that a supernatural 
 revelation is (i) possible., both a parte Dei and a parte 
 homhiis ; (2) probable, whether we view it from 
 God’s side or man’s ; and (3) actual, as something 
 demonstrably given to us in God’s word. 
 
 A StLpematural Revelation possible. 
 
 On Theistic or Christian ground, a supernatural 
 revelation is evidently possible on the side of God. 
 
REASON AND REVELATION. 
 
 125 
 
 Whether it is possible on marHs side will depend 
 on man’s constitution. Now, we find that in its 
 appeal to us the Bible awakens ideas and feelings 
 till then dormant, but not new in the sense that 
 they cannot be analysed. Thus we can affirm, not 
 only that our God can reveal Himself; but that 
 we have organs to receive this revelation. 
 
 A Supernatural Revelation probable. 
 
 Its probability may be argued from the necessity 
 there is for it on the side of God’s creature man. 
 
 A Supernatural Revelation actual. 
 
 Its actuality is shown by various lines of evidence. 
 One of the strongest of these is the unity of the 
 Bible as an organic whole, though its parts were 
 given forth at long intervals, and through men so 
 widely separated in various ways. Appeal may be 
 also made to “ the demonstration of the Spirit.” 
 Christ says, “ if any man will do His will, he shall 
 know of the doctrine ” ; so that religion is, in a sense, 
 a branch of experimental philosophy. 
 
 Science not the subject of Revelation. 
 
 Man is left to digest phenomena himself, and 
 thence to elaborate science. God did not reveal the 
 latter. Otherwise it could not have been spoken of 
 
BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 I 26 
 
 as “ science.” Genuine science does not conflict 
 with revelation. 
 
 Priest and Prophet defined. 
 
 The priest is one who represents men before God : 
 the prophet is one who represents God before men. 
 Both are mediators, but in opposite directions. 
 
 The Mystics a7id the Materialists. 
 
 Note how extremes meet. The mystics, who 
 deemed themselves eminently spiritual, fell into the 
 materialistic theory of an organic substantial one¬ 
 ness with God. The true doctrine of union with 
 God is, that we have to be brought into moral rela¬ 
 tionship with Him, as person with person—not that 
 our personality is to be mixed or fused with His. 
 
 Quakerism. 
 
 George Fox was its originator; William Penn, its 
 social founder ; Robert Barclay, its doctrinal ex¬ 
 ponent. There is a great variety of Quakers in 
 America. Those of Indiana are often to be counted 
 excellent Christians, while the progressive Friends 
 in Pennsylvania are as indifferent a body of people 
 as you will readily find on this side of the sphere. 
 
 English “ Evangelicals^ 
 
 The Evangelical party in the English Church 
 differs from the Broad, in emphasizing God’s word 
 
REASON AND REVELATION. 
 
 127 
 
 and grace, as contrasted with man’s mere reason 
 and moral consciousness. It differs from the 
 Ritualistic party, in maintaining the ethical as 
 against the magical view of man’s relationship and 
 access to God. 
 
 “ Reasofi ” as Rome views it. 
 
 From the Romish standpoint, all Protestants are 
 rationalistic: and this chiefly because the judicium 
 contradictionis (defined above) is so freely applied to 
 such dogmas as transubstantiation and the like. 
 
 The Romanist's Ground of Faith. 
 
 He accepts a dogma like transubstantiation, be¬ 
 cause he believes that the Apostles taught it. He 
 believes that, again, because tradition says so ; and 
 this, again, because the existing Church so declares. 
 It is only in the last step of definition that the 
 Pope is regarded as ex-cathedra infallible. 
 
 Explicit versus Implicit Faith. 
 
 Explicit faith knows its object; implicit faith 
 accepts that of which it has no direct knowledge 
 whatever. By explicit faith, the Romanist believes 
 the Church infallible; by implicit faith he then 
 accepts any unknown conceivable doctrine which 
 the Church maintains or may at any time pro¬ 
 mulgate. 
 
128 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 The Vulgate. 
 
 This was the great mother of translations, and of 
 great value at the time when it was written; but the 
 Papal Church has committed the absurdity of setting 
 it before the original. 
 
 Church Development. 
 
 Some have held—and Dr Schaff, formerly at least, 
 among them—that the development of the Church 
 has been normal and regular; so that the doctrine 
 of each age was just the doctrine for that age. 
 This is an outgrowth of realism, which regards 
 genera as real entities coming before particulars. 
 According to realism, the genus humanum was 
 created in Adam, existed in him, and fell. It was 
 by-and-bye united to Christ, in whom a fresh start 
 was given to it. The Logos introduced a new 
 development, in germ, into the genus humanum ; 
 and this new development is supposed to go on in 
 stages, each of which is perfectly suited to its own 
 time. To this it may be remarked, that what is 
 truem one age must be true in another; and that, 
 in point of fact, the development of the Church has 
 not been like the growth of a healthy child in 
 favouring circumstances all along. The Church in 
 dark times has developed error, and has furnished a 
 very imperfect type for the contemporary age. 
 
REASON AND REVELATION. 
 
 129 
 
 The Ultimate Appeal. 
 
 The Scriptures. If Jonathan Edwards were to 
 come, proclaiming a revelation contrary to the Bible, 
 follow Scripture and let Jonathan Edwards slide ! 
 Even if he wrought wonders in his support, these 
 would have no effect on my mind—no sporadic 
 miracles would—unless their organic connection 
 could be shown with the miracles and the teaching 
 of the Bible. 
 
 The Unreliability of Traditio?t. 
 
 This may be shown from an example taken from 
 our own history. It is generally supposed that 
 Washington’s mother was an excellent old lady, 
 grandmother of her country; the truth is, as I 
 learned at Eredericksburg, that Washington was 
 what he was in spite of his mother. Yet the contrary 
 tradition has sprung up in a very short time; for 
 Washington died in 1799, and the old lady only a 
 short while before. 
 
 Papal Assumptions. 
 
 Each of these three assumptions is unproved :— 
 (i), that Peter was primate; (2), that Peter was 
 bishop of Rome ; (3), that Peter was primate as 
 bishop of Rome. The last is not unimportant; 
 because Clement, for instance, might have succeeded 
 to the bishopric of Rome without the primacy, as 
 
 Queen Victoria came to the crown of England but 
 
 I 
 
130 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 not of Hanover. Or, to come nearer home, Ulysses 
 Grant was president of the United States and 
 husband of Mrs Grant; Mr Hayes succeeded him 
 —but not in both capacities ! 
 
 Rome heretical 07 i her own ground. 
 
 The Church of Rome admits the infallibility of 
 Scripture, and yet teaches doctrine in manifest con¬ 
 tradiction to it. On -her own ground she is heretical, 
 as well as inconsistent with herself 
 
 The True Church Catholic. 
 
 “ I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,” and that 
 in a twofold sense : (i) as the elect of God in heaven 
 and on earth ; and (2) as the oecumenical visible 
 Church of true believers in all their various organisa¬ 
 tions. On this Church question, Rome connects the 
 wrong subject with the right predicate. 
 
 The Question of Succession. 
 
 If George Washington had had children, are you 
 sure there would have been a succession of Washing¬ 
 tons 1 Would they have been necessarily children 
 of the spirit as well as of the flesh } President 
 Grant’s son may succeed to his horses and his box of 
 cigars, if the latter are not all smoked out : but will 
 he necessarily succeed to the qualities that made his 
 father President t If the States issue a gold dollar. 
 
REASON AND REVELATION. I3I 
 
 and I take a bit of paper and tell you it is the dollar’s 
 successor, will you take it ? Not much. I don’t 
 like to get into politics, but a deal of our trouble 
 arises out of this very thing. Government cannot 
 make paper into dollars, though they may force you 
 to take them as such. 
 
 Just so with the so-called successor of the Apostles 
 —this old man who has none of the qualities and 
 characteristics of the Apostles. 
 
 The Question of Inspiration really Tzvo. 
 
 Scripture is—not merely contains—God’s Word. 
 On the great formal principle of the Reformation, 
 that the Bible is the Word of God and the only 
 standard of faith, all the Reformed Churches, Cal- 
 vinistic and Lutheran, are agreed. But when we 
 afhrm, “ The Bible is inspired ”—two questions are 
 raised : (i) what is meant by the subject here and 
 (2) what do you mean by the predicate t 
 
 Apostolic and Canonical ziot the same. 
 
 If a manuscript were found which could be proved 
 by internal and external evidence to be by an 
 Apostle, would you have it engrossed in the Canon } 
 Yes, if it were written in the capacity of an Apostle, 
 and not, for instance, a letter from Peter to his wife’s 
 mother, however excellent the advices to the old 
 lady might be. 
 
132 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 The Extent of Apostolic Inspiration. 
 
 How far, precisely, the inspiration of the Apostles 
 extended we cannot tell. But it extended to all their 
 teaching (“ whosoever heareth you heareth me ”) and 
 to much of their official action. 
 
 IsaiaJis Inspiration versus Shakespeare's. 
 
 Isaiah, like Shakespeare, was no common man—a 
 genius ; but in addition to great natural gifts, he was 
 under a special supernatural guidance, which con¬ 
 stitutes the differentiating element between them. 
 
 The Fact versus the Explanation of Inspiration. 
 
 The question as to the result is different from the 
 question as to the process or mode of its attainment. 
 How David was affected so as to make his psalms 
 the Word of God, I may not know. That he was so 
 affected is the doctrine of inspiration, which I believe. 
 God fore-ordained Shakespeare’s plays, every word. 
 God fore-ordained the Bible. We see the difference 
 in the product more clearly than we can explain the 
 difference of the cause or influence operating toward 
 the result. Generically, God influences and fore¬ 
 ordains all man’s products. Specifically, He in¬ 
 fluenced in a peculiar way, which we cannot well 
 define, the products of Scripture writers. 
 
 The Natural and the Supernatural. 
 
 These, it should be remembered, are not unrelated. 
 The natural is environed by the supernatural; and 
 
REASON AND REVELATION. I 33 
 
 this again is articulated to the natural. You may 
 find some analogy to what is meant in the co¬ 
 existence and co-relation of the nervous and the 
 circulatory systems in the body. In the matter of 
 inspiration, even the externals—the men, the lan¬ 
 guage, &c.—were as the scaffolding prepared by 
 God. The man, the circumstances of the man, and 
 the supernatural influence over the man as he wrote 
 were all of Him. Inspiration was a divine act not 
 operating in a vacuum but on an organism. 
 
 The Architectofiic Principle in Scripture. 
 
 A force, such as gravity, is different from the 
 directive life principle, say in a seed making it an 
 oak. There is what may be called an architec¬ 
 tonic principle discoverable in Nature—directing 
 the chemical forces, for instance, which go to the 
 upbuilding of a tree. So with the written Word. 
 Inspiration is the architectonic principle which guided 
 and directed the action of the writers without inter¬ 
 fering with its spontaneity; just as one at the tiller 
 of a boat may steer in spite of current influence, 
 while the rowers are free to put forth their full 
 activities. 
 
 Illustration from the building of St Pauls. 
 
 At the rearing of St Paul’s Cathedral, there was 
 so much horse or ass force employed; but it was all 
 
134 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 directed by the thought, the genius, the organizing 
 faculty of Sir Christopher Wren. The poor, feeble 
 old man had not one ass-force in himself But who 
 was the author of St Paul’s ? Not the hod-carriers, 
 surely, but Sir Christopher. And whose is the 
 authorship of the Bible ? It belongs not to the 
 mere human instruments, but to that All Wise 
 Almighty Architect under whose inspiration they 
 each did their part. 
 
 Illustratio 7 i fro 7 n Music. 
 
 A musician sometimes plays another man’s music 
 on another man’s instrument. But he may make an 
 instrument to suit himself, and compose music for 
 his own rendering. So, we may say—without press¬ 
 ing the illustration too far, since God works on the 
 minds of men from within and not mechanically 
 from without—God wanted a great organ, with all 
 kinds of pipes in it, for music of His own. Hence 
 He prepared Moses, and David, and Isaiah, and the 
 rest; and by His touch evoked from them precisely 
 what He wanted. The result is His, though the 
 tone or tiiTibre belongs to their individuality. 
 
 Ple 7 tary l 7 ispiratio 7 i. 
 
 A chain is no stronger than its links : and if you 
 are to have any infallible record, it must be so down 
 to the words. It may be true that we have not now 
 
REASON AND REVELATION. 
 
 135 
 
 a metaphysically correct copy of the original revela¬ 
 tion. But God gave at first an infallible rule : and 
 that is something better for us than to have a meta¬ 
 physically correct copy of a rule which was not 
 originally in all points infallible. We have a definite 
 point to work back to in the original autographs. 
 
 PaiiVs direct clahn to Ple 7 tary Inspiration. 
 
 There is an occasional expression in Paul’s writings 
 which is wrongly interpreted sometimes in a con¬ 
 trary sense, but which is really an explicit claim to 
 plenary inspiration. When he says, in i Cor. vii. 10, 
 “ I command, yet not I but the Lord,” he makes 
 evident reference to the Lord’s own express in¬ 
 junction in Matt. xix. 6. And when, a few verses 
 later, i Cor. vii. 12, he adds, “But to the rest say I, 
 not the Lord,” the evident meaning is, “ The Lord 
 did not speak particularly on this; but I, Paul, say ” 
 (so with verse 25). Such an expression is really to 
 put in an accentuated form the very claim he 
 makes in i Cor. xiv. 37. To compare great things 
 with small, it is as though I were to say—“ My 
 teacher. Professor Alexander, did not say this 
 when he was here; but I teach it.” If this were to 
 be interpreted as an assumption by me of an 
 authority equal to that of so distinguished a man, it 
 would mean great presumption on my part. But 
 such presumption would be as nothing to the utter 
 
I 36 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 blasphemy of Paul, in making his word as good as 
 Christ’s, if he were not inspired. 
 
 Inspiration a Miracle. 
 
 Inspiration comes under the genus miracle : and a 
 miracle is a phenomenon which must be attributed 
 to the intervention of God. 
 
III. 
 
 THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 Causation. 
 
 I T is a mere truism to say, “ Every effect must 
 have a cause.” The case is better stated, from, 
 the point of view of consciousness, by M‘Cosh when 
 he says, Every new thing, every change, must have a 
 cause.” What particular cause produces a particular 
 effect, we ascertain by experience. But the tran¬ 
 scendental judgment, that “like causes under like 
 circumstances will produce like effects,” is attained 
 not by experience, but by intuition. 
 
 A Reasonable Postulate. 
 
 “ Every change must have a cause suitable and 
 adequate.'' This very reasonable assumption the 
 materialist cannot afford to grant us. 
 
 A Philosopher refuted by a Dog. 
 
 Kant held that it is a mere subjective law—that 
 we must think that every effect must have a cause. 
 If you pinched a dog’s tail and immediately cried— 
 “ Oh, sir, it’s quite a mistake : nobody pinched it! ” 
 
BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 13^ 
 
 do you think you could convince the dog ? I never 
 saw a dog yet that agreed with the philoso^ers ; so 
 the philosophers must be wrong. 
 
 W/iat is meant by the A hsoliite ? 
 
 The Absolute is the unrelated, the unconditioned ; 
 so that of course there cannot be two Absolutes. 
 As regards relations out of Himself, God was 
 absolute before creation. Whenever He created 
 so much as a grain of sand, however, he became 
 related. Consciousness implies relation ; it involves 
 subject-subject and subject-object. Hence it is 
 concluded that the Absolute, in the philosophic 
 sense, cannot be conscious. (But here comes in our 
 doctrine of the Trinity). 
 
 hi what sense is God absolute ? 
 
 God is absolute not in the sense that He cannot 
 come into relation, but in the sense that He deter¬ 
 mines His own relations. God has certain inteimal 
 relations, which are eternal and necessary. But as 
 to external relations He is absolute, in the sense 
 explained; He is the ordinating centre of the 
 universe. 
 
 The Infinite versus the All. 
 
 God has infinite power. But the devil has some 
 power. God has infinite wisdom; but even preachers 
 have some wisdom. Thus the Infinite is different 
 from the All. 
 
THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 139 
 
 W/iat is Knowledge ? 
 
 Knowledge {notitid) is the apprehension of a thing 
 as true. But there is knowledge—and knowledge. 
 It may be (take geometry and mechanics, for in¬ 
 stance) either a mere notion or a power. Thus, 
 “ to know God ” is a phrase that may have widely 
 different meanings, “ Comprehensive knowledge,” 
 we m.ay add, must be extensive and intensive too, to 
 be worthy of the name. 
 
 A Popular Account of Knowledge. 
 
 In the carpet, there is material and organization : 
 God’s wool and man’s brain—result, the carpet. 
 In man’s life, you have varying experiences and the 
 human mind organizing—result, knowledge. We 
 have not intuitions even, without experience ; only, 
 in their case, experience is the occasion, not the 
 source. 
 
 An Unhappy Phrase. 
 
 “To make all things of nothing ... in the space 
 of six days,” is liable to misinterpretation. Creation 
 from nothing is an act; it did not last six days. 
 There is an important distinction apt to be over¬ 
 looked in the use of such a phrase—the difference be¬ 
 tween creatio prima (out of nothing) and creatio 
 secimda (out of pre-existing elements, as when “ the 
 Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground ”) ; 
 or to put it differently, the distinction between the 
 
140 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 exercise on Gods part oipotestas libera (free direct 
 activity) and of potestas ordinata (power operating 
 through law). If it seems strange that God should 
 in creation have come down from the high sphere of 
 potestas libera into that of potestas ordinata, con¬ 
 descending to the use of slow-working means, the 
 same wonder meets us in the scheme of redemption, 
 with its long eras of preparation for the coming of 
 the Christ Why did not God literally create “ all 
 things out of nothing ” apart from processes } I will 
 tell you, when you answer me this—Why did not 
 God send the Saviour without waiting till long 
 preliminary eras had run their course ? If you can 
 answer the one query, you will have little difficulty 
 with the other. 
 
 A 71 hjiportaiit Distiiictiofi. 
 
 Creation is not in thought, but in willing. This 
 world has been eternally in God’s thought, in which 
 sense we may speak of the eternal decree: the world 
 is not, however, eternal, but only as old as the 
 volition which gave it birth. 
 
 Cave Spinoza. 
 
 In dealing with a system like Spinoza’s, look well 
 to its definitions. If you grant these, logic will do 
 the rest. But “substance,” for instance, is not the 
 self-existent and independent m his seiise. It has 
 not an absolute independence, though relatively to 
 
THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 I4I 
 
 attributes it is “the thing in itself.” All Spinoza-ism 
 is in its definitions. 
 
 Mind the Origm of Action. 
 
 Matter nowhere originates action. But when we 
 get back to a conscious will—a mind expressing 
 itself in volition—we reach an originator of change. 
 You find a row of bricks knocking each other over; 
 you go back and back, brick by brick, till you reach a 
 human leg, and so to the will of the boy who kicked, 
 and to whom you give a thrashing for his pains ! 
 
 The Citadel against Materialism. 
 
 If we give over consciousness, we are in the hands 
 of the materialists in a minute. 
 
 Philosophy in Etymology. 
 
 “Nature” is an effect—a change—an eternal be¬ 
 coming. Its very name means “ being born : ” there¬ 
 fore it must have a producer. 
 
 Idea and Form. 
 
 Form is the “ quiddity ” of a thing—that which 
 makes it what it is. The Idea determines the 
 shape. Thus a cactus and a rose may be of the 
 same material; but a different idea takes shape in a 
 widely different form. 
 
 Plato s Ideas. 
 
 The ideas of Plato may be compared, approxi¬ 
 mately, to the countless moulds of a founder. As 
 
142 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 iron is poured into these, so when matter fills out 
 the Ideas countless existence-forms are the result. 
 
 Final versus First Cause. 
 
 The final is not to be confused with the first 
 cause; it refers not to the origin of a thing, but to 
 the object for which it was made. 
 
 A ristotelic Distinctions. 
 
 Take a chair. Its material cause is the wood ; 
 efficient^ the carpenter; instrumental., the tools; 
 formal, the idea determining its shape; final, the 
 end it is made for, viz., to be sat upon. 
 
 To deny Final Causes, vain. 
 
 Anything which becomes, or begins to be, if in¬ 
 telligible, must be the product of mtelligence. Hence, 
 philosophers who claim to understand the universe, 
 are not helped by denying final causes. 
 
 A greater Paley needed. 
 
 Paley’s argument is a perfect statement on its 
 level. His logical faculty was superb, his intuitive 
 faculty deficient. What is now wanted is another 
 and greater Paley, to re-write the argument from 
 design in view of the advance of science. 
 
 A Typical Being. 
 
 Paley will be a typical being in the museum of 
 H eaven, if he has a place there. There never was a 
 
THE UNIVERSE, 
 
 143 
 
 more strictly logical mind ; but he was singularly 
 lacking in philosophic or metaphysical sweep. 
 
 What is Instinct ? 
 
 Instinct is the reason of God working. It is an 
 organic pre-adaptation of the creature towards certain 
 pre-determined results. Instinct works mechani¬ 
 cally ; it stimulates the bee, for instance, to make 
 cones with mathematical exactness. It is commonly 
 said that while man has reason, the lower animals 
 have instinct. But it is also true that a dog, for 
 example, has reason, and that man has instinct. Or 
 let us take, not a dog, but even a spider. The spider 
 makes webs by instinct; man builds bridges by 
 reason, through experiment. But, besides its in¬ 
 stinct, the spider has from God a little understanding, 
 so that it can mend its web and adapt its operations 
 to circumstances. The difference is, that man has a 
 sea of reason and a drop of instinct; the spider, a 
 drop of reason and a sea of instinct. 
 
 The Old Materialism and the New, 
 
 The two are essentially the same. But the old 
 materialism was metaphysical or ontological in its 
 method of discussion, while the modern materialism 
 is scientific. 
 
 Old and New meet together. 
 
 The “heredity” of Darwinism is just the “ten¬ 
 dency” of the atoms of Epicurus writ new. 
 
144 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGTCA. 
 
 The Fallacy of Ezwhition. 
 
 You can’t get a human soul out of mud. Bricks 
 the Juggler used to bring eggs and puddings 
 and singing birds out of his hat. But he had to 
 slip them surreptitiously in first. And so is it with 
 Dr. Darwin. 
 
 The Conditions of Existence not its Expla^iation. 
 
 The conditions of existence make existence 
 possible, and may be said to limit its possibility. 
 But it is absurd to say that they explain existence. 
 The conditions of potato culture were present in 
 Ireland, but the plant had to be brought from 
 Virginia. It is pleasant for a man to get a house 
 nicely furnished, and then a wife; but when you go 
 to see him under such happy conditions, you do not 
 see in these his explanation! 
 
 Hoiv Darzvhis own Terms refute him. 
 
 Words like “selection,” “ adaptation,” “intention,” 
 and so forth, all imply design^ which Darwin denies. 
 
 Where Carpenter goes ivrong. 
 
 As has often been the case with heresy. Carpenter 
 is right in what he affirms, but wrong in what he 
 denies. 
 
 What is Force ? 
 
 Force is a simple idea, which cannot be reached 
 by analysis, synthesis, or analogy, but only by ex- 
 
THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 HS 
 
 perience. Force is “a push,” or “a pull,” which 
 comes into the experience of our organism in anta¬ 
 gonizing gravitation. It is not movecnent, but that 
 which tends to produce movement. 
 
 Is Will a Force ? 
 
 Strictly speaking, it is not. What is there to show 
 that it is } When an old friend clasps and squeezes 
 my hand, that is muscle force—bread and butter 
 force — and ultimately sun force. The will may 
 direct; but the force is not in proportion to the 
 volition but to the muscularity, as would be seen if I 
 were to receive a no less warm welcome from the 
 same friend lying on a sickbed, with his frame 
 enfeebled by disease. 
 
 The Controlling Power of Will. 
 
 If she will, the engineer’s little girl may with her 
 little finger set agoing or stop the train. 
 
 President Edivards criticised. 
 
 There is one apparent fault in Jonathan Edwards; 
 he fails to keep his terms clean. He was a great 
 genius, but an imperfectly educated man. He 
 defines a term in one way, and then uses it in some 
 other sense. Thus his work on Will was hailed in 
 Scotland as a bulwark of orthodoxy ; whereas in 
 England it was worked into the basis of necessitari¬ 
 anism, atheism, and materialism. 
 
 K 
 
146 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 Is Mind a Substance ? 
 
 Yes ; though not a material one. The definition 
 of “ substance” includes—objective existence, power, 
 permanence. 
 
 The Beauty of St Pauls. 
 
 St Paul’s Cathedral is wonderful, simply as a mass 
 of matter reared up toward heaven, but still more 
 wonderful as a mass organised through an idea. 
 There is in it the beauty of unity in midtiplicity. 
 The engineer may calculate the amount of force 
 required to bring and rear the stones in their places; 
 so much horse power, man power, or steam power 
 may be correlated. But to learn the secret of the 
 structure’s beauty, I must turn to the directing mind 
 which supplied the principle on which St Paul’s is 
 built. 
 
 Priority. 
 
 Matter or spirit —which comes logically first } 
 Materialists and Idealists are often both absurd, but 
 the former more so. / feel the stove to be hot; the 
 consciousness of self-existence is more immediate 
 than consciousness of the external world. 
 
 Physical Events versus Mental Acts. 
 
 The Indians, accustomed to see the sail vessels of 
 the Europeans, were completely mystified when 
 
THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 147 
 
 steamships were introduced. Without pushing the 
 analogy too far, we may compare a physical event 
 to the sail ship, propelled from without; a mental 
 act, to the steamship, self-determined, moved from 
 within. 
 
 Best Mode of A 7^gument zvitJi Scientists. 
 
 Every thought exists in the middle of a chain of 
 precedences and consequences. We may thus, in 
 argument, cut the chain either before or behind, 
 according as we use the scientific or the reductio ad 
 ahsurdmn method. In dealing with the theories of 
 scientists, the latter is the more natural for the theo¬ 
 logian to take. He has to accept the facts, but can 
 claim to criticise the inferences and the consequences 
 from these. 
 
 A Nebulous Dile77t7na. 
 
 Here is a dilemma for exponents of the nebulous 
 theory. If infinite, filling all space, the nebulous 
 matter cannot cool and concentrate, as the theory 
 demands, round points of radiation. If finite, the 
 nebulous matter must have a surface and radiate 
 heat out on the infinite void, thus becoming, how¬ 
 ever great it is, ultimately cold and dead. 
 
 A True Inference for Huxley. 
 
 Living protoplasm and dead protoplasm are 
 chemically the same, says Mr Huxley. Therefore, 
 we say, life is not due to their chemical identity. 
 
148 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 Theism versus Deism. 
 
 The difference here is one of usage merely. 
 Theist strictly includes all who believe in a personal 
 God; Deist is used to differentiate those who deny 
 His mundane authority and supervision. 
 
 The True in Deism and Pantheisrn conserved. 
 
 The Deist makes God the first cause of the world, 
 but regards Him as altogether apart from the 
 machine He has made and set in operation. 
 
 The Pantheist holds God to be immanent in the 
 world and expressing Himself through it 
 
 The Christian, rejecting the false, combines the true 
 in both these systems, when he declares that God is 
 the maker governor of the world—both transient 
 
 and immanent—beyond and above the world, as 
 well as in it. 
 
 A Caveat on Payitheism. 
 
 Pantheism does not say, “ The universe is God.” 
 That, in effect, would be atheism. But what it says 
 is, “ The universe is a phenomenon, an existence- 
 form of God.” God it regards as the esse, under¬ 
 lying the attributes or conditions ; and a ‘‘ pheno¬ 
 menon,” as its etymology suggests, is a transient 
 form of being “coming into sight.” To illustrate— 
 water is the existence-form of Oxygen and Hydrogen. 
 
THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 149 
 
 But these, in their synthesis, may exist as ice or as 
 vapour too. So God, says Pantheism, may have 
 many existence-forms. 
 
 The Basis of Attack on Pantheism. 
 
 The great solvent on Pantheism is our personal 
 consciousness as intelligent free agents. Aggression 
 against Pantheism must begin here ; it has no room 
 for proper personality, though it speaks of a kind of 
 individualisation. Just as a factory has one generat¬ 
 ing force in the boiler, which is individualised in 
 its application to a thousand different kinds of 
 machines,—so, according to this theory, will, intelli¬ 
 gence, &c., are individualised in a multitude of 
 human embodiments. Then, if you break the 
 machine the force remains equal in amount, though 
 not individualised as before. 
 
 How Polytheism is related to Pantheism. 
 
 Polytheism is exoteric in origin (personifying 
 nature) ; Pantheism esoteric (deifying to izav or 
 TO eV). Can a whole nation be Pantheistic } No ; 
 haven’t got brains enough—that’s safe ! Pantheism 
 is the greatest generalisation possible. Polytheism 
 is its needful practical or popular accompaniment. 
 
 Who would deify the Devil? 
 
 With the Pantheist, everything is a manifestation 
 of God ; and where there is most power, there is the 
 fullest manifestation of Him. Now Beelzebub is far 
 
BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 150 
 
 more powerful than a good Presbyterian—more than 
 a match, indeed, for the whole General Assembly! 
 Hence evil, and Satan himself, come to be deified. 
 
 Scientific P antkeism distinguished from Popidar. 
 
 According to scientific Pantheism, God and His 
 existence-form are co-eternal and mutually indis¬ 
 pensable. According to Hinduism, Brum existed first’ 
 for a long period, as the Absolute, of which nothing 
 could be predicated; thence suddenly arose the 
 universe, to be again, for a long period, absorbed in 
 Brum, till at length there will arise another similar 
 cycle of existences. 
 
 Pantheistic Schools. 
 
 The Ionic school professed a Materialistic Pan¬ 
 theism ; the Eleatic, an Idealistic; the Stoic, a 
 Hylo-zoic. The Neo-plat onists of Alexandria 
 (which became a kind of Athens in the early 
 Christian centuries) had an eclectic system. They 
 held by absorption through ecstasy^ —somewhat akin 
 to the Hindu’s method of focalising his attention on 
 Brum (nothing) till he become Brum. However 
 spiritual some of these systems of absorption may 
 profess to be, they are in reality materialistic. 
 
 A Laughable Conquest over Brum. 
 
 Ancient Pantheism is no match for modern science. 
 A young English doctor by the judicious use of a 
 
THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 151 
 
 little ammonia quickly brought a worthy old Hindu 
 out of Brum again ! 
 
 The Yankee^ not a Hindu. 
 
 A Hindu whom you wrong may come and die 
 at your door to spite you, and in order that he may 
 get a stage or two higher in the new life while you 
 are sent a stage or two lower down. But you won’t 
 get a Yankee to do that: he wakens up to common 
 sense between times. 
 
 See note, page 118. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 
 
 Oiir Knoivledge of God. 
 
 LL our knowledge of God is to be distributed 
 
 under three heads—Deus existens ; volens ; 
 agens. These three categories cover the whole of 
 Theology proper ; and God is immutable in all three 
 —His persons, purposes, and works. 
 
 What is God ? 
 
 The Westminster answer to this question is pro¬ 
 bably the best that ever was penned. God having 
 created us in His own image, His genus is there fitly 
 
 affirmed—“ a spirit ”—and then the specific differ¬ 
 
 ences are added—“infinite, eternal, and unchange¬ 
 able,” &c. The next best definition is that of Rein - 
 hard—“ Deus est natura necessaria, a mundo diversa, 
 summas complexa perfectiones, et ipsius mundi 
 causa”—-2>., self-existent, extramundane, perfect, 
 the cause of the world. 
 
 A Noxious Family Tree. 
 
 Atheism may be divided broadly into (i) practical. 
 
 and (2) speculative—the former being atheism in 
 
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. I 53 
 
 life, the latter in thought. Speculative atheism 
 again is of several kinds— (a) sceptical, (d) dogmatic, 
 (c) virtual. Sceptical atheism may be either per¬ 
 sonal—“ I am not satisfied ”—or scientific—“ The 
 point is as yet undetermined for the race” (c/. Hume). 
 Dogmatic atheism is the rare and irrational kind 
 which will boldly affirm—“ The needle is not in the 
 haystack.” Virtual atheism consists in holding 
 opinions which when developed contradict theism ; 
 so that we might also call it potential atheism. Here 
 is the bad genealogy :— 
 
 Atheism. 
 
 Practical (in life). Speculative (in thought). 
 
 Sceptical Atheism. Dogmatic. Virtual or Potential. 
 
 Personal. Scientific. 
 
 Essence and Substance Distinguished, 
 
 These are not exact equivalents. Thus, justice is 
 of the essence but not of the substance of God. 
 Essence is a wider term than substance. Anything 
 belongs to the essence which cannot be withdrawn 
 without removing that which makes the thing what 
 it is. Thus, taking substance for that which sup¬ 
 ports the attributes, essence includes substance 'plus 
 attributes. 
 
154 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 Mind and Matter. 
 
 The attributes of mind and matter are incompat¬ 
 ible, and therefore the substances are distinct. The 
 phenomena of the one are not to be expressed in 
 terms of the other. 
 
 Attributes, Predicates, Accidents, Properties. 
 
 The Attributes of God are the qualities or active 
 powers which belong to the divine substance. In 
 the use of Predicates, we regard God as a person, 
 and affirm His external relations (as Creator, and 
 the like). Accidents (ad, cado), which may be 
 added or subtracted from a substance [e.g., the wet¬ 
 ness of an indiarubber ball) are never found in 
 God. All his qualities at any time are attributes. 
 By Properties in God we mean His internal relations, 
 within the Trinity. 
 
 Accidents in Man though not in God. 
 
 Holiness, an essential attribute in God, is, in the 
 philosophic sense, an accident in man. In the “ four¬ 
 fold state”—of innocence, sinfulness, grace, glory— 
 the man is the same all through. So, too, knowledge 
 may be said to be an accident in man ; a new-born 
 babe has none. There are no accidents in God ; 
 but in man there are many. 
 
 No Idiots m Heaven. 
 
 A babe has intelligence before it has knowledge— 
 intelligence, not in function but in faculty, not in 
 
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. I 55 
 
 posse but in esse. An idiot also has intelligence in 
 esse^ and will not be an idiot in heaven. He may 
 be compared to a fine musician with a very poor 
 fiddle, all out of tune. He cannot discourse sweet 
 music to you here. But take him to heaven and 
 give him a new fiddle, or a harp with a thousand 
 strings, and you will see the difference! 
 
 The Simplicity of God. 
 
 Simplicity is a term with various different mean¬ 
 ings. There is chemical simplicity—that of hydrogen 
 as compared with water; mechanical —that of a stick 
 which consists of a single piece; organic —the sim¬ 
 plicity of the type of animal that has only one 
 organ ; metaphysical — implying that there is no 
 distinction between attribute and substance. It was 
 this last kind—metaphysical simplicity'—that was 
 ascribed to God by the schoolmen.* 
 
 * Prof. Park of Andover told his students, in my hearing, a story so 
 apt in this connection that its insertion in a footnote will be pardoned. 
 This distinguished New England divine used to break a lance with 
 the elder Hodge; but the radical of one generation is sometimes the 
 conservative of the next, and, as one of the revenges brought in by the 
 whirligig of time, he has now found it needful to become, in turn, a 
 defender of orthodoxy against the “advanced” school of Andover. 
 Dr Park was enforcing on his young men, when I heard him, the im¬ 
 portance not only of having definite ideas themselves, but of expressing 
 them in language intelligible to others. A Scotch preacher, he said— 
 and all Scotchmen, he seemed to think, are more or less metaphysical 
 —began his prayer one day : “ O Thou Simplest of Beings !” .Some 
 of the honest country folk were horrified ; and the matter found its 
 way to the presbytery. The offender protested that “ he had, of 
 course, used the word ‘ simple ’ in the metaphysical sense.” “ But the 
 
BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 156 
 
 Is there any Latency in God ? 
 
 The old scholastic affirmed that God is actns 
 purus —that all that is in Him is expressed. So we 
 find Dr Shedd saying—There is no latency in God.” 
 This is a great mistake. It is true enough of some 
 preachers that I know. They have three or four 
 sermons, which contain all that is in them, actual 
 and potential; unlike others, such as Dr Addison 
 Alexander, who always left the impression, however 
 great his discourse might be, that there was much 
 behind. There is latency in God. Wonderful as 
 His work has been, it is no adequate measure of the 
 power of its Author. His manifestations give but 
 a glimpse of what He is. God’s energy is not 
 mechanical, like that of a fountain. It is the energy 
 of a person and governed by will. It hath not 
 entered into the heart of man to conceive what God 
 has in store. 
 
 Omnipreserice of God. 
 
 God is present at every point of space in every 
 moment of time. He is thus spaceless and timeless ; 
 for these are limits which apply not to Him but to 
 us. 
 
 people,” said his brethren, “would not understand it in that sense.” 
 “ It was not to them,” he retorted, “ that it was addressed ; I was 
 speaking to the Deity.” “ It would not be accepted by Him either, 
 in that sense,” said the Presbytery ; adding a sentence of suspension, 
 as an encouragement to philosophic preachers to wed clearness of 
 speech to depth of thought !—C. A. S. 
 
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. I57 
 
 Is God present m Hell ? 
 
 God is present everywhere equally as to His 
 essence, though not as to His power or manifesta¬ 
 tion. He is present in hell as much as in Heaven 
 as to His substance ; but His manifestation is widely 
 different. It is this difference that makes Heaven 
 and hell what they are. It is the Divine presence 
 that makes Heaven — God’s loving presence in 
 Christ. It is God’s presence, too, that makes hell— 
 His wrathful presence, His frown. His searching 
 eye looking right through the fallen spirits who 
 have impugned but cannot evade His righteous 
 authority. 
 
 Is Heaven Located? 
 
 Yes ; by the presence, not merely of God, who as 
 to essence is everywhere, but of Christ. Where He 
 is, Heaven is—the metropolis of the universe. 
 
 The Devil not omnipresent^ though ubiquitous?' 
 
 It is idolatry to think of the Devil as omnipresent; 
 for this is an attribute of God only. Ubiquity is a 
 different thing from omnipresence, and may in a 
 loose sense be ascribed to Satan. The ubiquity of 
 air rests on its great extension ; the ubiquity of a 
 mosquito arises from rapid motion ; the ubiquity of 
 a Napoleon consists in extraordinary influence upon 
 and through others. Satan’s ubiquity is of the latter 
 two kinds—a ubiquity of rapid motion and ramify¬ 
 ing influence. 
 
•58 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 The Divine Consciousness. 
 
 God’s consciousness includes in synthesis, at any 
 given moment, past, present, and future — with 
 absolute accuracy, comprehension, and vividness. 
 And God’s one point of consciousness—His one in¬ 
 divisible eternity—is parallel and contemporaneous 
 with every instant in the current line of time. 
 
 Eternal Consciousness in God. 
 
 This may be argued from the case of Adam. 
 You and I gradually grew into consciousness ; but 
 with the first man it was different. Adam was pro¬ 
 duced, not by generation but by creation. He came 
 into existence right in the middle of things, and in 
 the midst of ideas. Now if God could create a 
 creature in time, with a developed consciousness, 
 apart from the training influence of external things, 
 may we not conceive of Himself as eternally con¬ 
 scious apart from creation } 
 
 But the question is plainly answered when we 
 remember that God is a Trinity. This doctrine 
 involves (i) that there is one God; (2) that Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost are this one God ; and (3) that 
 these three are mutually objective persons, who can 
 say ''ThoiT' to one another \ while yet (4) they are 
 one in external relations, one in eternal substance, 
 having a profound consciousness of identity. Are 
 we not entitled to say under this doctrine that there 
 is not only a united consciousness but a triple con- 
 
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. I 59 
 
 sciousness, without supposing which it is impossible 
 to perceive how one of the persons could, e.g., say, 
 “I love” {Cf. John xvii. ^ 
 
 The Measurement of Time. 
 
 To measure time, the external criterion is motion ; 
 the internal criterion is thought. Some people can 
 apply this latter test with wonderful exactness. I 
 used to know a man in Princeton, who, whenever 
 you might happen to ask him, could tell you the 
 time, correct within five minutes, without the use of 
 a watch. 
 
 What is Eternity ? 
 
 To predicate “eternity” strictly implies (i) no 
 beginning ; ( 2 ) no end ; ( 3 ) no succession. Here is 
 a good Latin definition ; remember it, if you should 
 forget your grandmother:—“ Eternitas est una, in- 
 dividua, et tota simul.”.<;^ 
 
 God's Eter7iity not Ours. 
 
 Like the asymptote and the hyperbole, we shall 
 be always getting nearer God, but never to Him in 
 our relation to duration. We cannot get out of time 
 into eternity in God’s sense ; for not only has our 
 eternity a beginning, but we shall always have suc¬ 
 cession, which is not the case with God. We shall 
 have infinitely greater vistas hereafter into the past 
 and future in one moment than we can have now ; 
 
i6o 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 and we may live hundreds of our present years in 
 one moment then. But eternity is God's relation to 
 duration ; and on that in the strict sense no creature 
 can enter. 
 
 How God's Knozvledge differs from Ours. 
 
 It differs both in range and in quality. He knows 
 everything; and he knows absolutely. The affirma¬ 
 tion that he knows everything may be split up into 
 the two propositions—that he knows (i) Himself; 
 and (2) Everything out of Himself The major part 
 of God’s knowledge is the knowledge of Himself 
 This in philosophic phrase is necessary knowledge 
 {scmitia necessarid), not depending, i.e.^ on His will, 
 since His own existence does not arise from an act 
 of will. In knowing Himself, He knows all that 
 is possible. As for the knowledge of the actual 
 universe, since all things out of Himself depend for 
 their existence on God’s will, His knowledge of these 
 is called free knowledge {scientia libera), or some¬ 
 times, inasmuch as things made are seen, the know¬ 
 ledge of sight {scientia visionis) as contrasted with 
 the knowledge of simple intelligence {scientia sini- 
 plicis intelligentiae). 
 
 Is Hypothetical Hioivledge a Separate Category ? 
 
 The Spanish Jesuits, Molina and Fonseca, made 
 much of what they called scieritia media —grounding 
 on it a distinction which was eagerly laid hold of by 
 
THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. l6l 
 
 the Semi-Pelagians, and later by the Arminians. It 
 was argued by some—If my free act is known 
 beforehand, it must be certain beforehand, and cannot 
 therefore be free. To escape this conclusion, the 
 clumsy invention of “ the hypothetically future ” was 
 introduced ; and the divine knowledge of that was 
 called scientia media —the knowledge that if such- 
 and-such conditions are granted, so-and-so will result. 
 But the distinction was a futile one. For instance, I 
 may predict, that if you put a match to a powder 
 magazine, you will be blown up. But you need not 
 call this scientia media: it is simply knowledge of 
 the properties of gunpowder. Socinians have sought 
 another way out of the difficulty adverted to, but 
 have made little of it. Contradictories, they argue, 
 {e.g.^ to be and not be), are not objects of power; 
 therefore God is omnipotent, though he cannot do 
 contradictories. And similarly, the future free acts 
 of free agents are not objects of knowledge; there¬ 
 fore God is none the less omniscient though these 
 do not come within His ken. Such makeshifts are, 
 however, vain. They sound ingenious, but cannot 
 serve the purpose for which they were invented. It 
 remains that God, as God, knows everything and 
 absolutely. 
 
 L 
 
V. 
 
 THE EIOLY TRINITY. 
 
 Contrasted Heresies. 
 
 debate is about Christ’s divinity —His per- 
 sonality being conceded; but about the Spirit’s 
 personality —His divinity not being in dispute. 
 
 Trinitarianism intrinsically most credible. 
 
 God is love, essentially and eternally, and must 
 have had an object to love. Where? So far from 
 my regarding the doctrine of the Trinity as some¬ 
 thing forced on me ab extra by Revelation, the 
 doctrine of a Monotheism like that of the Moham¬ 
 medans is to me, intrinsically, far more difficult to 
 believe. A person cannot in any full sense be con¬ 
 ceived as existing without other persons. For my 
 part, I could sooner be a Tritheist or a Polytheist 
 than a deistical Monotheist. 
 
 Personal Distinctions in the Godhead. 
 
 The Spirit is both substantia and sjibsistentia. 
 Father, Son, and Spirit are distinguished in the 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 163 
 
 Sphere of subsistence, not merely of economic opera¬ 
 tion—the difference being, you will observe, how¬ 
 ever, one of person not of substance. 
 
 An Analogous Mystery, 
 
 The mystery of the Trinity is—How Father, Son, 
 and Spirit can be distinct supposita in one substance. 
 By a suppositiim is meant a distinct, individual 
 organism, such as a tree—not a branch ; or such as 
 a person—who is a suppositum of a peculiar kind, 
 having intelligence and will. But we have a kindred 
 mystery in our own human constitution, where, in 
 the foetus, the soul is wrapt round with a body—the 
 two making together a distinct suppositum. Here 
 reason fails to furnish an explanation, while it does 
 suggest an analogy. 
 
 Organ versus Fimction. 
 
 In the sense of organ, there is but one intelligence 
 in God; in the sense of function there may be said 
 to be three—in holding which I may seem to go 
 nearer to Tritheism than some would be disposed to go. 
 
 God is Light. 
 
 The Father is light in Himself; the Son, em¬ 
 bodied light; the Spirit, radiant light. In the God¬ 
 head there is thus light hidden, revealed, executive. 
 —No man has seen Light at any time, except as 
 specifically reflected from a disc; and no man has 
 seen God at any time except in Christ, the Logos, 
 
164 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 the effulgence (aTravyaarjuia) of the Father’s glory.— 
 It is through radiance that the sun is omnipresent; 
 so with God’s omnipresence by the Spirit.—Light 
 always tends to reproduce, and countless pictures 
 are thrown off everywhere, all of which save one are 
 shut off by the camera obsciira in photography. So 
 by the agency of the Holy Ghost, the image of 
 Christ is reproduced in the soul, as heaven is re¬ 
 flected, toward eventide, in a lake no longer storm- 
 swept and darkened, but calmed and illumined in 
 the placid evening light.—No ray of light ever speaks 
 of itself, but of its source. So the Holy Spirit 
 reveals to us the things of Christ, and speaks to us 
 of Him. 
 
 The Keystone of Doctrine. 
 
 The keystone of doctrine is the divinity of Christ. 
 There are various methods of proof. One is, by an 
 induction of Scripture passages, ascribing to Him 
 divine attributes, titles, works, and relations. Another 
 method is, to take up several leading doctrines of 
 Scripture, and by expounding their necessary inter¬ 
 relations, to evolve the conclusion that Christ must 
 be God. This is, at least, a valuable auxiliary 
 method, after marshalling your exegetical instances, 
 and focalizing all the divine predicates of Christ. 
 
 Deity and Divinity. 
 
 These must be distinguished. Men often mean 
 very little when they say that the Bible, or Christ, 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 165 
 
 is ‘divine.” As with the old Semi-Arian distinction 
 between Oeo? and 6 Oeo^, they will speak of the 
 abstract “ divine ” yet deny the concrete God. The 
 controversy at Nice, on 6juo- and ojuoi-, meant a great 
 deal. Gibbon sneers that “ the whole world was 
 fighting about a mere iota.” But it was worth , 
 while. It is a miserable thing when men get so 
 broad and charitable as never to have any fighting. 
 Rather let us have the Inquisition and a little 
 blood-letting, than a dead apathy about religious | 
 doctrine. 
 
 Unitarian s Diffiailty, 
 
 Modern Unitarians are humanitarians. The ablest 
 man among them is Martineau, who does good 
 service in defending Theism against the like of 
 Arnold, but who regards Christ, nevertheless, as only 
 man. Unitarians will tell you that they could take 
 the Doctrine of the Trinity at once, if you would 
 leave out the Divinity of Christ; but they cannot 
 admit that God and man can be one person. Thus, 
 if you can prove the Divinity of Christ, you virtually 
 establish the Doctrine of the Trinity. Granted 
 the distinct, divine personality of the two first 
 persons, comparatively little additional evidence is 
 needed to complete the Trinitarian doctrine. 
 
 Analogy for the Mystery of Christ's Person. 
 
 Your body is in a sense your “person; ” but when 
 the separation comes, your soul and not your corpse 
 
i66 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 will be your person. The body shares meantime in 
 the personality of the soul, but its separation and 
 dissolution would not destroy that. So with Christ’s 
 humanity. It shared in the personality of the 
 Logos, but could never by its junction, or its separa¬ 
 tion, destroy the latter as an individual personal 
 subsistence. 
 
 What co7istitiites Personality. 
 
 In order to personality, there must be intelligence, 
 will, and individual subsistence. Christ’s humanity 
 had the first two, but not the third, and was not 
 therefore a person. The Holy Spirit is characterized 
 by all three, and therefore is a person. Must not 
 those who impugn this admit that it would be wild 
 talking to say, under the baptismal formula—“ I 
 baptize thee into the name of Jehovah, and of 
 Jehovah’s Son, and of Jehovah’s power! ” 
 
 The name Holy Spirit. 
 
 The third person in the Godhead is called the 
 Holy Spirit, not because Himself more holy than 
 the other persons, but because He snakes holy. He is 
 the Spirit, because breathed forth, proceeding by 
 spiration, from God. In this sense of eternal spira- 
 tion, the Spirit, according to the whole teaching of 
 Scripture, as contrasted with the Greek Church view, 
 proceeds equally from the Father and the Son. 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 The Filioque Clause. 
 
 At the Old Catholic Council in Bonn, a few years 
 ago, it was urged that the phrase jilioqjie ('‘pro- 
 ceedeth from the Father and the Son ”) had been 
 surreptitiously introduced into the church doctrine 
 of the Holy Spirit, and must be given up by the 
 Western Church if there was to be a general union. 
 
 The Greek Church makes the one verse, “ the 
 Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father” 
 (John XV. 26), the basis of its doctrine of the Holy 
 Spirit’s procession. But to balance a doctrine on 
 one text, is like balancing a stool on one leg.—It 
 must not be overlooked that there are two processions 
 of the Holy Ghost—(i) in His eternal, essential 
 personality, and (2) in His sanctifying, comforting 
 work among men; and it is of importance to 
 enquire which of these is referred to in any particular 
 verse. 
 
 Revelation and Redemption. 
 
 Revelation is from the Father, through the Son, 
 by the Spirit. Redemption is to the Father, by the 
 Son, through the Spirit. 
 
VI. 
 
 SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION. 
 
 The Decrees of God. 
 
 H ere you come to one of the watersheds of 
 doctrine. The question of the decrees divides 
 Evangelical Christians into two great camps, Cal- 
 vinistic and Arminian, the point of difference being in 
 effect this—as to whether God’s decrees are deter¬ 
 mined by Himself, or by something out of Himself. 
 
 The IJyiity of God's Pla7t. 
 
 All God’s works constitute one system ; all His 
 decrees one purpose. We, being finite, can grasp 
 His plan only very partially; and we are wont to 
 speak of His decrees in the plural. But it was one 
 act by which He, knowing all possible systems, chose 
 this one. 
 
 God^s Natti^'e logically aitterior to His Will. 
 
 Chronologically, there is no before or after in God; 
 but logically, His nature, with its laws of reason and 
 righteousness, precedes His will. 
 
SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION. 169 
 
 Hoiv different Extremists overlooked this. 
 
 The Arminians on the one hand, and the Supra- 
 lapsarians on the other, made God’s will the origin 
 of right—forgetting that it is not the greatness of 
 God but the quality of God, His nattire (of which 
 His will is the expression), that determines right. 
 The will of an infinite Beelzebub would not make 
 him the author of right. 
 
 God's Decrees rational. 
 
 God’s decrees are eminently rational. All His 
 attributes go into them, just as the whole human 
 soul is engaged in willing, or in any other function. 
 
 A Cano 7 i and its Consequence. 
 
 It is a canon, that the first thing m intention is the 
 last in execution. We must know the final end 
 before we can rightly understand the process. Ex¬ 
 perience cannot reveal to us the Almighty’s final 
 purpose. Our a priori intuitions may tell us some¬ 
 thing of it; but it is to Scripture we must go. 
 
 The P rob lent of the Wheelbarrow. 
 
 Logically, the agent comes before the act, but not 
 necessarily chronologically. There was a fallacy 
 when the boy called the wheelbarrow an exception. 
 
 Are God's Operations conditioned? 
 
 We men start under law, and have to operate under 
 it: for instance, in establishing telegraphic commu¬ 
 nication with England, we had to use means under 
 
BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 I 70 
 
 law. But God creates the means, as well as appoints 
 the end. The Unconditioned can become condi¬ 
 tioned only through His own will. God, to begin 
 with, is conditioned simply by His own Nature and 
 His inter-personal relations. And though He now 
 works according to the laws of the universe, He is 
 conditioned by these only as to His operations. These 
 very laws are the resultant of His will. 
 
 A Rising Scale. 
 
 The movement of the automaton is not self- 
 determined : that of the fly is self-determined, but 
 not rationally : that of the student is rationally self- 
 determined : that of God is rationally self-deter¬ 
 mined, and free from all ab extra influence. 
 
 The Divine Right of Creation. 
 
 God had a right to form a moral system, and to 
 have a holy universe. Now, holiness is the loyalty 
 of a free will toward Him, and necessarily implies 
 the choice of allegiance or rebellion. God might 
 have determined to create only those who, He fore¬ 
 saw, would be faithful to Him ; but He determined 
 to create the others too, who by their freewill would 
 sin against Him. God is responsible for the acts of 
 His necessitated creatures, but not for the acts of 
 those that have the exercise of freewill. 
 
 Responsibility for Consequences. 
 
 A free agent cannot be held responsible for all 
 the consequences of his act. A father may be justi- 
 
SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION. I 7 I 
 
 fied in putting his son from the house for the sake 
 of the sisters and younger boys, though he knows 
 that son will go to the devil. The responsibility of 
 the latter’s profligacy does not lie with the father. 
 When Abraham Lincoln declared war to save the 
 Union, he knew that crimes would follow—many of 
 them perpetrated by the Union army itself. But he 
 was not responsible for these. 
 
 Fore-seemg and Fore-ordination. 
 
 In the case of human beings, the fore-seeing of a 
 consequence is not the determination of a con¬ 
 sequence. Take the case supposed above. A father 
 introduces a rule into his family which he regards as 
 needful for the best good of the whole. Though he 
 may foresee that it will expedite the ruin of one 
 boy bent on going to the bad, while it will be the 
 saving of the rest, the father cannot be said to deter¬ 
 mine the evil consequence to that boy. With God, 
 however, the case is different. He, in the fore-seeing, 
 is not placed in the midst of things. He sees all 
 from the beginning, and if He permits anything thus 
 foreseen, what is that but equivalent to its “ fore¬ 
 ordination ” } 
 
 The Theological Problem of Sin. 
 
 The psychological problem of the origin of evil 
 may so far be solved ; but the theological is, with 
 man’s present light, insoluble. A priori, I would 
 expect that in God’s universe there would be no sin. 
 
BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 I 72 
 
 A posteriori^ there is sin. All that can be said is— 
 
 \ 
 
 there is an infinite God, and yet there is sin ; so that, 
 though we cannot explain the permission of evil in 
 His universe, we cannot declare it inconsistent with 
 the perfection of any of God’s attributes. 
 
 The Two Great Mysteries in Theology, 
 
 These are—(i) The constitution of Christ’s person 
 (in two natures) ; and (2) the concursus between 
 God’s sovereign decree and man’s free will. 
 
 How imich depends 07 i the point of view. 
 
 Whoever emphasizes God tends to Calvinism ; 
 whoever emphasizes man tends to Arminianism. 
 Just as in looking at the moon we see the stars in 
 the background, we see, in looking at the Arminian, 
 Deism behind; and he, looking at us Calvinists, 
 sees, or thinks he sees, Fatalism behind us. 
 
 How did God harden PharaoJis heart ? 
 
 He withdrew the Spirit’s influence, and thus 
 allowed him to remain hard and to grow still harder. 
 
 Is there snch a thing as Chalice ? 
 
 “Chance” is a relation. The word does mean 
 something; and it is, therefore, foolish to tell children, 
 that “ there is no such thing as chance.” It is a 
 relation in which the connection between cause and 
 
SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION. I 73 
 
 effect is too subtle for our discovery, or too complex 
 for us to calculate. The planet’s motion, for instance, 
 we can reckon and predict; the fall of dice we can¬ 
 not, not because the case is too subtle, but because 
 the calculation is too complex. So, too, with a pro¬ 
 jectile like a cannon ball,—given the direction and 
 quantity of force, we can tell where it will light. It 
 is different with the fall of a leaf, owing to its 
 irregular shape and the uncertain impact of the gusts 
 of wind that may carry it we know not whither. 
 Yet, in the strict sense, there is as little “chance” in 
 the fall of the dice as in the course of the planet, or 
 in the fall of the leaf as in the destination of the 
 cannon ball. Chance is not a thing, but a relation. 
 With God there is no chance—because He knows all 
 forces and their direction. 
 
 Two Calvinistic Distinctions. 
 
 There are conditional events; but God’s purposes 
 are not conditional. 
 
 God wills by genuine desire sometimes {e.g.^ “ that 
 all men should be saved ”), when not by exeeutive 
 purpose. 
 
 Are our Freewill Aetions ^'determined'' ? 
 
 God does not eause our free acts, but determines 
 their futurition. These are two very different things. 
 I think—/ feel—/ say; but God determines my 
 action, without causing it. The decree determines 
 
174 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 everything—causes nothing. God did not cause 
 man to sin ; but He pre-determined that He would 
 sin, and yet created him. 
 
 What of the Heathen ? 
 
 The heathen are condemned and ought to be, 
 because, speaking of them as a class, they are born 
 rascals. I say it with all reverence, and without a 
 desire of self-will in the matter, that if these men 
 (and I have been among them) go to heaven as they 
 are, I don’t want to go. Liars, whore-mongers, full 
 of all bestiality—look at their state, and say, where 
 are they going You know whither yon planet is 
 tending, and where it will be next month; and you 
 need be in no doubt as to where these poor souls, 
 left to themselves, will be after death. Hence it is 
 poor reasoning to say—don’t go on missions to the 
 heathen, because God can’t damn them till they 
 have heard the gospel ! 
 
 Electio}i works throngh the Will. 
 
 I tell my son that if he works well this week, I 
 shall give him an excursion on Saturday. Having 
 studied his nature, I know that if I leave him alone, ^ 
 he will slide along and not work. But I know how 
 to influence him, so as to make him voluntarily work 
 well all the week, and get the holiday at the end of 
 it! We find the same principle in an infinitely 
 higher sphere. Salvation is conditioned on faith; 
 
SOVEREIGNTV, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION. I 75 
 
 but it is by God influencing some men to believe, 
 that salvation is secured for them. 
 
 Two meanings of “ WillT 
 
 “ Will ” is sometimes put for the conative faculties 
 generally; sometimes for the faculty of choosing, 
 or of self-determination. 
 
 What is Volition ? 
 
 Volition is spontaneity guided by reason. It is an 
 expression of the freedom to will. This is a very 
 different thing from freedom to act, as many a poor 
 captive in chains has known. 
 
 A moral Can't and Won't. 
 
 All men are under condemnation. They cannot 
 believe because they won’t. It is a moral (or im¬ 
 moral) can’t and won’t. The very want of belief is 
 sin, and therefore furnishes no excuse. 
 
 The Sovereignty of God in Common Life. 
 
 It is said that God is “ no respecter of persons.” 
 But the connection in the epistle of James should be 
 noted. It is true that God does not respect a shoddy 
 aristocracy. But He does make differences among 
 men. Take the child of a pious and high-born lady, 
 for instance, and the child of an abandoned woman 
 of the street; have these “ the same chance ” } God 
 
 IS sovereign. 
 
176 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 The Order of Deerees. 
 
 Sitpralapsarian —Elect and damn ; create ; permit 
 fall ; send Christ, &c. 
 
 Infralapsarian —Create ; permit fall; elect; send 
 Christ, &c. 
 
 Hypothetical —Create ; permit fall ; make salvation 
 possible to all ; give efficacious grace to some. 
 
 Arminian —Create ; permit fall ; provide in Christ 
 redemption for all ; make result turn on man’s free¬ 
 will and co-operation. 
 
 The Theories Contrasted. 
 
 The Infralapsarian is the view maintained by 
 most Calvinists. It puts election before redemption, 
 therein differing from the Hypothetical theory, which 
 puts redemption before election, and brings in effi¬ 
 cacious grace as an after-thought to prevent total 
 failure. In putting creation before election, the Infra¬ 
 lapsarian is not open to the objection applicable to 
 the Supralapsarian theory, that God created some in 
 order to damn them. The hypothetical scheme (of 
 Amyraut, &c.) is the least logical of all, though 
 Richard Baxter in England, and also the New Eng¬ 
 land school, adopted it. It is a middle ground that 
 cannot be held ; for if God set out with the intention 
 of saving all, He would certainly have secured the 
 result. The Arminian doctrine looks plausible at 
 certain points, but it does not really relieve any of 
 the difficulties of Calvinism ; and it is in the latter 
 
SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL, AND SALVATION. I 77 
 
 that Atheism in the long run will have to find its 
 true antagonist. 
 
 Are zve respozisible for 02ir state of heart ? 
 
 The Arminian says, A man is responsible and 
 punishable only for his voluntary acts and states. 
 The Calvinist says, A bad heart, no matter how it 
 originated, is wicked and deserving of punishment. 
 We are responsible for our states as well as our acts. 
 
 “ GraeeP a word the Arminiait should not use. 
 
 V 
 
 A man spoils my grandfather, and I come into 
 the world poor in consequence. By-and-bye, the 
 man comes to me and refunds. I accept the pay¬ 
 ment, but when he puts on an air of condescension 
 and charity, and talks of liberality, I say—“ Stop ; 
 this is not of grace, but of debt.” Now, Arminians 
 say that since God allowed Adam to propagate a 
 sinful race, he owed it to that race, to give them 
 grace sufficient to be improved to their salvation. 
 What is this but to make salvation not of grace but 
 of debt Thus, whatever speculative advantage 
 their system may seem to have, it leads to a virtual 
 denial of the doctrine of grace. “ Grace ” is a word, 
 indeed, that an Arminian should never utter—that 
 f is, while speaking as a logician ; though happily in 
 their religious experiences Arminians and Calvinists 
 ! are often agreed.* 
 
 * Dr. Charles Hodge remarked, or quoted the remark, one day in 
 his class, that “ Arminians usually pray like Calvinists, and Calvinists 
 frequently preach like Arminians.” 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 Irresistible Grace, not Coercion. 
 
 When the wind beat upon the man in Esop, it 
 made him only draw his cloak the closer round him. 
 But when the sun made him hot, he by his own will 
 threw off the cloak, which the storm without had not 
 torn from him. You might be got out of this room 
 in two ways : a strong man might come and thrust 
 you out, or a beautiful lady might invite and thereby 
 draw you ! Now, it is an utter misconception to sup¬ 
 pose that by “ irresistible grace ” is meant an ab extra 
 coercing influence. Grace acts from within, through 
 the will. The man becomes willing : and so there is 
 no resistance or desire to offer it. To be “made 
 willing in the day of God’s power” is the highest 
 liberty. 
 
VIL 
 
 PROVIDENCE, ORDINARY AND MIRACULOUS. 
 
 What is “ Preservation ” ? 
 
 HE Schoolmen defined preservation to be “a 
 
 continued efflux of the vis creatrix ” or crea¬ 
 tive power of God, We may say that God sustains 
 things in their essence and form. Thus, water is 
 hydrogen and oxygen as to essence, while liquidity 
 is its form—though it may be made gaseous or solid 
 
 also. 
 
 A Heresy of fo 7 iathan Edwards. 
 
 President Edwards was always brimming over 
 with ideas of his own, which stood in need of regu¬ 
 lating. He sometimes put on paper suggestions 
 that were never really incorporated in his system, 
 and thus illustrated the truth of a remark already 
 made, that though a great genius he had not a 
 thoroughly educated mind. Thus, in a note, he 
 throws out the idea, that you come into the world 
 unholy as the punishment of Adam’s sin, and this 
 because you are Adam as much as you are yourself 
 PAr what, says he, is identity.^ It is just a Divine 
 
i8o 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 constitution, an arbitrary appointment by the will 
 of God. And, to give colour to his theory, he goes 
 on to argue, that every creature is at every moment 
 the product of a Divine volition ; that you are, in 
 effect, a new being every second, every infinitesimal 
 flash of time; that there is no real causal connection 
 between what you were yesterday and are to-day, 
 any more than between the successive images of the 
 candle light upon the mirror. In short, that God 
 makes you the same with Adam, and therefore you 
 are rightly held responsible ! 
 
 It will be readily seen how crude this theory is, 
 and how subversive of proper identity and genuine 
 responsibility. But, as has been said, it is nothing 
 more than an ill-thought-out excrescence on the 
 system of its eminent author. 
 
 God's Working contrasted zvith Man's, 
 
 All man’s working is from without inward ; but 
 God’s is from within outward, and not mechanical 
 but vital. A quarrier builds a cathedral by masses 
 from without, and leaves chips. God builds an oak 
 from within, and leaves no chips. 
 
 Conciirsns. 
 
 This is the combination of two causal factors to 
 produce one effect. It is to be remembered that 
 God, who can put His finger on every spring of 
 man’s spontaneity, works, in governing, within the 
 will of men, “ both to will and to do.” 
 
PROVIDENCE, ORDINARY AND MIRACULOUS. l8l 
 
 John Stuart Mill on Providence. 
 
 I have never seen any providence,” sneers Stuart 
 Mill. But this is nothing wonderful. I have never 
 seen the world revolve, though I have lived upon it 
 more than fifty years. The broad current carries 
 the ship with it though you do not mark the track. 
 And the providence of God encircles you, and your 
 vessel, and your ocean too ; and while you may take 
 your own little path upon that ocean, the ocean, 
 ship, and passenger are being made subservient to a 
 Higher Will. 
 
 Is there such a thing as “ Special Providence ” ? 
 
 To admit universal providence and deny special is 
 nonsense. You might as well talk of a chain with¬ 
 out any links. People often say in a loose kind of 
 way, That seemed quite providential! ” meaning 
 by it just, “very lucky for me!” But, supposing 
 you had not happened to look round when the pick¬ 
 pocket came to close quarters, would that not have 
 been providential too ? Providence is special, 
 because it is universal ; and it is universal because 
 it is special. 
 
 A Good Story of Dr Witherspoon. 
 
 Men often talk absurdity when looking at truth 
 from a merely subjective point of view. A man who 
 was driving along a road near Dr Witherspoon’s * 
 
 * Dr Witherspoon, from Paisley, was one of the Presidents of 
 Princeton College, and one of the signatories to the Declaration of 
 Independence. 
 
t82 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 house was pitched out of his vehicle, but escaped un¬ 
 scathed. Hurrying into the Doctor’s study, he told 
 his story in an excited kind of way, and ended with 
 the ejaculation—“Wasn’t it a wonderful providence!” 
 “ Hoot, man, that’s naething of a providence com¬ 
 pared to what I can tell of,” quietly remarked the 
 sagacious old Scotchman; “ I’ve driven doon that 
 same road for years and years, and my horse hasna 
 been allowed even to run off wi’ me ! ” 
 
 Leibnitz's “ Coincidences^ 
 
 Leibnitz denies the connection between volition 
 and act. If somebody strikes you, and your fist 
 flies out and knocks him down, is there any con¬ 
 nection between the volition and the act } No, says 
 Leibnitz ; so far as you are concerned, it is a pure 
 coincidence I It might, however, be difficult to 
 persuade the other man of this. 
 
 The “ Exercise Scheme!' 
 
 Dr Emmons held the principle of divine efficiency 
 creating all the series of exercises in the soul—re¬ 
 generation itself being a mere change in the series. 
 He was a virtual Pantheist. Dr N. W. Taylor 
 held the “ exercise scheme ” in a modified form. 
 Professor Barker drew his argument from the 
 correlation of forces : “ All force is one; the only 
 force is will ; all force is God.” 
 
TROVIDENCE, ORDINARY AND MIRACULOUS. 183 
 
 Objections to the Theory of'' Concursusr 
 
 There is a general truth under the idea of “concur- 
 sus,” viz., that God co-operates with the creature in his 
 act as a cause along with him. But when the doctrine 
 is pressed to mean, that God influences every creature 
 to act in a special way, it evidently becomes open to 
 serious objection. Sin, for example, presents a great 
 difficulty to those who argue for this kind of “ con- 
 cursus.” They tried to get over it by saying that 
 the entity of the action was assignable to God, and 
 the quality of it to man. The greatest musician will 
 bring discord out of an ill-tuned fiddle ; and sinners 
 are instruments out of tune. Two men walk the 
 street—one rhythmically, the other limping. The 
 volition is the same in both, and so are the streams 
 of nervous influence passing through the limbs from 
 the brain. The mind is the author of the step ; the 
 lame leg, of the limp. Such illustrations are in¬ 
 genious and suggestive ; but the concursus doctrine, 
 though sanctioned by some of the greatest names 
 in theology, and therefore not to be pooh-poohed, 
 has to be handled with great care, as tending to 
 Pantheism through the denial of the real efficiency 
 of second causes. 
 
 What is a Miracle ? 
 
 It is “ an event in the physical world, obvious to 
 the senses ; the immediate specific cause of which is 
 
184 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 the will of God directly acting ; accompanying a 
 teacher sent from God, and designed as a divine sign 
 to authenticate his divine mission and doctrine.” 
 
 Nahire and the Snperyiatural. 
 
 All admit that the universe governed by natural 
 law is nature. Man’s freewill is supernattLral. There 
 is a further distinction between man and the super¬ 
 human. And then there is a sense in which God 
 alone is “ ex-lex; ” and a distinction to be main¬ 
 tained between Him and the whole universe besides. 
 
 The Analytic Method applied. 
 
 To understand what a miracle is, analyse one, 
 and so find out its esse apart from its dijfere^itice. 
 Take, e.g.., the floating of the axe in the Old Testa¬ 
 ment, which appears to be one of the simplest pos¬ 
 sible miracles. There can be no higher natural law 
 making ordinary iron float in ordinary water. God 
 simply interpolates among the sum of existing forces 
 that which either antagonizes gravity or increases 
 the density of water, so that the iron rises. Even 
 we can interpolate new causes. Is there any ante¬ 
 cedent improbability that God should do so 1 In 
 America here, the natural laws of weather have been 
 altered by man cutting down great forests that 
 covered millions of acres. Why should not God 
 directly interpose a new cause which will affect the 
 sum of forces and produce a new equilibrium t 
 
PROVIDENCE, ORDINARY AND MIRACULOUS. 185 
 
 A Fallacy of Hume's. 
 
 Hume says, We believe evidence because of ex¬ 
 perience. That is false. If you come to my house, 
 my little nephews and nieces will believe everything 
 you tell them. But I who have had fifty years’ 
 experience won’t believe the half! 
 
 Miracles and Non-miracles. 
 
 If it be asked how we are to know a miracle from 
 a merely marvellous event, it is answered—Some 
 things are indisputably miracles, from (i) Their very 
 nature., e.g., the vivifying of a man who had been 
 dead four days; (2) Their circumstances, e.g., un¬ 
 lettered Jews accomplishing what science with all 
 its advance cannot do yet; (3) Their lack of means, 
 e.g., a result accomplished through a word ; (4) Their 
 relations, e.g., as signs standing in relation to a 
 system. 
 
 Postulates which will carry Humes Conclusion. 
 
 If there is no God, and if we have to view so-called 
 miracles as isolated events, then Hume is right; 
 and no amount of evidence will make me believe 
 that iron could float. 
 
 Sporadic Miracles Unreal. 
 
 A sporadic miracle I would never believe. Though 
 old Dr John M‘Lean^' even were to take us all 
 
 * A well-known and highly esteemed veteran in Princeton. 
 
i86 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 down to the graveyard and raise up a man who 
 looked like Jonathan Edwards, it would weigh 
 nothing with me. A purposeless, isolated miracle 
 proves nothing. The miracles of Scripture are not 
 mere addenda to revelation, but are themselves 
 media of the communication of truth. 
 
VIII. 
 
 MAN AS MAN. 
 
 The Ol'igm of Man. 
 
 T he creation of man comes under the head of 
 miracle. He was not made out of nothing, 
 but from existing matter as to his body, by the 
 interpolation of a new cause. 
 
 Spontaneous Generation. 
 
 This theory found a prominent defender in 
 Bastion : and Crosse claimed to have produced a 
 plant by means of an electric current. But most 
 men of science hold the old axiom, “ omne vivum 
 ex ovo,” or, more correctly, “ex vivo.” Many of 
 them, however, deny spontaneous generation, on 
 the ground that spontaneity does not exist in the 
 universe; though there is a sense in which the 
 mouse is spontaneous, that the ball of yarn made 
 like it is not. 
 
 Mind., the Originator of Movement. 
 
 We cannot rest in the belief that matter originates 
 movement; but soul can. The mere physicist vainly 
 
i88 
 
 BREVIA TIIEOLOGICA. 
 
 tries to show, that your volition is just one of the 
 sparks of electricity generated through your eating 
 so much buckwheat, molasses, and butter. 
 
 The “ rediLctio ad ahsiirdtmi ” of Materialism. 
 
 It is surely an absurdity, amounting to a total 
 denial of the spiritual side of man’s nature, to reduce 
 all consciousness—all conscience, all thought, all joy, 
 up to joy in the Holy Ghost—to a mere molecular 
 change, a piece of physical mechanics ! 
 
 Darwin’s Laws of Evolution. 
 
 The word “ development ” is a characteristic word 
 with men of science. But it implies “ invelopment 
 or, as Joseph Cook expresses it—“ You can’t have in 
 your evolution more than was put into your involu¬ 
 tion.” There is no doubt that the laws pointed to 
 1 by Darwin and Wallace exist, and are at work, with 
 beneficial results everywhere. They are divinely 
 ; appointed laws, and they explain very clearly the 
 I variations of species. But they do not afford even 
 j the suggestion of the origin of species. These are 
 
 i 
 
 permanent, distinct varieties, not shaded off into one 
 another. You may have dogs greatly variegated, or 
 cats ; but they remain distinct species. 
 
 Many Missing Links in Darwinism. 
 
 Besides the logical objection already instanced, it 
 may be urged that Darwinism makes matter do the 
 work of mind ; that it gives no account of the origin 
 
MAN AS MAN. 
 
 189 
 
 of mind itself; that the hypothesis gets no further, 
 at best, than “it might be so;’' and that it leaves 
 many missing links unaccounted for. Its adherents 
 require infinite time. But time is not itself a cause ; 
 it is only the condition of the operation of a cause 
 towards a result. 
 
 Does In telligence or Organization come first ? 
 
 All religion demands that you begin with intelli¬ 
 gence, and go on to organization. But modern 
 theorists reverse this. They begin with organization 
 and rise toward intelligence,—through that of the 
 tadpole up to Tyndall himself, who may be supposed 
 to be the nearest approach to God that has yet been 
 made! 
 
 Two kmds of Evolution. 
 
 When Christian people say, “ Evolution means 
 Atheism,” a distinction should be observed. If it is 
 Darwinianism they mean, they are right to demon¬ 
 stration. But evolution in the Duke of Argyll’s 
 Reign of Law sense may be admitted consistently 
 with Christianity; so that, when other Christian 
 people are found saying, “ Evolution does not mean 
 Atheism,” they too may be right. 
 
 Darwin and Agassiz at Opposite Extremes. 
 
 Darwin magnified the power of variation on one 
 original germ. He emphasized the principle of 
 unity. 
 
BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 190 
 
 Agassiz went to the other extreme. He denied 
 the possibility of variation, and emphasized fixity of 
 type. But this led him to assert several Adams, 
 as explaining the Caucasian, Mongolian, and other 
 races. 
 
 Thus, while we hail Agassiz as an ally against 
 Darwin, we can go only a certain distance with him. 
 We see marvellous changes of variety going on in 
 the world, both of men and of beasts. 
 
 A Puzzle for Dariviniaiis. 
 
 If there is no change in a thousand years, how 
 much will there be in ten thousand } Hybridism is 
 not explained by Darwin. 
 
 Giiyofs Characteristics. 
 
 Professor Guyot has three eminent qualifications 
 that too seldom meet. He is a man of excellent 
 literary education (having been a professor of 
 history); a man of acknowledged attainments in 
 science; and, withal, a humble believer in the Bible 
 as God’s revelation. 
 
 Adam neither Savage nor Civilized. 
 
 Savagism is a process of degradation. Civilization 
 is a process of artificial education. But Adam was 
 put in medias res, into the midst of a process. He 
 was not born with a college diploma, and had none 
 
MAN AS MAN. 
 
 191 
 
 of the arts and sciences behind him. In many things 
 he had to get experience in the same way as an 
 infant. He knew many things, taught him by God; 
 but he was still a sort of inspired child. 
 
 Body versus Sold. 
 
 The body is constituted, the soul is created. The 
 Bible gives us both the analysis and the synthesis. 
 
 Potence or Impotence ? 
 
 That incompatible attributes cannot be predicated 
 of the same substance, we believe, not through a 
 mental impotency, but through a mental potency. 
 
 Scientific Correlation no Novelty. 
 
 The correlation of mental and physical causes and 
 effects, so much insisted on by modern philosophers, 
 is as old as Adam and Eve. I am pretty sure that 
 Eve had blushed when Adam courted her, and that 
 she started when the wild bulls around scared her. 
 
 The Body, part of the Person. 
 
 While united to the soul, the body is part of the 
 person. If a person strikes my body, then I say, 
 “ He struck me : he committed a personal assault.” 
 
 Trichotomy. 
 
 We do not argue against the Trichotomy which 
 merely asserts two entities, and a third which is the 
 
192 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 resultant of the union of the two (as when blue and 
 yellow make together green). But spirit and soul 
 are the same thing in different relations. Angels 
 have spirits, but not souls, in common parlance. The 
 spirit in relation to a body is soul. Take soul out of 
 body, and you have ghost and corpse. 
 
IX. 
 
 MAN AS SINNER. 
 
 The Pre-existence Theory. 
 
 T he theory of Origen about a pre-existent state 
 would explain original sin, if true. It has had 
 the adherence in this country of Edward Beecher, 
 who, though overshadowed in the popular eye by 
 Henry Ward, his brother, has more knowledge of 
 theology than the latter seems likely to have after 
 he has been in heaven for a thousand years ! But it 
 must be observed about this hypothesis—(i) that 
 Scripture is silent about it; (2) that Scripture, in 
 teaching that sin is derived from Adam, is opposed to 
 it; and (3) that Consciousness tells nothing whatever 
 of a previous state. Certainly a baby does not look 
 like a scarred old warrior either, but like a young 
 life—very wicked often and very cruel, no doubt, 
 but hardly to be set down as of demoniacal origin ! 
 
 The Covenant with Adam. 
 
 The Adamic covenant was not an arbitrary thing, 
 but in accordance with all analogy. Our race got 
 
 the best possible chance, in our first parent. God 
 
 N 
 
194 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 might have kept Adam and his posterity in an 
 eternal state of unstable equilibrium. But such a 
 life on the brink of a precipice would have been a 
 kind of hell. Adam, therefore, had a great oppor¬ 
 tunity of securing blessedness by a right choice ; 
 and God tested him as kindly and gently as possible. 
 Yet Adam took the ground—“If you say I shan’t, 
 why then I will.” He had no excuse. The fault was 
 certainly not God’s. Adam decided his equilibrium, 
 but in the wrong direction—not towards impecca¬ 
 bility, but toward sin and condemnation. 
 
 A Slip of the Pen at Westminster. 
 
 The Larger Catechism, in speaking of the Coven¬ 
 ant of Life, says it was entered into, upon condition 
 of “personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience.” 
 This is a slip of the pen. The terms would hardly 
 have suited us. God could not have promised ever¬ 
 lasting life as a reward of “ perpetual ” obedience. 
 But man would have been confirmed in holiness as 
 the reward of his obedience when tested. 
 
 The First Sacrament. 
 
 Every Covenant has a Sacrament. That with 
 Noah had the Rainbow; that with Moses, the Pass- 
 over; that with New Testament believers, Baptism 
 and the Lord’s Supper. So the Covenant of Life 
 had as its Sacrament the Tree, of which God would 
 not permit Adam to partake after he had sinned. 
 
MAN AS SINNER. 
 
 195 
 
 Angels and Men contrasted in their Trial. 
 
 In both cases there was instable equilibrium 
 morally; then probation ; to be followed either by 
 confirmation or by condemnation. The angels had 
 right dispositions ; but they were not at first put in 
 a state of stable equilibrium, any more than other 
 new created moral beings. They, too, were put to 
 the test. 
 
 But there is this contrast, that angels are pure 
 spirits, while men are spirits connected with a human 
 organisation. God had, of course, the right to 
 create a human race, making man spirit and animal 
 at the same time, and a race propagated, unlike the 
 angels, by generation. And whereas angels were 
 severally tried, men, as a stirps or race, could be 
 differently yet justly tried, under the most favour¬ 
 able conditions, in their fontal head. 
 
 Adam, not Eve, our Representative. 
 
 It was Adam, not Eve, who stood as our repre¬ 
 sentative ; though Dr Krauth, in his “ Conservative 
 Theology ” (the best book on Lutheran theology in 
 the English language), always speaks of Adam and 
 Eve as our dual representatives. It was Adam who 
 stood for us, and Adam’s first sin that wrought our 
 woe. It is his apostatizing act which assumed a 
 status of rebellion, that is imputed to us; and 
 not his sinfulness, or his acts in general. And it 
 is the punishableness {reatus poenae) and not the 
 
ig6 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 subjective stain (macula) of that act which is 
 imputed. 
 
 Mediate Imputatio 7 i. 
 
 The distinction between Immediate and Mediate 
 Imputation was not made till after Imputation was 
 denied by Placaeus. It is not a valid distinction, 
 but a mere lawyer-like evasion of condemnation on 
 the part of Placaeus. 
 
 A nte-Natal Forfeiture. 
 
 General Lee’s child, born during the war, was 
 born in a state of ante-natal forfeiture, because his 
 father was a rebel. This analogy may throw some 
 light on the question of the relation of Adam’s sin 
 to our natal condition, while it is true that God is 
 holy and could not de novo bring a creature into 
 existence sinful and prone to fall. 
 
 The Consequenee of a Consequence. 
 
 Men are born under condemnation as a penal con¬ 
 sequence of Adam’s transgression. There are other 
 consequences. The damnation of hell is one of these. 
 But I believe that children dying in infancy escape 
 this for Christ’s sake, and that no one is sent to hell 
 because of Adam’s sin alone. Sumner claimed 
 consequential damages from Great Britain, holding 
 her responsible for the consequences of the conse¬ 
 quences as far as these could be traced. Without 
 
MAN AS SINNER. 
 
 197 
 
 going into the merits of that dispute, we may say 
 that the punishment of the finally lost is the penal 
 consequence of their actual transgression, which 
 again is traceable, through original sin, to Adam’s 
 transgression. 
 
 The How and the Why of Sinfidness. 
 
 The question of how is to be distinguished from 
 the question of zvhy we are born corrupt. How is 
 sin transmitted, or how does the fact that Adam was 
 a sinner make us sinners ? Why, on what principle 
 of justice, are children brought into the world in a 
 sinful state } The historic order in dealing with 
 such questions is—Adam’s sin, imputation, original 
 sin : and this is the order of treatment in the Syste¬ 
 matic Theology textbook. But in teaching a class, 
 it is perhaps better to begin at the other end— 
 taking what we are, and are conscious of being, 
 and what the Scripture definitely teaches as to our 
 state, before considering how and why we came to 
 be what we are. The New England Root Theory 
 of the propagation of sin deals only with the how. 
 
 What raises the question, Why ? 
 
 If there be no person behind the law, then the 
 question as to how we are born sinners is exhaus¬ 
 tive. But if there is a person behind it, then you 
 must face the question of why. The only answer 
 some give is—In sovereignty. We say rather—In 
 
tqS brevia theologica. 
 
 justice. The latter answer is adopted by the Real¬ 
 ists, who have their own way of defending the penal 
 character of our born sinfulness. They do not say 
 with the Calvinist, that such an infliction is just 
 because all men were represented by Adam, but 
 because “ humanity ” was summed up or embodied 
 in him. This is at bottom a materialistic theory, 
 making us all, in a very literal sense, “ chips of the 
 old block,” When Realism is fully worked out, as by 
 Nevin (one of the ablest men America has produced), 
 it lands us in virtual Romanism. My conscience is 
 not touched by telling me that I was in Adam as to 
 my ; and if it be admitted that responsibility 
 
 is in the essence of it personal, then the Realistic 
 doctrine cannot stand. On the question of why 
 men are born corrupt, the different views may be 
 tabulated thus :— 
 
 Corruption. 
 
 Pre-existent. Consequent. 
 
 Natural and arbitrary. Penal and just. 
 
 (The Root Theory.) 
 
 Realistic. Representative. 
 
 Romeos viezv of Man's Fall. 
 
 Adam, according to the Romish theory, was like a 
 pith man with a little lead in his head. His animal 
 nature of itself tended to go against conscience; 
 
MAN AS SINNER. 
 
 199 
 
 but the dona superiiaturalia held him straight for 
 a while. When these were lost, he turned upside 
 down. The theory runs through all the Romish 
 theology. As man’s original state was negative, 
 awaiting supernatural gift.s, so a child is born like 
 new created Adam before he was so gifted ; not 
 with a moral bias to evil, but with a languor result¬ 
 ing from disease. He is in a state of unstable 
 equilibrium. 
 
 Objections to this view. 
 
 Sin, they say, is ara^la ; righteousness is evra^la ; 
 and the innate tendency of the lower appetites was 
 counteracted by the dona supernatiiralia^ which, like 
 a ring round refractory sticks, kept them from flying 
 apart into disorder. If this ring was once put on 
 by God, how, it may be asked, could it get off 
 again } But, more particularly, it may be objected 
 to Rome’s doctrine—(i) That it makes Original 
 Righteousness ab extra and unessential ; (2) that it 
 founds on the Manichsean idea, that sin is seated in 
 the body ; and (3) that it is really semi-Pelagian, 
 in accrediting man still with the power of contrary 
 choice, and doing away with the need of grace. 
 
 Concupiscence. 
 
 This word, like its synonym lusty has a wide as 
 well as a narrow sense, and in Romish theology often 
 stands for the disorder {ara^la) of the whole nature. 
 
200 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 A Complicated View of the Fall. 
 
 The Semi-Pelagians make the doctrine of the Fall 
 very complicated. They say that Adam was tried 
 and stood ; then he was rewarded with the dona 
 snpernaUiralia; then he was tried again, and fell. 
 This is, in the first place, not recorded in Scripture ; 
 and, further, it immensely increases the psychologi¬ 
 cal difficulty of the case. 
 
 The Romanists and a Shut Augustine. 
 
 The Papists were brought up to believe a shut 
 Augustine; when Augustine was opened, they did 
 not like it. The dififculty about the Council of 
 Trent Doctrine is, as to whether it held the positive 
 element in original sin. 
 
 Judicial Abandonment. 
 
 Every creature depends upon God according to its 
 nature. Man was created with positive inclination to 
 holiness ; but his highest life depended on something 
 ab extra: viz., on communion with the Spirit of 
 God. The instant Adam sinned, when sin was 
 matured in his soul, he died. God now creates 
 souls judicially in a state cut off from the influences 
 of the Holy Ghost. Thus original sin is, negatively, 
 a state of life without God’s Spirit. But whenever 
 the child begins to act, the positive sinfulness shows 
 itself. 
 
MAN AS SINNER. 
 
 201 
 
 Eternal Death. 
 
 Adam’s apostatizing act is imputed to men as the 
 ground of punishment in spiritual death. Then, 
 through this death and corruption as medium, comes 
 eternal death. Eternal death is thus mediated 
 through spiritual death. 
 
 The Plasticity of Human Nature. 
 
 The J ews by “ marrying in ” have so intensified 
 family characteristics that, if you had a Jewish 
 ancestor sixteen generations back, he would cast 
 your countenance. If one Smith marry another 
 Smith, and their child marry a Jones—why, don’t 
 you see that the Jones family face hasn’t a fair 
 chance in the next generation! The plasticity of 
 hurnan nature is illustrated by this. 
 
 A Repulsive Aspect of Traducianism. 
 
 There are attractions in Traducianism, such as the 
 explanation it seems to offer of sinful and natural 
 dispositions. But its materialistic aspect is repulsive, 
 making, as it does, the architectonic principle of a 
 life to lie not in the soul but in the body. May not 
 God create individual souls, and yet make them like 
 the parent ? or may there not be a soul-propagation 
 which we cannot explicate ? We are by no means 
 shut up to Traducianism. 
 
 Realism and Traducianism go together. 
 
 Thomas Aquinas was a Realist and yet a Crea¬ 
 tionist; and there have been Traducian Nominalists. 
 
202 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 But it seems to be the only consistent position—to 
 be both Realist and Traducianist, or else neither. 
 Creationism has prevailed in Calvinistic churches 
 and even in Roman Catholic circles ; while Tradu- 
 cianism has prevailed among Lutherans. 
 
 Hugh Miller s Aphorism on Heredity. 
 
 “ The freewill of the parent is the destiny of the 
 child.” This saying of Hugh Millers has many 
 applications. It has had no fuller illustration than 
 in the issue of our first parents’ act of freewill in 
 sinning against God. Owing to that, God permits 
 us by judicial abandonment to be born sinners. He 
 is related to us on two planes, the providential and 
 the spiritual; and He has but to withdraw from us 
 the gracious influence of His Spirit, and we are 
 spiritually dead. When, on the other hand, Christ’s 
 righteousness being eredited to the elect, the Holy 
 Ghost is restored, life and sanctification are the con¬ 
 sequence. 
 
 How does Christ escape Pollution ? 
 
 Imputation of Adam’s sin to us causes pollution 
 in us; but imputation of our sin to Christ causes no 
 pollution in Him. The reason is, that in us it causes 
 withdrawal of the Spirit, and consequent death, but 
 not in Christ, who was God-yidea. For Adam’s sin, 
 the souls of men are put beyond the sphere of life. 
 
MAN AS SINNER. 203 
 
 For Christ’s righteousness, His people are brought 
 within that sphere. 
 
 What is Sill ? 
 
 Sin is that which does not square, or homologate, 
 whether in act or in state, with law. The Shorter 
 Catechism definition of sin is better than the King 
 James version of i John iii. 4, “ Sin is the trans¬ 
 gression of the law.” Under ajuapTia e(TT\v rj avojula 
 —“ want of conformity ” either by excess or defect is 
 certainly included. 
 
 A Definition of Sin. 
 
 “ Forma peccati (the logical essence of sin) est dis- 
 convenientia actus, habitus, aut status hominis, cum 
 lege divina.” Want of conformity may exist under 
 any of these three categories— act, habit, state. 
 
 Tivo Elements in Sin. 
 
 Two things have to be noted in sin —reatuSy its 
 relation to punishment; and maculay its relation to 
 the holiness of God. 
 
 The Mystery of Evil. 
 
 The existence of physical evil would be itself a 
 mystery, were it not for the existence of moral evil. 
 The elder Mill, reasoning from the amount of sin and 
 misery in the world, attempts to attribute it to the 
 limitations of God. The problem of evil is the great 
 focus of doubt, the grand abyss of scepticism. 
 
204 
 
 BREviA thp:ologica. 
 
 Eudcemonism. 
 
 As the blades of scissors coming together serve one 
 end, so, according to the eudsemonistic theory, arch¬ 
 angels and devils are made by God to work together, 
 though opposites, for the highest good. 
 
 The Mystery of Sin twofold. 
 
 There is the theological mystery—why could God 
 have permitted it 1 There is also the psychological 
 mystery—how could the first wrong volition originate 
 in the holy soul of Adam } 
 
 Pam in itself 
 
 Of itself, pain will tend to make men only worse. 
 To make them better, it needs to be improved by 
 moral and spiritual influences. This may be very 
 simply shown, by merely pommelling a bad boy. 
 
 Two Kinds of “ GuiltT 
 
 Reatus, which is the concrete of reus (guilty) is 
 distinguished into reatus culpae (blameworthiness) 
 and reatus poense (liability to punishment). Only 
 the latter kind was predicable of Christ, or is 
 removed by Him from sinners. 
 
 ImptUation, 
 
 The word translated “ impute ” is Xoyl^ofxai, 
 sometimes also rendered “reckon.” It means “to 
 charge to ” or “ accredit with,” as a ground for a 
 
MAN AS SINNER. 
 
 205 
 
 certain line of treatment, either something of our 
 own or of another. Imputation must be just, that is, 
 it must have some sufficient ground ; and Adam s 
 sin, though not personally, is organically or repre¬ 
 sentatively ours. 
 
 Three Views of Man's State and Need. 
 
 The Pelagian says—Man is well, and simply needs 
 teaching. The Semi-Pelagian — Man is sick, and 
 needs medicine. The Augustinian—Man is dead, 
 and needs a new creation. 
 
 “ Habitus ” versus “ Habit!' 
 
 “ Habitus,” in Latin, signifies a condition, whether 
 innate or acquired. “ Habit,” again, ordinarily 
 means no more than a state or condition which is 
 the result of past action modifying the present and 
 future action of faculties. This distinction in usage 
 should be remembered. Sin, as a kind of moral 
 scrofula, is not a change of substance or faculty, but, 
 in the Latin sense, of habitus. 
 
 How the character of an act may vary. 
 
 A blow may be unintentional and devoid of moral 
 quality, e.g.y from St Vitus’ dance; intentional, but 
 not responsible, e.g., that of a maniac; intentional 
 and dastardly, e.g., that of a bully; intentional and 
 virtuous, e.g., that of a grieved parent. The act 
 depends on the volition, and the volition on the in- 
 
206 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 tention, and the intention on the permanent disposi¬ 
 tion or habit. The goodness or badness of the 
 volition rests on the underlying state. 
 
 Perfectionism. 
 
 If a man claim perfectionism, ask him whether 
 states, desires, &c., are of the nature of sin, or merely 
 what he calls acts 
 
 The Fatality of O^te Transgression. 
 
 If you are hanging from a branch at the top of a 
 precipice, you are “gone” the moment it snaps, as 
 truly as when you have reached the bottom. 
 
 What is Regeneratmi ? 
 
 It is a divine act, which changes the habitus. We 
 have free will as much as Adam. But the reason 
 why we cannot originate holy acts is, that our 
 habitus is wrong. 
 
 Evidence of Original Sin. 
 
 If dice, being thrown looo times, always turn up 
 sixes, you say the dice are loaded. So with babies. 
 They come into the world as thick as those flakes of 
 snow to-day: and they always come “sin up.” How 
 do you explain it ? The dice are loaded. 
 
 Spirituel and Spiritual. 
 
 A spirituel girl is one who is the reverse of animal 
 or fleshly,—whose body is dominated by her spirit. 
 
MAN AS SINNER. 2O7 
 
 A spiritual woman is one whose whole nature is 
 dominated by the Spirit of God. 
 
 Are men ever disinterested? 
 
 If you demand disinterestedness in the sense of 
 gratifying no principle of one’s nature, your quest is 
 hopeless; it can’t be found. A missionary is dis¬ 
 interested, though he is gratifying love. So was an 
 Italian, who led a man into mortal sin, and then 
 stabbed him, that he might straightway go to eternal 
 damnation. Disinterested ! he sacrificed himself for 
 hate. The truth is, that disinterestedness, as it is 
 called, is in itself neither good nor bad. Its quality 
 depends on its motive, and on whether it terminates 
 or not on self. The devil is as disinterested as 
 Gabriel; but the one is prompted by hate, and the 
 other by love to God. 
 
 A Thirteenth Century Methodist. 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, in his doctrine of man’s salva¬ 
 tion, stood where the Methodist is to-day. He held 
 that men need prevenient grace, to begin the move¬ 
 ment, and that then they can co-operate. 
 
 The Scotists. 
 
 They were named from Duns Scotus. You see 
 the Scotchman at the bottom of a great deal. But 
 this one wasn’t a good Presbyterian ; he was a Semi- 
 Pelagian. 
 
2o8 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 A rminianisin. 
 
 In the American and temporary sense, Arminians 
 are Wesleyans ; but historical Arminians (the Re¬ 
 monstrants) were very different. Arminius himself 
 bears about the same relation to Arminianism that 
 Americanus Vespuccius bears to America, a land 
 which he did not discover. Arm inius was a Pres- 
 ^terian and half a Calvinist, like Wesley. The 
 supralapsarianism of Beza and Gomarus drove him 
 rather far the other way. Then Curcellaeus, Lim- 
 borch, and others, carried out the system, till at length 
 it approached very near to Socinianism. 
 
 Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians. 
 
 The first say. Ability measures obligation; the 
 second. You are responsible for self-induced habits. 
 
 Armmian Viezv of Responsibility. 
 
 Arminians make us responsible for our states, not 
 because of their nature, but because of their origin. 
 This would absolve all children from sin of state. 
 They further say that God could not have damned 
 any of Adam’s descendants unless He had provided 
 
 gracious ability,” with salvation through Christ and 
 the Spirit. 
 
 An Analogy for Sin in Man. 
 
 “ Ole Bull ” is author of the sound ; the bad fiddle 
 of the discord. But suppose he made the fiddle ; is 
 
MAN AS SINNER. 
 
 209 
 
 he not responsible for it as well as for the music ? 
 Ah, but it is constitutionally a good fiddle, though 
 now sadly out of tune. 
 
 Negation versus Privation. 
 
 A stone can’t see ; that is negation. A dog can’t 
 see ; that is privation, because seeing belongs to its 
 nature. So, said Augustine, sin in man is a priva¬ 
 tion ; it is a moral defect, because he ought to be 
 holy and to love God. 
 
 Moral versus Physical Condition. 
 
 If a poltroon put out an eye to avoid the con¬ 
 scription, Government might punish him for that act, 
 but has no right to punish him afterwards for not 
 using a faculty he does not possess. If by neglect 
 at college, I am without eyes I might and should 
 have had, I was blameworthy; but I cannot be 
 punished for not using intellectual faculties I have 
 not. In the moral sphere it is different; states 
 of mind have character, however they were brought 
 about. In failing to recognise this, the Arminians 
 erred in their half-way opposition to the Pelagian 
 theory—holding men responsible for only their self- 
 induced habits and self-produced acts. 
 
 Kant and the Sum of Morality: 
 
 There is nothing harder for us than to control our 
 
 affections. Now, the sum of the law is, to love God 
 
 O 
 
2 lO 
 
 BREVIA TllEOLOGICA. 
 
 with all your heart: but you cannot love what you 
 don’t love by a mere act of will. Yet Kant founds 
 on the axiom—I ought: therefore I can. 
 
 Christ made Sin—hozv ? 
 
 It was not the actus or the habitus, but the status 
 of sin Christ took. He gives us the status of righte¬ 
 ousness by justification ; but He also provides 
 for the habitus of righteousness in us, through 
 sanctification of the Spirit, whereby we are enabled 
 to produce the actiis. 
 
 An Umvarra 7 itable Statement. 
 
 If God had not purposed to introduce redemption, 
 I believe that he zvould not have allowed Adam’s 
 posterity to be born. But I cannot say with the 
 Methodists that it would not have h^Qn just for Him 
 to have done so. They thereby make the sending 
 of salvation a matter of compensation, rather than 
 of free grace. 
 
 A. a Chidstian : B. not—zvhy ? 
 
 Where shall we seek the explanation of the differ¬ 
 ence between these two hearers of the same Gospel } 
 The Pelagian answered—“ A.’s purpose was suffi¬ 
 cient : he willed it, and he became a Christian.” 
 
 The Semi-Pelagian says—“A. did his best, and 
 God helped him.” 
 
MAN AS SINNER. 
 
 2 I I 
 
 The Arminian says—“A. used the gracious abil¬ 
 ity, the prevenient grace, given by God to all, while 
 B. did not.” 
 
 The Lutheran says—“ A. and B. both needed pre¬ 
 venient and co-operating grace. Neither could 
 co-operate, but either might resist. B. did resist, 
 while A. did not. Hence the difference.” 
 
 The Calvinist says—“ A. was regenerated by the 
 grace of Almighty God.” 
 
 Under the Sitrface. 
 
 You sometimes see a man struggling against his 
 surging passions, and, by the aid of some one fixed 
 principle, deep down, overcoming and going against 
 them all. So have I seen an iceberg bearing along 
 in opposition to the Atlantic currents. But it did 
 not go without a motive. Deep down was the Gulf 
 Stream, quietly influencing the great mass. 
 
 Personal Freedom. 
 
 Consciousness tells me that I have the power of 
 originating action ; and the immediate knowledge 
 which we have in the intuitions of consciousness is 
 the surest of all evidence. 
 
 “ / want to believe, but eaPt." 
 
 It is liberty of the man, not of the will, that we 
 have to keep clearly in view. A man says—“ I 
 want to come to Christ, but can’t.” I say—“You 
 
2 I 2 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 don’t want to come to Him, in the sense of giving 
 up sin, and giving up yourself to Him ; else you do 
 come to Him.” In a revival, an important question 
 is. Do converts want to be holy } Do they want the 
 “old man” in them to be broken up Do they 
 want God’s justice to be righted ? Or do they 
 merely want a new exciting experience, and, look¬ 
 ing beyond that, to escape hellThe man I have 
 supposed does not, in the full and proper sense, 
 “want to come.” The Bible declares—“And ye 
 shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for 
 me with all your hearV' (Jer. xxix. 13). 
 
X. 
 
 god’s law and man’s duty. 
 
 The Foundation of Morals. 
 
 ROTIUS tried to found morals on nature. He 
 
 VJ was a Christian ; but Kant, who followed 
 him, was a Deist; and many who follow Kant are 
 philosophical atheists. 
 
 A Watershed. 
 
 Does good depend on the nature or on the will of 
 God } Here we have the watershed of much doc¬ 
 trine. Grotius, and others, making it depend on 
 God’s wilh prepared the way for the supralapsarian 
 doctrine, that God made men in order to damn 
 them. And further, if right depends on mere 
 divine volition, the doctrine of Atonement is de¬ 
 stroyed j for if by an act of will God could have 
 made it right for sinners to get off without any 
 penalty being attached to sin, then Christ would not 
 have died. The will of God is rightly taken as the 
 absolute and perfect rule for us. Yet, as a matter 
 
BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 214 
 
 of analysis, God’s own holiness precedes His will, 
 and is not a product of His volition. Right is 
 founded in the nature of God. 
 
 TJie Tyranny of Crowds. 
 
 A true man must stand up against crowds in 
 America, as they have had in Europe to resist kings 
 and popes. 
 
 Why should the Lazv of the Land be obeyed? 
 
 I must not, for instance, poach in England, be¬ 
 cause it is the law of the land ; and I have to obey 
 the law because it conduces to the wellbeing of man, 
 which I am bound to further by the law of God. 
 Of course, if I am convinced that a law is not so 
 conducive, it is open to me as a loyal citizen to 
 strive to have it altered. 
 
 What Guilt implies. 
 
 As liability to punishment, “ guilt ” implies an ob¬ 
 jective personal reference to an external lawgiver. 
 
 What Circumstances may do. 
 
 To drink a glass of wine is not wrong in itself, but 
 circumstances may make it sinful. It may be, e.g., a 
 stumbling-block to others. Or it may be done with 
 
god’s law and man’s duty. 
 
 215 
 
 a wrong intention, e.g"., a blasphemous act, or a trea¬ 
 sonous act,—such as drinking to the health of your 
 country’s enemy. 
 
 Where ca7i the Church draw the Hue about Drink ? 
 
 It is quite true that one man gets drunk with two 
 glasses, and that another may drink a quart with 
 impunity. If it be asked. Ought not drinking to be 
 absolutely forbidden to both }—the answer must be, 
 No, not on Scripture ground. I am prepared as a 
 citizen to vote for a prohibitory bill ; but I am not 
 prepared to discipline every man who drinks a glass 
 of wine. And why } Because Christ does not for¬ 
 bid drinking. But He does forbid getting drunk ; 
 and, as far as Church discipline is concerned, we 
 have to draw the line just where the Bible does. 
 
 Distinctions among even Divine Lazvs. 
 
 The primary laws of love and justice are more 
 fundamental than certain laws which are based upon 
 them— e.g.y those concerned with property and those 
 bearing on the matrimonial relation. These may be 
 waived by God, if He sees meet. Difficulties raised 
 in connection with the Old Testament account of 
 God’s procedure in regard to the observance of such 
 appointments, are to be viewed in the light of God’s 
 right to execute His own law. If He has a right to 
 put a man into hell. He has a right to send another 
 (as to Agag) to kill him, or (as to the Egyptians) to 
 take his property. 
 
BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 216 
 
 What is my Duty ? 
 
 A man can have only one duty at any particular 
 moment. But it may be difficult to know what it is; 
 because different precepts may seem to come in to¬ 
 gether with conflicting claims. Logic will not solve 
 your problem in such a case. The moral sense must 
 give the decision. 
 
 Right or Wrong? 
 
 Questions of casuistry often arise as to right 
 and wrong. It can never, of course, be right to do 
 wrong; but the question is, and it is sometimes a 
 hard one to answer,—what is right } Strategy in 
 war is often untruthful. It may be your only means 
 of self-defence. Is it right ? Robbers assail your 
 house; you hide your wife and daughters from 
 them ; they demand from you where they are; you 
 mislead the robbers, and your people escape. Did 
 you sin } Had the robbers a right to the truth from 
 you ? Or, take an actual case. Dr Alexander took 
 his Bible with him into Rome. When the baggage 
 was examined, the Bible was detected. “ Oh, it’s a 
 dictionary ! ” said the courier. Dr Alexander did 
 not speak. He thereby connived. He kept his 
 Bible. But did he sin ? 
 
 Mother of God. 
 
 The phrase “ Mother of God ” has biblical analogy 
 in the constructive phrase “blood of God ” (Acts xx. 
 
god’s law and man’s duty. 2 1 7 
 
 28); but it has not biblical authority. It was used 
 for a good end at Ephesus (431 A.D.), against the 
 gnostic deniers of Christ’s divinity. But it is not a 
 phrase that it is advisable for us to use. 
 
 The taking of Oaths. 
 
 In the case of oaths, it is the animus imponentis 
 (intention of the imposer) that governs. The im- 
 poser is the interpreter; and to take the verbal oath 
 in a different sense is to deceive. 
 
 The Essence of the Sabbath. 
 
 That a regular portion of time, appointed by God, 
 to be observed by all men, should be set apart for 
 rest and the worship of God,—this is the essence of 
 the Sabbath; that one-seventh of time should be so 
 set apart is, relatively to this, the accident. It is, 
 however, the case that one-seventh of time has been 
 positively set apart by God for a Sabbath, and a 
 particular one-seventh of time. The choice has not 
 been left to us. 
 
 Duration and Extent of the Sabbath Law. 
 
 “ Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” is 
 as much a moral law as “ Thou shalt not steal ”—the 
 law founded on the relations of property. Its dura¬ 
 tion and extent are determined by the character 
 of the institution and the abiding reason for it; 
 and also by Scripture, in the New Testament portion 
 of which its permanence is incidentally recognised, 
 
2i8 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 though there is no specific re-establishment of it, any 
 more than of infant church membership. 
 
 The Lord's Day and the Sabbath the same. 
 
 Our “ Lord’s Day” and the Jewish “ Sabbath” are 
 not different in essence. Both are days of rest and 
 festival, not of gloom. The essence of the Sabbath 
 could not be changed without changing the nature 
 of man. But the accidents of it may be changed by 
 competent authority, and were actually changed by 
 the college of Apostles, for a sufficient reason. 
 
 The Change of Day. 
 
 The stream of Sabbath observance on the seventh 
 day of the week came right down to the time of the 
 Apostles ; it took a bend at that point; and it has 
 come right on ever after. Only they could have 
 altered it; the authority of no other would have 
 wrought such an universal change in the Christian 
 world. The adequate reason for the change was, 
 the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ and 
 the new creation it secured. The competent authority 
 was that of the Apostles, and no other. (The trouble 
 with the hierarchical bishops now is, that they are 
 all Apostles, though they have not seen the Lord— 
 not a soul of them !) 
 
 American Law related to English. 
 
 We grew as a nation out of England, and thus 
 have laws based on religion and morality. We have 
 
god’s law and man’s duty. 219 
 
 our own peculiarities, however, in certain of which 
 our friends there seem disposed to imitate us,—and, 
 some of them, to imitate us to their destruction. 
 
 The Right of Religious Legislation. 
 
 We have a right to administer the laws here re¬ 
 ligiously. Who cheated the Indians out of their 
 land } Have not we then the right to the advan¬ 
 tages } If foreigners come, they must obey the law 
 of the land. They may go to the moon or the 
 depths of the sea if they like. But if they come 
 here, they must be Christians or get killed. I would 
 give Atheists the Sabbath, or the alternative of cold 
 steel or hot lead—either! When I was in India, 
 Hindu boys (I call them boys, though they might 
 be fathers * or grandfathers ; you could never tell 
 that there) would sometimes be obstreperous in 
 school. If they demanded liberty to disobey, I told 
 them—“ Certainly ; but outside the school. If you 
 come in here, you must obey or get flogged.” 
 
 A Non-moral Goveinwient Impossible. 
 
 It is coming in this country to blood. Men of my 
 age won’t perhaps live to see it. But it is coming. 
 A government can’t be non-moral. It must be 
 either moral or immoral. 
 
 * Dr Hodge took one of his young Indian pupils to task for 
 absence from school one day, and to his surprise was met with the 
 well-founded excuse that, his wife being ill, he had been needed that 
 day at home to mind the baby ! 
 
220 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 Religion cannot be ignored. 
 
 Men are religious beings. Religion can’t be got 
 rid of by seeking to ignore it. A man, after taking 
 some liquor perhaps, may go hopping round and de¬ 
 claring—“ I’ll have no gravity; ” but he need not 
 expect to get rid so of the laws of gravitation. As 
 little need our legislators attempt to put away re¬ 
 ligion. We have a right to insist that they shall not 
 try. I would not consent to be hanged by a jury 
 with an Atheist sitting in it. It would be much more 
 comfortable to be hanged by a jury of good Pres¬ 
 byterians ! 
 
 Religions Educatiofi. 
 
 The theory of many here is, that the State is to 
 have no religion. Yet it is to be the great educator. 
 Hence education is to be divorced from religion. 
 So far as religion is concerned, the family and the 
 Sabbath-school are to do it all. But is this enough ? 
 A father is out all day, and comes home tired at 
 night; the mother is dragged to pieces by babies; 
 how much are they likely to do for religious educa¬ 
 tion ? And how many of the children go to Sabbath- 
 school ; and how efficient is the education provided 
 there ? I have been twenty-five years a pastor—in 
 three States and four congregations—and although 
 there are no doubt exceptions, and many excellent 
 schools throughout the country, my experience has 
 been that the pupils are in general small children, 
 
god’s law and man’s duty. 
 
 22 1 
 
 and the teachers biggish boys and girls, too big to 
 learn, and set to teach those who are often too little 
 to learn. 
 
 Non-religious Education Impossible. 
 
 The deeper objection to so-called secular educa¬ 
 tion is, that the relation between our religion and 
 all our other knowledge is vital and organic—not 
 mechanical. You cannot separate them, like bread 
 and butter; it can’t be done. Could you teach 
 history—the history, say, of England, and specially 
 of Scotland, the land of the Covenanters, and leave 
 religion out of account.^ Take a school board with 
 men of all shades of non-religionist opinion, and let 
 them carve out of your teaching system what didn’t 
 suit them—and what would be the result } It would 
 be a worse case than that of Esop’s man with the two 
 wives, who relieved him of all his locks,—not only 
 bald non-religion, but irreligio 7 i would be the result. 
 
 National Religion. 
 
 The proposal of a non-religious basis is something 
 novel, not found anywhere in the experience of the 
 past. To carry the theory out, the language itself 
 will have to be revolutionised, and the dictionary 
 itself expurgated; for its terminology as well as that 
 of the law of England is full of religion. And is it 
 not a significant fact, that in our great American 
 encyclopaedia there is no article on the word “ God ” 
 If you ask how far I would advocate religious train- 
 
222 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 ing, I reply, that the best practical system I have 
 known was the old Scottish parochial system, though 
 it is to be feared that, instead of getting back to 
 that, things, as with the New England schools, are 
 going in the opposite direction. Christianity should 
 be recognized publicly by this country. Christ 
 should be recognized in the law of our land, as the 
 supreme ruler of our nation. I am member of a 
 society striving for this end ; and the principle is 
 right, whatever our success may be. We should 
 insist that if the State has a right to educate, she 
 must not educate in infidel history and philology, 
 but, in assuming the educator’s function, must obey 
 the Scripture injunction regarding that function—to 
 train the young “in the nurture and admonition of 
 the Lord.’’ 
 
 Atheism Worse than Popery. 
 
 Religion is what keeps a nation from chaos—from 
 falling asunder like uncemented sand. Dr H. of 
 New York was deploring in my father’s house last 
 night the influence of Roman Catholics on educa¬ 
 tion. But—much as I dislike Popery—I would 
 infinitely rather see the education of our children 
 in the hands of Romanists than in the hands of 
 Atheists. 
 
 Capital Punishment. 
 
 Is it right to hang people 1 Yes ; you have either 
 to hang or be hanged. 
 
god’s law and man’s duty. 223 
 Celibacy and Matrimony. 
 
 Both married and unmarried missionaries are 
 needed. The latter have certain advantages, 
 especially in certain places. But ladies are needed to 
 teach women ; and it is well to show the Hindus speci¬ 
 mens of pure family life. Celibacy is not in itself a 
 virtue ; and matrimony is not essential to salvation ! 
 
 Why Ronids Priests do 7 iot marry. 
 
 Hierarchical reasons stand in the way of Romish 
 priests marrying. For instance, when the Pope issues 
 a summons for a General Council, about nine-tenths 
 of the bishops can assemble from all quarters of the 
 earth, which they could not do if they were married 
 men surrounded with family cares. So with all the 
 errands on which priestly emissaries have to be sent. 
 
 How Rome Dissolves the Marriage Tie. 
 
 Romanists get no divorces ; but they often get 
 marriage decreed null ab initio, on many and various 
 pleas. I knew a professor out west, who grew tired 
 of his wife. He could not get a divorce as a 
 Protestant Christian. So he turned Roman Catholic, 
 got his marriage annulled, and all his children 
 decreed bastard. Then he married again ; and by- 
 and-bye he turned Presbyterian ! 
 
 Why Russian Priests Wives Live so Long. 
 
 Russian priests are allowed to marry once, but 
 only once; and it is observed that no women live so 
 
224 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 long]]as the wives of Russian priests. A man was 
 seen one day washing clothes ; and another who 
 thought his appearance hardly in keeping with such 
 an occupation, asked him why he should be washing 
 clothes } “ Well, you see,” he answered, “ Fm a 
 
 priest, and we are never allowed to marry a second 
 time ; so when we have a wife we do everything to 
 keep her as long as we can ! ” 
 
 Can the State dissolve Matrimony ? 
 
 The State can as little by its fiat dissolve the 
 vinculum of marriage as it can dissolve that of 
 parentage. Its decree would be just like the decree 
 of the Pope against the comet. 
 
 A meric an sentiment about Divorce. 
 
 In the United States, the thirteen old States — 
 especially Episcopalian States like Virginia—which 
 brought over English law, are stricter on this subject 
 than some of the other States are. Public opinion 
 is wofully lax in some parts certainly, while in 
 others it is sufficiently strong. Death alone ipso 
 facto dissolves the marriage tie. Adultery does not, 
 until it is proved; and for desertion to justify 
 divorce, it must be wilful, and final, and without 
 just cause. 
 
 Evil Company. 
 
 You may have to do business with a man who is 
 leading an immoral life. But you are not to have 
 
god’s law and man’s duty. 
 
 225 
 
 friendly social relations with him, or to introduce 
 him to your family. 
 
 Need of a Marriage License Law, 
 
 In America we ought to have the State made 
 responsible, through the establishment of a marriage 
 license law, for proper registration. In Pennsyl¬ 
 vania, a minister who may happen to marry a minor 
 is liable to a fine of .^50—a law which was intended 
 to prevent the abduction of young girls. All sorts 
 of people used to come to me at Wilkesbarre to get 
 married. Sometimes I knew from the look of the 
 girl that I was safe; but I frequently had to refuse 
 to marry the applicants, because I had no means of 
 
 protecting myself. An old minister. Dr-, was 
 
 less careful. In course of time his conscience had 
 got so far seared that, when knocked up in the 
 morning, he would put his head and night-cap out of 
 the window and marry the folks right off in the 
 carriage, without even knowing whether they were 
 old or young, married or single. Such a thing as 
 that ought to be prevented. 
 
 A pecidiar Qiiestion, 
 
 If God allowed the Patriarchs a dispensation of 
 toleration for polygamy, might not those heathen 
 who, in ignorance but in good faith, have married 
 several women be similarly tolerated } Or, when 
 
 the husband is converted to Christianity, are all the 
 
 V 
 
226 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 poor women but one to be set adrift ? This is a 
 difficult problem. 
 
 The Deceased Wife's Sister. 
 
 The Bible is our only rule of faith and practice. 
 Every sin is forbidden in it. Now, incest is a 
 heinous sin as even nature teaches, and must be 
 forbidden in Scripture. Yet it is nowhere forbidden, 
 if not in this Levitical law. We find that the 
 eighteenth chapter of Leviticus condemns, without 
 discrimination between affinity and consanguinity, 
 marriages within certain degrees of relationship. 
 The Deceased Wife’s Sister law is permanent, if 
 its ground is permanent. 
 
 The Safety of Society. 
 
 The only thing that can save Society is the 
 recognition that it is to be founded on the will of 
 God, and that all authority comes from above 
 downward, and not from below upward. If in this 
 country of universal suffrage we do not emphasize 
 great principles of duty, we are going to perdition. 
 Here, more than in any other land ; now, more than 
 at any other time, we need to remember this. 
 
 A Question of Casuistiy. 
 
 If a man has a right to the truth from me, I must 
 give’him the truth. If he has no right to it, I may, 
 and usually should, hold my tongue. But if I am 
 
god’s law and man’s duty. 
 
 227 
 
 compelled to speak, and if the communication of 
 facts to a person who is ex-lex will enable him to 
 use his knowledge to the ruin, let us say, of my 
 wife and child—may I intentionally mislead him 
 without sin ? 
 
 Bragging. 
 
 A form of lying we have not discussed as yet is 
 bragging. I knew an old gentleman so given to it, 
 that he would talk incessantly about the wonders he 
 and his family had done, and try to make out that 
 every great machine and new improvement had been 
 invented by himself I would sometimes have to 
 sit two hours listening to his voluble talk, without 
 believing one word of it! 
 
 Mistaken Kindness. 
 
 A criminal is sent to the penitentiary. You begin 
 to coddle him ; you want to know if he has a sore 
 throat; you send the doctor; you take him by the 
 hand, and say, “ My dear brother; ” you try, as you 
 say, to save his self-respect; and you send the chap¬ 
 lain to discuss all sorts of questions with him as an 
 equal. What is this but sapping the foundations 
 of society t The design of penitentiaries is not 
 primarily reformatory, but punitive ; and, as God 
 teaches us by example and precept, crime must be 
 dealt with as a tremendous evil. 
 
228 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 Exemplary Killing. 
 
 It is murder to kill a man for the benefit of his 
 fellow-men—that is, not as a deserved punishment to 
 him, but as a warning to others. As Coleridge says, 
 “ A man is an end in himself, and not like the things 
 around him.” 
 
 Three Views of Suffering. 
 
 Suffering to satisfy justice is punishment. Suffer¬ 
 ing to improve the sufferer is chastisement. Suffering 
 without any such design is calamity. 
 
XL 
 
 DEATH AND AFTER DEATH. 
 
 What is Life ? 
 
 IFE is the result of the action of a higher on a 
 
 J—' lower agency. Animal soul acting on animal 
 organization gives animal life. Spiritual life is the 
 resultant of God’s Spirit’s action on our souls {cf^ 
 Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh). The process of 
 death is initiated apparently on the side of the 
 body, very often through miasma which produces" a 
 lesion inconsistent with the proper action of the 
 system. 
 
 What is Death ? 
 
 Death, in the colloquial sense, is the dissolution 
 between soul and body. There is no evidence that 
 it means cessation of being, as Annihilationists 
 affirm. Even the body does not cease to be. It is 
 a mere separation. 
 
 Spirit^ and Soul, and Ghost. 
 
 How does a spirit become a soul } By personal 
 union with a body. Hence angels are never souls. 
 
230 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 What is a ghost ? A spirit which has been a soul: 
 an unclothed soul. Both the creation and the dis¬ 
 solution of man—the synthetic and analytic methods 
 —may be called in to prove that man’s soul is the 
 resultant of union between spirit and body. 
 
 Has a Dog a Soul ? 
 
 It has, in a sense : for when it dies, “the spirit of 
 the beast goeth downward to the earth” (Eccles. iii. 
 2i). We have no ground for affirming that it still 
 lives on after dissolution. But this we do know of 
 man's soul, from Revelation. 
 
 The Soul after Death. 
 
 The theory of Isaac Taylor is substantially this :— 
 When a man is dressed for company, he has on both 
 coat and vest. At death he puts off the former, and 
 goes in his vest and sleeves for a time. By-and-bye, 
 he returns to his coat, which, in the meantime, has 
 been fixed up for him, Joseph Cook’s doctrine may 
 be compared with Swedenborg’s idea of a double 
 body, an inner and outer coating. Archbishop 
 Whately gave both sides of the question as to the 
 soul’s continued consciousness after death, and de¬ 
 clared it a balanced controversy, a drawn game. He 
 was a broad churchman, but a good man—on the 
 salvable side of that party. He held that the dead 
 body could not be said to sleep any more than a 
 stone, so that the reference in this expression— 
 
DEATH AND AFTER DEATH. 
 
 231 
 
 “ sleep ”—must be to the soul. But it should not 
 be forgotten, that language is not used in such cir¬ 
 cumstances to chop logic upon, but is based upon 
 phenomena. And nothing is so like death as sleep. 
 
 How is the Sold made fit for Heaven ? 
 
 Perfectionists say that the soul is made fit in this 
 life for heaven, and that the perfecting work may be 
 done early, through the believer’s act of faith in Christ. 
 Romanists, again, postpone the completion of the 
 work, in the case of all, till after death ; and hence 
 they provide purgatory for good Catholics. We say 
 that, though there is nothing in death itself that 
 sanctifies, Christians are at death made perfect in 
 holiness by Divine and gracious power. . Without 
 such a provision, what would become of Christians’ 
 who are hardly fit to go to prayer meeting on earth, 
 not to speak of being fit to enter Heaven ! 
 
 Annihilationism and Restorationism. 
 
 If you do not take the Bible doctrine of eternal 
 punishment, the only alternative at all defensible is 
 Annihilationism. It is of the essence of Christianity 
 in all its forms, that Divine favour produces man’s 
 goodness, and not vice versa. Punishment won’t 
 make a man better; he will go on getting worse 
 and worse in hell. Here lies the absurdity of 
 Restorationism. 
 
232 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 A nnihilatiouism explained. 
 
 Annihilationists mean, not that you must be put 
 absolutely out of existence, but resolved, rather, into 
 your constituents. The bubble bursts and vanishes 
 in air. Yon cease to be ; but, strictly speaking, you 
 are not annihilated. You are just, in Hindu lan¬ 
 guage, “ absorbed in Brum.” 
 
 Spirits not mntually exclusive. 
 
 The scholastics gravely argued — “ How many 
 spirits can stand together on a needle point } ” The 
 correct answer was—An infinite number, because 
 spirits do not exclude each other. 
 
 Hell and Heaven. 
 
 It is the presence of God as unreconciled that 
 constitutes hell; it is the presence of God, as recon¬ 
 ciled in Christ, that makes heaven. 
 
 Is Heaven a Place ? 
 
 If men were only spirits, heaven and hell might 
 occupy the same square space. Souls do not fill 
 space. The crw/xa,. however, which is organized 
 matter, does. The bodies of believers will be 
 numerically, though not qualitatively, the same in 
 heaven. In exchange for the animal body {<jwixa 
 x/y-yXirov), the believer is to have a spiritual body 
 {ar^jULa iruevixariKov). You are not going to heaven 
 
DEATH AND AFTER DEATH. 
 
 233 
 
 as an animal with vertebrate column and digestive 
 organs. But you will have a body, nevertheless, 
 which, after the resurrection, will occupy space. 
 Heaven is a place as well as a state. Whete Christ 
 in his glorified body is—that is Heaven. 
 
 Christ desce^iding hito Hades. 
 
 The phrase, “ He descended into Hades,” should 
 be left as it is. Do not try to translate it; but do 
 not leave it out. It is no interpolation, but is part 
 of the consensus of Church doctrine which grew by 
 assimilation. For persons in New Jersey or any 
 part of this Yankee nation to cut it out would be 
 infinitely absurd. I would sooner shoot or hang a 
 man for that than for counterfeiting; and, if I had 
 the power, wouldn’t I do it quick! 
 
 The Limbus Infantitm. 
 
 The doctrine of the limbus infantum has no ground 
 in Scripture. We believe that infants go to heaven 
 through the mercy of Christ. If they did go to 
 Hades with Original Sin on them, since we are not 
 to suppose that they remain infants eternally, they 
 would go on developing in wickedness, and so 
 deserve damnation personally, like adults, through 
 actual transgression. 
 
 Infant Salvation. 
 
 Concerning the phrase “ elect infants ” in the 
 Westminster Confession, Dr Krauth thinks he shows 
 
234 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 that the original framers of the Confession meant 
 that some are not elect. There is another and more 
 important question—What does it and should it 
 mean ? The answer to this is—that all infants 
 dying in infancy are saved, and because they are elect. 
 The phrase should be interpreted as referring, not 
 to the extent of infant salvation but to the nature 
 of their security, to the ground of their salvation. 
 The Arminian view is, that infants are somehow 
 saved on their own account. The Calvinistic, that, 
 though they have incurred condemnation in Adam, 
 they are saved through the redemption of Christ. 
 The Romanist, that the salvation of Christ is not 
 applied to children except through baptism. 
 
 The Heathen. 
 
 The whole world has received certain benefits 
 through Christ’s death ; but the heathen who do not 
 know the gospel are just left, so far forth as their 
 eternal salvation is concerned, where they were 
 before, and would have been without, Christ’s 
 coming. 
 
 The Place of Purgatory. 
 
 All who die in the Romish Church are supposed 
 to be saved. But many who so die are admittedly 
 bad : and none who are bad can enter heaven. 
 These shall, therefore, be cleansed in Purgatory. 
 This is a doctrine which contains some acknow- 
 
DEATH AND AFTER DEATH. 
 
 235 
 
 ledgment of the evil of sin. A pious Romanist 
 looks on Purgatory as a blessing, though matters 
 should as far as possible be settled here, since a 
 higher rate of interest will be exacted yonder. 
 
 How to deal with Romanism. 
 
 Remember that in attack you must take the 
 whole system of Romanism, and not merely parts of 
 it. Purgatory, for instance, is necessary under the 
 general Roman Catholic system: and you might do 
 the reverse of good to a devout Romanist by remov¬ 
 ing only his belief in Purgatory, which is, in some 
 sense, a tribute to the purity of heaven, and an 
 expression of the sense of defilement in man. 
 Above all, hold up the Gospel to such : and seek to 
 build up, and not merely to knock down. 
 
 The Pharisees. 
 
 \ 
 
 The Pharisees were the best class in the nation, 
 after all; and here lies the point of Christ’s assertion, 
 that the best of natural religion could not take men 
 to heaven. Our old school Presbyterians, stripped of 
 their vital Christianity, would be the modern repre¬ 
 sentatives of the Pharisees. A man that winks, and 
 smiles, and thanks Heaven that he is not a Pharisee, 
 has usually little to thank God for along that line. 
 
 Something not to shout about. 
 
 When you hear a man shouting out about eternal 
 hell, he is making it as plain as possible that he’s 
 
236 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 an infidel on the subject. There is a great deal 
 of unbelief in the world in this connection, and also 
 a great deal of swearing in the pulpit. A man who 
 realises in any measure the awful force of the words, 
 eternal hell, won’t shout about it, but will speak with 
 all tenderness. 
 
 A Personal Remmiscence. 
 
 I was much staggered and perplexed, during a 
 period of anxiety after college, in reading from 
 Angell James’s “Anxious Enquirer,” a passage to 
 the effect, that the reader had better shut the book 
 and go down on his knees, if he did not feel that his 
 past sin was sufficient to merit eternal damnation in 
 hell. Now, this is not the just way of putting the 
 case. God withdrew spiritual life from Adam, the 
 moment he ate the apple ; he abandoned the man. 
 But what makes the abandonment everlasting is 
 man’s continued sin. If men could go there and 
 suffer without sinning, hell would not be half so bad. 
 But they both sin and suffer there. 
 
 A Run 7 iing Account of Ginlt. 
 
 It is often held, not by Romanists only but by 
 many Protestants, that future punishment is all in¬ 
 flicted because of sins committed on earth. But 
 eternal punishment, although it is the result, is not 
 the correlate of temporal sin. A penalty and a 
 consequence are not the same. It is to be re- 
 
DEATH AND AFTER DEATH. 2^7 
 
 membered that men’s sins in hell deserve and get 
 punishment. Exclusion from God’s favour is the 
 result of sin here ; the continuation of that exclusion 
 perpetuates the punishment; and the guilt of lost 
 souls in the other world is a running account kept 
 up with compound interest. It is with them as with 
 certain criminals, e.g.^ in Allegheny penitentiary, who, 
 through the attempted murder of a warder, got a 
 prolongation of punishment. The ring-leaders in 
 such places often go on getting increments of punish¬ 
 ment ; and this is a view of the case not to be 
 lost sight of, in speaking of the eternity of future 
 punishment. 
 
 Three Relations to Law. 
 
 Law is essential. It is a relation which every 
 intelligent creature sustains eo ipso to God. Hell, 
 as well as earth and heaven, is under law. Our 
 probation is here (under the covenant), and our 
 destiny is fixed when we die ; but even after that the 
 lost as well as the saved continue under law. There 
 are, however, three relations to law, which must be 
 distinguished,—the covenant, the regulative, and the 
 penal. 
 
 The Final Judgment. 
 
 So far as God is concerned, the facts, the know¬ 
 ledge of the facts, and judgment on the facts about 
 any of us are as old as eternity. The great object 
 
238 
 
 BREVIA THEOLOGICA. 
 
 of the Judgment is, to establish justice, and to exalt 
 it in the estimation of men. 
 
 The Judgment General as well as Individiial. 
 
 We die as individuals, and God deals with us as 
 such. But God has also dealings with men in the 
 mass even now ; and he will so deal with them at the 
 great day of Judgment. The doctrine of a general 
 Judgment implies, that each man shall be revealed 
 not only to himself, but to all whose history has had 
 points of contact with Him. It does not necessarily 
 imply a revelation of each to every soul in the 
 universe, which would require a sort of omniscience 
 in these. 
 
 The Test m Judgment. 
 
 Men’s loyalty to Christ will be the test. The 
 judgment of men’s characters will be qualified 
 according to their light. No two men, even 
 brothers in one house, have had the same amount 
 of light. We are responsible, too, for the light we 
 might have had. 
 
 The Missionary Enterprise. 
 
 Millenarian missionaries have a style of their own. 
 Their theory affects their work in the way of making 
 them seek exclusively, or chiefly, the conversion of 
 individual souls. The true and efficient missionary 
 method is, to aim directly, indeed, at soul winning. 
 
DEATH AND AFTER DEATPI. 239 
 
 but at the same time to plant Christian institutions 
 in heathen lands, which will, in time, develop 
 according to the genius of the nationalities. 
 English missionaries can never hope to convert the 
 world directly‘by units. 
 
 The End. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, we might as well come to “the 
 end of the world.” Mr Rubinkam, will you please 
 recite : we have very little time, sir! . . . 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 Ttirnhill 6 ^ Spears, Printers, Edinburgh. 
 

 
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