CHRISTIAN DOGMATICS WORKS Rev. JOHN MACPHERSON. M.A. Chbistian Dogmatics. Post 8vo, price 9s. Commentaey on St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. Demy 8vo, price 10s. 6d. The Sum of Saving Knowledge. Price Is. 6d. The Confession of Faith. Price 2s. Presbyterianism. Price Is. 6d. Edinburgh; T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street. CHRISTIAN DOGMATICS Rev. JOHN MACPHERSON, M.A. AUTHOR OF 'COMMENTARY ON ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS" ETC. EDINBURGH T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET 1898 PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED. NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. TORONTO : THE WILLARD TRACT DEPOSITORY. PREFACE. The need of a comprehensive treatise on Christian doctrine of a scientific character is admitted on all hands. Even the best productions of foreign theologians do not seem altogether suitable as manuals for our theological students. Outlines by British writers of various schools are for the most part too meagre, and in some instances their usefulness is impaired by want of proportion in the treatment of the several doc trines of the system. The attempt has been made in the present work to give a systematic presentation in methodical order of all the leading doctrines of the Christian faith. The standpoint is that of a moderate Calvinism. The history of dogmas has been introduced only in so far as is necessary for the clear and intelligible statement of the positive doctrine. In like manner, no attempt has been made to develop in detail the biblical element, except in so far as this is needed to supply the foundation for the dogmas accepted and formu lated by the Church. Special attention has been given to the preparation of the lists of literature placed at the head of the several sections: Only such treatises are mentioned as have been found distinctly helpful in the discussion of the particular subject of the section, and references are made to comprehensive and general works on dogmatics only when the treatment in them of the subject dealt with is more or less remarkable for fulness or suggestiveness. In regard to the history of dogmatics in the Introduc tion, objection may be taken to omissions, as well as to some of the names that have been included. It is hoped, however, that the student may find the sketch interesting and instruct ive, and that it may prove useful as an introduction to the systematic study of Christian doctrine. JOHN" MACPHERSON. Free Church Manse, Findhorn, May 1898. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. SEC. PAGE 1. Idea and Contents of Christian Dogmatics 1 2. Religion ....... 9 3. Revelation ....... 18 4. Holy Scripture ....... 24 5. Oecumenical Symbols ...... 29 6. The Christian Consciousness . . . . 35 7. Dogmatics and other Theological Sciences 37 8. Distribution of Several Dogmas .... 41 9. History of Dogmatics ... . . 43 I.— DOCTRINE OF GOD AND THE WORLD. 10. Introductory and General 11. Christian Idea of God . 12. Knowledge of God 13. The Proofs of God's Existence . 14. Nature of God as Absolute Spirit 15. The Divine Personality 16. The Unity of God 17. Attributes of God — Arrangement 18. Attributes Manifested in Nature 19. Attributes Manifested in Moral World 20. Attributes in Kingdom of Grace 21. The Divine Hypostases 22. Old Testament Intimations 23. New Testament Doctrine of Father, Son, and 24. Ecclesiastical Development of Trinity ¦ 25. Later Theories of Trinity Spirit 9798 101 104110113119 123 126 133 137 139 140 144 148157 CONTENTS. VI 1 26. Positive Christian Doctrine of Trinity , 27. God as Creator of the World . 28. God as Upholder of the World . PAGE 160163 174 II.— DOCTRINE OF MAN AND SIN. 29. Introductory and General 30. Man's Place in Nature . 31. Constitution of Man's Nature . 32. Man's Original Condition 33. Angels . 34. Evil Angels 35. Temptation and Fall of Man . 36. Immediate Consequences of First Sin 37. Consequences to the Race 38. The Nature of Sin III.— THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION. 39. Introductory and General 40. Divine Purpose of Redemption 41. Incarnation as Essential to Redemption 42. Preparation for Redemption in Heathenism 43. Preparation for Redemption in Old Testament 44. New Testament Doctrine of Incarnation 45. Development of Consciousness of Jesus 46. Sinlessness of Jesus 47. Pre-Existence of Son of God 48. Divine Nature of Christ 49. Human Nature of Christ 50. Divine-Human Personality 51. Doctrine of the Two States 52. State of Humiliation . 53. State of Exaltation 54. Transition from Person to Work of Christ 55. Need and Idea of Atonement . 56. Old Testament Foreshadowings of Atonement 57. New Testament Doctrine of Atonement 58. Theories of Atonement . 59. Propitiation and Substitution , Vlll CONTENTS. 60. Forgiveness of Sins 61. The Sufferings of Christ 62. The Extent of the Atonement PAGE 350 354362 IV.— APPLICATION OF REDEMPTION. 63. Introductory and General • 367 64. The Spirit applying Redemption . 371 65. What the Spirit Reveals to Us . • 376 66. Our Calling of God 377 67. Our Justification before God . 379 68. Our Filial Relation to God . 385 69. What the Spirit works in Us . . 387 70. Faith .... . 388 71. Repentance . 393 72. Regeneration . 397 73. Unio Mystica . . 402 74. Sanctification . . 404 V.— THE MEANS OF GRACE. 75. Introductory and General .... . 408 76. The Christian Community . 410 77. Idea and Organisation of the Church . . 414 78. Church Discipline .... . 419 79. The Word ..... . 422 80. Sacraments in General .... . 427 81. Baptism .... . 431 82. The Lord's Supper .... . 436 83. Prayer ...... . 441 VI.— THE LAST THINGS. 84. Introductory and General .... . 444 85. Second Coming of Christ .... . 446 86. Resurrection ... . . 449 87. Last Judgment ..... . 454 88. Eternal States .... . 456 CHRISTIAN DOGMATICS. INTRODUCTION. § 1. The Idea and Contents of Christian Dogmatics. Literature. — Garbett, The Dogmatic Faith, London, 1868, pp. 13-26, 263-269. Warfield, The Right of Systematic Theology, Edin. 1897 (defines carefully the meaning and place of dogma). Sabatier, De la vie intime des dogmes et de leur puissance d'evolution, Paris, 1889 ; in German, by Schwalb, Die christi. Dogmen, ihr Wesen und ihre Entwicklung, Leipzig, 1890 (singularly clear and interesting account of nature and develop ment of dogma). See also Sabatier, Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion, London, 1897, bk. iii., "Dogma," pp. 229-343, where the evolutionary treatment of dogmas is carried to the utmost extreme. Bothe, Zur Dogmatik, 2nd ed., Gotha, 1869, 1st art.: "Begriff der evang. Dogmatik," especially pp. 1-18. Kostlin, in Herzog, Real-JEncyclop.2 iii. 640-656. Similar art. by Jul. Miiller in Herzog,1 iii. Kaftan, Truth of the Christian . Religion, 2 vols., Edin. 1893, i. 27-120 : " The Origin of Dogma." Bohl, Dogmatik, Amst. 1887, pp. xiii— xxiii: "Ueber den Begriff des Wortes Dogmatik." Kaftan, Glauhe u. Dogma, Betracht- ungen iiber Dreyer's Undogmatisches Christenthum, 3rd ed. 1869. Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, Edin. 1866, pp. 57-71 : " Dogmatics and the Christian Idea of Truth." Christian Dogmatics is the science of the Christian faith, in which the several dogmas are laid down, classified, and developed. The Christian faith is " the faith which was once delivered 2 INTRODUCTION. [§ 1 unto the saints" (Jude 3). It is the sum total of those beliefs, acceptance of which is implied in the appropriation of Christ and his salvation by the individual as an individual and as a member of the community of believers. This Christian faith is thus primarily the fides quce creditur, but it is immediately dependent upon the fides qua creditur for giving to its contents their special character. The faith, which it is the task of Christian dogmatics to elaborate and expound, presupposes a personal exercise of faith in Christ. Without faith, in the subjective sense of personal believing in Jesus Christ, we can have no theology. The treatment of Christian doctrine proceeds from the standpoint of faith. The dog matist is a believer, and he addresses himself to believers. Faith, as a human faculty co-ordinated with knowledge, an endowment of the spiritual nature of man, is a presupposition of the idea of religion, even in its most elementary form, and as such demands careful treatment in the prolegomena to dogmatics. The Christian faith, however, is not coextensive with the province to which this faculty of belief is operative. In all the sciences, and not in religion only, we are required in many things to exercise faith rather than knowledge.1 The Christian faith, therefore, is not the sum total of beliefs, as contrasted with the facts that have been observed and the truths that have been demonstrated, but only the sum total of beliefs within the radius of Christianity as a revealed religion. Beligion and revelation, therefore, are to be treated, not as prolegomena, or as constituting a special department, a fundamental science, or forecourt of dogmatics, but as properly among the sources from which the sub stance and contents of dogmatics are derived. We do not deal here with any system of Christian certainties, as, from somewhat varying standpoints, is proposed by Beck,2 1 See paper entitled, " Gedanken fiber Glauben und Wissen," in Jul. Miiller, Dogmatisehe Abhandlungen, Bremen, 1870, pp. 1-42. 2 Einleitung in das System der christlichen Lekre, oder Propaedeutische Entwickelung der christlichen Lehrwissensehaft (1st ed. 1838), 2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1870, pp. 1-43. § l] THE IDEA AND CONTENTS OF CHRISTIAN DOGMATICS. 3 Erank,1 and Dorner.2 Instead of prefacing the whole, as they would do, with a doctrine of faith, or an exhibition of the posi tions reached by faith, it is better, after the manner of Bieder- mann,3 to co-ordinate faith with revelation, and introduce it as a subsection under the general heading of religion. Eaith, as thus understood, the act of appropriating the spiritual truths revealed by God in the person of Christ, so as to convert it into the very substance of the religious life of the believers pro duces that Christian faith of which Christian dogmatics treats. Each separate item in this Christian faith is a Christian dogma. In the New Testament the word is used of. decrees of rulers (Luke ii. 1; Acts xvii. 7; Heb. xi. 23), of- the Mosaic ordinances (Eph. ii. 15; Col. ii. 1 4), and of apostolic enactments (Acts xvi. 4). The verbal form of the same word is used of the decisions of the elders (Acts xv. 22, 25, 28). According to its classical and patristic use, the term indicates tenets or precepts of teachers and schools (Cicero, Acad. ii. 9 ; Seneca, Epist, xcv. 10, etc. ; Ignatius, Magnes, 13; Barnabas, Epist. 1). In theology, dogmas are the doctrinal positions to which the Church has given authoritative sanction,.'.- They are thus distinguished from the opinions of individual theo logians, or loose popular statements of " religious truths. Dogmas are formed or have expression given them only during the creative periods of the history of the • Church. But even then there is no creation of new dogmas, but only elaboration or development of- some particular portion dr aspect of that faith . which, as a whole never to be added to, was once for all delivered to the saints. .' The Church never proposes to break with the past, or make a new departure by 1 System of Christian Certainty, Edin. 1886, being the' translation of the first half of System der christlichen Gewissheit (1st ed., 2 vols., Erlangen, 1870 ; 2nd ed. 1884). s System of Christian Doctrine, Edin. (1st ed. 1880-1882), 2nd>ed. 1888- 1889, 4 vols. (orig. Berlin, 2 vols., 1879-1880, 2nd ed. 1886) ; see vol. i. pp. 33-168, "The Doctrine of Faith aS the Postulate in the Cognition of Chris tianity as Truth or Pisteology. " s Christliche Dogmatik, Berlin, 1869, 2 vols., 2nd ed. 1884-1885, §§ 118-137, vol. i. pp. 288-306. ,...'.¦:¦ ¦•=--.' 4 INTRODUCTION. [§ 1 originating any new dogmas. It can only discuss, criticise, and explain dogmas that have been already determined and are handed down.1 We shall require afterwards carefully to consider the question, whether dogmatics is a purely historical science, and in doing so we shall have to determine more exactly how far dogma is to be defined as a statement made upon the authority of the Church. Here we need only note its early use in the twofold sense of decree and doctrine. As Hatch2 has shown, it meant originally the expression of a personal opinion or conviction (So/cei /ioi), and subse quently came ordinarily to designate the affirmation or dictum of a philosopher, the acceptance of which by any individual constituted him a member of the school of that philosophic teacher. As a statement retaining its place from generation to generation, it ceased to be regarded as a mere personal conviction, seeing that it had become the common possession of a whole community ; and in this way it obtained the importance and value of a doctrinal position essential to the maintenance and validity of the entire system. Every Christian dogma rests upon the authority of a divine revelation in which God communicates the truth concerning Himself and spiritual things necessary for us to know that we may be saved, and impossible for us otherwise to learn. This revelation meets a need in us, and is possible only on the assumption that there exists a certain relation ship between God and man ; that there is something in man that needs God and yearns after Him. The recognition of the fact that God has some claims upon us, and that there is a longing of our soul which God alone can satisfy, is religion. Christianity claims to be the perfect religion, and Christ undertakes to reveal God and to bring us to Him. 1 The most thorough investigation of the meaning and significance of dogma is to be found in Rothe, Zur Dogmatik, 2nd ed., Gotha, 1869, pp. 2-18. See also Lipsius, Lehrbuch d. evang.-prot. Dogmatik, Brunswick, 1876, §6; Bieder- mann, Christliche Dogmatik, 1884, i. § 2, pp. 2-8 ; Van Dijk, Segrip en Methode der Dogmatiek, Utrecht, 1877, pp. 13, 14. 2 The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church (Hibbert Lectures for 1888), London, 1890, pp. 118-128. § l] THE IDEA AND CONTENTS OF CHRISTIAN DOGMATICS. 5 As the science of the Christian faith, dogmatics is a religious science, dealing with the truths of the Christian revelation, classifying and defining those dogmas which the Church has accepted as constituting the circle of saving Christian truth. Yet these truths are not to be regarded as so many " intellectual tenets," nor is dogmatics, as the science which sets those truths forth, to be defined as " the science of the objects of faith." It is the science of that faith itself. " The doctrine or dogma of the Church must consist of articles of faith. . . . The system of belief is the science of the Christian faith, i.e. its function is to exhibit that faith with the care and exactness distinctive of scientific work." 1 The earliest instance of the use of the term dogmatic, as applied to a scientific theological treatise, appears in the title of Petavius's (1583—1652) work, De theologicis dogmatibus (unfinished in 5 vols, fol.), Paris, 1644-1650. If we exclude this, for the reason that it is not properly a dogmatic work, but rather a treatise on the history of doctrines, we find the name first used in a comparatively obscure work, Synopsis theologice dogmatical, 1659, by Beinhart, of Altorf.2 The name, as designation of our science, first gained currency in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, in the Institutiones theologice dogmaticce of Buddeus (1667—1712), of Jena, pub lished in 1723. During the sixteenth century, and even in the earlier part of the following century, many of the great sys tematic writers, especially among the reformed, entitled their works, Loci theologici or Loci communes (Melanchthon, 1521 and 1543; Musculus, 1560; Peter Martyr, 1575; Steigel, 1582; Chemnitz, 1591; Maccovius, 1626; Chamier, 1653). Calvin gave to his great work the name, Institutio Christianas religionis, 1536 and 1559; the same title was used by Selneccer, 1563; and similarly, Francis Turretine entitles his elaborate treatise, Institutio theologice elencticm, 1679. In order to mark off the strictly systematic exposition of doctrine from what might more properly be styled polemical theology, 1 Kaftan, Truth of the Christian Religion, Edin. 1894, ii. 409 f. 2 See Nitzsch, Lehrbuch der evangelischen Dogmatik, Freiburg, 1892, § I. INTRODUCTION. [§i some introduced the terms "thetic" (Hollaz, 1707; revived by- Dorner, and used by him to designate the scientific presentation of Christianity as truth, the whole range of systematic theology, embracing dogmatics and ethics) and "positive" (Konig, 1664; Baier, 1686). Others, e.g. Dbder- lein and Tittmann, suggested the designation theoretic theology, in order to distinguish the science of Christian beliefs from that pf ethics or the Christian life. Dogmatic undoubtedly, as a term, might be quite appropriately applied to the whole system of truth, theoretical and practical, embracing doctrine and -ethics, but usage has confined it to the science of the Christian faith as accepted by the Church. Such a limita tion of application, according to established usage, is quite admissible, and, as thus understood, the term is the most convenient and suitable for our science. It is the designation most generally used by theologians of the present day. As science, dogmatics seeks to state in the most precise form- possible the several doctrines of the Christian faith. Special care must be taken, in the framing of definitions, to secure accuracy of statement, for only as the several dogmas are expressed in the most exact phraseology can error be avoided when the attempt is made to combine and arrange them into a fully developed and rightly balanced system. Dogmatics as a science must not only state, but also criticise, tb.e dogmas which it receives, so as to vindicate the particular statement of them which, is accepted. It must also endeavour to show the consistency existing between one and another of the several dogmas, and the fitness of these dogmas, as conclusions from the more elementary doctrines, and as foundations for those which emerge at a later point in the order of thought. This criticism of the dogma is, in many recent dogmatics, dealt with in a separate section under each division. Thus Biedermann has two distinct main divisions in his Dogmatik : i. the historical doctrine of the Faith, which he subdivides into — (1) the scripture doctrine, and (2) the church doctrine ; and ii. the rational, kernel of the Christian faith, in which he subjects to criticism the § l] THE IDEA AND CONTENTS OF CHRISTIAN DOGMATICS. 7" materials supplied . by scripture and church, and states the positive residuum.1 Dorner, under each doctrinal head, has - three sections : the biblical doctrine, the ecclesiastical doctrine, and the dogmatic investigation. Fr. Mtzsch, in his recent Dogmatik2 without following a regular schema of this sort, generally discusses the older church -doctrine, and then later theories, and finally gives the criticism and result. Somewhat similar, but with a philosophical discus sion prefixed, was the. method pursued by Hase and other more or less rationalistic and critical dogmatists. Such an arrangement seems, in point of method, open to very serious objections. It is really only the third division in such works that can be recognised as belonging to the province of dogmatics proper. But the critical part must have its scope and range very considerably extended, so as to include all that is essential to our science in the con clusions of the' biblical and ecclesiastical investigations. We cannot admit a separate section on the biblical doctrine, and then another on the church doctrine, for these subjects are relegated for separate treatment to the subordinate theological sciences of biblical theology, or it may even be biblical dogmatics (so Lutz, Biblische Dogmatik, Pforzheim, 1847*), 'and of history of dogmas, in which the development of the. biblical material into formulated and scientific statements of the truth is illustrated chronologically and in detail. The strictly scientific treatment of dogmatics, as a science which takes cognisance of both biblical and historical or ecclesias tical theology, but does not simply go over the ground again which these sciences have already covered, is best secured by a clear statement of the dogma from the standpoint of the dogmatist, this being illustrated and vindicated by references to its biblical and historical expression. 'This is practically the same as the view specially elaborated by Rothe, who makes dogmatics a historico-critical science. 2 In this very able and highly interesting work the historical treatment is carried to'such an extent that it seems much more a history of dogmas arranged under dogmatic sections than a systematic and scientific treatise on doctrine: 8. INTRODUCTION. [§ 1 It is an important part of the task of dogmatics to determine what is the central dogma which will supply the principle for the classification of all the dogmas. This has often been done in such a way as to give the appearance of a foregone conclusion to the distribution and elaboration of the whole system. This is particularly noticeable in regard to all attempts to make one or other of the persons of the Trinity the special principle for determining the arrangement of the system. If the Dogmatic be theological, or christo- logical, or pneumatological, in each case some important dogmas find no proper place, and where they are brought in in a forced and unnatural way they can get no adequate or fairly proportioned treatment. The same also is true of the idea of the Kingdom of God (a favourite scheme with various modern theologians occupying very different standpoints, Oosterzee, Bitschl, Candlish), which does not yield a principle wide enough or sufficiently comprehensive to include all the doctrines.1 The central idea of the Christian system surely is that of redemption. If we accept this position we do not require to twist or alter in any way the place or proportion of any of the Christian dogmas, which may still be treated in the order in which they naturally occur in the ordinary local arrangement, only recognising that from first to last God and man are to be thought of, the one as redeeming or offering redemption, the other as redeemed or in need of redemption. When we entitle our science Christian dog matics, we do not claim a christological distribution of its dogmas, but we do require a central place and all-pervading influence for the doctrine of redemption. The ideas with which dogmatics deal belong exclusively to the domain of religion. It will be necessary, therefore, in the introduction to dogmatics, to indicate distinctly what religion is, and what, according to its essence, it necessarily involves ; and then, to discuss the special characteristics belonging to the Christian religion as not only a revealed religion, but a 1 See a well-considered criticism in Orr, diristian View of God and the World as centring in the Incarnation, Edin. 1893, pp. 401-405. § 2] RELIGION. 9 religion which has its revelation in Christ. We have therefore here to treat in order of religion and the Christian revelation. § 2. Eeligion. Literature. — The best treatment by an English writer of the idea of religion will be found in Principal Caird's Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, Glasgow, 1880, especially chap. vi. : " The Beligious Consciousness," pp. 160-186. The subject is also very satisfactorily and comprehensively treated in Babiger, Theological Encyclopaedia, Edin. 1885, vol. ii. pp. 310- 315 ; Sabatier, Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion based on Psychology and History, London, 1897, pp. 3-31 ; Nitzsch, Lehrbuch der evangelischen Dogmatik, Freiburg, 1892, §§ 8-18, pp. 46-116, especially pp. 83-116: "The Bight View of the Origin and Nature of Eeligion." Pfieiderer, The Philosophy of Religion as the Basis of its History, 4 vols., London, 1886-1888, especially vols. iii. and iv. : " Genetic-Speculative Philosophy of Eeligion " ; Religion, ihr Wesen und ihr Geschichte, Leipzig, 1869. Martineau, A Study of Religion, its Sources and Con tents, 2 vols., Oxf. 1888, especially the earlier pages, giving a definition and defence of religion. Max Miiller, Introduction to the Science of Religion, London, 1870 ; his Hibbert Lectures of 1878, and his Gifford Lectures of 1888 on "Natural Eeligion," are much less satisfactory, as they endeavour to derive religion from purely empirical data. An admirable popular statement of the nature and contents of religion will be found in Liddon, Some Elements of Religion, London, 1872, Lect. I. : "The Idea of Eeligion." The works of Tiele and de la Saussaye are historical and comparative. So also the very serviceable and convenient handbook of Prof. Menzies, History of Religion, London, 1895. The larger systematic works which treat most fully in the introduction of religion, besides Nitzsch, named above, are: Biedermann, Christliche Dogmatik, i. pp. 174-327; Lipsius, Lehrbuch der evang. -protest. Dogmatik, pp. 18-107. Eeligion consists in the fact of a real relationship subsist ing between God and man. The organ of religion is no special faculty in man, but man himself. As personal being, man is conscious of relationship with a power higher than himself. Man as man, not merely as an emotional or intellectual 1.0 introduction. [§ 2 being, but in the whole aggregate of his faculties, is a religious being. As such he makes acknowledgment, more or less clear, of this relationship subsisting between himself and God, and also seeks to conform his life to such a pattern as his idea of this relationship commends to him as fitting and right Eeligion demands from men, with respect to God, knowledge, love, service, the willing surrender of mind, heart, and will to Him who is at once Lawgiver and Friend. Morality is distinctly and necessarily religious. The regulation of the life is determined by the idea entertained of God and of the obligations which man's relationship with God imposes. Eeligion is both creed and conduct, a mode of life because it is the faith of the heart. Eeligion has thus a sub jective and an objective side. From the objective side, the word may be used to describe an external corporate life, to which one may belong in a purely external way. When we speak of different religions, we are thinking of such visible organisations as owe their existence to the adoption of some special view of the being and character of God, and of the relationship subsisting between Him and mankind. The idea of religion implies the existence of God, and involves the general idea of His goodness and of His interest in and care for the good. But it does not require, nor indeed does it leave room for, the exhibition of the so-called proofs for the existence of God. These could have place here only if they were strictly logical demonstrations. Being such as they are, they may be dealt with in a philo sophy of religion, as illustrating the necessity of religion by showing the impossibility of man's thoughts and reflections stopping short of the Infinite and Absolute as personal and real being ; and again, in this dogmatic system, in connection ' with the discussion of the Christian idea of God, as showing what in man demands and finds in God these qualities which constitute the substance and contents of that idea. The question' of the origin' from which this conviction § ?] religion. 1 1 of religion is derived has given occasion to many and very diverse theories. Naturalism traces it back to mere illusion, springing either from a defect or infirmity in the constitution of men, or from the arts of deceivers, the cunning of priests and others interested in the development of such superstitions. Critias, sophist and man of the world, declared that belief in the gods was the cunning invention of a wise statesman who, by thus wrapping up truth in falsehood, sought to secure on the part of the citizens a more ready and perfect obedience. Euhemeros of Messene represented the worship of the gods as arising out of the respect and veneration shown to the most distinguished men of the earliest ages, and this same theory is still maintained by Spencer and others, who seek the be ginning and primitive form of religion in ancestor-worship. Lucian, again, considers the gods to be the prototypes of human faults and follies, and regards the worship of them as resulting from the ignorance of the superstitious, who allow the absurd and grotesque creations of the imagination to be surrounded by a halo of supernatural glory and sentimental romance, or from the. cowardice of those who fear to encounter the odium and ill-will which would certainly fall upon any who might venture to dispute the generally prevailing belief in the gods. Now all such naturalistic explanations are evidently no explanations, but involve the practical denial of all religion. The real question in which we are interested here is one that has to do with the nature and true basis of faith. Theories of religion are to be distinguished according as they make faith rest primarily on spiritual truth appre hended by the intellect, or on the inward spiritual intuition. or consciousness of God appealing to feeling and experi ence. The idea of God as relating Himself in some way to the world and man, and as consequently to be feared and worshipped, is not one acquired by education or by any communication from without. In its simplest and most elementary form it is a survival of man's original spiritual endowment. Our word religion is simply the Latin word religio, 12 introduction. [§ 2 derived from relegere,1 and means a careful reconsideration, a brooding over, a giving of the mind and all our faculties to the study of what seems to call for respectful and reverential in quiry. As thus understood, it is practically synonymous with the Greek word evaeBeia, used throughout the New Testament for a reverential fear of God. In contrast with this, we have the word Opincncela used (Acts xxvi. 5 ; Col. ii. 18 ; Jas. i. 26, 27) to describe religion in its outward aspect as a form of worship, in which it may be distinguished from other forms of worship.2 The latter word may be used in a thoroughly good sense as indicating a form of religion and worship quite in accordance with the inward reality, but it calls attention only to the outward organisation or profession. The use of evo-eBeia, on the contrary, is confined to the conception of religion as indicating a real personal relationship of the individual with God, or of a community only as made up of individuals who are in this true sense religious. A com munity may be dpfjo-icos because of its professed adherence to certain forms of worship, but a community can be eiiae3r]<; only as made up of pious and godly individuals. In the New Testa ment the adjective is well rendered in our English version by " devout," " godly," and the substantive by " godliness." This gives the essential and prop'er idea of religion, which is primarily a purely personal relation of the individual soul to God. The fundamental difference between the views taken of religion by those, on the one hand, who were trained under 1 So Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, ii. 28 : " Qui omnia quae ad cultum deornm pertinerent, diligenter retractarent, et tanquam relegerent, sunt dicti religiosi." The derivation from religare by Lactantius, Institt. Div. iv. 28: "Hoc vinculo pietatis restrioti respecti deo et religati sumus, unde religio nomen accepit," is discredited by the fact that religens, which cannot be from religare, is used in. the sense of ' ' pious, revering the gods. " With relegere may be compared ev\Af)cia (Heb. v. 7, xii. 28), ebXaffis (Luke ii. 25 ; Acts ii. 5, viii. 2), which, from mean ing generally a careful handling of any thing, passed over to mean a careful, reverential treatment of divine things. See Trench, Synonyms of the JV.2*; §§x., xlvii., ed. 10, London, 1886, pp. 36, 173. 2 Hatch, Essays in biblical Greek, Oxford, 1889, pp. 55-57. Also Trench, Synonyms of the N.T. pp. 175 ff. " e^oTcefa ( = cultus, or rather, cnltus exterior) is predominantly the ceremonial service of religion." § 2] RELIGION. 13 biblical, and those, on the other, who were trained under pagan, influences, is very noticeable.1 It is brought out in a particularly striking way by a comparison of reasons assigned for their conduct by those, in the early centuries and in the sixteenth century respectively, who persecuted all who refused to worship as they themselves did. Among ancient pagans it was regarded as the duty of the State to enforce observance of religious rites and worship after the manner of their fathers ; and so every departure from the old faith was a public offence punishable by law. In the Beformation age, and in preceding Christian centuries, religion was indeed understood to be a matter of conscience and of personal deal ing between the soul and God ; and it was just the tenacity of personal conviction about religious beliefs that was made the plea for stopping short of nothing that would induce or constrain others to adopt the same faith. The Christian idea of religion is that it pertains to the conscience, and that it can have meaning only as a personal act and a conviction seated in the depths of man's moral being. Man as man is religious, and not merely in consequence of certain circumstances and surroundings. Eeligion is essen tial to man's personal existence. Without it man would not be the spiritual being that he is, for he would not have any sphere in which to exercise his spiritual faculties. His rank, as Eothe puts it (Ethik, § 117, vol. i. p. 466), depends upon the fact of his having religion. Apart from religion we could not vindicate for man any position essentially different from that of the mere animal. The fact that man exists as a per sonal creature necessarily involves the idea and reality of religion. The fact of the necessity of religion as resting upon the simple fact of man's existence is interestingly enforced by Eothe in a note (Ethik, § 117, Anm. 5, vol. i.-p. 466), where he adduces the opinions of Jacobi, Goethe, Novalis, Baader, Trendelenburg, Weisse, and quotes very striking sayings from each of these thinkers, declaring that religion, in the sense of 1 See this distinction characterised with admirable clearness and point in Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages in the Christian Church, 1890, p. 21, 14 INTRODUCTION. [§ 2 the apprehension of something above to which he is personally related, is essential to all thinking and rational being. It is not enough to say that man is capable of religion, or even that without religion he cannot realise the highest ends of his being. Eeligion is essential to his very being. It is on the basis of his religious nature and its development that he, as distinguished from the mere animals, has a history.1 Eeligion, as the recognition of the relationship subsisting between God and man, implies on the part of man the willing surrender of self to God. . Schleiermacher's definition of religion as the feeling of absolute dependence is objectionable, not on the ground of the absoluteness of the dependence postulated, but simply on account of the one-sided reference to feeling, without emphasising the essential part played by intellect and will.2 The, confession of man's absolute depend ence upon God is essential to the very idea of religion. Any revolt against this is irreligious. But it must be remembered that the religious man makes this surrender of his free will He knows himself dependent because he is conscious of having made this surrender of himself to God. This only, as dis tinguished from the unintelligent, unrefleetive, unreciprocal dependence of the natural man, is the dependence of man upon God which constitutes the substance of religion. In the natural man this consciousness of dependence is present ; font, owing to a defect of knowledge and of will acting recipro cally on one another, so that ignorance perverts the will, and a perverted will intensifies the ignorance, this consciousness 1 Delff, Grundziige der Entwicklungsgeschichte der Religion, Leipzig, 1883, p. 13. 2 As Miiller says (Christian Doctrine of Sin, from 5th Germ. ed. of 1867 Edin. 1868, vol. i. p. 175) : "The fault of Schleiermacher's definition is, that it regards this dependence, which, when viewed side by side with human freedom is a most profound and suggestive truth, as something immediate and uncondi tional, and fixed as if by some necessity of nature. Religion is an act of self- surrender to God, hut the true consciousness of this entire dependence proceeds in the first instance from this act of surrender." As to the importance of Schleiermacher's protest against the aridness of earlier rationalism and super- naturalism, see Dorner, History of Protestant Theology, Edin. 1871 vol. ii p..376ff. § 2] RELIGION. 15 fails adequately to express itself. This adequacy of expres sion is possible only for the man who knows the Absolute as the being on whom he is dependent, for only that one being who is the Absolute can awaken in and claim from a personal being a confession of absolute dependence. Hence no religion, in the sense of outward worship or cultus, that does not recog nise God as the Absolute can offer to its votaries any religious sanction for its claims and ordinances. Dependence that is not absolute is not religious, and such dependence can be. given only to Him who is the Absolute. Properly speaking, therefore, religion can only be theistic, and theism can only be monotheism. The religious consciousness of the natural man cannot be taken as the basis of any theological development, nor can it be regarded as the sphere within which, and according to the laws of which, Christian dogmatics can take its rise or be constructed. Man as he now is starts with a sadly impaired religious consciousness. It is not merely, as Butler would have it (Analogy of Religion, pt. i. chap, v.), that the spiritual part of man is overlaid by the rebellion and violence of those sensuous impulses and affections which should have been subject to it, but that this spiritual nature in man has itself become depraved. It is only on the hypothesis of a weaken ing and derangement of man's religious consciousness that we can conceive of those lower impulses ever succeeding in attaining ascendency over it.1 When this is kept in view it will be easy to understand the close connection between belief and life as two sides of the one fact, the two essential elements in religion. Belief and conduct, where both are honest and real, must correspond. It should, however, be remembered that it is the religious faith which forms the basis of the religious life. The popular cry that religion is a life, not a set of doctrinal beliefs, is shallow and inconsiderate. It does not even present the right issue in any possible con flict. Theology never proposed to define religion as the acceptance of a set of doctrines ; but it has affirmed, and does 1 See Miiller, Christian Doctrine of Sin, ii. pp. 282-286. 16 INTRODUCTION. [§ 2 affirm, that the acceptance, of certain beliefs regarding God and man, and the relation between God and man, are the first evidences of a religious consciousness out of which a religious life must be developed. To say that religion is a life is even more seriously false, or irreparably defective, than to say that religion is a faith. If the term faith is rightly understood, it already contains the life in germ. Eeligion is a faith which has its living centre in heartfelt convictions concerning spiritual truth, and its manifestations in works and ways to which these give birth. We speak not only of religion but also of religions ; yet in the treatment of these it is the idea of religion that is sought after. The theory of religion, which provides a sphere for the development of doctrinal belief, interests itself in the ethnic religions only with a view to discover what of the idea of religion they severally contain. The theologian is not interested in the many gods of heathenism but in the divine ideas, the thoughts and views of God which make any national faith a religion in spite of polytheistic superstition and delusion. The history of religions is valuable as a pro paedeutic to dogmatics, as yielding a sufficient basis for a deduction as to the general idea of religion common to all ages and races.1 This common element in all religions is the recognition of a relation between men and God, before we have any idea of God beyond that of existence as a super human being in some way related to humanity. The so-called proofs for the being of God are discussed by Dr. Caird in his Philosophy of Religion. This is quite a proper position for the discussion, especially for the philoso phical investigation as to their force and significance. Similarly, they are discussed and criticised by Kant in his Critique of the Pure Reason. The occasion of the introduction of the 1 This common element of all religions is what may rightly be styled natural religion. See able defence of the division of religion into natural and revealed by Flint in his Theism, 2nd ed., Edin. 1878, note 1, pp. 326-329 : "Natural religion is the foundation of all theology, as the law of nature is the foundation of all ethical and political science." § 2] RELIGION. 17 subject in such a connection is to determine whether psycho logically it may not be found impossible to avoid concluding the existence of an infinite and eternal being. What we have got to deal with here is not the psychological investigation which leads up to the idea of religion, but simply the theory of religion which considers that idea as a fact in history. Now, this idea which we here accept as a fact already assumes the divine existence, and so we are not at this stage concerned with its proof. In many dogmatical works these proofs are discussed in the introduction under the section on religion. Biedermann quite rightly says that these proofs are not as such matters belonging to the religious consciousness itself, but rather constitute the logical demonstration of the way in which the religious consciousness as rational raises itself to God. And therefore, as he also perceives, their discussion belongs to the philosophy of religion (which he wrongly introduces into the introduction to dogmatics), and their critical estimation to the section in dogmatics on the doctrine of God.1 Nitzsch has shown in an admirable manner that proofs of the existence of God, had these been possible, would have been the task, not of dogmatics but of metaphysics, and that in dogmatics, for what they really are, not proofs but explanations or illustrations of a presupposed fact, their place is in immediate connection with the idea and knowledge of God.2 One of the most widespread and long - insisted - upon theories of the origin of religion is that of a- primitive revela tion handed down through all the ages by tradition. Principal Fairbairn 3 has well shown the thoroughly irreligious character of this theory. If man is supposed to have had no notion of religion until it was communicated to him from without, then we must admit that his original consciousness was practically 1 Biedermann, Chrislliche Dogmatik, Berl. 1884, vol. i. 244-253 ; ii. 470-472. See also Kahnis, System der Lutherischen Dogmatik, Leipzig, 1868, pp. 31-35. ' 2 Nitzsch, Lehrbuch der evangelischen Dogmatik, § 14, pp. 345-351. 3 Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History, London, 1876, p. 14. See also Flint, Theism, pp. 18-29. 18 INTRODUCTION. [§ 3 atheistic. The revelation could not be understood unless there was already present in him to whom it came a faculty capable of receiving and appreciating its communication. The very idea of revelation, therefore/presupposes the existence of a religious consciousness in man. All tradition represents at least an element of primitive revelation, of which it is a more or less accurate, report. But just as education undoubtedly involves the communication of something that has been to some extent handed down from primitive times, yet, as its very name implies, presupposes a faculty that is addressed and appealed to, so also an outward revelation may communicate positive, religious truth to man, which can be handed down from age to age; but only on the assumption that man has a religious nature which comes out to meet and respond to this revelation. The very idea of religion implies not only the existence of God, but also the fact of a real relation between him and man, which is nothing else than the postulating of a communication between God and man ; and this, as it must necessarily be from God to man, must also of necessity be a communication from God about Himself. Thus the idea of religion involves and necessarily leads up to the idea of revelation. And this idea of religion is, as we have seen, an essential and vital part of man's nature. Behind the primitive revelation there is the original endowment. § 3. Eevelation. Literature. — Harris, The Self - Revelation of God, New York, 1887. Caird, Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, Glasgow, 1880, pp. 64-79. Fisher, The Nature and Method of Revelation, London, 1890. Sabatier, Outlines of Philosophy of Religion, Lond. 1897, pp. 32-66. Ewald, Revelation, its Nature and Record, Edin. 1884 (1st vol. of Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, 4 vols., Leipzig, 1871-1876). Martineau, The Seat of Authority in Religion, Lond. 1890. Stanton, The Place of Authority in Matters of Religious Belief, Lond. 1892, pp. 28-69. Bruce, The Chief End of Revelation, Lond. 1881. i Pfieiderer, The Philosophy of Religion on the Basis of its History 4 vols., Lond. 1886-1888, vol. iv. pp. 46-94. Orr, The § 3] REVELATION. 1 9 Christian View of God and the World as centring in the Incarnation, Edin. 1893, pp. 75-80, 460-465. In the larger systematic treatises special attention should be given to the paragraphs on revelation in the following : Nitzsch, Lehrbuch der evang. Dogmatik,^. 124-211; Biedermann, Chr. Dogmatik, i. 264-288 ; Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, Edin. 1866, pp. 12-14. The God whose existence religion postulates is a God who relates Himself to man, who speaks to that part of man's being which is capable of receiving and understanding the communication which He makes. A God that cannot or will not speak to man is not the object of man's religious thought and feeling, nor is He such as can exercise authority and influence over man's will. In the idea and fact of religion, therefore, revelation as the operation of God is the necessary correlate of faith as the spiritual act of man. The distinction sought to be made between natural and super natural revelation is more correctly described by the terms mediate and immediate. What we have to do with is a spiritual revelation, a revelation of spiritual things that is made to the spiritual part of our nature. God's revelation to man is made through those original faculties of man fitted to receive it. Each advance in religious development of the rational spiritual being is an utterance of God's voice heard and appropriated. The amount and clearness of this general revelation evidently depends upon the measure of wholeness in which the religious faculty in man continues to exist. When mankind generally, by reason of the derangement and deterioration of the religious or spiritual part of their nature, ceased to be capable of adequately responding to the voice of the Divine Eevealer, God chose out special channels for His revelation. In early times special revelations were made to individuals chosen, we may suppose, for their peculiar fitness for receiving and then imparting to their fellows the truth which God desired to have communicated, or, at least, emphasised. At a later period in the history of the race, a particular nation was chosen, and Israel became the special 20 INTRODUCTION. [§ 8" vehicle of the divine revelations to man. Within this favoured nation prophets and priests were the divinely appointed organs for communication, whether this came in the form of reminders or of new developments and dis coveries. But everything pointed on, and was evidently intended to point on, to the consummation of God's revela tions in the person of one who would be in himself, and not in the' words given him to speak, an absolutely perfect and adequate revelation of God to man. This was realised his torically when God showed Himself to man in Jesus Christ. Eevelation is essentially and necessarily supernatural, in the sense of its being a spiritual communication to the spiritual part of man. It is not concerned with the communication of natural knowledge, and hence allusions to the phenomena of nature that are to be found alongside of the revelation are to be distinguished from it. In the biblical story of creation, for example, we can distinguish the details of nature's processes from the special revelation of the fact that God is the author and upholder of all things.1 Eevelation is not concerned with facts of science, nor yet with philosophical niceties of a metaphysical or psychological kind, but only with facts that directly bear upon the 'question of the relation- between God and man. It is primarily a statement of that relation, and secondarily a discovery of God's nature and of man's nature, in so far as. the knowledge of these is necessary for the right understanding of . the character of the relation subsistino- between them. Eevelation is thus the bringing of the objective facts to bear upon the subjective states of man's spiritual being in such a way as to give birth to religion. Hence we say that faith in man and revelation from God are the correlates of one another, which, operating together, find expression in religion. 1 See Baden-Powell, The Order of Nature considered in reference to the Claims of Revelation, London, 1859 ; Temple, The Relations between Science and Religion, London, 1884 ; Calderwood, The Relations of Science and Religion, Lohdon, 1881. Also generally, Bruce, Tlie Chief End of Reflation, London 1881. § 3] REVELATION. 21 Among many of the ablest recent speculative theologians revelation has been understood as indicating merely the divine side of that which in man is simply the natural development of his spiritual powers.1 The distinction made by these theologians, e.g. by Lipsius (Lehrbuch, § 56), between mediate and immediate revelation is very much the same as that ordinarily intended by the use of the terms natural and supernatural. Mediate revelation is that which comes to us through nature and history ; immediate, that which speaks within man's own being of God and divine things. The mediate revelation depends for its validity upon the inner necessity of man's own spirit, which is constrained to recognise intimations of God in those outward things. The weakness and inadequacy of this theory he in the assumption which it makes that this distinction of natural and supernatural represents two aspects of every revelation. All revelation, according to Lipsius (Lehrbuch, § 67), is, in respect of form and contents, at once supernatural and natural, — supernatural, as an original and immediate determination of the human spirit by means of the operation of the Divine Spirit ¦ in him; natural, as an effectuating, accomplished always both psychologically and historically, of a state of consciousness in itself already embraced within the spiritual nature of man. This necessity resolves itself into a practically deistical theory of the relation of God to the world and man. Not withstanding certain statements by some of the school represented by Lipsius, the theory of revelation here laid down does not admit of any real living and personal communion between God and the human soul. No mere movement of the human spirit, even though set in motion by some influence or energy of the Divine Spirit, can be regarded as a revelation of God to man of the highest order. It is still a natural 1 So, for example, Biedermann, Chr. Dogmatik, 1884, i. 264-288 ; Lipsius, Lehrbuch der evang.-prot. Dogmatik, 1876, pp. 58-64; Pfieiderer, Grnndriss der christi. Glaubenslehre, 5th ed. 1893, pp. 17-22. See a luminous statement and acute criticism of this theory in Orr, The Christian View of God and the World, Edin. 1893, pp. 75-78. 22 INTRODUCTION. [§ 3 revelation in the sense of being mediate through nature, the only- peculiarity of its form being that it is not through external nature, but in and through man's own nature. It is still natural and mediate. We maintain, on the contrary, that there is an immediate revelation of God to man, in which he not merely sets man's spiritual powers in operation, but actually and directly communicates truth, which man's faculties can simply receive, but not work out from a mere divine stimulation. And we also maintain that this revelation is supernatural in respect of its immediateness, and in dis tinction from those mediate revelations through nature and history. The insufficiency of a mediate or so-called natural revelation, even when this is understood of human nature in its highest and most spiritual faculties, is clearly seen when the several modes of this kind of revelation are particularly examined.1 Reason cannot be the originating principle of any religious knowledge, but at most can only discover to us our need of that knowledge. It is properly cognisant of the special laws of our thinking, and criticises everything that is brought it in accordance with those laws of thought, which constitute its original and primary possession. In itself, and of itself, the reason can have no religion. It can only deal with a positive, revealed religion, by applying to its proposi tions the test of the laws of its own thinking, and classifying them according to the categories which those laws of thought supply. Then again, conscience is often called the voice of God in man. It is indeed one of the voices of God, but its sphere is the practical, and it speaks to us of what we must do. It is a principle of ethics rather than of dogmatics. Only indirectly, in so far as life and conduct reflect upon the creed, can it be regarded as influencing our intellectual convictions and spiritual beliefs. Nitzsch also points out that conscience is properly an inner moral tribunal, with authority 1 See a most admirable criticism of reason, conscience, and the inner light as respectively proposed as the principle of religion, in Nitzsch, Lehrbuch der evang. Dogmatik, §§ 32-34, pp. 168-179. § 3] REVELATION. 23 over the individual, not a universal and purely objective code of laws ; also, its sentences are not infallible and invariable, as the voice of God must be, but are in conflict with one another, according to the age, nationality, training, and circumstances generally of the individual in whom it utters itself ; and, most important of all, conscientiousness is often quite dissociated from any idea of God, and conscience is found active and operative in irreligious and godless men.1 The attempt to make either reason or conscience the principle of religion is distinctly naturalistic. ' But practically the same end is reached, namely, the denial of the necessity of a special revela tion where, from the side of mysticism, the Inner Light is put forward as supplying such a principle. This, of course, does not apply to those evangelical mystics and spiritualists who make much of the inner light alongside of a hearty recogni tion of the objective historical revelation. The truth in pietism is simply this, that the inner light must prepare the soul for seeing and appreciating the objective revelation in Christ, as set forth in the Scriptures. In their emphasising of the importance of this inner light that had been too generally overlooked, the pietists were apt to represent what was simply essential to the reception of the outward revela tion as essentially constituting that revelation. The subject and object in revelation, man who receives and God who gives and is that revelation, must not be con founded, otherwise we lose hold of all idea of personality, human and divine, and drift into a pantheism that is unbiblical and unchristian, and which ultimately will be found to be unethical. Guarding against any such confusion, we may express a great truth in the words of Sabatier : " Eeligion and nature, the voice divine and the voice of conscience, the subject and the object of revelation, penetrate each other and become one. The supreme revelation of God 1 A notable example of the un suitableness and insufficiency of conscience as the principle from which a system of Christian doctrine may be constructed is seen in Schenkel, Christi. Dogmatik vom Standpunkte des Gewissens aus dargestellt, 2 vols., 1858-1859. 24 INTRODUCTION. [§ 4 shines forth in the highest of all consciousnesses and the loveliest of human lives." 2 § 4. .Holy Scripture. Literature. — P. Ewald, Ueber das Verhaltnis der system- atischen Theologie zur Schriftwissenschaft, Erlangen, 1895. Eothe, Zur Dogmatik (1869), pp. 120-349 : "Heiliges Schrift." Dorner, System of Christian Doctrine, § 7, vol. i. pp. 90-108 : "The Certainty of "Historic Faith as Faith in the Scriptures." Van Dijk, Begrip en Methode der Dogmatiek, Utrecht, 1877, pp. 71-89 : " Toetssteen der Dogmatiek." Beck, Einleitung in das System der christlichen Lehre, Stuttg. 1870, pp. 197—255 : " Die Offenbarungskunde." Holtzmann, Kanon und Tradition, Leipzig, 1859. Goode, The Divine Rule of Faith and Practice (against Tractarianism), 2 vols., Lond. 1842. Hodge, Systematic Theology, Edin. 1873, i. 151-188: "The Protestant Eule of Faith." Dale, Protestantism: its Ultimate Principle, Lond. 1875, chap. ii. : " The Authority of Scripture." Stanton, The Place of Authority in Matters of Religious Belief, Lond. 1891, chap^ iii. : "The Authority of the Bible," pp. 70-99. Dorner, Das Princip unserer Kirche nach dem innern Verhalfnisse seiner zwei Seiten, Kiel, 1841 ; History of Protestant Theology, Edin. 1871, vol. i. pp. 245-258; System of Christian Doctrine, vol. i. pp. 168^-177. Julius Miiller, Dogmatische Abhandlungen, Bremen, 1870, ii. : " Betrachtungen iiber das Princip der evangelischen Kirche nach seiner formalen Seite" (1851), pp. 43-65. Biedermann, Christliche Dogmatik, Berlin, 1884, vol. I pp. 337-344. Lipsius, Lehrbuch d. evanq. Dogmatik, Brunsw. 1876, pp. 133-155: "Wort Gottes und heiliges Schrift." Eeligion and revelation indicate the particular sphere in which the contents of dogmatics must be sought, and Christ Himself is the great theme with which all facts and ideas, and the record of such facts and ideas, that are of interest and importance to dogmatics, must concern themselves. But religion, revelation, and even Christ Himself, the highest form of revelation, are the sources of religious faith generally, rather than of Christian dogmatics. What we inquire after 1 Sabatier, Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion, London, 1897, p. 42. § 4] HOLY SCRIPTURE. 25 here are the sources from which the dogmatist directly draws for the execution of his own peculiar task of giving scientific and systematic expression to those beliefs concerning God and Christ in their relation to man which lie within the range of religion and revelation generally. In this definite and restricted sense of the term, we distinguish in order of importance and value as sources of dogmatics: i. Holy Scripture ; ii. the oecumenical symbols ; iii. the Christian consciousness. Holy Scripture is recognised by all schools as the fons primarius of Christian dogmatics. Discussions on inspiration and the canon belong partly to apologetics, and partly to the science of biblical introduction. Here the dogmatist must assume the results he has won in those preparatory dis ciplines, and must take as his chief source Scripture in that extent and form which he finds himself, in consequence of his previous studies, able to accept. Holy Scripture is not to be regarded as coextensive with the Word of God, which properly embraces all revelation in whatever way com municated ; but it contains the Word of God, and, as the Word of God written, it is the specially authenticated record of revelation for us. Within the volume of Scripture also distinctions are to be made between the different parts, as of relatively greater or less importance, according to the place they occupy in the historical revelation and the special end which they were originally intended to serve. That is of highest value for the construction of the Christian doctrines which most directly and fully sets Christ forth. Hence the New Testament is of more value in dogmatics than the Old. The latter can be used as a source only secondarily, in- so far as it illustrates and gives a foundation to what is set forth in the New Testament. On the same principle, certain books in the New Testament are of more importance dogmatically than others. The primary source of Christian dogmatics is Holy Scripture. From time to time protests have been made against this position in favour of the notion that Christ Him- 26 INTRODUCTION. [§ 4 self is the primary font of all Christian truth.1 It is well that the ultimate supremacy of Christ's authority should be distinctly stated and heartily recognised. We should strongly insist that Christ Himself, in His eternal living person, is the centre and norm of the Christian religion. He is indeed essentially the founder of Christianity, and not merely the discoverer or first teacher of Christian truth. But to main tain this is one thing, and to make the person of Christ, whether as exegetically recovered from the Scripture record or as intuitively conceived and represented to our own religious consciousness, the primary source of dogmatics is quite another thing. In regard to dogmatics, we cannot intelli gently speak of making the Person of Christ the norm and source, except by using the phrase to mean Christ's teaching, or more generally, His life. In the endeavour to get rid as much as possible of the dogmatic element of Scripture, the cry of a particular school has been : Back to the Christ of the Gospels, to the record of His own teaching, so far as that can be discovered from our canonical Gospels, unadulterated by the dogmatic elaborations of the apostles. The objection to this that at once suggests itself is that Christ was not in a position to state the full truth of His own doctrine, seeing that His last sufferings, and death, and resurrection, con stituting so important a part of His doctrine, were still in the future. Materials all essential to an adequate statement of doctrine were wanting to Him which were available for those who followed. . At the same time, we should heartily admit that the doctrinal development of the apostles is valid only in so far as it stands the test of comparison with the teaching 1 Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, Lond. 1893, especially pp. 3-21, Introduction: "The Return to Christ," and pp. 186-188: "The Modern Return to the Historical Christ. " In his Die Norm des echten Christen- thums, Leipzig, 1893, Wendt endeavours to show that the real contents of the Christian religion must be determined by the standard of Christ's own teaching, while he is careful to show that even then Scripture as a whole has its own specific worth as a dogmatic source when compared with other Christian writings outside of the canon. This is more or less nearly the attitude of the Ritschlian school generally. § 4] HOLY SCRIPTURE. 27 and the life of Christ. They profess to draw all their materials from that source, and they ask for acceptance of the doctrine only on the plea that the source of it all is Christ, and that it is the .knowledge of Christ which they set forth. But then, we should observe that the adequate forthsetting of the doctrine of Christ, in such a form as to constitute the basis and authoritative source of dogmatic construction, is to be sought, not in the simple teaching of Christ, but in the apostolic doctrine in which that teaching is unfolded and adequately expressed. It has been maintained by Dorner (System of Christian Doctrine, i. 169) that, while neither faith nor the Scriptures, but only God in Christ and in the Holy Spirit, is the prin ciple of the existence of Christianity (principium essendi), faith is properly the principle of the knowledge of Christianity (principium cognoscendi), and that for dogmatic theology faith, with its contents appropriated from the Scriptures, constitutes the immediate material. On the contrary, we hold that not faith with Scripture as its contents, but the Scriptures, as the record of a divine revelation, which claim acceptance from man as a believer in God, who there reveals Himself, is the principle of knowledge and the source of dogmatic truth. The position of Frank,1 which Dorner condemns^ is much more in accordance with the true Protestant doctrine of Scripture, which makes Scripture the principium cognoscendi objectivum and then places the believing subject alongside, co-ordinated with Scripture, as the principium cognoscendi sub- jectivum, God Himself, as the principium essendi, binding these two together in ultimate unity. Christianity thus owes its existence to Christ, the revealer of God, but the knowledge of Christianity, as set forth in Christian dogmatics, is immediately dependent on Scripture, which is understood and received by the heart and mind of the believer. The distinction between Scripture and the Word of God does not invalidate the claim of Scripture to supremacy or 1 System der christlichen Wahrheit, 3rd ed. , Erlangen, ] 894, vol. i. pp. 82-99. 28 INTRODUCTION. [§ 4 uniqueness as the primary source and norm of Christian dogmatics. It is not the Word of God in the wide sense, co terminous with divine revelation, that constitutes the norm of dogmatics, but the Word of God written, as we have it in the canonical Scriptures. In the Scriptures we have a permanent record of the divine revelation in its highest form in Christ Jesus. God does not repeat the revelations of earlier times, but, since the record of those revelations was closed by the completion of the canon of Scripture, he makes use of the Holy Scriptures under the dispensation of the "¦Spirit. The authority of Scripture in the Church is that of an inspired doenment, transmitting to us in an adequate and authentic form 'the whole truth concerning God and man in their relation to- one another. Many dogmatists in their introductions, or in prolegoniena dealing with fundamental doctrine, discuss at length the idea of inspiration. This, as well as the question of the miraculous generaUy, can only be adequately treated in a separate science of apologetics, except in so far as it falls within the limits of the section on the work of the Holy Spirit iri the Church. It is only necessary here to say, that whatever theory of inspiration be adopted Scripture must have the plaee of primary source of dogmatics. In - order to secure this place, Scripture must indeed be inspired, but even when the freest criticism has been applied to the documents the doctrinal material remains practically unaffected. The dogmatist must go to work from his own critical standpoint, and in his dogmatics he must use Scripture as he, on critical grounds, is convinced in regard to the authenticity and integrity of its several parts. In the present treatise, the inspiration, and consequently ¦ the canonicity, of all the: books of the Old and New Testainents are accepted ; and hence, subject to what has been said above of the diversity of dogmatic importance characterising different portions of Scripture, the whole collection of books in both Testaments is received as Scripture of normative authority in dogmatics. It may be well to emphasise here the reservation now made. It would be preposterous to ascribe equal im- § 5] THE OECUMENICAL SYMBOLS. 29 portance to every saying in these books, or even to each of those books as compared with the others. Scripture is the record of the revelation of God in Christ, and the several parts of Scripture contribute, but in very diverse degrees of clearness and distinctness, to the knowledge of God in Christ. In calling Scripture the norm and primary source of Christian dogmatics, it is not implied that the dogmatist simply carries over from Scripture the doctrines there set forth and arranges them in a systematic order. By doing so he would at best present only a biblical theology of the Old and New Testaments. Nor yet is the dogmatist simply to record the interpretations put upon the Scripture doctrines, and the form given them by the recognised teachers of the Church and in the accepted doctrinal formularies. By so doing he would only give us a history of Christian doctrines. On the contrary, he must have before him both the biblical and the ecclesiastical statements of doctrine as the materials on which he must himself work, contributing, just what those church fathers had contributed, his own highest thought and reflection energised and quickened by the influence of God's Spirit on his heart and mind. Dogmatics is not a purely objective statement of what had been originally revealed, or even of what has been thought and said about that revelation. This objective statement is the material on which he works. Because this objective material is his primary source, he is saved from a reckless and unregulated subjectivism ; but he brings with him his own personal spiritual experience, as well as the culture which his studies in history, especially in that of the progress of theological thought, have brought him. § 5. The Oecumenical Symbols. Literature. — Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols., Lorid. 1877, especially vol. ii. : " Creeds of Greek and Latin Churches." Harvey, The History and Theology of the Three Creeds, 2 vols., Lond. 1854. Lumby, History of the Creeds, Lond. 1873, 2nd ed. 1880. Hefele, History of the Christian Councils, vol. i, Edin. 1872, pp. 262-447, especially pp. 293- 30 introduction. [§ 5 296: "The Nicene Creed"; vol. ii., Edin. 1876, pp. 340-374, especially pp. 348-351: "The Tome and the Creed" (of Constantinople, 381). Von Scheele, Theologische Symbolik, 3 vols., Gotha, 1881, vol. i. pp. 42-85, especially pp. 69-76 : " The Universal Character of Christianity from the Subjective Point of View." — Directly on confessions as sources of dogmatics : Dunlop, Collection of Confessions of Faith, 2 vols., Edin. 1719, voL.i. Preface, pp. 1-154: "Uses and Ends of Confessions of Faith." Macpherson, Westminster Confession of Faith, Edin. 1882, 2nd ed., Introd. pp. 1-7 : " The Place and Purpose of ' Confessions of Faith." Biedermann, Christliche Dogmatik, 1884, vol. i. pp. 344-382 (where he shows that dogmatics has as its sources, not only the Scripture canon as fixed by the Church, but the reflection and criticism which the Church itself has expended on the doctrines of Scripture, as recorded in confessions, and all other utterances of the Church community down to the present day). Lipsius, Lehr buch d. evang. -protest. Dogmatik, 1876, pp. 155-161, especially on the distinction between " Confessions " and " Confessional Writings," between substance and details of confessions. Symbolical writings, or creeds and confessions, constitute a fons secundarius of Christian dogmatics. These are of two classes. We have, on the one hand, the great Oecumenical Creeds : the so-called Apostles' Creed (Symbolum Romanum), the Nicfeno-Constantinopolitan Creed (325, 381), and the so-called Athanasian Creed. These are valuable and authori tative for the whole Christian Church, and represent the Church doctrine on all the leading dogmas of the Christian faith. We have, on the other hand, the distinctive con fessions or particular doctrinal testimonies of the several churches (Greek Church, Eoman Catholic, Lutheran and Eeformed), and those of the several national Eeformed churches (Scottish, Gallican, Anglican, Westminster Con fession). In dogmatics only the Oecumenical Creeds can properly be used as sources of Church doctrine; but the confessions of particular churches may be employed to illustrate the later development of dogma under pressure of peculiar historical conditions. § 5] THE OECUMENICAL SYMBOLS. 31 The Apostles' Creed1 received its name in consequence of the legend circulated in the fourth century by Ambrose and Eufinus,2 according to which it was the work of the apostles in Jerusalem before their scattering. Although this story has no support in fact, the formulary is undoubtedly of great antiquity. Early writers who style it apostolic may have done so on the ground of the apostolical character of its doctrine.3 That a sum of saving truth was given by apostles and apostolic men to the several churches which they had founded is almost certain from allusions in New Testament epistles to "the good deposit" (2 Tim. i. 14), the profession of "belief in God" (Tit. iii. 8), "the faith once for all delivered to the saints " (Jude 3), etc. We have the express statement of Eufinus, in the latter half of the fourth century, that those who were presented to receive the ordinance of baptism were required to recite publicly the Creed, and that those who were believers before them were so familiar with the formula that no departure from the precise words would be allowed to pass. It may safely be assumed that in apostolic times a very short statement was made of belief in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as a baptismal formula, which was gradually expanded into that formula of twelve articles, under that original trinitarian distribution, which we now have. Of the use of the Creed in its present form at Borne we have distinct traces in the second half of the second century. 1 The best doctrinal exposition of the "Apostles' Creed" is Pearson, Exposition of the Creed, 1659, ed. by Burton, 2 vols., Oxf. 1843. Both history and doctrine are well treated in Harvey, History and Theology of the Three Creeds, London, 1854, pp. 1-51, 89-540. The most thorough modern investigations into the history of the Creed are to be found in Caspari, Ungedruckte Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufsymbols und der Glaubensregel, 3 vols., 1866-1875 ; Alte und neue Quellen zur Gesch. des Taufsymbols u. der Glaubensregel, 1879. Zahn, Das Apostolisehe Symbolum, Leipzig, 2nd ed. 1893 (a sketch of the history and a discussion of the contents). For an exhibition of variations in form, as well as an exposition of its doctrines, see Westcott, The Historic Faith, 3rd ed., London, 1885. 2 Roman Catholics claim the authority of Augustine for the common tradition, but the sermon in which the statement referred to occurs is certainly spurious. 3 Calvin, Institutes, ii. chap. 16, § 18. 32 INTRODUCTION. [§ 5 The Nicene Creed was prepared at the council which was convoked by the Emperor Constantine to meet in 325 A.D. at Nicea, a town of Bithynia, by a company of somewhere about three hundred bishops. All who signed it did so on the understanding that it introduced no novelty, but simply proclaimed the universal belief of the Church from apostolic times. It followed the trinitarian order of the Apostles' Creed ; but inasmuch as the special occasion which called it forth was the dissemination of christological errors by Arius, and those who more or less fully adopted his views, the section on the Son is elaborated with special care. Its most characteristic pronouncement is the declara tion that the Son is of the same substance with the Father. In the end all the bishops present, with the exception of two, Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais, subscribed ¦ the Creed and accepted the homoousian doctrine, though the bona fides of other three, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theognis of Nicea, and Maris of Chalcedon, is not above suspicion. The persistency of the Arian heresy in the Eastern Church led to the convocation by the Emperor Theodosius of the second CEcumenical Council at Constan tinople in 381 A.D., at which the Nicene Creed was reissued in an expanded and improved form. In the Constantin- opolitan edition of the Creed, the doctrine of the Holy Ghost was more adequately expressed, and the subjects of the later clauses of the Apostles' Creed received careful statement. The so-called Athanasian Creed, also called from its first word the Symbolum Quicunque, was originally written in Latin, probably in Southern Gaul. With regard to its date, there has been a long-continued controversy.1 Some still 1 In favour of the early date may be named : Waterland, Critical History of the Athanasian Creed, Camb. 1724 ; Harvey, History and Theology of the Three Creeds, London, 1854 ; Caspari, Alte und neue Quellen zur Gesch. d. Taufsymbols u. d. Glaubensregel, Christiania, 1879 ; Ommaney, Tlie Athan asian Creedj London, 1875, and The Early History of the Athanasian Creed, London* 1880; Texts and Studies, iv. 1, Camb. 1896,— Burn, The Athanasian Creed and its Early Commentators (see p. xcviii, where 425-430 a.d. is given. as probable date). In favour of the later date: Ffoulkes, The Athanasian § 5] THE OECUMENICAL SYMBOLS. 33 contend for its early date, assigning it to the fifth century, while others insist that it cannot be traced back beyond the eighth century. The ground on which all arguments about date proceed is the absence of allusion to such heresies as those of Nestorius and Eutyches, which some account for by the supposition that it was composed before these arose, and others by the supposition that before it was drawn up the agitation caused by these had long passed away. The earliest appearance of it in its present form is in a manuscript of Treves of the eighth century. It consists of two parts : the first treating of the Trinity on Augustinian lines ; the second treating of Christ's Person and atoning work on the lines of the Nicene or Chalcedonian conclusions. Its form is controversial, as if written in defence of the writer's orthodoxy. The Greeks in their contest with the Latins repudiated its authority because of its clear statement of the double pro cession of the Spirit. Thus it is not strictly entitled to be called oecumenical. Vigorous opposition to its liturgical use in the Anglican Church has been shown mainly on account of the presence of the damnatory clauses, and its position that salvation depends upon the acceptance of the articles of a creed.1 In the Boman Catholic Church tradition has practically taken the place of Holy Scripture as the primary source of dogmatics. This position is bound up with the Bomish doctrine of the Church, and to some extent it may be regarded as the Catholic counterpart of the Protestant atti- Creed, by whom written, etc., London, 1871 ; Swainson, Literary History of the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds, and that commonly called the Creed of St. Athanasius, London, 1875 ; Lumby, History of the Creeds, London, 2nd ed. 1880. Waterland seeks to prove, from absence of references to Nestorianism and Eutychianism, that it was composed before these heresies arose, and as a polemic against Apollinarianism, probably by Hilary of Aries on entering upon his episcopate in 429 (Grit. Hist. chap. vii.). Harvey makes an elaborate attempt to prove an earlier date, assigning it to Victorinus of Rouen in 401 (Hist, and Theol. of the Three Creeds, pp. 559-584). 1 Stanley, Athanasian Creed, with Preface on Recommendations of Ritual Commission, London, 1871. For Anglican view of these Creeds generally, see Thirty-Nine Articles, art. viii. ; and Browne, Exposition of Thirty-Nine Articles, 4th ed., London, 1858, pp. 211-230. 34 INTRODUCTION. [§ 5 tude toward the oecumenical confessions. The whole Church tradition is, ¦ according to the Bomish theory, oecumenical, for no other organisation than the papal is recognised as a Church. The voice of the Church speaking in its great teachers, in its councils, and in the pope is accepted as authoritative, not alongside of and in addition to Scripture, but as the infallible interpretation of Scripture. As the absolutely correct rendering of Scripture, it takes the place of Scripture, and is therefore for Catholic dogmatics the fons primarius. Protestantism, on the contrary, with its doctrine of the perfection, sufficiency, and perspicuity of Scripture, does not admit the need of such an authoritative interpre tation which must inevitably supplant the original which it reproduces and explains ; but, at the same time, it heartily acknowledges the need of any help that the treatment of the Word in the Church of all ages is fitted to give toward the right understanding of it (analogia fidei). It has indeed to be remembered that the Holy Spirit continues to lead the Church into all truth ; but this inspiration, common to all true members of the community of believers, does not give to the deliverances of the community a normative authority, which is the distinctive prerogative of Holy Scripture. Catholicism claims infallibility and finality for the tradi tional expression of dogma, but Protestantism makes no such claim on behalf of her standards. " No Protestant Church professes to be infallible. Its most solemn Confessions of Faith have only a provisional value. ... A Church that would exclude this spirit of reform would cease to be a Protestant Church." 1 All the confessional writings of the Protestant churches profess only to give utterance to the truth of Scripture according to the know ledge and light which the Church at the time of their production possesses.2 The confessions of particular churches 1 Sabatier, Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion, London, 1897, p. 266. 2 See Pfieiderer, Grundriss d. christi. Glaubens- u. Sittenlehre, § 49 and his references to Formula concordice, p. 572 ; Luther on Visitations-Arlikeln and Confess. Basil. § 6] THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS. '35 are distinctly authoritative only among the members of the particular Church from which they have issued, and especially as testimonies in regard to that doctrinal peculiarity by which as a denomination it is characterised. They may be considered rather as manifestoes of parties who have com bined in order to testify in favour of some important aspect of the truth, and may be distinguished as Calvinistic, Puritanical, Arminian, Evangelical, Sacramentarian, etc. They have therefore an important historical position in the development of dogma, midway between the oecumenical confessions and ttie utterances of doctrinal opinion on the part of private theologians, as the record of the convictions of more or less considerable sections of the Christian Church. § 6. The Christian Consciousness. Literature. — Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube (1821), Berlin, 6th ed. 1884, §§ 15-19. Lipsius, Lehrbuch d. evangel- protest. Dogmatik, Brunswick, 1876, §§ 72-115 : "Das religiose Erkennen," pp. 64-89. Biedermann, Christliche Dogmatik, Berlin, 1884, vol. i. pp. 275-283. Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, Edin. 1866, pp. 57-64. Oosterzee, Christian Dog matics, Lond. 1874, pp. 22-28. Nitzsch, Lehrbuch d. evang. Dogmatik, pp. 8-13. Kaehler, Die Wissenschaft der christlichen Lehre, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1893, pp. 52-54. Bois, De la Con- naissance Religieuse, Paris, 1895. The Christian consciousness is a source of dogmatics, not independently of Holy Scripture and the ecclesiastical con fessions, but as the present living expression on the part of the believing Christian community of the truth that is in these. The failure to recognise the Christian consciousness as one of the sources of Christian dogmatics has in many cases caused a confusion between dogmatics and biblical theology on the one hand, and between dogmatics and historical theology on the other. It is essential, therefore, that we claim for it the place not merely of an organ but that of a contributory source of dogmatics. What Christian dogmatics seeks to present is the biblical doctrine as 36 INTRODUCTION. [§ 6 formulated by the Church in terms of the thought and culture of the present day ; and this can be done only when those dogmas find expression through the Christian con sciousness of the dogmatist. The statements of Scripture and the doctrine of the Church are not of themselves dogmatic proof, nor indeed within the proper scope of dogmatic science, but, as Frank1 says, "they present only the necessary coherence in which the consciousness of the Christian truth recognised in the present day stands with the consciousness of the historic rise of the same according to the documents of the Christian faith, and with the likewise historic process of cognition which the Church has passed through in relation to this truth bestowed upon her." It is essential that the dogmatist be no mere chronicler of past thought with reference to revealed truth, whether the more remote past of the biblical revelation, or the less remote past of church doctrinal construction (confessionalism). He must record his own beliefs and give his reasons for accepting or modifying the expression given to scriptural doctrine by the Church, and he must show how, from the Christian standpoint occupied by him, the several doctrines are interrelated, and how they mutually affect one another. He does not merely record the biblical and ecclesiastical position, but shows how these appeal to his own religious consciousness and to that of his age. It is the special service rendered to dogmatics by Schleiermacher that he gave emphasis to the fact, which had never been denied, but had never been sufficiently recognised, that religion, which forms the subject of dogmatics, is essen tially a thing of the heart. In the dogmatics of Schleier macher we have personal religious experience and the realised relation of the soul to Christ treated as the main source. Such experience is evidently in some respects determined by the objective revelation of Scripture, and in some respects itself determines the content and form of Scripture as the pro duct of the spirit of Christian fellowship. The exposition 1 System of Christian Certainty, Edin. 1886, p. 40. § 7] DOGMATICS IN RELATION TO THEOLOGICAL SCIENCES. 37 given of the inwardness of religion is in direct antagonism to that hard doctrinalism represented in the declaration of the Athanasian Creed, that the acceptance of the catholic faith which it records is necessary to salvation.1 But the emphasis thus laid upon the religious consciousness as a source of dogmatics is useful, not only as a protest against an un- spiritual intellectualism, but also as securing permanent recognition for that distinguishing human faculty which makes men capable of receiving a divine revelation. Oosterzee proposes to call the Christian consciousness a fons internus, alongside of the fons primarius et secundarius. That it is all essential as a source of theological knowledge is unquestion able. The truth must be assimilated, and no measure of accuracy in the presentation of objective religious truth can be of any importance to man as a religious being unless set forth from the point of view of one who has found in it an answer to his own inner religious consciousness. The dogmatist must hold the standpoint of experimental acquaint ance with that relation to God in Christ which forms the real and central principle of his system. § 7. Dogmatics in Eelation to the Other Theo logical Sciences. Literature. — Babiger, Encyclopedia of Theology, 2 vols., Edin. 1884, vol. i. pp. 308-314, ii. 297-306. Cave, An Intro duction to Theology : its Principles, its Branches, its Results, and its Literature (1886), Edin., 2nd ed. 1896, pp. 81-92, 521-524. Crooks and Hurst, Theological Encyclopaedia and Methodology, on the basis of Hagenbach, New York, 1884, pp. 394-398. Drummond, Introduction to the Study of Theology, Lond. 1884, pp. 165-177. Doedes, Encyclopedic der christijlike Theologie, 2nd ed., Utrecht, 1883, pp. 155—159. Lange, Grundriss der theo- logischen Encyclopaedic, Heidelberg, 1897, pp. 177, 178. Nitzsch, Lehrbuch d. evang. Dogmatik, pp. 13—16. Gottschick in Herzog, Real-Encyclopaedie,2 xv. 431 f., art. " Theologie." Gretillat, 1 The first three sections are : Quicunque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est, ut teneat Catholicam ftdem ; Quam nisi quisque integram inviolatamque scrv- averit, absque dubio in seternum peribit, Fides autem Catholica hsec est, etc. 38 introduction. [§ 7 Expose" Thiologie SysUmatique, Neuchatel, 1885, vol. i. pp. 200- 284. Kaehler, Die Wissenschaft der christlichen Lehre, Leipzig,. 1893, pp. 24-34 : " Die Gliederung der Theologie." Theological encyclopaedia is the discipline in which the distribution of the theological sciences and their relations to orier another have to be determined. The leading writers in this department in recent times, Hagenbach, Biibiger, Heinrici, have all agreed to a fourfold distribution of the theological sciences, making systematic theology (including fundamental theology or theory of religion, dogmatics and ethics) the third in order, preceded by exegetical and historical theology, and followed by practical theology. Those who, like Hofmann and Go'ttschick, make a threefold distribution secure the- re duction by obliterating the distinction between the exegetical and historical departments. When, on the other hand, Dr. Cave proposes to work out a sixfold distribution, this results from his undue widening of the range of the theological sciences. He agrees with Drummond in extending the term theological encyclopaedia to heathen religions as well as to the Christian religion, and understands theology to mean the science of any religion. The German writers on encyclopfedia, without ex ception, restrict it to the treatment of the Christian theological sciences, and for this they are severely reproved by Drs. Flint and .Stewart. In accordance with this principle, Dr. Cave prefixes to the ordinary four main divisions of theology two preliminary sections on natural theology and ethnic theology. We cannot agree with the distinguished men who would make theology coextensive with religion, and in the case before us we hold that only ethnic religions can be spoken of, each with a more or less developed theology, but not an ethnic theology. What we have to do with here is the arrangement of the theological disciplines dealing with the Christian religion. Accepting the fourfold schema, as above described, the relation of dogmatics to the other theological sciences, and more particularly to the other disciplines included under the title systematic theology, is quite evident. As systematic it is based upon the results of exegetical and historical research § 7] DOGMATICS IN RELATION TO THEOLOGICAL SCIENCES. 39 and forms in turn the material made use of or turned to practical account in the various disciplines of practical theology. It has as its sources revelation as Scripture and revelation as sacred history, — the immediate communication of divine truth in the inspired Word or the mediate communi cation of the same in the consciousness of the Christian community. Then again, within the domain of systematic theology, dogmatics occupies a position midway between the theory of religion or fundamental theology and Christian ethics. In the science of religion we have the foundation laid for the construction and distribution of the distinctive doctrines of the Christian religion in dogmatics, while Christian ethics is the complement of dogmatics, inasmuch as only when the contents of ethics have been added to those of dogmatics have we a full presentation of all the constituent elements of religion in its perfect form as the Christian religion. In Christian ethics we have, according to Eothe, a history, statistics, and politics of the kingdom of God. It presupposes throughout, not Christian dogmatics, but the Christian faith. Thus it deals with the same elements as dogmatics, and has for its subject the Christian faith in the actions of men who believe, just as dogmatics has as its subject the Christian faith in the saving acts and operations of God. Dorner puts the matter very well : " As dogmatics grows up out of the Regula fidei and the Apostles' Creed, so evangelical ethics grows up out of the Decalogue." 1 Hence ethics is a correlate of dogmatics under systematic theology. Dogmatics and ethics, as embracing between them the whole contents of the Christian religion, have been treated together, sometimes amalgamated in one "System of Christian Doctrine,"2 sometimes only successively in one manual.3 Now, it cannot be denied that such a presentation of the two elements making up the 1 In art. " Ethik " in Herzog, Real-Encyclopaedic,- iv. 361. 2 As by C. I. Nitzsch in System der christlichen Lehre (1844), Eng. trans. System of Christian Doctrine, Edin. 1849. 3 By Pfieiderer, Kaehler, and others. 40 , - , INTRODUCTION. [§ 7 contents of religious science is instructive, and helpful. But there is no more reason why they should be wrought up together or even embraced in one handbook than there would be . for thus dealing with psychology and metaphysics. Christian dogmatics and Christian ethics are just as much distinct and separate theological disciplines as psychology and metaphysics are distinct and separate philosophical disciplines. At the same time, we should remember that, as in all similar cases, anything like a complete and exhaustive separation is not possible, nor is it at all to be desired. In the science of dogmatics we have still an ethical element, and in the science of ethics we have still a doctrinal element. Our definition of dogmatics will materially affect our notion of the relation which it bears to the other departments of theological science, the exegetical, historical, and practical. Those who regard dogmatics as simply the classification and elucidation of church dogma place it among the historical sciences, and in that case it is scarcely distinguishable from what is usually called the history of doctrines. Those, again, who insist upon -giving it a purely biblical character, if they do not altogether confound it with biblical theology, make it a sort of methodised biblical theology or biblical dogmatic, and can consistently place it only under exegetical theology. When we rightly recognise the distinctive part played by the religious consciousness in the construction of dogmatics we secure for it its proper place as the positive treatment of the contents of the Christian faith, with biblical and historical elements, yet not an exegetical nor a historical science, but a science treating systematically the material brought to it by exegesis and church history through the medium of the theory of religion.1 In common with all the disciplines in the first three departments of the encyclopaedia, dogmatics and ethics form the basis and supply the contents of practical theology. i The relation of "systematic theology" to biblical theology has been very clearly stated by Prof. Warfield in an excellent paper in TJie Presbyterian and Reformed Review for April 1896, entitled, "The Idea of Systematic Theology." See especially pp. 256-258. § 8] distribution of the several dogmas. 41 § 8. Distribution of the Several Dogmas. Literature. — Cave, Introduction to Theology, Edin. 1896, pp. 543-548. Macpherson, " The Idea of Dogmatic Theology and Classification of its Dogmas," art. in Brit, and For. Evangel. Review for July 1875, vol. xxiv., espec. pp. 535-543. Lange, Grundriss der theologischen Encyclopaedic, Heidelberg, 1877, pp. 180-187. Drummond, Introduction to the Study of Theology, London, 1884, pp. 184-207. Smith, Introduction to Christian Theology, New York, 1883, pp. 225-231. Crooks and Hurst, Theological Encyclopedia (Hagenbach), New York, 1884, pp. 420-424: "Method of Dogmatics." Eothe, Zur Dogmatik, Gotha, 1869, pp. 28-37 : " Von der systematischen Gliederung der evangelisch-protestantischen Dogmatik." For the distribution of the doctrines in the Dogmatic it is of first importance to have a principle sufficiently compre hensive to cover the whole ground, and one that will admit of each of the doctrines being introduced in its natural place and expounded in its just proportions. The christological, the trinitarian, and the idea of the kingdom of God are principles which have been found too narrow. The attempt to use the idea of the kingdom of God as the principle of distribution in dogmatics has in recent times, under the influence of the Bitschlian school, been made by many. The best example of this scheme is afforded by Oosterzee (Christian Dogmatics, London, 1874, pp. 229—233). But here we have simply the usual modification of the local method — theology, anthropology, christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, and eschatology — designated in terms of the idea of the kingdom of God. Professor Candlish, in the preface to his Christian Doctrine of God, says : " The notion of the kingdom of God seems to be that which has the highest authority and is most comprehensive ; and it has therefore been taken here as the basis of the arrangement and establishment of the various doctrines of Christianity." Yet even in this case the scheme looks as if artificially laid on, and not as vitally belonging to the exposition. Also Dr. Candlish makes no use of it in his later work on the Doctrine of Sin. 42 introduction. [§ 8 The .trinitarian principle of division might seem most comprehensive, yet even here, as seen in Martensen's Christian Dogmatics, the doctrines which may be grouped together under the general designation of subjective soteriology (ordo salutis), as well as the important details of anthropology, 'find no suitable or adequate place. -' • To many, no doubt, the christological principle of distri bution commends itself, because' they regard this as the natural consequence of their acceptance of the undoubtedly true.' thought that all genuinely Christian theology ; must be christocentric. But perhaps, if we considered the matter aright, the very fact that the Person of Christ is the material principle might supply the proof that it was ill fitted to be the formal principle of Christian theology. If it be adopted at all, it can only be in some such way as is done by Schultz (Grundriss der evang. Dogmatik, Gott. 1892), who treats of God - and the world, of man and sin, as prolegomena, pre suppositions of the Christian salvation, and then, as contents of the Christian salvation, — the saving work of the Son of God (Person and work of Christ) and the saving acts of the Spirit of God (Church, means of grace, ordo salutis, perfecting of salvation). But the very necessity of dealing with God, the world, men and sin, in sections which are formally outside of the system, is itself the most crushing condemnation of the scheme. It would represent man and his world as ministering to the Son of God, who, as Son of Man, represents Himself as coming not to be ministered unto but to minister. Lange proposes (Encyclopaedic, p. 180) to place the revelation of God in Christ at the head of the system, not as constituting its middle point, but as the ideal historical principle, and then presents the following scheme : i. the christological theology (God in relation to man, man in relation to God, mutual relation of God and man) ; ii. the christological soteriology (life of Jesus, nature of Christ, redemption work of Christ) ; iii. the universal christology or pneumatology (in the individual sphere, ordo salutis; in the social sphere, the Church and its ordinances ; in the cosmical sphere, § 9] DISTRIBUTION OF THE SEVERAL DOGMAS. 4.3 eschatology)/ But here it is quite evident that- we have: merely a christological phraseology artificially laid Upon materials which have been already arranged according to: another principle. If we were to accept of any distribution determined -by the adoption of a single central principle, we should find specially attractive that threefold arrangement, admirably laid out by Philippi . (Glaubenslehre, i. 104), and' adopted by Eabiger (Encyclopaedic, ii. 339): The idea of religion is the fellowship of man with God, wrought out in dogmatics, according to Eabiger 's phraseology, as — (1) the revelation of God to man, (2) the separation between God and man, (3) the reconciliation of man with God. It seems better, in order to avoid the artificiality which belongs to all of those scheines, to revert to a modified, and somewhat methodised, form of the old local arrangement of doctrines. This will be best secured by a blending of the historical and logical methods in the treatment of the development of man in his relations to God. We propose to arrange the contents of our dogmatics under these six divisions : i. the doctrine of God and the world ; ii. the doctrine of man and sin ; iii. the doctrine of redemption — divine decree, Person and work of Christ ; iv. application of redemption — revelation to and work in us by the Spirit ; v. the means of grace — church, sacraments, word, prayer, etc. ; vi. the last things — resurrection, eternal states. § 9. History of Dogmatics. Doctrinal investigations and discussions of necessity are co terminous and coextensive with the revelation of divine truth. We therefore have doctrinal statements in the original sources of the Christian faith, and in the simplest discourses and least elaborate writings of the early Christian workers. But the history of dogmatics attends primarily to attempts at framing a full and orderly representation of the whole truth ,as a system, and only secondarily indicates those discussions on particular doctrines that have significantly affected the further develop- 44 INTRODUCTION. [§ 9 ment and construction of systematic theology. For con venience of arrangement and presentation we may distinguisli , six periods: (1) period of the Early Church down to John of Damascus ; (2) period of Middle Ages down to Beformation ; (3) period of Beformation ; (4) period of Protestant Schol asticism; (5) period of spiritual and speculative revival; (6) period of modern theology. (1) Period of the Early Church. Literature. — Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Liter- atur bis Eusebius, Berlin, 1893. Kriiger, Geschichte der alt christlichen Liter atur in den ersten 3 Jahrhundert, 2nd ed. 1894. Harnack, The History of Dogma, 5 vols., London, 1894, vol. i. Schaff, Ante-Nicene Christianity, A.D. 100-325, 2 vols.,Edin. 1883; Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity, A.D. 325-600, 2 vols., Edin. 1884. Donaldson, History of Christian Literature to the Nicene Council, 3 vols., London, 1864. Jackson, Early Christian Literature Primers, 4 vols., New York, 1879-1883. Pressense\ Early Years of Christianity, vol. iii. : "Heresy and Christian Doctrine," London, 1879. Cruttwell, A Literary History of Early Christianity, 2 vols., London, 1893. Bartlet, Early Church History, London, 1894. Baehr, Geschichte der romischen Literatur, vol. iv., Leipzig, 1872. Ebert, Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Literatur, vol i. to Charlemagne, Leipzig, 1874. Lechler, Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Times, 2 vols., Edin. 1886. Much useful, indeed indispensable, preparatory work was done by the members of the Alexandrian catechetical school, especially by Clement of Alexandria, in his three consecutive works: Exhortation to the Heathen, the Instructor, and the Mis cellanies, about the end of the second century (trans, in 2 vols., Edin. 1867-1869). The earliest treatise, however, that has any claim to be styled a Dogmatic is the great work of Origen (185—254) entitled Trepl dp^&v, De principiis. This work was written probably about 218 A.D., and represents a very noble effort of a truly great and thoughtful man to give expression to the leading doctrines of the Christian faith, in such a form as might win the respect and attention of those who were abreast of the culture and science of the age. It is divided into § 9] HISTORY OF DOGMATICS. 45 four books. The first book treats of God, His essential nature, the relation of the three persons in the godhead to man, and the progress of spiritual life in man by the action upon him of Father, Son, and Spirit. He accounts for man's present moral and spiritual position by postulating a pre-existent state in which his use of God's gifts and revelations determined his temporal state. This applied to all rational creatures ; to angels as well as to men. The second book deals in detail with the creation and the facts of human life and history. Here Origen applies the hypothesis of pre-existence to account for the inequalities and apparent contradictions of life. These present difficulties which are inexplicable to us just because we see only in part. Sufferings result from what preceded, and wrongs that in this life remain unrighted will be righted in some future system of discipline. In the future state men pass from one sphere to another in a process of gradual and progressive purifying ; resurrection is to judgment, and punishment is just and severe that the end may be perfect purification. The third book deals with man's moral and spiritual endowments as those of a creature possessed of free will. Sin is from within man himself. It is for man, who starts with the rank of one made in the image of God, to grow up into the perfect likeness of God. Man's use of freedom leads to complete self - surrender ; refusal to make this surrender delays, but cannot prevent, the consummation of all things. The fourth book treats of Holy Scripture as the basis of the whole system. " He examines," says Westcott,1 " with a reverence, an insight, a humility, a grandeur of feeling never surpassed, the question of the inspiration and the interpre tation of the Bible." The defects of arrangement are very apparent. No adequate treatment of christology, or indeed of the great central Christian doctrine of the redemption by 1 Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography, iv. p. 121. The whole of Westcott's long and exhaustive article, pp. 96-142, is most admirable, and gives the student almost all that he needs to know about Origen and his work. See also interesting and instructive papers by Westcott on ' ' Origen and the Beginnings of Christian Philosophy" in Contemporary Review for 1879. Also Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, Oxf. 1886 (Lects. iv.-vi. on Origen). 46 INTRODUCTION. [§ 9 Christ, is possible under the scheme proposed ; and the doctrine pf the Church is altogether ignored. Throughout the fourth and fifth centuries there was great dogmatic activity in the Eastern Church in the christological discussions occasioned by the Arian, Apollinarian, Nestorian, and Eutychian heresies. Of chief interest dogmatically are the. works of Athanasius (300-373, especially: Epistle of Athanasius in Defence of the Nicene Definition of the Homoousion, The Epistle concerning the Arian Council of Ariminum and Seleucia, and The Three Discourses against the Arians, — all included in Dr. Newman's Select Treatises of St. Athanasius, London, 1881) and Gregory of Nyssa (332—398, Aoyo? /caTr)xvTl'c°^ ° fJ>eya<; ; see translation in Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Schaff and Wace, vol. v., London, 1893). The second formal attempt at a Dogmatic was made by Augustine (353-430) in his Enchiridion ad Laurentium: de fide, spe et caritate. His De Civitate Dei and De Trinitate are highly important dogmatic works (translated in Clark's ed. of Augustine, Edin. 1872, 1873). In De fide et symbolo (a translation of which appears in the same vol. with that of the Enchiridion in Clark's ed., Edin. 1874) we have an exposition of the Creed. Otherwise the dogmatic activity of Augustine was mainly polemical, arid is represented by his writings against the Manichaeans and Pelagians. The Enchiridion makes a formal attempt to present the whole Christian truth in a systematic form under the threefold scheme provided by the Pauline arrangement of the Christian graces of faith, hope, and love. Zockler (Handbuch der theologischen Wissenschaften, 1885, i. 27) calls this book " a miracle of correct and indeed of eloquent system-construction." Under the section de fide he deals with the leading Christian doctrines as set forth in the three articles of the Creed ; while under the section de spe we have not eschatological questions discussed, but the doctrine of prayer according to the several petitions of the Lord's Prayer. The Commonitorium of Vincent of Lerins (d. about 450), in which he supports the orthodox doctrine by references to § 9] HISTORY OF DOGMATICS. 47 the church fathers, is not properly a dogmatic, though it did much to give permanent form to the dogmas of the -Church. It is mainly occupied with an exposition of doctrine in accordance with the church tradition, of which he gives the famous and oft-quoted definition : quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus, creditum est. He was a pupil of Cassian, and his own theological standpoint is that of Semipelagianism.1 To the same period belongs Gennadius of Marseilles' Epistola de fide med, or Libellus de ecclesiasticis dogmatibus (translated in Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. hi, 1893), in which, after professing faith in articles of the Creed, he proceeds rather discursively and unmethodically to treat of various doctrinal and ecclesiastical matters from the standpoint of a somewhat modified Augustinianism. His treatise was originally published among the works of Augustine, and in a separate form first at Hamburg, 1614. The third treatise deserving of the name of a Dogmatic is The Summary of the Orthodox Faith, "EkSoo-is aicpiBrjs tjjs 6p9oB6^ov Tr/o-Teoj?, of John of Damascus (700-760).2 This is by far the most considerable attempt that was made by the Eastern Church to construct a doctrinal text-book at once speculative and ecclesiastical, and is regarded by many as the first work really deserving to rank as a treatise on systematic theology. It is the third treatise in a trilogy entitled by himself, IJriyr) rvcoaeax;, Fons scientice, or Fountain of Knowledge, a sort of religious encyclopaedia, of which the two which preceded are comparatively unimportant (Capita philosophica, Short chapters on the categories of Aristotle, and a Compendium of Heresies, numbering 103, in which he closely follows Epiphanius). The De fide orthodoxa is John's most important 1 The Commonitorium was translated into Scottish by Knox's opponent, Winzet, in 1563 ; and into English by Reeves, 1709, and more recently by Flower, London, 1866. 2 See a very admirable and complete account of the Damascene's life and work by J. H. Lupton in Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography, iii. pp. 409-423. An interesting exposition of doctrine on the basis of the great work of the . Damascene, partly by quotation, partly by paraphrase, will be found in Owen, Treatise of Dogmatic Theology, London, 1887. 48 INTRODUCTION. [§ 9 work. It consists of 1 0 0 chapters, and in later times, not by its author, it was divided into four' books. The first book treats of God, His nature and attributes and tripersonality. The second book treats of the creation, the world and man. The third book treats of the incarnation, and Person of Christ. The fourth book continues the christology in Its earlier chapters, and then the author turns back and deals with a variety of subjects — faith, baptism, image-worship, etc., without any principle of order, as if by way of appendix he simply took up subjects that had been overlooked or received inadequate treatment. The division into four books was due probably to a desire to conform the book as far as possible to the arrangement that had become current after the publication of the Lombard's standard treatise in the middle of the thirteenth century. John is in the main orthodox and conservative, a vigorous defender of image-worship and a pronounced sacramentarian, maintaining the change of the elements into the body and blood of Christ, though not dogmatical as to the manner of the change or suggesting anything of transubstantiation. (2) Period of Middle Ages. Literature. — For a thorough study of scholasticism there is nothing so complete and' satisfactory as Werner, Die Scholastik d. spat. M. A., 4 vols., Vienna, 1881-1887, and Der Augustinismus d. spat. Schol., 1884. See also : Hampden, The Scholastic Philosophy in its relation to Christian Theology, Oxf. 1832. Kurtz, Church History, 3 vols., Lond. 1888, 1889, vol. ii. pp. 77-108, 166-171. Moller, History of Chr. Church— Middle Ages, Lond. 1893. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval Thought (Erigena, Abelard, etc.), Lond. 1884. Bach, Die Dogmengeschichte des Mittelalters, 2 vols., Vienna, 1874, 1875. — For history of literature see : Traube, Abriss d. Geschichte d. lot. Lit. im M. A., Nordl. 1890. Ebert, Geschichte d. chr.-lat. Lit, vol. ii. : " From Charlemagne to Charles the Bold." In the period following John of Damascus there was a re markable dialectic activity, and this philosophical movement, mainly on the lines of Aristotle as then known, was almost exclu- § 9] HISTORY OF DOGMATICS. 49 sively exercised in the domain of theology. The great schoolmen were the leading theologians of the age. The four epochs of scholasticism are admirably defined and characterised by Kurtz (Ch. Hist, vol. ii., Lond. 1889, p. 81): "From the tenth century, almost completely destitute of any scientific movement, the so-called Soeculum obscurum, there sprang forth the first buds of scholarship, without, however, any distinct impress upon them of scholasticism. In the eleventh century scholasticism began to show itself, and that in the form of dialectic, both sceptical and dogmatic. In the twelfth cen- 'tury mysticism assumed an independent place alongside of dialectic, carried on a war of extermination against the sceptical dialectic, and finally appeared in a more peaceful aspect, contributing material to the positive dogmatic dialectic. In the thirteenth century dialectic scholasticism gained the complete ascendency, and reached its highest glory in the form of dogmatism in league with mysticism,. and never, in the persons of its greatest representatives, in opposition to it." The earliest name of first-rate importance in the history of dogmatics is that of Anselm (1033-1109). Though he did not compose any comprehensive dogmatic treatise, his separate works traverse a very large part of the territory embraced in dogmatics. As a theologian he has been ranked with Augustine, and all his works show that in him remark able acuteness of intellect is beautifully blended with deep piety and a rich vein of religious mysticism. In his Monologium and Proslogium he discusses the nature of God and the proofs for the being of God, developing the ontological proof. He expounds and develops, against the tritheism of the nominalist Boscelinus, the doctrine of the trinity and person of Christ in De fide Trinitatis et de incarnatione Verbi. He also writes on the question of predestination from the Augustinian standpoint in De Concordia, etc., and takes part in a controversy between the Easterns and the Westerns in his De processione Spiritus. He deals with man as subject of redemption in his three dialogues, De veritate, De libero arbitrio, and De casu diaboli. His epoch-making book was a 4 50 INTRODUCTION. [§ 9 little treatise on the atonement, Cur deus Jwmo ? which must always rank as the classical work on the substitutionary view of the atonement, and an important landmark in the great controversy. It is the earliest attempt to construct a theory of the atonement. His position is essentially that of the fathers, stripped of excrescences such as the idea of Christ's sufferings being a ransom paid to the devil. It is, in short, an orderly arrangement of all the conclusions of patristic thought regarding the truth of the atonement which could have a place in a consistent system. It had a powerful and normative influence on the discussions of later schoolmen, so that in it may be discovered the germs of the opposing systems of mediaeval and later theologians. In form it is dialectic rather than scriptural, and several of its peculiar positions — such as the notion that Christ's suffering of death is an opus supererogationis — are elaborated without any attempt to find for them a scriptural basis ; yet as he pursues the main issue in the theory of satisfaction, we feel that Scripture truth and often even Scripture expressions, though not formally quoted, are at the basis of all his reasoning. The most formidable opponent of Anselm is Peter Abelard (1079-1142),1 in his writings generally, but specially in his Commentariorum super S. Pauli epistolam ad Romanos 11. v., where he represents Christ's sufferings not as satisfaction to God, but as means of awakening in man a love to God which delivers him from the dominion of sin. In his two principal theological works — De imitate et trinitate divina, in five books (condemned at Soissons under the title, Theologia Christiana), and the theologia or Introductio ad theologiam — • 1 See an elaborate criticism of the theories of reconciliation proposed by Anselm and Abelard in Ritschl, Crit. Hist, of tlie Chr. Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, Edin. 1872, pp. 22-40. That Ritschl is unfair to Anselm and partial to Abelard, I have sought to show in an article on ' ' Anselm's Theory of the Atonement : its Place in History, "in Brit, and For. Evangel. Review, 1878, pp. 207-232. The most thorough treatment of Anselm's doctrine is in Hasse, Anselm von Canterbury, vol. ii. : " Die Lehre Anselm's," Leipzig, 1852. See also Abaelard's 1121 zu Soissons verurtheilter "Tractatus de imitate et trinitate divina." Aufgefunden u. erstmals hrsg. v. R. Stblzle, Freiburg, 1891.. § 9J HISTORY OF DOGMATICS. 51 he treats of the Trinity, which is represented as one of the divine attributes. The first great systematic work of the scholastic age is the Four Books of Sentences of Beter the Lombard, a pupil of Abelard, who died Bishop of Paris, 1160. Books of Sentences had appeared before, e.g. the Summa Sententiarum of Hugo St. Victor, and the Sententiarum 11. viii. of Bobert Pulleyn, in which the propositions or sentences of the fathers commented on are arranged so as to form a system of Christian doctrine. The work of the Lombard soon became the standard treatise on dogmatics, and was adopted by the Lateran Council of 1215 as the authoritative text-book. The first book treats of God ; the second, of creatures ; the third, of redemption ; and the fourth, of the sacraments and the last things. It was less the expression of personal opinion and conviction, and more a statement of what the church fathers and the recognised teachers of the Church had taught, than most of those earlier works, and so it formed a common basis for academical teaching and for the work of commentators. An important dogmatical work which has not received the attention which it deserves is the De trinitate et operi- bus ejus, in forty-two books, by Eupert, of Deutz (d. 1135). In this comprehensive treatise he discusses all the principal doctrines of the Christian faith under the trinitarian division : the work of the Father in creation, books i. — iii. ; the work of the Son in revelation and redemption, books iv.-xxxiii. ; and the work of the Spirit in sanctification, books xxxiv.-xlii. An interesting episode in this work is the presence of the theory, in opposition to Anslem, that the Son of God would have become incarnate even if man had not sinned.1 The Summa theologica of the Franciscan, Alexander Hales, teacher at Paris, who died 1245, is the first thorough specimen of the over refinements of scholasticism. It treats 1 See Westcott, Dissertation on "The Gospel of Creation," appended to Epistles of St. John, 1883, pp. 277-280 ; Bruce, Humiliation of Christ, 1876, pp. 354 ff., 487 f. ; Miiller, Dogmatische Abhandlungen, Bremen, 1870, art. iii. pp. 66-126, especially pp. 71-73. 52 INTRODUCTION. [§ 9 successively of God and of His work, the creature, of the Bedeemer and His work, arid of the sacraments. In a further part, not extant, he treated of the rewards of salva tion in a future life. Each main division was subdivided into questions, members, articles. In one respect his method resembles that of the most recent dogmatists, though occupying a very different standpoint. Each question is answered affirmatively and negatively, and by authorities, i.e. by quotations from Scripture, and from the fathers and teachers of the Church'; and by reasons, i.e. arguments or illustrations from profane writers of philosophy ; and finally, by his own opinion, — essentially the same as the sections: Scripture doctrine, ecclesiastical dogma, and critical result or rational residuum, of recent doctrinal systems. His pupil and brother Franciscan, Bonaventura (John Fidanza, 1221- 1274), teacher in Paris 1253, added the mystical element to the dialectic acuteness of his master He wrote a com mentary on the Lombard, and presents in his Centiloquium, in a hundred sections, a brief exposition of the doctrines of grace, sin, and salvation. His Breviloquium, in which he seeks to show that the doctrines of the Church and the teachings of reason agree, is rather an Apologetic than a Dogmatic. Another follower of Hales is the Dominican, Albert the Great (1193-1280), whose fame is that of an encyclopaedist rather than a theologian. Besides com mentaries on the Lombard, he wrote a Summa theologica on the lines of Hales. Others of his works show that he was in no respect beyond his age in his conception of physics and the natural world. From a theological and expressly dogmatical point of view the greatest of all the schoolmen is the Dominican, Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274). His Summa totius theologie treats of the whole range of dogmatics in three books. In the first book he treats of God as the most perfect being, and of the work which He has produced .by His omnipotence. In the second book he treats of man as the image of God, in so far as he, as a free rational being, strives after God as the § 9] HISTORY OF DOGMATICS. 53 one end of his being. In the third book he treats of Christ and the means of grace ordained by Him for the attainment of salvation. The work remains incomplete, ending with Question 90, in the middle of the doctrine of repentance. The section on repentance was completed, and those on the other sacraments and on eschatology were added, from the other works of Aquinas. In this great work he deals with the same themes as those on which he had previously written in his commentary on the Lombard, but in a much more concise and methodical manner, leaving aside many useless and curious questions into which it was customary then to go. Such questions he had himself very fully discussed in his earlier works, Qua'stioncs disputate and Qucestioncs quodlibetice. His first attempt at a compact treatise on dogmatics was made in the Compendium theologie, in three books, in which he followed Augustine in distributing his material under the threefold schema of the Christian virtues : faith, hope, charity. Of this work only the section on faith, in 246 chapters, and 10 chapters of the section on hope, are extant. His masterpiece, the Summa, has proved by far the most influential work of mediaeval times. The present pope, Leo xiii., after giving the papal imprimatur to the doctrine of Thomas, has caused a new edition of the whole works of the great teacher to be issued (Borne, 1882-1889). His doctrine of the Church, where he founds upon ancient documents, is of little value, since, in con sequence of his ignorance of Greek, he had no other source to rely upon than Gratian's decretals. In general, his master in theology is Augustine, and in philosophy, Aristotle.1 The only other schoolman worthy of being compared with Aquinas is his rival and opponent, the Franciscan, John Duns Scotus, teacher in Oxford, at Baris 1304, died at Cologne, superior of his order, 1308. He seems to endeavour 1 A good account of the doctrine of Thomas and its history is given by Landerer and Wagenmann, in Herzog,2 i. 575-594. See also article by Fr. Nitzsch in Jahrbiicher fur protest. Theologie, 1876, pp. 551-560. Kaftan, Truth of the Christian Religion, Edin. 1894, i. 171-187. 54 INTRODUCTION. [§ 9 at every point to contradict the teaching of Thomas. He was a supporter of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, of the idea of a twofold truth, inclined to modify Aristotelianism by elements borrowed from the Arabian philosophy. While Thomas, in his doctrine of God, made' God necessarily will what is good, Scotus made that good which God freely and arbitrarily wills, so that even evil would be good if only God had willed it. Over against Thomas' reproduction of Augustine's doctrine of the divine sovereignty, Scotus emphasises the doctrine of man's freedom, and is distinctly Semipelagian in his doctrine. Thomas regards the work of Christ as God-man of infinite value, but Scotus regarded it as accepted by an act of grace on God's part (acceptatio gratuita). His chief work is a commentary on the Sentences of the Lombard, Questiones in iv. LI. Sententiarum, which appeared in two forms, the Opus Oxoniense and the Opus Parisiense.1 During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the teaching of religion was chiefly in the hands of the mystics, whose meditations and writings did much to purge theology of the unevangelical accretions of Bomish traditionalism. But we have not from any of them treatises which can rank as important and comprehensive theological works, certainly nothing approaching what can be called a system of theology. Wiclif (1324-1384) is known as a theologian by his Trialoguss. ddalogorum LI. iv., 1382, edited by Lechler, Oxford, 1869, a dialogue in which three disputants take part, in four books : i. The Doctrine of God ; ii. The Doctrine of the Universe, including Man and Spirits; iii. On Christian Morals; iv. The Sacraments, and the Church and its Institutions, Eschatology, etc. Scripture is the principal source for theology, and its authority is absolute ; but in working out his several doctrinal positions he is sometimes unduly swayed by the scholastic method and principles. It is in his 1 See a criticism and comparison of the doctrinal positions of Aquinas and Scotus in Ritschl, Crit. Hist, of Chr. Doctr. of Justification and Reconciliation, 1872, pp. 41-90. § 9] HISTORY OF DOGMATICS. 55 doctrine of the Church that Wiclif's real Protestantism appears, and also in the decided rejection of transubstantiation, though his attitude here is critical, and he fails to state clearly his own theory, which was neither that of Zwingli nor of Luther, but was probably nearer that of Calvin. With Wiclif is closely associated John Hus (1373-1415), whose chief work, the De ecclesia, was largely based upon a similar treatise of Wiclif's. (3) Period of the Reformation. Literature. — Dorner, History of Protestant Theology, 2 vols., Edin. 1871, vol. i. pp. 1-414. Cunningham, Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation, Edin. 1862. Herrmann, Geschichte der protest. Dogmatik, Leipzig, 1842, pp. 13-21. Heppe, Dog matik. d. deutschen Protestantismus im 16 Jahrhundert, 3 vols., Gotha, 1857. Tulloch, Leaders of the Reformation, 2nd ed., Edin. 1860. Ebrard, Christliche Dogmatik, 2nd ed., Konigsberg, 1862, i. pp. 50-71. The theology of the Beformation is characterised by the special prominence given to the principles of Brotestantism, — - the normative authority of Holy Scripture and the central significance of the doctrine of justification by faith only. The writings of Luther are not distinctively dogmatic, but rather either practical or polemical. Yet in a sketch of the history of dogmatics, it would be a serious omission to pass over the characteristic work, which reads like a doctrinal manifesto, De servo arbitrio, 1525, in which the Augustinian doctrine of absolute predestination is clearly and forcibly expounded.1 The principal dogmatic source for the early Lutheranism, and indeed the first Protestant handbook on dogmatics, is the Loci theologici of Melanchthon, Preceptor Germanie (1497- 1560). The first edition of this great work appeared in 1521, and a second very much altered edition in 1535. German translations appeared, of the first by Spalatin in 1 See admirable article on this work of Luther by Dr. Weber in Jahrbucher fur deutsche Theologie, 1878, ii., translated in Brit, and For. Evangel. Review for 1878, pp. 799-816. 5 6 INTRODUCTION. [§¦ 9 1522, and of the second by Justus Jonas in 1536. The last edition issued under Melanchthon's own superintendence was that of 1559. As contrasted with Luther, Melanchthon gives special emphasis and prominence in his exposition and distribution of doctrine to the ethical element iri Christianity, and even views faith more as the moral act of the redeemed. He also showed himself less disposed to press the doctrine of absolute predestination, and was more inclined, in a synergistic sense, to emphasise the truth of human freedom. He advanced still further in these directions, and also in the way of con cessions to Calvin in christology and in the doctrine of the Supper, in the third edition of 1543.1 His final position may be described as half-way between Luther and Calvin. The arrangement of doctrines in the Loci is not determined by any strict logical law of succession : De lib. arbilrio, De peccato, De lege (consiliis), De evangelio, De gratia, De justificatione et fide, De fidei efficacia, De caritate et spe, etc. We have also from his pen the great confessional works, the Augsburg Confes sion (Confessio Augustana), in June 1530, and the Apology (Apologia August), in September 1530. The most distinguished early followers of Melanchthon are: Strigel (1514-1569), a strict and narrow Philippist, whose Loci theologici (illustrating the Loci of Melanchthon) appeared in 4 vols., 1581-1584; Selneccer (1530-1592), who, in his Institutio relig. christ, 1572, followed Melanchthon closely, but in his Examen ordinandorum, 1582, drew back to a stricter Lutheranism, and attached himself to the Formula Concordie; Chemnitz (1522—1586), whose Loci theologici, lectures on Melanchthon's Loci, were published after his death in 1591, and whose Examen concilii Tridentini, 4 vols., 1565—1573, and De duabus naturis in Christo, 1571 (on the Communicatio idiomatum), were works of great importance and lasting influence. 1 Studien und Kritiken, 1857, ii., article by Schwarz, "Melanchthon's Loci naeh ihrer weitern Entwickelung. " See also "Melanchthon's Loci com munes in ihrer Urgestalt," naeh G. L. Plitt, in 2 Aufl. von neuem hrsg. u. erliiutert von Kolde, Erlangen, 1890. § 91 HISTORY OF DOGMATICS. 57 Zwingli (1484-1531) cannot be described as a great dogmatist, as his aims and genius were of a distinctly practical and organising character. His chief dogmatic work is the Commentarius de vera et falsa religione, 15 25, in which he sets forth the biblical doctrine, beginning with a discussion of the word religion. He then proceeds in the usual way to treat of the nature of God, etc., laying special emphasis on the omnipotence and sovereignty of God and His absolute pre destination; The special difference between Luther and Zwingli was occasioned by the Zwinglian doctrine of the sacraments, according to which they are represented as mere signs of church membership and memorials of a historical fact, without any blending of the mystic element which plays so important a part in the Lutheran doctrine.1 In more immediate connection with Zwingli are : Peter Martyr Vermiglius (1500-1562) of Florence, teacher at Strassburg, Oxford 1547, again at Strassburg, and finally at Zurich 1556, author of a Loci communes theologici, published after his death, 1575 ; and Bullinger (1504-1575), brought into connection with Zwingli as teacher at Cappel, whom he succeeded as Antistes at Zurich, was most active among the compilers of the First and Second Helvetic Confessions, 1536 and 1566, and a keen controversialist on the doctrine of the Supper against Luther and Brenz, and, besides a great number of separate dogmatic treatises, wrote Compendium religionis christiane, 1556. The great epoch-making work in the theology of the Eeformed Church, and indeed by far the most scientific theological work of the Beformation age, was the Institutio christiane religionis of John Calvin, of Geneva (1509—1564). The first edition of this great work appeared in 1536, and the last, greatly enlarged and improved, in 1559.. Calvin's distribution of the doctrines is essentially trinitarian. It consists of four books, divided into 104 chapters. The first 1 See A. Baur, Zwingli's Theologie, ihr Werden und ihr System, 2 vols., 1885, 1889 ; Christoffel, Life of Zwingli, Edin. 1858 ; "Zwingli and the Doctrine of the Sacraments," in Cunningham, Ref. and Reformation, pp. 212-291. 58 INTRODUCTION. [§ 9 three follow the order of the articles in the Creed, and the fourth book deals with the doctrine of the Church. The central idea of the whole is that of the divine sovereignty, but throughout the whole work ethics and doctrine are closely conjoined, and the practical aspect of the Christian life is made everywhere prominent. Luthardt (Compendium d. Dogmatik, 4th ed., Leipzig, 1873, p. 34) characterises the Institutes as, from the scientific and literary point of view, by reason of its terseness, clearness, proportionateness of treat ment and warmth of expression, the most important Dogmatic of that century.1 A convenient and accurate modern edition of the text is that of Tholuck, 2 vols., Berlin, 1834, reissued Edin.' 1873. Also critical edition by Baum, Cunitz, and Beuss, 2 vols., Brunswick, 1869 ; English translation by Calv. Transl. Soc. 3 vols., Edin. 1845. Iri more immediate connection with Calvin, we may mention the Swiss divines, Ursinus (1534—1583) and Olevianus (1536-1587), authors of the Heidelberg Catechism, 1562, a noble work setting forth, under the threefold division — man's misery, man's redemption, thankfulness, the sum of Christian faith from the Calvinistie standpoint, and ranking in history alongside of Luther's Short Catechism and the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Ursinus' explanation and defence of the Catechism was translated into English under the title of "Sum of the Christian Eeligion," London, 1587. His successor at Heidelberg, Zanchius (1516—1590), a singularly learned and able man, carried on a discussion against the Antitrinitarians (De tribus Elohim, 1577 ; De natura Dei, 1877 ; De operibus Dei, 1591 ; De primi hominis Lapsu, 1597). His Commentaries on Eph., Col., Phil., Thess. are largely doctrinal, e.g. Eph., ed. Hartog, Amst. 1888, in Proleg. pp. 3, 4, he gives a list of Loci communes hujus epistole, finding, as he says, almost all the principal doctrines of theology in the Epistle. At least one-half of the work is 1 See five very able and instructive essays on Calvin and Calvinism in Cunningham's Ref. and Reformation, pp. 292-599. See also important article by KSstlin on "Calvin's Institutio." § 9] HISTORY OF DOGMATICS. , 59 devoted to the explication of these Loci. His De religione Christiana fides, 1585, was translated into English under the title, "Confession of the Christian Eeligion," 1599. Also closely attached to Calvin: Musculus (1497-1563), author of Loci communes, 1564, and Aretius (d. 1574), author of Theologie problemata, 1579. We also name here as belonging to the Calvinistic school, though with a leaning to Lutheran and Melanchthonian views, Hyperius (1511-1564), author of Methodus theologie, 1568, in three books, a posthumous and incomplete dogmatic. (4) Period of Protestant Scholasticism-. Literature. — Kaftan, Truth of the Christian Religion, Edin. 1894, vol. i. 188-229: "Orthodox Dogmatics." The best summary of, the history of German theology during this period is that of Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, 9th ed., Leipzig, 1893, § 18. The fullest and most detailed history is that of Tholuck, Das akademische Lehre im 17 Jahrhunderte, 2 vols., 1853; and Das kirchliche Leben des 17 Jahrhunderte, 2 vols., 1861. See also : Dorner, History of protestant Theology, Edin. 1871, vol. ii. pp. 98-203. Herrmann, Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik, Leipzig, 1842, pp. 21-26. Ebrard, Christliche Dogmatik, Konigs. 1862, vol. i. pp. 72-90. — For history of period in Britain : Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols., Edin. 1873. Hunt, History of Religious Thought in England — Reformation to 1800, 3 vols., 2nd ed., London, 1884. Walker, Theology and Theologians of Scotland, Edin. 1872, 2nd ed., 1888. The theology of the seventeenth century is distinctly polemical, and consequently there is a tendency among the representatives of the several schools to take up a somewhat extreme position. Among the orthodox there was unfortun ately an undue sensitiveness and a painful readiness to suspect any phrase that might possibly in the least favour the views of the opposite school. The confessional writings and the utterances of the founders of the different tendencies, Lutheran, Calvinistic, etc., were so put forward as to obscure 60 INTRODUCTION. [§ 9 and set out of view the plain teaching of Scripture. Also a rigid formalism grew up in which mathematical precision of style and logical method choked all spiritual development. Beaction against the modifications and concessions of Melanchthon led to the introduction of an ultra and exaggerated Lutheranism, and a similar movement in the Eeformed Church led to the elaboration of an extreme and hyper-Calvinism. Kaftan blames Protestant orthodoxy for clinging to the principles of CathoUc scholasticism and using its theological material. " Such dogmatics as that of orthodoxy, and all that is formed on the model of it, is of no service to the Evangelical Church." 1. The Lutheran Dogmatic. — Towards the close of the six teenth arid in the earlier years of the seventeenth centuries there arose a party manifesting fanatical attachment to the early Lutheran faith as set forth in the church symbols, to which documents they ascribed something like inspiration, while practically they made them rather than Scripture their rule of faith. Of this school, one of the earliest and one of the most pronounced was Hutter (1563—1616), whose Compendium locorum theologicorum, 1610, new edition by Twesten, 1855, is largely made up of extracts from the Formula concordiw, Augsburg Confession., and Apology, and Chemnitz, and keenly opposes Melanchthonianism. It con sists of thirty-four sections or loci : De scriptura sacra ; De Deo uno et trino ; De duabus naturis ; De creatione ; De angelis ; De imagine Dei, etc. The same position is main tained by John Gerhard (1582-1637), the most learned and able dogmatist of the age, who combines the warmth of a fervent piety with a very wide and accurate acquaintance with historical, exegetical, and doctrinal theology. His Loci communes theologici, 1610-1622, in 9 vols., is a great im provement on Hutter in respect of systematic arrangement and philosophical development. He places at the head of dogmatics the doctrine of Scripture, and very carefully elaborates the doctrine of inspiration. In direct opposition to the attitude of those strict § 9] HISTORY OF DOGMATICS. 6f Lutherans stands Calixtus (1586-1656), who insisted on going back to the Apostles' Creed and the doctrine of the first five centuries, regarding the Lutheran Confessions not as a source, but only as one of the stages in the historical development of doctrine. In his Epitome theologie, 1619, he made an advance upon the local method by substituting the analytical for the synthetical mode of treatment, and proceed ing from end to means : God, man and the means of salva tion. This Calixtine movement was vigorously opposed in the interests of strict Lutheranism by Calovius (161 2-1 6 8 6), who, in a somewhat more scholastic style than had been previously used, set forth in his Systema locorum theologicorum, 12 vols., 1655-1677, a full and carefully expressed representation of Lutheran orthodoxy. His work is one of great learning, and he specially undertakes to confute those errors that had been put forth by writers after the appearance of Gerhard's great work. Somewhat more dialectical in style, more cold and formal, but essentially on the same lines, is the work of Quenstedt, of Wittenberg (1617-1688), Theologia didactico- polemica s. systema theologie, 1685. Along with these should also be named Hollaz (1648-1713), who, in his Examen theologicum acroamaticum univ. theol. thetico-polemicam complectens, 1707, consisting mainly of extracts from Gerhard, Calovius, etc., but characterised by great precision of defini tion and orderliness of arrangement, marks the transition from the severely scholastic formalism of the seventeenth century to the pietism of the eighteenth century. He is a strict Lutheran on whom pietism, though it is not discussed nor even named, has a powerful, silent influence. With its prolegomena, including discussions on religion, theology, the Articles of Faith, and Holy Scripture, followed by dogmatics proper treated under the usual four heads, it has more of the form of a modern text-book than any previous theological work. The theologians of the Jena school took up a position midway between the extremes of Calixtus and Hutter, and set forth a Lutheran system modified and softened in several 62 INTRODUCTION. [§ 9 important points. The chief representatives of this party are: Musaeus (1613-1681), who wrote several treatises on particular topics — on the nature of natural theology and revelation, on Scripture as the primary source of theology, on predestination, the Supper, the Church, opposing equally Calo vius and Calixtus; and his son-in-law, Baier (1647-1695), in whose Compendium theologie positive, 1686, which became a highly popular text-book, and was often reprinted, we have a modified orthodoxy set forth in a clear and thoroughly intelligible style, forming one of the very best introductions to a knowledge of the old Lutheran Dogmatic. 2. The Reformed Dogmatic. — In the Eeformed Dogmatic, \ to a very much larger extent than in the Lutheran Dogmatic, we find differences and peculiarities. Alongside of the general adoption of the Eeformed standpoint, as it appears in the writings of Calvin, especially with reference to the Calvinistic doctrines of predestination and the Lord's Supper, we have schools formed in accordance with the special point adopted as basis for the systematic arrangement and distribu tion. Just as in the history of Lutheran Dogmatic we have a scholastic development which seeks to outbid the founder in strict logical formulating of distinct doctrines, and others that go to the extreme of explaining away or belittling what has been regarded as fundamental, and yet others who endeavour to present the doctrines as originally set forth in a form suited as far as possible to the philosophical taste and tendencies of the age ; so we have in the history of the Eeformed Dogmatic what we may fairly call a hyper-Calvinistic school, whose exaggerations led to the enunciation of extreme positions in an opposite direction. We shall here enumerate, first of all, those great and influential theologians of all lands who claim to represent the Calvinistic school, and also more or less closely reproduce Calvin's doctrine ; then those who consciously and avowedly seek to modify the strict doctrine of Calvin, e.g. the Arminians and Amyraldists. The movement in the direction of overstraining the Calvinistic position was inaugurated by" Beza (1519—1605), § 9] HISTORY OF DOGMATICS. 63 who, though he wrote no distinctively dogmatical work him self, yet powerfully influenced the dogmatists of the early part of the seventeenth century. As most evidently affected by the conflict with Lutheranism, and so retaining the scholastic form which this polemic almost inevitably led the dogmatic of that period to assume, we may name : Wolleb, of Basel (1536—1626), whose Compendium theologie christiane, 1626, has all the precision which the scholastic method secures, without yielding to the temptation of lingering over trifling and purely formal questions ; and Wendelin, of the Palatinate (1584-1652), whose Compendium christ. theologie, 1634, and Chr. theologie systema majus, 1656, are works of great learning, and admirably expound the strict Calvinism of that age. One of the earliest to carry out the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination with logical precision, to an extreme never contemplated by Calvin himself, was Dr. Wm. Twisse (1575- 1646), whose treatises: Vindicim gratie, potestatis ac pro vidential Dei, Amst. 1648, and The Riches of God's Love unto tJie Vessels of MerCy consistent with His absolute Hatred or Reprobation of the Vessels of Wrath. Oxf. 1653, show great speculative power, and afford perhaps the very best example of. supralapsarianism developed by fearless application of logic, without the necessary qualifications and reservations, to the doctrinal principles of Calvinism. A somewhat similar, but not altogether so extreme, position was taken up by Francis Turretine, of Geneva (1623—1687), whose Institutio theologie elenctice, 1679, 2nded., 3 vols., Geneva, 1688-1690 [an Edinburgh ed. of 1847 is very carelessly and incorrectly printed], presents a very complete and full statement of Calvinistic doctrine arranged according to the usual local method, modified in several particulars by the influence of the federal theology. With many distinctive peculiarities, the same high Calvinism is represented by the works of Samuel Eutherford, of St. Andrews (1600-1661), whose writings : Exercitationes apologetice pro divina gratia, Amst. 1637, another ed. by Schultens of Franeker, 1693 (against 64 INTRODUCTION. [§ 9 Arminians and Jesuits, e.g. Suarez, Molina, Fonseca, and Bellarmine); Disputatio scholastica de divina Providcntia (against Jesuits, Arminians, Socinians, etc.), 1651 ; A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist (against Antinomians, Familists, Schwenkfeldians, etc.), 1648; Examen Arminianismi (his college lectures, giving an admirable outline of his theological system), published after his death in 1668, — while directly polemical, give clear and emphatic deliverances on all manner of details connected with the characteristic doctrines of high Calvinism. A successful and thoroughgoing • protest against the scholastic method and speculative treatment of the materials by the extreme Calvinists was made by Cocceius, of Bremen, Franeker, and Leyden (1603-1669), a moderate Calvinistic standpoint, and in smaller type an immense mass of useful information is given, partly original, partly in the form of well-chosen quotations. The whole makes an ex tremely useful students' book. The arrangement and dis tribution are somewhat loose. After the Prolegomena, in which Dr. Strong treats (1) of the idea, (2) of the matter, (3) of the method of theology, the Christian doctrines are dis tributed in seven parts : i. the existence of God ; ii. the Scriptures a revelation from God ; iii. the nature, decrees, and works of God ; iv. anthropology, or the doctrine of man ; v. soteriology, or the doctrine of salvation through the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit ; vi. ecclesiology, or the doctrine of the Church (constitution and ordinances) ; vii. eschatology, or the doctrine of the last things. As of a kindred type with the works just referred to, we may here mention the dogmatic treatises of Oosterzee and Bohl. Oosterzee (1817-1882), in his Christelijke Dogmatiek, 2 vols., Utrecht, 1870—1872 (Eng. trans., Christian Dogmatics, London, 1874), after a somewhat diffuse preliminary discussion on religion, revelation, and Holy Scripture (rich in contents and most instructive), gives a full and clear statement of Calvinistic doctrine under the usual divisons — theology, anthropology, christology, objective soteriology, subjective soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology. Though somewhat diffuse, it is so throughout, and is a well-proportioned exhibi tion of the whole system. In many respects it is eminently well fitted for use as a theological text-book. Bohl, of Vienna, in his Dogmatik; Darstellung d. chr. Glaubenslehre auf refor- miert-kirchlicher Grundlage, Amsterdam, 1887, distributes the contents of dogmatics into five divisions : i. theology (God's existence, nature, trinitarian personality, relation to the world); ii. anthropology (original condition, fall, death); 94 INTRODUCTION. [§ 9 iii. soteriology, doctrine of Bedeemer in respect of His Person and work ; iv. soteriology, doctrine of the appropria tion of redemption through the Holy Spirit (including doctrine of Spirit, Word of God, ordo salutis, election, Church and sacraments) ; v. eschatology. The work is written in a clear and rather interesting style, but the contents are decidedly commonplace, reiterating the familiar statements of doctrine from the Eeformed standpoint, with no attempt anywhere at fresh development. As compendia of the positions of the recognised teachers of confessional Protestant theology, those of Hutter, Hase, and Luthardt are the most convenient. Hutter (1563—1616), in his Compendium locorum theologicorum, 1610, under the usual Loci gave quotations from the Lutheran Confessions, and from Chemnitz and Hunnius. Twesten, in his convenient edition of the Compendium, Berl. 1855, 2nd ed. 1863, added quota tions from the Eeformed theologians, Wolleb and Pictet. A more complete exhibition of Beformation theology was given by Hase (1800-1890) in his Hutterus redivivus, Dogmatik d. evang.-luth. Kirche, 1829, 12th ed. 1883. The most complete, and for the purpose a really perfect, rnanual is the Compendium der Dogmatik of Luthardt, of Leipzig, 1865, 9th ed. 1893, in which quotations from fathers, schoolmen, reformers, and later Lutheran and Eeformed divines are woven together by a connecting thread of exposition and ex planation. Luthardt distributes his materials under six heads : i. the grounding of the divine fellowship in the eternal loving will of God (doctrine of Gd5^—