Classic Audiobook Collection - The B. B. Warfield Collection, Volume 5 by Benjamin B. Warfield ~ Full Audiobook [religion]

Starting point is 00:00:00 God's revelation of himself to Israel by Bibi Warfield. The Old Testament does not occupy itself with how Israel thought of God. Its concern is with how Israel ought to think of God. To it, the existence of God is not an open question, nor his nature, nor the accessibility of knowledge of him. God himself has taken care of that. He has made himself known to his people, and their business is not to feel after him,

Starting point is 00:00:28 if happily they may fumblingly find him, but to hearken to him as he declares to them what and who he is. The fundamental note of the Old Testament, in other words, is revelation. Its seers and prophets are not men of philosophic minds, who have risen from the seen to the unseen, and by dint of much reflection have gradually attained to elevated conceptions of him who is the author of all that is. They are men of God whom God has chosen,

Starting point is 00:00:55 that he might speak to them and through them to his people. Israel has not in and by them created for itself a God. God has, through them, created for himself a people. If we are to attend at all to the Old Testament's own conception of the matter, therefore, it is a mistake to look into the Old Testament for Israelitesish ideas about God. What it professes to give us is God's revelation of himself to Israel. We may, of course, discern here and there, tucked away in some corner or other, certain ideas about God which are of human invention.

Starting point is 00:01:27 These we are given to understand are for the most part inheritances from a less instructed past or borrowings from uninstructed neighbours, and it is the very purpose of God's revelation of himself to eradicate them from the heart of Israel, and to supplant them by the image of himself, the only true God. And no doubt God was a very stiff-necked people, slow of heart to believe all that was spoken by the prophets, slower still of mind to assimilate the entirety of their message, and to frame its life and thought upon it. Therefore, these evil inheritances and borrowings repeatedly appear in the background of the successive revelations, supplying often their occasion, often conditioning their

Starting point is 00:02:09 form and their course. It is quite possible to gather them together and make a show of them openly, in contrast with the revelations of God. Thus, we may form some conception of what the native thought of the Israelites was, and what we should have got from Israel had not God intervened to teach it what he really is, and how he would have his people think of him. Similarly today, a curious inquirer might doubtless uncover some very odd, some very gross, some very wicked notions about God lurking in the minds of these or those Christians. But, as it would be unfair to look upon these strange,

Starting point is 00:02:44 perhaps unworthy notions of God as the God of Christianity, merely because they have been or are entertained by some Christians. So it would be unfair to think of those inadequate or debasing ideas of God which some Israelites betray clinging to their minds as the God of Israel. The Christian God is not the God which some Christians have imagined for themselves, not even the God which all true Christians believe in, nor even the God whom the best of Christians intelligently worship. For who has availed to know him to perfection.

Starting point is 00:03:15 The Christian God is the God of the Christian Revelation, and the God of Israel is not the God which some Israelites have fancied to be altogether like unto themselves, or may have something indefinitely less to be. be admired than themselves, but the God of the Israelitesish revelation. He must be sought, therefore, not in the thought of Israel, but in his own self-disclosures through his prophets, the personal friend of the Israelites. At the center of the conception of God, which was revealed to Israel, lay the great fact of the divine unity. Here, O Israel, Jehovah, our God is one Jehovah, so ran the fundamental confession, and in its stirring announcement it came at length to be

Starting point is 00:03:55 considered the whole religion of Israel was summed up. And little wonder, by the passionate conviction of the divine unity which was wrought into Israel's very soul, the Israelite was protected from at least the worst of the debasements of the heathen about him, with their gods many and lords many, each rivaling the others in iniquity. But we must bear in mind that the monotheism of Israel was ever concrete, never abstract. The real emphasis fell, after all, therefore, upon the high and austere theism which formed its foundation stone. The God of Israel was above all else and before all else a person. Here it is that the center of the center of the revelation of God to Israel lies, and there is no period in the life of Israel reflected to us in the pages of the Old

Starting point is 00:04:42 Testament, where the personality of God has not already been made, the unwavering conviction of its heart. There was therefore no temptation in Israel to think of God as some vague ground of being, the substrate of all that exists, or as the undefined, perhaps undefinable principle of the moral order of the world. Over against themselves, he stood, another self capable of communion with them, as persons with persons, talking with them, concerning himself for them, showing himself their friend. They met with him walking in the garden in the cool of the day. They talked with him in the door of the tent. They reasoned with him, and were sure he was open to their appeal. They looked to him to act, as persons do under the influence of motives, and to be governed as persons are by rational considerations.

Starting point is 00:05:33 The will that can. So vivid and anthropomorphism might easily, it may be conceived, bring with it its own dangers. Israel's safeguard from these lay in the intense reverence with which it had been taught to think of its God. Who is able to stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God, they asked in trembling awe, who is like thee among the gods, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. The sense of the uniqueness of God was as strong in Israel as the sense of his unity. As he alone was God, there was none like him. He was the only one of his kind. In the awful majesty of his being, there was nothing which could even represent him. Israel was forbidden, therefore, to form any similitude of God. If then God was a person, it was not

Starting point is 00:06:20 as a person among other persons that he was to be conceived. He was a person infinitely exalted. He was a person infinitely exalted above all other persons. Like them, in all in which the life of a free spirit consists, he was immeasurably removed from all the weaknesses which belong to humanity. Of course, one element in the incomparable glory of this great being was his almighty power. There was nothing beyond his accomplishment. All that exists was the work of his hands, and all that he has made he upholds and governs. As for men, he had made them all, and he had made them for himself, and he did his pleasure among them. None could dispute his rule, none could withstand his will. No Israelite was permitted to imagine that there was anything too hard for God, or that there was a

Starting point is 00:07:05 limit beyond which he could not advance. His, in Robert Browning's phase, was the will that can. The heavens belonged to him to their utmost heights, the earth, and all that therein is. It lay thus at the very basis of the revelation of God to Israel, that he is the omnipotent person, in whose glorious will is found the ultimate account of all that comes to pass. But of course Israel was not permitted to imagine that it was his might alone which made God God, that it was the irresistibleness of his will which constituted his majesty. Israel knew perfectly well that it is not bare strength which exalts a person, and Israel found the unapproachable greatness of God,

Starting point is 00:07:46 not in the mere fact that he has a resistless will, but in the nature of that will which none can resist. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? That was from the beginning the sure plea with which every Israelite approached his God. If he was the embodiment of all power, he was also the very impersonation of all that was right, of all that was faithful, of all that was true. Exalted in judgment, the Holy One was sanctified in righteousness, just and righteous was he who has commanded his testimonies in righteousness and very faithfulness, those who looked up to him in awe because he was so great, looked up to him in love also because he was so good.

Starting point is 00:08:25 If men might not always perceive the righteousness of his acts, that was not because their righteousness admitted of doubt, but only because men are so blind. They knew beyond the possibility of mistake that whatsoever he should do would be right, and if they knew beyond the possibility of mistake what was right, they knew what he would do. Righteousness, always and everywhere, therefore, he would reward. wickedness he would unfailingly rebuke. Nor was it a narrow conception of righteousness which the Israelites were taught to attribute to their God, and certainly it was no harsh one. He whose name was the Lord, the God, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in

Starting point is 00:09:05 mercy and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving, iniquity and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty. Such a God was assuredly not that hard God who the modern poet, but no ancient prophet, tells us, dwelt at Jerusalem. The God of Israel was not only a God who commanded and saw to it that he was obeyed, he was a God who loved and attracted love. In a word, the God of Israel was the God of grace, and it is here that we at last reached the real heart of the revelation of God to Israel. He certainly made himself known as the God of nature. He was the maker of the heavens and the earth. All that is is his workmanship, and all that he has made he governs in all its movements. He made himself as certainly known as the God of history.

Starting point is 00:09:51 The courses of human life run only in channels of his appointing. But he made himself known, above all things, as the God of Israel, who had chosen Israel to himself out of the purity of his unmotived love. Not for anything good he had seen in Israel by which he might have been moved to love it, but solely that he might do good to Israel, and out of Israel, create a people capable of responding to him in grateful devotion. for of what other people was it ever heard that God went to redeem it unto himself for a people and to make him a name and to do great things for it and terrible things.

Starting point is 00:10:26 Of course the great deliverance from Egypt rose in Israel's mind when it thought of God as its redeemer, but it would be a mistake to suppose that Israel's thought of God as redeemer was absorbed in the thought of this national deliverance to the exclusion of all else. Rather this stood out before it as the symbol of the unearned goodness of its God, In it Israel saw but a thrilling proof that the need of man is the opportunity of God. Knowing itself as the redeemed of the Lord, it knew its God as the redeeming God, the good God, who with outstretched hand and bared arm, delivers his people from destruction and saves it from its distresses.

Starting point is 00:11:05 The proclamation to Israel of a redeeming God was in its essence, thus the proclamation of a God who saves from sin, and it is distinctly over against a quickened sense of sin, that the God of Israel made himself known as the God of grace, who visits his people with salvation. A saviour rejected a God unheard. Thus the revelation of God to Israel culminated in the revelation of God coming to save his people. It was not clearly revealed to Israel

Starting point is 00:11:34 that this coming of Jehovah to redemption was one with the coming of the anointed king. It was not clearly revealed to Israel that the anointed king was one with the atoning servant. It required the fulfillment to weave together all the threads of the great revelation with one marvelous portraiture. But it was clearly revealed to Israel that God was its Savior, and that he would visit his people in his compassion's,

Starting point is 00:11:58 and that he would redeem them from all their iniquities. In this hope Israel rested, and by it Israel lived, and resting in and living by it, Israel laid its ear to the ground, and listened with beating heart for the voice crying, prepare ye in the wilderness the way of Jehovah, make level in the desert a highway for our God. O the pity of it, that when at last the long-expected voice went booming out from the wastes of Jordan, Israel's ear was holden that it should not hear,

Starting point is 00:12:27 and it failed to recognize in the, Behold the man of the Roman governor, the Behold Your God, for which it had so long been waiting. But verily it was he who came as a mighty one, and his arm has ruled for him, and he has fed his flock like a shepherd, and gathered his lambs, in his arms and carried them in his bosom, and gently led those that give suck, and it is his voice and none other that is crying down the ages, look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else. End of God's revelation of himself to Israel by B.B. Warfield.

Starting point is 00:13:06 Godhead by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevaunx recordings are in the public domain, for more information or to volunteer, please visit librovax.org. The word godhead is a simple doublet of the less frequently occurring godhood. Both forms stand side by side in the Ancren Rible, about 1225 AD, and both have survived until today, though not in equally common use. They are representatives of a large class of abstract substantives, formed with the suffix head or hood. most of which formerly occurred in both forms almost indifferently,

Starting point is 00:13:48 though the majority of them survive only or very preponderatingly, except in Scottish speech, in the form hood. The two suffixes appear in middle English as head and horde, and presuppose in the Anglo-Saxon which lies behind them a feminine heida, which is not actually known by the side of the masculine HAD. The Anglo-Saxon word, quote, was originally a distinct substance, meaning person, personality, sex, condition, quality, rank, end quote, Bradley in a New English Dictionary on a historical basis.

Starting point is 00:14:24 See article hood. But its use as a suffix early superseded its separate employment. At first, Heade appears to have been appropriated to adjectives, ored to substantives. But this distinction breaking down and the forms coming into indiscriminate use, Haid grew obsolete and remains in common use only in one. or two special forms, such as Godhead, Maidenhead. Bradley has cited in the article, Head. The general elimination of the forms in head has been followed by a fading consciousness

Starting point is 00:14:57 in the case of the few surviving instances in this form of the qualitative sense inherent in the suffix. The words accordingly show a tendency to become simple denotatives. Thus the Godhead is frequently employed merely as a somewhat strong synonym of God, although usually, with more or less emphasis upon that in God which makes him God. One of its established usages is to denote the divine essence as such, in distinction from the three hypotheses or persons, which share its common possession in the doctrine of the Trinity. This usage is old, Bradley, opposite, is able to adduce instances from the 13th century.

Starting point is 00:15:37 In this usage, the word has long held the rank of a technical term, for example the 39 articles of the Church of England 1571 article 1 quote and in the unity of this godhead there be three persons and quote compare the Irish articles of 1615 and the Westminster Confession 2.3 Westminster shorter Catechism question 6 there are three persons in the godhead

Starting point is 00:16:03 pursuant to the fading of the qualitative sense of the word there has arisen a tendency when the qualitative if consciousness is vivid to revive the obsolescent godhood to take its place, and this tendency naturally shows itself, especially when the contrast with humanity is expressed. Carlisle, for example, French Revolution 3, book 4, chapter 4, section 1, speaking of the posthumous reaction against Mara, writes, quote, shorter godhood had no divine man, end quote, and Phillips Brooks, sermons 13, 237, speaking of the post, of Christ bridging the gulf between, quote, the godhood and the manhood, end quote.

Starting point is 00:16:46 Godhood seems indeed always to have had a tendency to appear in such contrasts, as if the qualitative consciousness were more active in it than in Godhead. Thus, it seems formally to have suggested itself almost as inevitably to designate the divine nature of Christ, as Godhead did to designate the common divine essence of the Trinity. Bradley cites instances from 1563 down, The fundamental meaning of Godhead is nevertheless no less than that of Godhood, the state, dignity, condition, quality of a God, or as monotheists would say, of God. As manhood is that which makes a man a man, and childhood, that which makes a child a child, so Godhead is that which makes God God.

Starting point is 00:17:33 When we ascribe Godhead to a being, therefore, we affirm that all that enters into the idea of God belongs to him. Godhead is thus the Saxon equivalent of the Latin divinity, or, as it is now becoming more usual to say deity. Like these terms, it is rendered concrete by prefixing the article to it, as the divinity, the deity, so also the godhead. It's only another way of saying God, except that when we say the divinity, the deity, the godhead, we are saying God more abstractly and more qualitatively, that is, with more emphasis, or at least

Starting point is 00:18:07 with a more lively consciousness, of the constitutive quality. which make God the kind of being we call God. The word Godhead occurs in the authorised version only three times, Acts 17 verse 29, Romans 1 verse 20, Colossians 2 verse 9. And oddly enough, it translates in these three passages, three different, though closely related, Greek words, dothion, theotes, feotes, feotes. Dothion means that which is divine,

Starting point is 00:18:40 concretely, or shortly, the deity. Among the Greeks it was in constant use in the sense of the divine being, and particularly as a general term to designate the deity, apart from reference to a particular God. It is used by Paul, Acts 17 verse 29, in an address made to a heathen audience, and is inserted into a context in which it is flanked by the simple term God, Otheos, on both sides. It is obviously deliberately chosen in order to throw up into emphasis the qualitative idea of God, and this emphasis is still further heightened by the direct contrast into which it is brought with the term man. Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that it is to gold or silver or stone

Starting point is 00:19:25 graven by art and device of man that the godhead is like. In an effort to bring out this qualitative emphasis, the revised version margin suggests that we might substitute for the godhead, here the paraphrastic rendering, that which is divine. But this seems both clumsy and ineffective for its purpose. From the philological standpoint, the godhead is a very fair equivalent for dothion, differing as it does from the simple god precisely by its qualitative emphasis. It may be doubted, however, whether, in the partial loss by a godhead of its qualitative force in its current usage, one of its synonyms, the divinity, which is the rendering here of the

Starting point is 00:20:07 Riemish version, or the deity, would not better convey Paul's emphasis to modern readers. Neither of these terms divinity, deity, occurs anywhere in the authorised version, and deity does not occur in the revised version either, but the revised version, following the Riemish version, substitutes divinity for Godhead in Romans 1 verse 20. Of the two, divinity was originally of the broader connotation. In the days of heathendom, it was applicable to all grades of divine beings. Deity was introduced by the Christian fathers for the express purpose of providing a stronger word, by means of which the uniqueness of the Christian's God should be emphasized. Perhaps divinity retains even in its English usage something of its traditional weaker connotation,

Starting point is 00:20:53 although, of course, in a monotheistic consciousness, the two terms coalesce in meaning. There exists a tendency to insist, therefore, on the deity of Christ, rather than his mere divinity, in the feeling that divinity might lend itself to the notion that Christ possessed but a secondary or reduced grade of divine quality. In Acts 17 verse 29, Paul is not discriminating between grades of divinity, but is preaching monotheism. In this context, then, though Theon does not lump together all that is called God or is worshipped, and declare that all that is in any sense divine should be esteemed beyond the power of material things

Starting point is 00:21:31 worthily to represent. Paul has the idea of God at its height before his mind, and having quickened his hero's sense of God's exaltation by his elevated description of him, he demands of them whether this deity can be fitly represented by any art of man working in dead stuff. He uses the term dothaeon rather than Otheos, not merely in courteous adoption of his heiars. own language, but because of its qualitative emphasis. On the whole, the best English translation of it would probably be the deity. The godhead has ceased to be sufficiently qualitative. The godhood is not sufficiently current. The divine is not sufficiently personal. The divinity is perhaps not sufficiently strong. Deity, without the article, loses too much of its personal

Starting point is 00:22:18 reference to compensate for the gain in qualitativeness. The deity alone seems fairly to reproduce the Apostle's thought. The Greek term in Romans 1 verse 20 is Theotes, which again, as a term of quality, is not unfairly rendered by Godhead. What Paul says here is that the everlasting power and Godhead of God are clearly perceived by means of his works. By Godhead, he clearly means the whole of that by which God is constituted what we mean by God. By coupling the word with power, Paul no doubt intimates that his mind is resting, especially upon those qualities which enter most intimately into and constitute the exaltation of God, but we must beware of limiting the connotation of the term. All of God's attributes are glorious. The context shows that the thought of the apostle was moving on much the same line as in Acts 17 verse 29. Here too, the contrast which determines the emphasis is with corruptible man, and along with him with the lower creatures in general, verse 23. How could man think of the Godhead under such similitudes? The Godhead so clearly manifested in its glory by its works.

Starting point is 00:23:31 The substitution for Godhead here of its synonym divinity by the revised version is doubtless due in part to a desire to give distinctive renderings to distinct terms, and in part to a wish to emphasize more strongly than Godhead in its modern usage emphasizes the qualitative implication which is so strong in Theotes. Perhaps, however, the substantiable. is not altogether felicitous. Divinity, in its contrast with deity, may have a certain weakness of connotation clinging to it,

Starting point is 00:24:00 which would unsuit it to represent Theotes here. It is quite true that the two terms divinity and deity are the representatives in Latin patristic writers, respectively, of the Greek Theotes and Theotes. Augustine, the city of God, 7-1, compare 10-1, tells us that deity was coined, by Christian writers as a more accurate rendering of the Greek Theotes than the current divinity.

Starting point is 00:24:28 But it does not follow that because deity more accurately renders Theotes, therefore divinity is always the best rendering of Theotes. The stress laid by the Greek fathers on the employment of Theotes, to express the deity of the persons of the Trinity, was in sequence to attempts which were being made to ascribe to the Son and the Spirit, a reduced divinity, and it was the need the Latin fathers felt in the same interests which led them to coin deity as a more accurate rendering, as they say, of Feotes.

Starting point is 00:25:00 Meanwhile, Theotes and Divinity had done service in the two languages, the former as practically and the latter as absolutely, the only term in use to express the idea of deity. Theotes is very rare in classical Greek, deity non-existent in classical Latin, to represent Theotes uniformly by divinity, if any, reduced connotation at all clings to divinity would therefore be to represent it often very inadequately. And that is the case in the present passage. What Paul says is clearly made known by God's works is His everlasting power and all the other everlasting attributes which form his Godhead and constitute his glory. It is Theotes, which occurs in Colossians 2 verse 9. Here Paul declares

Starting point is 00:25:49 that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily. The phrase fullness of the Godhead is an especially emphatic one. It means everything without exception, which goes to make up the godhead, the totality of all that enters into the conception of godhood. All this, says Paul, dwells in Christ bodily, that is, after such a fashion as to be manifested in connection with a bodily organism. This is the distinction of Christ, in the Father, and in the Spirit, the whole plenitude of the Godhead dwells also, but not bodily. In them, it is not manifested in connection with a bodily life. It is the incarnation which Paul has in mind, and he tells us that in the incarnate sun, the fullness of the godhead dwells. The term chosen to express the godhead here is the strongest

Starting point is 00:26:36 and the most unambiguously decisive which the language affords. Thioces may mean all that theotes may mean all that Theotes can mean. On monotheistic lips, it does mean just what Theotes means, but Theotes must mean the utmost that either term can mean. The distinction is not that Theotes refers to the essence and theotes to the attributes. We cannot separate the essence and the attributes. Where the essence is, there the attributes are. They are merely the determinants of the essence. And where the attributes are, there the essence is.

Starting point is 00:27:13 It is merely the thing of the kind of which they are the determinants. The distinction is that Theotes emphasizes that it is the highest stretch of divinity which is in question, while Theotes might possibly be taken as referring to deity at a lower level. It is not merely such divinity as is shed by all the gods many and lords many of the heathen world, to which heroes might aspire and demons attain, all the plenitude of which dwells in Christ as incarnate, but that deity which is peculiar to the high gods, or since Paul is writing out of a monotheistic consciousness, that deity which is the supreme

Starting point is 00:27:50 god alone. All the fullness of supreme deity dwells in Christ bodily. There is nothing in the God who is over all which is not in Christ. Probably no better rendering of this idea is afforded by our modern English than the term Godhead, in which the qualitative notion still lurks, though somewhat obscure it behind the individualizing implication, and which in any event emphasizes precisely what Paul wishes here to assert, that all that enters into the conception of God and makes God what we mean by the term God dwells in Christ and is manifested in him in connection with a bodily organism. End of Godhead by B.B. Warfield.

Starting point is 00:28:35 Four hymns and some religious verses by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevovonk's recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. The love of God Almighty O the love of God Almighty O His ceaseless love, piercing through the depths beneath us, through the heights above, wider than the boundless spaces where the stars do dwell, kindling heaven with its brightness reaching down to hell,

Starting point is 00:29:11 kindling heaven with its brightness reaching down to hill, Yea, our mother may forget us, yea our father fail, yea the bridegroom may grow careless, other thoughts prevail. We may change, and all the whiteness of our souls may blot. O, the love of God Almighty, lo, it changes not. Holy is the Lord Almighty, righteous past compare. We are sinners who among us can his vengeance bear. Lo, the cross and one upon it, coming from above.

Starting point is 00:29:44 O the love of God Almighty, O His saving love. Lord God of all the ages. Lord God of all the ages. Lord of our age as well, thou sittest in thy heavens, we on earth do dwell. Help us to trust thee holy, to count thee ever true,

Starting point is 00:30:07 and all that thou commandest in ready faith to do. Amen. We hear the heathen raging, the world's rebellious roar, thy hands they cast off from them, thy sceptre own no more, yet still thy voice is calling to all who will but hear, still through the murky darkness thy light is shining clear. This shadow that we dwell in, it too shall pass away, as more and more dawns on us the splendour of thy day. O help us in our weakness thine empire to confess, and fill our hearts with courage to trust thy faithfulness. Lord God of all the ages, the future as the past, and of these times of evil in which our lot is cast help us to hear with trembling, the while our hearts rejoice,

Starting point is 00:31:00 the thunders of thy marching, the whispers of thy voice. How glorious art thou, O our God! How glorious art thou, O our God, tis thou and thou alone, who dwellest in thy people's praise on thine eternal throne, Amen. How many voices, differing tongues, harmonious join to raise, to thee, O Rock of Israel, accumulating praise. From Karen and Chaldean Ur, the river's banks along, from Canaan's heights and Egypt's sands, ascends the constant song, from all the towns that stud the hills

Starting point is 00:31:42 of teeming Galilee, from marts of Greece and misty lands beyond the western sea, Fain would we catch the accents strange, Fain train our ears to hear, The notes that hymn thee through the years, O Israel's hope and fear. T'was thou didst teach thy sons of old, thy varied lord to sing. School thou our hearts that we may too our hallelujah's bring. How glorious art thou, O our God, how mighty past compare. Thou dwellest in thy people's praise, except the praise we bear. Him, for the opening of the seminary.

Starting point is 00:32:24 Great God, the giver, thou hast faithful been. Here thou hast set thy name, and we have seen thy mercies grow, from year to year more green. Lord we thank thee, Lord we thank thee, amen. T'was thou didst raise these walls, and thou didst give, thy saints thy truth to teach, thy truth to live. They wrought their work, and thou didst it receive. Lord, we thank thee. Unto their feet thou gatherest of thy sons,

Starting point is 00:32:56 the love of thee waxed fire within their bones. The world has heard their voice, its huts, its thrones. Lord, we thank thee. God of our fathers still pour out thy grace, in plenteous streams upon this hallowed place. Still show it all thy glorious faithfulness. Lord, we pray thee. And as the flood of years rolls ever by,

Starting point is 00:33:19 build here thy holy house each year more high establish here thy truth unchangeably lord we pray thee and every year send forth a sacred host taught of thy christ filled with the holy ghost the cross their only theme their only boast lord we pray thee The Advent The Lord has come into his world Nay, nay, that cannot be, The world is full of noisomeness and all iniquity. The Lord, thrice holy is his name, He cannot touch this thing of shame. The Lord has come into his world,

Starting point is 00:33:58 Ah, then he comes in might, The sword of fury in his hands, With vengeance all bedite. O wretched world, thine end draws near, Prepare to meet thy god in fear, The Lord has come into his world. What, in that baby's sweet? That broken man, acquaint with grief, those bleeding hands and feet,

Starting point is 00:34:19 He is the Lord of all the earth. How can he stoop to human birth? The Lord has come into his world, a slaughtered lamb I see, A smoking altar on which burns a sacrifice for me. He comes, he comes, oh bless a day, he comes to take my sin away. The Moa. A moa went forth to mow and crooned his workman's song Swing, swing, O Moa, thy goodly scythe, make the swath both wide and long.

Starting point is 00:34:49 Gaily the grasses grow and fling their heads in pride. Swing, swing, O Moa, thy goodly scythe, make the swath both long and wide. Quiet they lie behind, each by his neighbour's side. Swing, swing, O Moa, thy goodly scythe, make the swath both. long and wide, though every spear of them all, be a man in right or in wrong, swing, swing, O Moa thy goodly scythe, make the swath both wide and long. Augustine's philosophy. There is a place for everything in earth or sky or sea, where it may find its proper use and of advantage be, quoth Augustine the saint. The mocker quick with curling lip, then there's a place

Starting point is 00:35:39 for vice, yea fitly neath our trampling feet, may lie the coquatress, quoth Augustine the saint. Our very vices great and foul, when in the earth their trod, may happily lofty ladders build, on which to climb to God, quoth Augustine the saint, prayer and work. Said one one day, my cause is good, the Lord will prosper it, said Luther, take it to him then, that were provision fit trust in the lord not in thy cause however good it be take it forthwith in faithful hands and lay it on his knee the best of causes go amiss the lord will never fail commit thy ways into his care and then shake out thy sail wanted a samaritan prone in the road he lay wounded and sore bested priests levites passed that way and turned aside the head they were not hardened men in human service slack his need was great but then you see his face was black trusting in the dark said robert layton holy man intent a flickering faith to fan into a steady blaze behold yon flowered to the sun as he has done as he has done daily course doth run, turn undeclining gaze. In when the clouds obscure his face and only

Starting point is 00:37:11 faith discerns the place, wherein the heavens he saws, this flower at still with constant eye, the secret places of the sky untiringly explores. Look up, my soul, what can this be, but nature's parable to thee, look up with courage bright, the clouds press on thee, dense and black, thy sun shines ever at their back, look up and see, his light. The blood of the lamb. I dreamed a dream on yesternight. A charnel house rose on my sight, vast, crowded, horrible, untold, in numbers, in the gathered mold, of untold numbers more, the dead, lay heaped each frame, each ghastly head, oozing corruption. Suddenly, a great voice sounded, crying, see, and low a lamb amid these dead, with wounded feet and wounded head,

Starting point is 00:38:03 and wounded side, where from the blood, surged in a never-ceasing flood. Again the voice cried, sea, and low, the lamb was moving on with slow, calm steps the serried ranks to thread, and, passing low, there were no dead, but in their place a gathering train, hymming the lamb which had been slain. In the theatre, third century. Yes, Rome hath many mines of skill, but yet, but one Ganesius, for whom but he hath power to make us roar with frantic glee, the while in Galilean wise all wet with sacred water, sore with blows and the fret of chains well merited,

Starting point is 00:38:47 he skulks, but see, he comes. Here how they greet him, note how free, now sure his play the very thing, I'll get the cramps from laughter, bah what ails him now, the baptizing scenes his best, and there all white he stands and trembling, Ill? Nay, what says he? A Christian. Christ the Lord hath set him free to the lions with the booby.

Starting point is 00:39:13 Yet somehow, I doubt, what makes the fellow's face so bright in the world, 20th century. Ganesius, on the stage of Rome, what time the heathens' rage imagined vanity, made sport of Christ until the all-seeing eye observed and pitied the deluded mime. At once the scales of fell from him and sublime in holy courage as his blasphemy. In so his faith he published openly, wherefore he died before the winter's rhyme. Dear Lord, how oft do we on narrower stage, like him deny thee, if but we may win, applauding smiles from those who love thee not? O grant us too to hate the world's man din that clamours against thee, and our shame forgot, on heart and lips to bear thy name from age to age. Out of the night,

Starting point is 00:40:09 night watchers. Peace, peace, the night will pass. No, no, not yet. The robins call awakes the drowsy day. Nay, tis the robin, and from far away, an oriel's whistle, how the sparrows fret, a noisier babel in my head row set, they quarrel with the dawn, and hark, that bay of dog, and now a footfall on the way, tis morning beating at my lattice-net. Great guard, the light is thine, nay, thou art light.

Starting point is 00:40:39 that this restless longing of my heart might pipe me warning of thy rising rays. So would my fretting thoughts of yesternight cease there complaining and employ their art to drown the darkness in their itrant praise? Apocalyptics In his own time, in his own way he came, the hope of Israel, not in such guise as flared before the anger-smarting eyes of those old watchers who, in stolen name of Sia or Sibyl, heedless of their shame would drown in glory present infamies prophets of hope but prophets too of lies with vengeful passion not of love aflame god's ways are not as ours the sun shall cease before his glory when he comes again as when he came at first all thoughts of men their dreams of unfound joys of untried peace their hopes of succour in their bitter ruth stood all the bashed before the unimagined truth end of four hymns and the

Starting point is 00:41:40 some religious verses by Bibi Warfield. Pnev Matikos and its opposites in the Greek of the New Testament. By Bibi Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Pnev Matikos, belonging to that class of adjectival derivatives, which signifies especially the essential quality of the body or class to which a person belongs, expresses primarily

Starting point is 00:42:13 determined by or belonging to the Pnevma. It might reflect each and every one of the various senses through which its primitive runs and thus might express belonging to or determined by the wind, the breath, the breath as sign of life, the purely physical life, the human spirit, the superhuman spirit or the Holy Spirit. In its classical usage, which is not a very frequent one,

Starting point is 00:42:36 and which begins with Aristotle, it seems to be derived from Pnevma only in the three senses of wind, breath and soul, in this last sense, appearing as the contrast of somaticos. But when adopted into Christian Greek, it felt that ennobling breath that transfigured and glorified so many of the words of the old language. Pnefma, to the Christian ear, suggested something far higher

Starting point is 00:43:00 than even the highest element of man's composition, and Pnefmatikos passed immediately, not only out of that lower sphere, wherein it might deal with the forces of material nature, but also out of the higher sphere, in which it dealt with the height of human nature into something still higher and beyond. Thus, of the 25 instances in which the word occurs in the New Testament, in no single case does it sink even as low in its reference as the human spirit,

Starting point is 00:43:26 and in 24 of them is derived from Pnevma, the Holy Ghost. In this sense of belonging to or determined by the Holy Spirit, the New Testament usage is uniform, with the one single exception of Ephesians 4 verse 12, where it seems to refer to the higher, though fallen, superhuman intelligences. The appropriate translation for it, in each case, is spirit-given or spirit-led or spirit-determined. Occupying so noble a position, it appears as the constant contrast to a family of vocables, which, as the biblical terms descriptive of humanity, must be of abounding interest for all. Thus we find it in Romans 15 verse 27 and 1 Corinthians 9 verse 11,

Starting point is 00:44:06 in contrast with Sarakikos, in Romans 7. verse 14 and 1 Corinthians 3 verse 1 with Sarkinos and in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 15 chapter 15 verse 44 and 46 with Psychicos let us inquire into the meaning of these synonyms sarquikos though not invented for yet first comes into common use in the new testament it is found only once in the classics Aristotle history of animals 10 2 and only once and then not undisputed in the Septuagint 2 Chronicles 32 verse 8. In the New Testament, on the other hand, it seems to be the true reading in eight cases. Romans 15 verse 27, 1 Corinthians 3 verse 3, Biss, verse 4, 9 verse 11, 2 Corinthians 1 verse 12, 10 verse 4, 1 Peter 2 verse 11.

Starting point is 00:45:00 It belongs to the same class of adjectival derivatives with Pnef Matikos, and hence denotes either belonging to or determined by Sarx, i.e. fleshish or fleshly, seeing that Saraks is the standing New Testament designation of what is human, especially when the implication of weakness, either physical or moral, is present, its derivative sarke-cos quite naturally subtends the senses human, weak, impure. Thus in Romans 15 verse 27 and 1 Corinthians 9 verse 11, the word seems used without implication of any kind, expressing simply that which is human, needed for men as men are at present constituted. In 2 Corinthians 1 verse 12 and 10 verse 4, the accessory idea of weakness is made prominent, and in 1 Peter 2 verse 11, 1 Corinthians 3 verses 3 and 4, the still further idea of impurity is forced to the front.

Starting point is 00:45:51 The word is thus seen to be equivalent to the common phrase, and to pass through under the same variety of meaning. Its cognate, Sarkinos, is very different both in origin and history. While Sarkikos is found only once in the Greek classics, Sarkinos is an exceedingly common word among the early Greek writers, but to offset this, it occurs but once in the received text of the New Testament, to Corinthians' 3 verse 3. Manuscript authority, however, forces us to restore it in three other passages, Romans 7 verse 14, 1 Corinthians 3 verse 1, and Hebrews 7 verse 16.

Starting point is 00:46:28 Like other adjectives of its class, proper oxytones in Inos, This word denotes primarily the material out of which anything is made, describing it as flesh. And as this is its primary sense, so it is the most common sense which it bears in the classics. Thus, to give a single example, we find in Theocritus, idols, 21 and 66, a sarcinos-ichus, contrasted with one made of gold, upon which, therefore, hunger may not be satisfied. From this primary sense, two secondary ones sprung, by which the word came to mean, first fleshly in the sense of abounding in flesh. Polybius 29, 2 and 7.

Starting point is 00:47:09 Hasdrubel was Fuzi Sarkinus, and second, bodily, as the adverb in origin, selecta a salmis, 2, 548. It seems that the word bears only these three senses in Greek writers, and it is contended by a large number of commentators that these are the only ones which can be assumed for it in the New Testament. The sense made of flesh fits exceedingly well in 2 Corinthians 3 verse 3, but it is evident that no one of the three is possible in the other passages. Fritscher, followed by Vina, assumes a clerical error in these passages and reads Sarkikos in them all.

Starting point is 00:47:47 But this is exceedingly high-handed. The manuscript authority in each of the three is simply overwhelming and cannot be set aside, and if Sarkinos be genuine in them, we must seek a meaning for it. On a consideration of the class of derivatives to which the word belongs, we find at least two analogies by which a sense of weak or impure may be vindicated for it. First, the analogy of such words as adamantinus, which, from signifying made of iron, came to mean simply hard. In the same way, sarkenos, from signifying made of flesh, could come to mean weak, impure.

Starting point is 00:48:23 Fritra objects to this, Romans, Volume 2, 46 and 47, that, iron is necessarily hard, but flesh is not necessarily weak. This would be a valid objection if such a sense was claimed for the word when used by classical authors. In the poorline usage, however, Sarkz does denote ethically just what is weak and impure, so that in the New Testament this analogy will certainly hold. Second, the analogy of certain proproroxitones in Inos, which differ scarcely at all in usage from oxytones in Icos, such as anthropinus, emartinos, Galactinos, etc. Fchre admits that, by analogy with these,

Starting point is 00:49:04 nothing prevents Sarkinos, passing through the three classical senses it bears to a fourth, imbecilem et impurum. The only thing needed to vindicate this is a usage requiring it. It is claimed then that in these New Testament passages we have the usage. It being thus shown that Sarkinos can bear the senses of weak and impure, the question arises what distinction exists between it and Sarkik. Koss. Three opinions are held. First, there is no distinction, for example, Dr. Shed. Second,

Starting point is 00:49:36 Sarkinos is the stronger word, Maya, Krema, and third, Sarkinos is the weaker word, delich, Lange, trench, etc. That the words do lie very close to one another is beyond doubt, but that a slight distinction can be traced by which Sarkinos may be recognized as slightly weaker in force than Sarkikos seems also clear. The opposite opinion is, chiefly grounded on the a priori supposition that Sarkinos as the expression of the substance must be the stronger. Turning to the New Testament passages in which it occurs, however, it is plain that it is not a strong word.

Starting point is 00:50:10 In Hebrews 7 verse 16, as designating a part of a law which was holy divine, it cannot mean impure, but only humanly weak. The writer, contrasting by this term, a law which entrusted propitiation to fleshly, i.e. weak men, with that which provided an eternal high priest. In 1 Corinthians 3 verse 1, Sarkinu is explained by Os Nebiu, which points more to a lack than an active opposition. In Romans 7 verse 14 again, unless violence is to be done to the whole context, which evidently describes the Sarkinos as a regenerate man. A weak sense is most natural. Archbishop Trench seems therefore to have touched the heart of the matter when he translates

Starting point is 00:50:52 Sarkinos unspiritual and Sarkikos anti-spiritual, and Dishbishopual, and Dishbishopial, and Delich, when he explains Sarkinos as one who has in himself the bodily nature and the sinful tendency inherited with it, and Sarkikos as one whose personal fundamental tendency is this sinful impulse of the flesh. On turning now to physikos, we note that it belongs to the same class of adjectival derivatives with Sarkikos, and therefore, like it, denotes the essential quality, describing a man, therefore primarily as being essentially psychic or soulish as Sarkikikos. described him as fleshish or fleshly. Like that word also, it first occurs in Aristotle, but unlike

Starting point is 00:51:33 it, it became a very common word in the later classics. Its usage in the classics reflects the two main senses of its primitive, psyche, and thus parts into two streams, expressing what pertains to life and what pertains to the soul. The latter of these, however, as the most proper, is also far the most frequent sense in which it occurs, and thus it is found used in constant antithesis to somaticos, as expressing that which pertains to the highest element in the twofold constitution of man. So frequently in Plutarch, Polybius and Aristotle, so also wherever it occurs in the Septuagint Apocrypha. Its use thus coincided with and was interchangeable with the highest classical sense of Pnefmatikos. Thus the word came to the New Testament writers as the constant contrast to somaticos,

Starting point is 00:52:24 and the designation of that which pertained to the highest, that is spiritual part of man. A word, therefore, of the highest honour. It occurs in the New Testament six times, 1 Corinthians 15, verse 44, this, verse 46, 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, James 3 verse 15, Jude 15. And a mere glance at the passages evinces the fact that in its passage from profane into sacred Greek, the word has fallen from its proud position. In every one of these passages, a very strong implication of dishonour clings to it. Nor is the cause of this far to seek. In the classics, the word appears as the constant contrast of somatikos, a word lower than itself. In the New Testament, it is in every instance either expressly or impliedly contrasted with Pnevmatikos, a word infinitely

Starting point is 00:53:10 higher than itself. The highest that heathen philosophy knew was the soul of man, but revelation had to set over against that the spirit of God. A psychicos thing then in the classics was the very most noble. When contrasted in the New Testament, however, with that which was Pnev Maticos, informed, led or given by the infinite God, it shrank to nothing and hid its face in shame. The whole kernel of the distinction between the classical and New Testament use of the word lies in this fact. But we are not left to our reasonings to exhibit it. The New Testament writers themselves define for us the sense in which they use the word.

Starting point is 00:53:48 Thus Jude 19 explains the Psychiku as Pnefma me echontes, a phrase which can have but one meaning, and 1 Corinthians 2 verse 14, as those who cannot know the things of the Spirit of God, because they are Pnefmatikos, in a spirit-led way, discerned. The word means then, that which pertains to or is led or determined by simple humanity, that is, usually unregenerate humanity, and the psychicu are, shortly, the natural men, that is, the unregenerate. Thus, the three cases of the use of the word in 1 Corinthians 15 express what is human-led as distinguished from bodies framed by and filled with the Holy Ghost, and point to Paul's teaching as to the incomplete sanctification of believers in this life, given in Romans 7 verse 14 to 8 verse 11.

Starting point is 00:54:36 In the other three passages where the word occurs, it has its strongest sense and expresses briefly and clearly the idea of unregenerate. The sense in which it is used is, as we have said, directly explained by the writer himself in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 14 and Jude 19 and is hardly less clear we may add in James 3 verse 15 a very instructive passage in its climax of predicates Epigios drawing the contrast with what is anothen psychicos adding therefore destitute of the spirit and their moniores therefore opposed to the spirit

Starting point is 00:55:10 Compare Kramer page 587 If now we seek the relation of psuchikos to its two synonyms, sarikikos and sarkinos. It seems plain that it is the strongest word of the three. As it expresses the highest part of pure humanity and expresses it as alien from God, it points to the lowest depth to which man has sunk. The first, here also, has become the last, and thus has dust and ashes has been shown to be the one and only constituent of human pride. Whether a man be sarcinos, sarquicos, or psychicos, however he be under human guidance and on whatsoever human faculty resting, he is alike weak and sinful and worthless. Thus all that is in man, his highest and

Starting point is 00:55:56 lowest, is alike opposed to what is divine in its origin and action. Yet there are degrees. One cannot be in any sense, Pnefmatikos, under the influence and guidance of the Holy spirit, and yet at the same time, psychicos. If his soul has not been prevalently moved upon, he is opposite to all good. He is in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity. But his soul may be regenerated, and yet be not yet wholly cleansed from sin. He may be Ngu, the servant of God's law, while still Sarki, the slave of the law of sin. Romans 7 verse 25.

Starting point is 00:56:33 Hence, he may still be even Sarkikos, and yet not whole. holy estranged from the Holy Ghost. So were the Corinthian Christians of 1 Corinthians 3 versus 3 and 4, but how terrible was their condition and in what words of power does Paul rebuke them for daring to remain in it. Even he himself, however, was Sarikinos, Romans 7 verse 14. Even he, the great apostle in Christ Jesus, chapter 8 verse 1, and having the spirit, chapter 8 verse 1 and following, was still of the flesh, fleshy. And so long as the imperfectly sanctified Sarks clung to him, he was groaning in spirit, awaiting the redemption of the body. Because human, sarx, and so long as he carried his unglorified body, so long as he continued to bear remainders of sin, clinging to him, and hence was Sarkinos.

Starting point is 00:57:23 Psychos, no Christian can be. Sarki-cos, scarcely, but sarkenos, all must be until they, with renewed soul and body, enter into God's glory. drawing two conclusions from what has been said, it is plain first that no argument can be drawn from the use of Sarkinos in Romans 7 verse 14, against the prima facie evidence of the passage that Paul is there detailing the experience of a regenerate man, and second, that no standing ground is left for any tricotomistic theories based on the opposition throughout the New Testament of the words psychicos and Pnevmaticus. Since one is derived from Pnefma, the divine spirit, and the other. from Psyche, the human soul, they are, of course, in as violent opposition as a God and unregenerate man. We believe that to be vast. End of Pnevmatikos and its opposites in the Greek

Starting point is 00:58:16 of the New Testament by B.B. Warfield. St. Paul's use of the argument from experience by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox. The place of the opening verses of the fifth chapter of Romans in the general argument of the epistle has always presented a crux to interpreters. The problem has sometimes been complicated by the intrusion of the textual question of whether the verbs in this passage are to be read as indicative or subjunctives. The difference in reading, however, is a matter of eticism and of an eticism from which

Starting point is 00:59:02 none of the great witnesses to the text are free. To condition the solution of the problem of the life. sequence of thought upon the discrimination of Omicron from Omega by such witnesses would be somewhat like suspending higher concerns upon the correctness of the pronunciation of S by lisping lips. Manifestly, the textual question here must itself be resolved by the demands of the thought sequence, that is, it is the internal, not the external evidence which must here rule. We are safe in throwing ourselves back upon the main problem of the place of these verses in the argument of the epistle without allowing ourselves to be confused by the

Starting point is 00:59:39 textual question, which is of no more than secondary interest. The general disposition of the matter of the epistle is tolerably clear. In the opening chapters, the necessity of a justification by faith and not by works was exhibited, chapter 1 verse 18 to chapter 3 verse 20. Then the nature and working of this method of justification was expounded, chapter 3, verse 21 to 31. Then the apostle, presents a series of considerations designed to show that this method of justification by faith is indeed God's method of saving men. Chapter 4 verse 1 to Chapter 5 verse 21. It is in this section that our present passage falls.

Starting point is 01:00:19 The first consideration offered is drawn from the case of Abraham and operates to show that God has always so dealt with his people. For that Abraham the father of the faithful was justified by faith and not by works, the scriptures expressly testify, saying that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him under righteousness. This is the immediately preceding paragraph, chapter 4 versus 1 to 25, to our present passage. In the immediately succeeding paragraph, chapter 5 verses 12 to 21, appeal is made to the analogy of God's dealings with men in other matters. It was by the trespass of one that men were brought into sin and death. Does it not comport with his methods that, by the righteousness of one, men should be brought into justification and life. Our present passage, chapter 5 verses 1 to 11, lies between and ought to furnish an

Starting point is 01:01:10 intermediate argument that justification by faith is God's own method of saving sinners. It is because commentators have not seen such an argument in it that they have found it so difficult to discover the progress of thought at this point. If we are to read the verbs as subjunctives, it is no doubt impossible to understand them as propounding an argument. But if they be read as indicatives, just the intermediate argument for which we are in search will emerge as the most natural sense of the passage when looked at in the light of the contextual indications. The apostle had not presently the argument from the case of Abraham in a purely historical spirit. His preoccupation was with its bearing upon the case of his readers. Its relation to them is therefore very richly drawn out

Starting point is 01:01:54 and culminates in the closing declaration that it was not written for Abraham's sake only that it was written that his believing was imputed to him unto righteousness, but also for our sakes, to whom it is to be imputed, who believe on him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Here is a point of attachment for the new argument. It is because then we have been justified out of faith, the apostle begins, throwing the participle forward to the head of the sentence, with, as Maya puts it, quote, triumphant emphasis, end quote. It is because then we have been actually and truly justified out of faith, that we have

Starting point is 01:02:34 peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and exult in hope of the glory of God. There is obviously an appeal to the experience of his Christian readers here, strengthened by its indicated relation to the normative case of Abraham. The apostle is not arguing that a Christian ought to have peace and joy, far less is he exerting Christians to have peace and joy, he is appealing to the their conscious peace and joy. And on their conscious possession of this peace and joy, he is founding his argument. They had sought justification, not on the ground of works of righteousness which they had wrought, but, like Abraham, out of faith, and the turmoil of guilty dread before

Starting point is 01:03:12 God which had filled their hearts had sunk into a sweet sense of peace, and the future to which they had hitherto looked shudderingly forward in the fearful expectation of judgment had taken on a new aspect. They exult in hope of the glory of God. It is on this their own experience that the apostle fixes their eyes. They have sought justification out of faith. They have reaped the fruits of justification. Can they doubt the reality of the middle term? No, it is because we have been justified, says the apostle, really and truly justified, out of faith, that we have this peace with God, which we feel in our quieted souls, and exult in this hope of the glory of God in which we are now rejoicing. Not only the case of Abraham, but their own experience as well, will teach them then

Starting point is 01:03:56 that it is out of faith and not out of works that God justifies the sinner. If this be the meaning of the passage, it will be observed that the argument, which is here employed, is what has of late obtained great vogue among us under the name of the argument from experience. It is not without interest that we note the prominent use which the apostle makes of an argument, which some appear to fancy one of the greatest discoveries of the 19th century, while others seem to look upon it with suspicion as an innovation of dangerous tendency. Like other forms of argumentation, it is no doubt capable of misuse. It is to misuse it, to confuse it with proof by experiment. By his use of the argument from experience, Paul is far from justifying the position of those who will accept

Starting point is 01:04:39 as true only those elements of Christian teaching, the truth of which they can verify by experiment. There is certainly a recognisable difference between trusting God for the future because we have known his goodness in the past, and casting ourselves from every pinnacle of the temple of truth, in turn, to see whether he has really given his angel's charge concerning us, according to his word. It is to misuse it, again, to throw the whole weight of the evidence of Christianity upon it, or to seek to enhance its value by disparaging all other forms of evidence. Such exaggeration of its importance is a symptom of that, unhappy subjectivism, which is unfortunately growing ever more widespread among us, which betrays its weakened hold upon the objective truth and reality of Christianity by its neglect or even renunciation of

Starting point is 01:05:26 its objective proofs. When men find the philosophical or critical postulates to which they have committed their thinking, working their way subtly into every detail of their thought and gradually taking from them their confidence in those supernatural facts on which historical Christianity rests, it is no wonder that they should despairingly contend that the essence of Christianity, being vindicated by the imminent experiences of their souls, is independent of its supposed supernatural history. It is needless to say that this desperate employment of the argument from experience has no analogy in the usage of Paul. With him, it does not take the place of the other arguments, but takes its place among them. He appeals first to God's announced intention from the beginning,

Starting point is 01:06:08 so to deal with his people, and to the historic fact of his, is so dealing with them. He appeals last to the analogy of God's dealings with men in other matters. Between these, he adduces the argument from experience and twists the cord of his proof, from the three fibers of God's express promise, our experience, and the analogy of his working. When we unite the scriptural, experiential, and analogical arguments, we are followers of Paul. But though it may interest, it cannot surprise us to find Paul employing the argument from experience here. It is an argument which is repeatedly given a capital place in his writings. It is to it, for example, that he appeals when he cries to the foolish Galatians,

Starting point is 01:06:49 this only would I learn from you, received ye the spirit by works of law or by the hearing of faith, Galatians 3 verse 2. They had received the spirit, of that both he and they were sure, and they had sought him not by works of the law but out of faith, that too they knew very well. Were they so foolish as to be unable to draw the inference thrust upon them, that the seeking that found was the true and right seeking. The apostle then will draw it for them. He, therefore, that supplieth the spirit to you and worketh

Starting point is 01:07:19 powers in you, doeth he it by law works, or by the hearing of faith, even as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him unto righteousness. He perceived, therefore, that they which be of faith, the same are Abraham's sons, Galatians 3 verses 5 to 7. An humbler servant of Christ than Paul, and a far earlier one, had indeed long before pressed this argument with matchless force, John Chapter 9. Blind unbelief alone could say to him, who once was blind, but now did see, this man was not from God, give glory to God, we know that this man is a sinner. The one, the sufficient answer was, whether he be a sinner, I know not, one thing I know,

Starting point is 01:07:58 that whereas I was blind, now I see. why herein is the marvel that ye know not whence he is and he opened mine eyes. Greater marvel than the opening of the eyes of one born blind, that men should shut their eyes to who and to what and whence he is, who opens blind eyes. If this man were not from God he could do nothing. What, after all, is the argument from experience, but an extension of our Lord's favourite arguments from the fruits to the tree which bears the fruits. He who is producing the fruits of the Spirit has received the Spirit.

Starting point is 01:08:32 He who is reaping the fruits of justification has received justification, and he who has received these fruits by the seeking of faith knows that he has received out of faith the justification of which they are the fruits, and may know, therefore, that the way of faith is the right and true way of receiving justification. We must not pause in the midst of the argument and refuse to draw the final conclusion. If the presence of the fruits of justification proves that we have are justified. The presence of the justification thus proved proves that justification is found on the road by which we reached it. This is the apostle's argument. The validity of such an argument

Starting point is 01:09:09 lies on the surface. It is useless to tell the famishing wanderer that the pool into which he has dipped his cup is but a mirage of the desert, when the refreshing fluid is already moistening his parched lips. Nevertheless, the validity of the argument has its implications, and this is as much as to say that it rests on presuppositions, without which it would not be valid. Men may draw the water from a well and be content with this practical proof that the pump yields water without stopping to consider the theory of suction by which the pump acts. But no pump will yield water, if it be not constructed in accordance with the principles of suction, and the understanding of these principles not merely increases the intelligence,

Starting point is 01:09:49 but also adds to the confidence with which we credit the refreshing floods to its gift. In a somewhat analogous way, Paul's argument from experience will grow in force in proportion to the clearness with which its implications are apprehended and the heartiness with which they are accepted. What are these implications? In the first place, it is implied in this argument that there is a natural adaptation to the mode of salvation, which he is commending to us for the production of peace and joy in the heart of the sinner who embraces it. whoever seeks justification by faith will find peace and joy, but this could not be if this mode of salvation had no natural adaptation to produce peace and joy, and the perception of this adaptation, while not necessary to receiving its benefits, will greatly increase the confidence with which we assign the benefits received to their proper source. no doubt the peace which steals into the heart and the exaltation which cannot keep silence upon the lips of him who is justified out of faith are the works of the Holy Spirit in his soul. But there is a distinction between the efficient cause and the formal ground of our emotions.

Starting point is 01:10:55 The Holy Spirit does not hear any more than elsewhere work a blind and ungrounded and irrational set of emotions in the heart. A set of emotions arising in the soul no one knows whence, no one knows on what grounds, if they were persistent and in proportion as they were strong would only vex and puzzle the soul. A rational account of them must be possible if they are to be probative of anything. The mode of justification propounded by God through the Apostle is one which is adapted to the actual condition of man, one which is calculated to allay his sense of guilt, to satisfy his accusing conscience and to supply him with a rational ground of conviction of acceptance with God and of hope for the future. It is because this mode of justification is thus adapted to provide a solid

Starting point is 01:11:40 ground for peace and joy to the rational understanding that those who seek justification, thus and not otherwise, under the quickening influences of the spirit, acquire a sense of peace with God and an exalting hope for the future. And it is only because these spirit-framed emotions thus attach themselves rationally to the mode of justification by faith, that they can point to it as their source and prove that they who have sought their justification by faith, and have surely found. The gist of the matter then is that the justification which comes out of faith is experienced as actual justification and bears its appropriate fruits because it alone of all the methods by which men have sought to obtain peace with God is adapted to satisfy the conscience

Starting point is 01:12:21 and to supply a sufficient ground of conviction of acceptance with God. How many ways there are in which men vainly seek peace need not be enumerated here, by works, by repentance, by offerings to God of precious possessions or of dedicated lives. They give no peace because men can find in them no sufficient ground for confidence that they are accepted by God. When they have performed all of which they are capable, they recognize that they are but unprofitable servants. The soul's fierce condemnation of itself in its awakened sense of sin

Starting point is 01:12:52 cannot instill peace into the soul. They know that the judgment of God is true and righteous altogether. It is only on the ground of an adequate expiation of sin and a perfect righteousness, wrought out by a person capable of bearing to the utmost the the penalty and fulfilling to the utmost the requirement of the law, and justly made ours, that conscience may be appeased and peace once more visit the guilty soul. This is what Paul offers in his doctrine of justification by faith, and observe how the whole epistle on to this fifth chapter

Starting point is 01:13:22 operates like a bent bow to give force to the appeal to personal experience, which is there shot like an arrow into the soul, and to evoke an immediate and deep response. For what is the proof with which the epistle opens that all men are sinners and under the wrath of God, but a faithful probing of conscience, awakening it to a sense of guilt and to a consciousness of helplessness? And what is the explanation of God's method of justification

Starting point is 01:13:47 by means of a righteousness provided in Christ laid hold of by faith, with which the third chapter closes, but a loving presentation at the work of Christ to the apprehension of faith? and what is that exposition of the Old Testament narrative of the acceptance of Abraham, the father of the faithful, with which the fourth chapter is occupied, but a gracious assurance that it is thus that God deals with his children? And what now is this appeal to his reader's own experience, as they have humbly sought God's forgiveness and acceptance out of faith in Christ, but an assault upon their hearts that they may be forced to realize all the satisfaction

Starting point is 01:14:22 they have found in believing in Christ? It is to this satisfaction that the apostle now appeals in evidence of the reality of the justification of which it is the fruit. The argument is from the internal peace to the external peace. You have sought justification out of faith, he says, in effect, you have appropriated the work of Jesus Christ, you rest upon him, and your conscience at last says it is enough. Your guilty pangs and fears subside, and the serenity of peace and the exultation of hope take their place. Is not this newfound satisfaction of conscience a proof of the reality of your justification. This is the Apostle's argument. There is yet a deeper implication in the argument which we would do well explicitly to recognize in order that we may feel its full

Starting point is 01:15:08 force. External peace with God is inferred from internal peace of conscience. This involves the assumption that the deliverances of the human conscience are but shadows of the divine judgment, that its imperatives repeat the demands of God's righteousness and its satisfaction argues the satisfaction of his justice. Such an assumption can scarcely be called in question, for were this correspondence not actual, no valid peace could ever visit the human heart, no grounded hope could ever brighten its outlook upon the future.

Starting point is 01:15:38 If our moral sense were so entirely out of analogy with the moral sense of God, that what fully meets and satisfies that indignation which rises in us upon the realization of sin as sin should stand so wholly out of relation with God's moral sense as to leave it unmoved, we should be utterly incapacitated to know God, and the foundation of morality and religion alike for us would be destroyed. If there be a God at all, the author of our moral nature,

Starting point is 01:16:04 it is just as certain as his existence that the moral judgment, which he has implanted in us is true to its pole in the depths of his own moral being, that its deliverances are but the transcripts of his own moral judgments, and that we may hearken to its voice with the assurance that it is but the echo of his decision. The sense of guilt by which the awakened conscience accuses us, speeding on into the remorse that bites back so fiercely on the sinking soul, is but the reflection of God's judgment against sin. But this could not be, if an appeased conscience were not the reflection of God's judgment of acquittal. For if conscience could cease to accuse while God continued to condemn, it would no longer be true

Starting point is 01:16:45 that God's condemnation is repeated in our accusing conscience, and our sense of guilt is but the shadow of his overhanging wrath. Conscience must be conceived, therefore, as a mirror hung in the human breast, upon which man may read the reflection of the divine judgment upon himself. When frowns of a just anger conceal his face, the clouds gather upon its polished surface, and surely when those shades pass away and the unclouded sun gleams once more from its surface, it cannot be other than the reflection of God's smile. Certainly a piece which is so firmly grounded as the reality of this correspondence is rooted so deeply in the nature of man that humanity itself must perish before that peace can be taken away. We seem now to have Paul's

Starting point is 01:17:29 argument fully before us. Man's conscience reflects God's judgment upon the soul. What satisfies man's conscience satisfies God's justice. Paul's presentation to faith of an expiating and obedient Godman paying the penalty of our sin and keeping probation before God's law in our stead satisfies the demands of conscience. The peace that steals into the heart of him who rests upon this saviour in faith, and the joy that exalts upon his lips as he contemplates standing in him before the judgment seat of God, are but the proper emotions of the satisfied conscience, and as such are the proof to us that God's wrath is really appeased, and his face turned upon us in loving acceptance in his beloved son. Lastly, then, his experience of peace and joy

Starting point is 01:18:12 is an irrefutable proof that this and no other is the just God's method of justification. The Sinner. End of St. Paul's use of the argument from experience by B.B. Warfield. On the Emotional Life of Our Lord, Part 1 by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. It belongs to the truth of our Lord's humanity that he was subject to all sinless human emotions. In the accounts which the the evangelists give us of the crowded activities which filled the few years of his ministry, the play of a great variety of emotions is depicted. It has nevertheless not proved easy to form

Starting point is 01:19:05 a universally acceptable conception of our Lord's emotional life. Not only has the mystery of the incarnation entered in as a disturbing factor, the effect of the divine nature on the movements of the human soul brought into personal union with it being variously estimated. Differences have arisen also as to how far they may be attributed to a perfect human nature, movements known to us only as passions of sinful beings. Two opposite tendencies early showed themselves in the church. One derived ultimately from the ethical ideal of the Stoa, which conceived moral perfection under the form of apathia, naturally wished to attribute this ideal apathia to Jesus as the perfect man. The other, under the influence of the conviction that in order to deliver men from their weaknesses,

Starting point is 01:19:56 the Redeemer must assume and sanctify in his own person, all human path, as naturally was eager to attribute to him in its fullness every human pathos. Though in far less clearly defined forms and with a complete shifting of their bases, both tendencies are still operative in men's thought of Jesus. There is a tendency in the interest of the dignity of his person to minimize, and there is a tendency in the interest of the completeness. of his humanity to magnify his affectional movements. The one tendency may run some risk of giving us a somewhat cold and remote Jesus,

Starting point is 01:20:30 whom we can scarcely believe to be able to sympathize with us in all our infirmities. The other may possibly be in danger of offering us a Jesus so crassly human as scarcely to command our highest reverence. Between the two, the figure of Jesus is liable to take on a certain vagueness of outline and come to lack definiteness in our thought. It may not be without its uses, therefore, to seek a starting point for our conception of his emotional life in the comparatively few affectional movements

Starting point is 01:21:00 which are directly assigned to him in the gospel narratives. Proceeding outward from these, we may be able to form a more distinctly conceived and firmly grounded idea of his emotional life in general. It cannot be assumed beforehand, indeed, that all the emotions attributed to Jesus in the evil, evangelical narratives are intended to be ascribed distinctly to his human soul, such as no doubt the common view, and it is not an unnatural view to take as we currently

Starting point is 01:21:29 read narratives, which, whatever else they contain, certainly present some dramatization of the human experiences of our Lord. No doubt the naturalness of this view is its sufficient general justification, only it will be well to bear in mind that Jesus was definitely conceived by the evangelists as a too-natured person, and that they made no difficulties with his duplex consciousness. In almost the same breath they represent him as declaring that he knows the father through and through, and of course, also all that is in man, and the world which is the theatre of his activities, and that he is ignorant of the time of the occurrence of a simple earthly event, which concerns his own work very closely, that he is meek and lowly in heart,

Starting point is 01:22:15 and yet at the same time the Lord of Men, by their relations to whom their destinies are determined. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. In the case of a being whose subjective life is depicted as focusing in two centres of consciousness, we may properly maintain some reserve in ascribing distinctly to one, or the other of them, mental activities, which, so far as their nature is concerned, might properly belong to either. The embarrassment in studying the emotional life of Jesus, rising from this cause, however, is more theoretical than practical. Some of the emotions attributed to him in the evangelical narrative are, in one way or another, expressly assigned to his human soul.

Starting point is 01:22:57 Some of them, by their very nature, assign themselves to his human soul, with reference to the remainder, just because they might equally well be assigned to the one nature or the other, it may be taken for granted that they belong to the human soul, if not exclusively, yet along with the divine spirit, and they may therefore very properly be used to fill out the picture. We may thus, without serious danger of confusion, go simply to the evangelical narrative, and passing in review the definite ascriptions of specific emotions to Jesus in its records, found on them a conception of his emotional life which may serve as a starting point for a study of this aspect of our Lord's human manifestation.

Starting point is 01:23:37 The establishment of this starting point is the single task of this essay. No attempt will be made in it to round out our view of our Lord's emotional life. It will content itself with an attempt to ascertain the exact emotions, which I expressly assigned to him in the evangelical narrative, and will leave their mere collocation to convey its own lesson. We deceive ourselves, however, if their mere collocation does not suffice solidly to ground certain very clear convictions as to our Lord's humanity and to determine the lines on which our conception of the quality of his human nature

Starting point is 01:24:10 must be filled out. First, the emotion which we should naturally expect to find most frequently attributed to that Jesus whose whole life was a mission of mercy and whose ministry was so marked by deeds of beneficence that it was summed up in the memory of his followers as a going through the land, quote, doing good, end quote, acts 11 verse 38, is no doubt compassion. In point of fact, this is the emotion which is most frequently attributed to him. The term employed to express it was unknown to the Greek classic. and was perhaps a coinage of the Jewish dispersion.

Starting point is 01:24:47 It first appears in common use in this sense, indeed in the synoptic gospels, where it takes the place of the most inward classical word of this connotation. The divine mercy has been defined as that essential perfection in God, quote, whereby he pities and relieves the miseries of his creatures, end quote, it includes, that is to say, the two parts of an internal movement of pity and an external act of beneficence. It is the internal movement of pity which is emphasised when our Lord is said to be moved with compassion, as the term is sometimes excellently rendered in the English versions.

Starting point is 01:25:21 In the appeals made to his mercy a more external word is used, but it is this more internal word that is employed to express our Lord's response to these appeals. The petitioners besought him to take pity on them, his heart responded with a profound feeling of pity for them. His compassion fulfilled itself in the outward act, but what is emphasized by the term employed to express our Lord's response is, in accordance with its very derivation, the profound internal movement of his emotional nature. This emotional movement was aroused in our Lord, as well by the sight of individual distress. Mark 1, verse 41, Matthew 20, verse 34, Luke 7, verse 13, as by the spectacle of man's universal misery, Mark 6, verse 34, 8, verse 2, Matthew 9, 9, verse 36, chapter 14, chapter 15 verse 13, chapter 15 verse 13,

Starting point is 01:26:10 32. The appeal of two blind men that their eyes might be opened, Matthew 20, verse 34, the appeal of a leper for cleansing, Mark 1, verse 41. Though there may have been circumstances in his case which called out Jesus' reprobation, verse 43, said our Lord's heart throbbing with pity, as did also the mere sight of a bereaved widow, wailing by the beer of her only son as they bore him forced to burial, though no appeal was made for relief, Luke 7 verse 13. The ready spontaneity of Jesus' pity is even more plainly shown when he intervenes by a great miracle to relieve temporary pangs of hunger.

Starting point is 01:26:47 I have compassion on, or better, I feel pity for, the multitude because they continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat, and if I send them away fasting to their home, they will faint in the way, and some of them are come from far. Mark 8, verse 2, Matthew 15, verse 32.

Starting point is 01:27:05 The only occasion on which Jesus is recorded as testifying to his own feeling of pity, It was not merely the physical ills of life, however, want and disease and death, which called out our Lord's compassion. These ills were rather looked upon by him as themselves rooted in spiritual destitution, and it was this spiritual destitution which most deeply moved his pity. The cause and the effects are indeed very closely linked together in the narrative, and it is not always easy to separate them. Thus we read in Mark 6 verse 34, and he came forth and saw a great multitude and he had compassion on them, better he felt pity for them,

Starting point is 01:27:43 because they were as sheep not having a shepherd, and he taught them many things. But in the parallel passage, in Matthew 14 verse 14, we read, And he came forth and saw a great multitude, and he had compassion on, felt pity for, them, and he healed their sick. We must put the two passages together to get a complete account,

Starting point is 01:28:03 their fatal ignorance of spiritual things, their evil case under the dominion of Satan in all the effects of his terrible tyranny are alike the object of our Lord's compassion. In another passage, Matthew 9 verse 36, the emphasis is thrown very distinctly on the spiritual destitution of the people as the cause of his compassionate regard. But when he saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion for them because they were distressed and scattered as sheep not having a shepherd. This description of the spiritual destitution of the people is cast in very strong language.

Starting point is 01:28:37 They are compared to sheep which have been worn out and torn by running hither and thither through the thorns with none to direct them, and have now fallen helpless and hopeless to the ground. The sight of their desperate plight awakens our Lord's pity and moves him to provide the remedy. No other term is employed by the New Testament writers directly to express our Lord's compassion, but we read elsewhere of its manifestation in tears and sighs, the tears which wet his cheeks, When, looking upon the uncontrolled grief of Mary and her companions, he advanced with heart swelling with indignation at the outrage of death to the conquest of the destroyer, John 11, verse 35, were distinctly tears of sympathy.

Starting point is 01:29:23 Even more clearly, his own unrestrained wailing over Jerusalem, and its stubborn unbelief was the expression of the most poignant pity. O that thou hast known in this day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace, Luke 19, verse 41. The sight of suffering drew tears from his eyes. Obsternate unbelief convulsed him with uncontrollable grief. Similarly, when a man afflicted with dumbness and deafness was brought to him for healing, we are only told that he sighed, Mark 7 verse 34.

Starting point is 01:29:53 But when the malignant belief of the Pharisees was brought home to him, he sighed from the bottom of his heart. Mark 8 verse 12. Quote, obstinate sin, comments sweet appropriately, drew from Christ a deeper sigh than the sight of suffering. Luke 7 verse 34 and compare John 13 verse 20, a sigh in which anger and sorrow both had a part. Chapter 3 verse 4 note.

Starting point is 01:30:17 End quote. We may at any rate place the loud wailing over the stubborn unbelief of Jerusalem and the deep sighing over the Pharisees determined opposition side by side as exhibitions of the profound pain given to our Lord's sympathetic heart by those whose persistent rejection of him required at his hands his sternest reprobation. He sighed from the bottom of his heart when he declared, There shall no sign be given this generation.

Starting point is 01:30:43 He wailed aloud when he announced, The days shall come upon thee, when thine enemies shall dash thee to the ground. It hurt Jesus to hand over even hardened sinners to their doom. It hurt Jesus, because Jesus' prime characteristic was love, and love is the foundation of compassion. How close to one another the two emotions of love and compassion lie may be taught us by the only instance in which the emotion of love is attributed to Jesus in the synoptics.

Starting point is 01:31:11 Mark 10, verse 21. Here we are told that Jesus, looking upon the rich young ruler, loved him and said to him, One thing thou lackest. It is not the love of complacency which is intended, but the love of benevolence, that is to say, it is the love not so much that finds good as that intends good, though we may no doubt allow that love of compassion is never, let us rather say seldom,

Starting point is 01:31:35 absolutely separated from love of approbation. That is to say, there is ordinarily some good to be found already in those upon whom we fix our benevolent regard. The heart of our saviour turned yearningly to the rich young man and longed to do him good, and this is an emotion we say, which, especially in the circumstances depicted, is not far from simple compassion. It is characteristic of John's Gospel that it goes with simple directness, always to the bottom of things. Love lies at the bottom of compassion, and love is attributed to Jesus only once in the synoptics, but compassion often. While with John the contrary is true, compassion is attributed to Jesus not even once, but love often. This love is commonly the love of compassion, or rather, let us broaden it now,

Starting point is 01:32:23 and say the love of benevolence, but sometimes it is the love of sheer delight in its object. Love to God is, of course, the love of pure complacency. We are surprised to note that Jesus' love to God is only once explicitly mentioned, John 14, verse 31, but in this single mention, it is set before us as the motive of his entire saving work, and particularly of his offering of himself up. The time of his offering is at hand, and Jesus explains, I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of this world cometh, and he hath nothing in me, but I yield myself. to him, that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. The motive of Jesus' earthly life and death is more commonly presented

Starting point is 01:33:08 as love for sinful men. Here it is presented as loving obedience to God. He had come to do the will of the Father, and because he loved the Father, his will he will do up to the bitter end. He declared his purpose to be, under the impulse of love, obedience up to death, yea, the death of the cross. The love for man which moved Jesus to come to his succour in his sin and misery was, of course, the love of benevolence. It finds its culminating expression in the great words of John 15 verse 13. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends if he do the things which I command you. Rather, an illuminating definition of friends, by the way, especially when it is followed by, ye did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you

Starting point is 01:33:56 that ye should go and bear fruit. Friends, it is clear, in this definition, are rather those who are loved than those who love. This culminating expression of his love for his own, by which he was sustained in his great mission of humiliation for them, is supported, however, by repeated declarations of it in the immediate and wider context. In the immediately preceding verses, for example, it is urged as the motive and norm of the love, spring of obedience, which he seeks from his disciples. Herein is my father's are glorified, that ye bear much fruit, and so shall he be my disciples. Even as my father hath loved me, I also have loved you. Abide ye in my love.

Starting point is 01:34:36 If he keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled. This is my commandment that ye love one another, even as I have loved you. John 15, verses 8 to 12. as his love to the father was the source of his obedience to the father and the living spring of his faithfulness to the work which had been committed to him, so he declares that the love of his followers to him, imitating and reproducing his love to them, is to be the source of their obedience to him, and through that, of all the good that can come to human beings, including, as the highest reach of social perfection, their love for one another. self-sacrificing love is thus made the essence of the Christian life and is referred for its incentive to the self-sacrificing love of Christ himself.

Starting point is 01:35:30 Christ's followers are to have the same mind in them that was also in Christ Jesus. The possessive pronouns throughout this passage abide in my love, in my love, in His father's love, are all subjective, so that throughout the whole it is the love which Christ bears his people, which is kept in prominent view as the impulse and standard of the love. he asks from his people. This love had already been adverted to more than once in the wider context, chapter 13 verse 1, chapter 1 verse 34, chapter 14 verse 21, in the same spirit in which it is here spoken of. Its greatness is celebrated. He not only loved his own which were in the world, but loved them utterly, chapter 13 verse 1. It is presented as the model for the imitation of those who would live a Christian life on earth, even as I have loved you. Chapter 13, verse 34.

Starting point is 01:36:24 It is propounded as the Christian's greatest reward, and I will love him and manifest myself unto him. Chapter 14, verse 21. The emotion of love, as attributed to Jesus in the narrative of John, is not confined, however, to these great movements. His love to his father, which impelled him to fulfill all his father's will in the great work of redemption, and his love for those whom, in fulfillment of his father's will, he had chosen to be the recipients of his saving mercy, laying down his life for them.

Starting point is 01:36:53 There are attributed to him also those common movements of affection which bind man to man in the ties of friendship. We hear of particular individuals whom Jesus loved, the meaning obviously being that his heart knit itself to theirs in a simple human fondness. The term employed to express this friendship is prevailingly that high term which designates a love that is grounded in admiration and fulfills itself in esteem. But the term which carries with it only the notion of personal inclination and delight is not shunned. We are given to understand that there was a particular one of our Lord's most intimate circle of disciples, on whom he especially poured out his personal affection.

Starting point is 01:37:33 This disciple came to be known as, by way of eminence, the disciple whom Jesus loved, though there are subtle suggestions that the phrase must not be taken in too exclusive a sense. Footnote, John 20 verse 2, not the disciple whom Jesus loved. Jesus loved, but the other disciple whom Jesus loved. Jesus loved both Peter and John. Compare Westcott in Locke. Hence Westcott says, on chapter 13, verse 23, that the phrase, the disciple whom Jesus loved, quote, marks an acknowledgement of love and not an exclusive enjoyment of love, end quote,

Starting point is 01:38:06 end footnote. Both terms, the more elevated and the more intimate, are employed to express Jesus' love for him. The love of Jesus for the household at Bethany, and especially for Lazarus, is also expressly intimated to us, and it also by both terms, though the more intimate one is tactfully confined to his affection for Lazarus himself. The message which the sisters sent Jesus is couched in the language of the warmest personal attachment. Behold, he whom now lovest is sick, and the sight of Jesus' tears, calls from the witnessing Jews an exclamation which

Starting point is 01:38:39 recognizes in him the tenderest personal feeling. Behold how he loved him. But when the evangelist widens Jesus' affection to embrace the sisters also. He instinctively lifts the term employed to the more deferential expression of friendship. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Jesus' affection for Mary and Martha, while deep and close, had nothing in it of an amateur nature, and the change in the term avoids all possibility of such a misconception. Meanwhile, we perceive our lord the subject of those natural movements of affection which bind the members of society together in bonds of close fellowship. He was as far as possible from insensibility to the pleasures of social intercourse. Compare Matthew 11 verse 19 and the charms of personal attractiveness. He had his mission to perform

Starting point is 01:39:27 and he chose his servants with a view to the performance of his mission. The relations of the flesh gave way in his heart to the relations of the spirit. Whosoever shall do the will of my father which is in heaven. He is my brother and sister and mother. Matthew 12, verse 50, and it is those who do the things which he commands them, whom he calls his friends, John 15, verse 14. But he had also the companions of his human heart, those to whom his affections turned in a purely human attachment. His heart was open and readily responded to the delights of human association, and bound itself to others in a happy fellowship. Second, the moral sense is not a mere faculty of discrimination between the qualities which we call right and wrong, which exhausts itself in their perception as different.

Starting point is 01:40:13 The judgments it passes are not merely intellectual, but what we call moral judgments, that is to say, they involve approval and disapproval according to the qualities perceived. It would be impossible, therefore, for a moral being to stand in the presence of perceived wrong, indifferent and unmoved. precisely what we mean by a moral being is a being perceptive of the difference between right and wrong and reacting appropriately to right and wrong perceived as such the emotions of indignation and anger belong therefore to the very self-expression of a moral being as such and cannot be lacking to him in the presence of wrong we should know accordingly without instruction that jesus living in the conditions of this earthly life under the curse of sin could not fail to be the subject of the series of angry emotions, and we are not surprised that even in the brief and broken narratives

Starting point is 01:41:05 of his life experiences which have been given to us, there have been preserved records of the manifestation in word and act of not a few of them. It is interesting to note in passing that it is especially in the Gospel of Mark, which rapid and objective, as it is in its narrative, is the channel through which has been preserved to us a large part of the most intimate of the details concerning our Lord's demeanour and traits which have come down to us, that we find these records. It is Mark, for instance, who tells us explicitly, Chapter 3 verse 5, that the insensibility of the Jews to human suffering exhibited in a tendency to put ritual integrity above humanity, filled Jesus with indignant anger. A man whose hand had

Starting point is 01:41:46 withered met with in the synagogue one Sabbath, afforded a sort of test case. The Jews treated it as such and watched Jesus whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day that they might accuse him. Jesus accepted the challenge. commanding the man to rise in the midst of the assemblage, he put to them the searching question, generalizing the whole case. Is it lawful to do good or to do evil on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill? But, says the narrative, they kept silent. Then Jesus's anger rose. He looked around at them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their heart. What is meant is not, that his anger was modified by grief, his reprobation of the hardness of their hearts, was mingled with a sort of

Starting point is 01:42:29 sympathy for men sunk in such a miserable condition. What is meant is simply that the spectacle of their hardness of heart produced in him the deepest dissatisfaction which passed into angry resentment. Thus, the fundamental psychology of anger is curiously illustrated by this account, for anger always has pain at its root and is a reaction of the soul against what gives it discomfort. The hardness of the Jew's heart vividly realized hurt Jesus, and his anger rose in repulsion of the cause of his pain. There are thus two movements of feeling brought before us here. There is the pain which the gross manifestation of the hardness of heart of the Jews inflicted on Jesus, and there is the strong reaction of indignation which sprang out of this pain. The term by which

Starting point is 01:43:16 the former feeling is expressed has, at its basis, the simple idea of pain, and is used in the broadest way of every kind of pain, whether physical or mental, emphasizing, however, the sensation itself rather than its expression. It is employed here appropriately in a form which throws an emphasis on the inwardness of the feeling of the discomfort of heart produced in Jesus by the sight of man's inhumanity to man. The expression of this discomfort was an angry look which he swept over the unsympathetic assemblage. It is not intimated that the pain was abiding, the anger evanescent. The glance in which the anger was manifested is represented as fleeting in contrast with the pain of which the anger was the expression. But the term used for

Starting point is 01:44:01 this anger is just the term for abiding resentment set on vengeance. Precisely what is ascribed to Jesus then in this passage is that indignation at wrong perceived as such, wishing and intending punishment to the wrongdoer, which forms the core of what we call vindicatory justice. This is a necessary reaction of every moral being against perceived wrong. On another occasion, Mark, chapter 10 verse 14, pictures Jesus to us as moved by a much lighter form of the emotion of anger. His disciples, doubtless with a view to protecting him from needless drafts upon his time and strength, interfered with certain parents who were bringing to him their babies, Luke 18, verse 15, that he should touch them. Jesus saw their action and we are

Starting point is 01:44:49 told was moved with indignation. The term employed here expresses originally physical, such, for example, as is felt by a teething child, and then mental. Matthew 20, verse 24, chapter 21, verse 15, chapter 26 verse 8, Mark 10, verse 41, 14, verse 4, Luke 13, verse 14, compared to Corinthians 7 verse 11, irritation. Jesus was irritated, or perhaps we may better render, was annoyed, vexed at his disciples. And so the term also suggests, he showed his annoyance, whether by gesture or tone, or the mere shortness of his speech. Let the children come to me, forbid them not.

Starting point is 01:45:29 Thus we see Jesus as he reacts with anger at the spectacle of inhumanity, so reacting with irritation at the spectacle of blundering misunderstanding, however well meant. Yet another phase of angry emotion is ascribed to Jesus by Mark, but in this case not by Mark alone. Mark, chapter 14, verse 3, tells us that on healing a leper, Matthew chapter 9 verse 3 that on healing two blind men Jesus straightly strictly, strictly, sternly charged them as our English versions struggle with the term in an attempt to make it describe merely the tone and manner of his injunction to the beneficiaries of his healing power, not to tell of the cures wrought upon them.

Starting point is 01:46:09 This term, however, does not seem to mean in its ordinary usage to charge, to enjoin, however straightly or strictly, but simply to be angry at, or since it commonly implies that the anger is great to be enraged with, or perhaps better still, since it usually intimates that the anger is expressed by audible signs to rage against. If we are to take it in its customary sense, therefore, what we are really told in these passages is that Jesus, when he had raged against the leper, sent him away, that he raged against the blind men, saying, see that no one know it. If this rage is to be supposed with our English versions to have expressed itself only in the words recorded, the meaning would not be far removed from that of the English word bluster

Starting point is 01:46:51 in its somewhat rare transitive use, as for example when an old author writes, he meant to bluster all princes into perfect obedience. The implication of boisterousness and indeed of empty noise which attends the English word, however, is quite lacking from the Greek, the rage expressed by which is always thought of as very real. What it has in common with bluster is thus merely its strong military import. The Vulgate Latin, accordingly cuts the knot by rendering it simply threatened and is naturally followed in this by those English versions, Wycliffe rims, which depend on it. Certainly Jesus is represented here as taking up a menacing attitude and threatening words are placed on his lips. See that thou say

Starting point is 01:47:33 nothing to any man, see that no one know it, a form of speech which always conveys a threat. But threaten can scarcely be accepted as an adequate rendering of the term, whether in itself or in these contexts. When Matthew tells us, and he was enraged at them, saying, the rage may no doubt be thought to find its outlet in the threatening words which follow, but the implication of Mark is different, and raging at him, or having raged at him, he straightway sent him forth. When it is added, and saith to him, see that thou say nothing to anyone, a subsequent moment in the transaction is indicated. How our Lord's rage was manifested, we are not told, and this is really just as true in the case of Matthew, as in the case of Matthew,

Starting point is 01:48:14 that of Mark. To say he was enraged at them, saying, threatening words, is not to say merely he threatened them, it is to say that a threat was uttered and that this threat was the suitable accompaniment of his rage. The cause of our Lord's anger does not lie on the surface in either case. The commentators seem generally inclined to account for it by supposing that Jesus foresaw, that his injunction of silence would be disregarded. But this explanation, little natural in itself seems quite unsuitable to the narrative in Mark where we are told, not that Jesus angrily enjoined the leper to silence, but that he angrily sent him away. Others accordingly seek the ground of his anger in something displeasing to him in the demeanour of the applicants for his help,

Starting point is 01:48:58 in their mode of approaching or addressing him, in erroneous conceptions with which they were animated and the like. Closdoman imagines that our Lord did not feel that miraculous healings lay in the direct line of his vocation and was irritated because he had been betrayed by his compassion into undertaking them. Faulkma goes the length of supposing that Jesus resented the over-reverential form of address of the leper to him on the principle laid down in Revelation 19 verse 10, see thou do it not, I am a fellow servant with thee. Even Kyle suggests that Jesus was angry with the blind men because they addressed him openly as son of David, not wishing, quote, this untimely proclamation of him as Messiah on the part of those

Starting point is 01:49:42 who healed him as such, only on account of his miracles, end quote. It is more common to point out some shortcoming in the applicants. They did not approach him with sufficient reverence, or with sufficient knowledge of the true nature of his mission. They demanded their cure too much as a matter of course, or too much as if from a mere marvelmonger, and in the case of the leper at last, with too little. regard to their own obligations. A leper should not approach a stranger, certainly he should not ask or permit a stranger to put his hand upon him, especially should he not approach a stranger

Starting point is 01:50:17 in the streets of a city, look 5 verse 12, and very particularly not in a house, Mark 1 verse 43, he put him out, above all, if it were, as it might well be here, a private house. That Jesus was indignant, at such gross disregard of law was natural and fully explains his vehemence in driving the leper out, and sternly admonishing him to go and fulfil the legal requirements. This variety of explanation is the index of the slightness of the guidance given in the passages themselves to the cause of our Lord's anger, but it can throw no doubt upon the fact of that anger, which is directly asserted in both instances, and must not be obscured by attributing to the term by which it is expressed some lighter significance. The term employed

Starting point is 01:51:02 declares that Jesus exhibited vehement anger, which was audibly manifested. This anger did not inhibit, however, the operation of his compassion, Mark 1, verse 41, Matthew 9, verse 27, but appears in full manifestation as its accompaniment. This may indicate that its cause lay outside the objects of his compassion, in some general fact, the nature of which we may possibly learn from other instances. The same term occurs again in John's narrative of our Lord's demeanour at the grave of his beloved friend Lazarus, John 11 verses 33 and 38. When Jesus saw Mary weeping, or rather wailing, for the term is a strong one and implies the vocal expression of the grief, and the Jews which accompanied her also wailing, we are

Starting point is 01:51:48 told, as our English version puts it, that he groaned in the spirit and was troubled, and again, when some of the Jews remarking on his own manifestation of grief in tears, expressed their wonder that he who had opened the eyes of the blind man could not have preserved Lazarus, and us from death, we are told that Jesus again groaned in himself. The natural suggestion of the word groan is, however, that of pain or sorrow, not disapprobation, and this rendering of the term in question is therefore misleading. It is better rendered in the only remaining passage in which it occurs in the New Testament, Mark 14 verse 5, by murmured, though this is much too weaker word to reproduce its implications. In the passage it is brought into close connection with a kindred term, which

Starting point is 01:52:32 determines its meaning. We read, But there were some that had indignation among themselves, and they murmured against her. Their feeling of irritated displeasure expressed itself in an outburst of temper. The margin of our revised version at John 11, verses 33 and 38, therefore very properly proposes that we should for groaned in these passages, substitute moved with indignation, although that phrase too is scarcely strong enough. What John tells us, in point of fact, is that Jesus of approached the grave of Lazarus, in a state not of uncontrollable grief, but of irrepressible anger.

Starting point is 01:53:09 He did not respond to the spectacle of human sorrow, abandoning itself to its unrestrained expression, with quiet, sympathetic tears. Jesus wept, verse 36, but the emotion which tore his breast and clamoured for utterance was just rage. The expression even of this rage, however, was strongly curbed. The term which John employs to describe it is, as we have seen, a definitely external term. He raged. But John modifies its external sense by annexed qualifications.

Starting point is 01:53:40 He raged in spirit, raging in himself. He thus interiorizes the term and gives us to understand that the evolution of Jesus' anger expended itself within him. Not that there was no manifestation of it, it must have been observable

Starting point is 01:53:55 to be observed and recorded. It formed a marked feature of the occurrence as seen and heard, but John gives us. us to understand that the external expression of our Lord's fury was markedly restrained. Its manifestation fell far short of its real intensity. He even traces for us the movements of his inward struggle. Jesus, therefore, when he saw her wailing and the Jews that had come with her wailing

Starting point is 01:54:18 was enraged in spirit and troubled himself and wept. His inwardly restrained fury produced a profound agitation of his whole being, one of the manifestations of which was tears. Why do the sight of the wailing of Mary and her companions enraged Jesus? Certainly not because of the extreme violence of its expression, and even more certainly not because it argued unbelief, unwillingness to submit to God's providential ordering or distrust of Jesus' power to save. He himself wept, if with less violence, yet in true sympathy with the grief of which he was witness.

Starting point is 01:54:53 The intensity of his exasperation, moreover, would be disproportionate to such a cause, and the importance attached to it in the account bids us seek its ground in something less incidental to the main drift of the narrative. It is mentioned twice and is obviously emphasized as an indispensable element in the development of the story, on which, in its due place and degree, the lesson of the incident hangs. The spectacle of the distress of Mary and her companions enraged Jesus because it brought poignantly home to his consciousness the evil of death, its unnaturalness, its violent tyranny, as Calvin on verse 38 phrases it. In Mary's grief he contemplates, still to adopt Calvin's words on verse 33,

Starting point is 01:55:38 quote, the general misery of the whole human race, end quote, and burns with rage against the oppressor of men. Indistinguishable fury seizes upon him, his whole being is discomposed and perturbed, and his heart, if not his lips cries out, for the innumerable dead is my soul disquieted. It is death that is the object of his wrath and behind death, him who has the power of death, and whom he has come into the world to destroy.

Starting point is 01:56:06 Tears of sympathy may fill his eyes, but this is incidental. His soul is held by rage, and he advances to the tomb, in Calvin's words again, quote, as a champion who prepares for conflict, end quote. The raising of Lazarus thus becomes not an isolated marvel, but, as indeed it is presented throughout the whole narrative, compare especially verses 24 to 26, a decisive instance and open symbol of Jesus' conquest of death and hell. What John does for us in this particular statement is to uncover to us the heart of Jesus as he wins for us our salvation. Not in cold unconcern, but in flaming wrath against the foe Jesus smites in our behalf.

Starting point is 01:56:48 He has not only saved us from the evils which oppress us, he has felt for and with us in our oppression, and under the impulse of these feelings has wrought out our redemption. There is another term which the synoptic gospels employ to describe our Lord's dealing with those he healed. Matthew 12, verse 16, which is sometimes rendered by our English versions, as the term we have just been considering is rendered in similar connections. Mark 1 verse 43, Matthew 9 verse 30 by charged, Matthew 12 verse 16, 16 verse 20, Mark 3 verse 12, 8 verse 3, 3, 3, 3, 8 verse 3, 3, 3. 9 verse 21, but more frequently with more regard to its connotation of censure, implying displeasure,

Starting point is 01:57:31 by rebuked. Matthew 17, verse 18, Mark 9 verse 21, Luke 4, verses 35 to 41. Chapter 19 verse 42, Mark 8 verse 30, Luke 9.55. Matthew 8 verse 20, Mark 4, verse 39. Luke 4 verse 39, chapter 8 verse 24. This term, the fundamental meaning of which is to meet out due measure, with that melancholy necessity, which carries all terms which express doing justice to sinful men downwards in their connotation, is used in the New Testament only in Malem Partem, and we may be quite sure is never employed without its implication of censure. What is implied by its employment is that our lord in working certain cures, and indeed in performing others of his miracles, as well as in, laying charges on his followers, spoke not merely strongly and preemptorily, but chidingly,

Starting point is 01:58:27 that is to say, with expressed displeasure. There is in these instances, perhaps not so strong, but just as clear an ascription of the emotion of anger to our Lord as in those we have already noted, and this suggests that, not merely in the case of the raising of Lazarus, but in many other instances in which he put forth his almighty power to rescue men from the evils which burdened them, our Lord was moved by an evolution of indignant anger at the destructive powers exhibited in disease, or even in the convulsions of nature. In instances like Matthew 12, Mark 3 verse 12, Matthew 16, Mark 8, verse 30, Luke 9 21, the censure inherent in the term may almost seem to be something akin to menace or

Starting point is 01:59:12 threat. He chided them to the end that they should not make him known. He made a show of anger or displeasure directed to this end. In the cases where, however, Jesus chided the unclean spirits which he cast out, it seems to lie in the nature of things, that it was the tyrannous evil, which they were working upon their victims, that was the occasion of his displeasure. When he is said to have rebuked a fever, which was tormenting a human being, Luke 4 verse 39, or the natural elements, the wind and sea, menacing human lives. Matthew 8, 26, Mark 4, verse 39, Luke 8 verse 23, Luke 8 24. There is no reason to suppose that he looked upon these natural powers as themselves personal, and as little that the personification is only figurative. We may not improperly suppose that the

Starting point is 01:59:59 displeasure he exhibited in his upbraiding them was directed against the power behind these manifestations of a nature out of joint, the same malignant influence which he advanced to the conquest of when he drew near to the tomb of Lazarus. In any event, the series of passages in which this term is employed to ascribe to Jesus acts inferring displeasure, greatly enlarges the view we have of the play of Jesus' emotions of anger. We see him chiding

Starting point is 02:00:24 his disciples, the demons that were tormenting men and the natural powers which were menacing their lives or safety, and speaking in terms of rebuke to the multitudes who were the recipients of his healing grace, Matthew 12 verse 16. And that we are not to suppose that this chiding

Starting point is 02:00:40 was always mild, we are advised by the express declaration that it was in one instance at least vehement. Perhaps in no incidents recorded in the Gospels is the action of our Lord's indignation more vividly displayed than in the accounts of the cleansings of the temple. In closing the account which he gives of the earlier of these, John tells us that his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house shall eat me up, John 2 verse 17.

Starting point is 02:01:10 The word here employed zeal may mean nothing more than an ardor, but this ardor may burn with hot indignation. We read of a zeal of fire which shall devour the adversaries, Hebrews 10 verse 27, and it seems to be this hot indignation at the pollution of the house of God, this burning jealousy for the holiness of the house of God, which it connotes in the present passage. In this act, Jesus in effect gave vent to a righteous anger, and perceiving his wrathful zeal, his followers recognized in it the messianic fulfillment of the words in which the psalmist represents himself, as filled with a zeal for the house of Jehovah, and the honour of him who sits in it, that, quote, consumes him like a fire burning in his bones, which incessantly

Starting point is 02:01:52 breaks through and rages all through him, end quote. The form in which it here breaks forth is that of indignant anger towards those who defile God's house with trafficking, and it thus presents us with one of the most striking manifestations of the anger of Jesus in act. It is far, however, from being the only instance in which the action of Jesus' anger is recorded for us, and the severity of his language equals the decisiveness of his action. He does not scruple to assault his opponents with the most vigorous denunciation. Herod, he calls that fox, Luke 13, verse 32. The unreceptive, he designates briefly swine, Matthew 7, verse 6. Those that tempt him, he visits with the extreme term of ignominy, Satan, Mark 8, verse 33.

Starting point is 02:02:41 epithet of hypocrites is repeatedly on his lips, Matthew 15 verse 7, chapter 23, pass him, Luke 13 verse 15, and he added force to this reprobation by clothing it in violent figures. These were blind guides, whited sepulchres, and less tropically, a faithless and perverse generation, a wicked and adulterous generation. He does not shrink even from vituperatively designating them ravening wolves, Matthew 7, verse 15. serpents, brood of vipers, Matthew 12 verse 34, even children of the evil one. Ye are, he declares plainly, of your father the devil, John 8, verse 44. The long arraignment of the Pharisees in the 23rd chapter of Matthew, with its

Starting point is 02:03:25 itterant, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, and its uncompromising denunciation, fairly throbs with indignation, and brings Jesus before us in his sternest mood, the mood of the nobleman in the parable. Luke 19 verse 27, whom he represents as commanding, and as for these my enemies bring them hither and slay them before me. The holy resentment of Jesus has been made the subject of a famous chapter in Eke Homo. The contention of this chapter is that, He who loves men must needs hate with a burning hatred

Starting point is 02:03:58 all that does wrong to human beings, and that, in point of fact, Jesus never wavered in his consistent resentment of the special wrongdoing which he was called upon to witness, The chapter announces as its thesis indeed the paradox that true mercy is no less the product of anger than of pity, that what differentiates the divine virtue of mercy from, quote, the vice of insensibility, end quote, which is called, quote, tolerance, end quote, is just the underlying presence of indignation. Thus, so the reasoning runs, quote, the man who cannot be angry cannot be merciful, and it was therefore precisely the anger of Christ, which proved that the unbounded compassion he manifested

Starting point is 02:04:37 to sinners, quote, was really mercy and not mere tolerance, end quote. The analysis is doubtless incomplete, but the suggestion, so far as it goes, is fruitful. Jesus's anger is not merely the seamy side of his pity. It is the righteous reaction of his moral sense in the presence of evil. But Jesus burned with anger against the wrongs he met with in his journey through human life, as truly as he melted with pity at the sight of the world's misery, and it was out of these two emotions, that is actual mercy proceeded. End of

Starting point is 02:05:08 On the Emotional Life of Our Lord, Part 1 by B.B. Warfield. It turns. On the emotional life of our Lord, part 2 by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Third. We call our Lord the Man of Sorrows, and the designation is obviously a

Starting point is 02:05:38 for one who came into the world to bear the sins of men and to give his life a ransom for many. It is, however, not a designation which is applied to Christ in the New Testament, and even in the prophet, Isaiah 53 verse 3, it may very well refer rather to the objective afflictions of the righteous servant than to his subjective distresses. In any event we must bear in mind that our Lord did not come into the world to be broken by the power of sin and death, but to break it. He came as a conqueror with the gladness of the imminent victory in his heart. For the joy set before him he was able to endure the cross, despising shame, Hebrews 12 verse 2. And as he did not prosecute his work in doubt of the issue, neither did he prosecuted hesitantly

Starting point is 02:06:26 as to its methods. He rather, so we are told, Luke 10 verse 21, exalted in the Holy Spirit, as he contemplated the ways of God in bringing many sons to glory. The word is a strong one and conveys the idea of exuberant gladness, a gladness which fills the heart, and it is intimated that, on this occasion at least, this exultation was a product in Christ, and therefore in his human nature of the operations of the Holy Spirit, whom we must suppose to have been always working in the human soul of Christ, sustaining it. It cannot be supposed that this particular occasion alone being accepted, Jesus prosecuted his work on earth,

Starting point is 02:07:06 in a state of mental depression. His advent into the world was announced as good tidings of great joy, Luke 2 verse 10, and the tidings which he himself proclaimed were the good tidings by way of eminence. Is it conceivable that he went about proclaiming them with a sad countenance? Matthew 6 verse 16. It is misleading, then, to say with Jeremy Taylor, quote,

Starting point is 02:07:30 We never read that Jesus laughed but once that he rejoiced in spirit, end quote. We do read. that, in contrast with John the Baptist, he came eating and drinking, and accordingly was malignantly called a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners, Matthew 11, verse 19, Luke 7 verse 34, and this certainly does not encourage us to think of his demeanour, as habitually sorrowful. It is pure perversion, to be sure, when Renan, after the debasing fashion of his sentimentalizing frivolity, transmutes Jesus' joy in his redemptive work, John 15 verse 11, 17 verse 13, into mere pagan lightness of heart and delight in living,

Starting point is 02:08:12 as if his fundamental disposition were a kind of, quote, sweet gaiety, end quote, which, quote, was incessantly expressing itself in lively reflections and kindly pleasantries, end quote. He assures us that if Jesus travelled about Palestine, almost as if he was some lord of revelry, bringing a festival wherever he came, and greeted at every doorstep, quote, as a joy and a benediction. The women and children adored him, end quote. The infancy of the world had come back with him,

Starting point is 02:08:42 quote, with its divine spontaneity and its naive dizzinesses of joy, end quote. At his touch the hard conditions of life vanished from sight, and there took possession of men the dream of an imminent paradise, of, quote, a delightful garden in which should continue forever the charming life they now were living, end quote. Quote, how long, asks Renan. Did this intoxication last? End quote.

Starting point is 02:09:07 And answers, quote, we do not know. During the continuance of this magical apparition, time was not measured, duration was suspended, a week was a century. But whether it filled years or months, the dream was so beautiful that humanity has lived on it ever since, and our consolation still is to catch its fading fragrance. Never did so much joy stir the heart of man.

Starting point is 02:09:31 For a moment, in this most vigorous attempt, it has ever made to lift itself above its planet, humanity forgot the leaden weight which holds it to the earth and the sorrows of the life here below. Happy, he, who could see with his own eyes this divine efflorescence, and share, if even for a day, this unparalleled illusion, end quote. The perversion is equally great, however, when there is attributed to our lord, as it is now very much the fashion to do,

Starting point is 02:09:58 quote, before the black shadow of the cross fella thwart his pathway, end quote, the exuberant joy of a great hope never to be fulfilled, the hope of winning his people to his side, and of inaugurating the kingdom of God upon this sinful earth by the mere force of its proclamation. Jesus was never the victim of any such illusion. He came into the world on a mission of ministering mercy to the lost, giving his life as a ransom for many, Luke 19 verse 10, Mark 10, verse 4, Matthew 20, verse 28. And from the beginning he set his feet steadfastly in the path of suffering. Matthew 4 verse 3 and following, Luke 4 verse 3 and following, which he knew led straight onward to death, John 2 verse 19, 3 verse 14, Matthew 12 verse 40, Luke 12 versus 49 to 50, Matthew 9

Starting point is 02:10:47 15, Mark 2 versus 1 to 9, Luke 5 verse 34, etc. Joy he had, but it was not the shallow joy of mere pagan delight in living, nor the delusive joy of a hope destined to failure, but the deep exultation of a conqueror. setting captors free. This joy underlay all his sufferings and shed its light along the whole thorn-beset path, which was trodden by his torn feet. We hear but little of it, however, as we hear but little of his sorrows. The narratives are not given to descriptions of the mental states of the great actor

Starting point is 02:11:23 whose work they illustrate. We hear just enough of it to assure us of its presence underlying and giving its color to all his life. Luke 4 verse 21, John 5 verse 11 Chapter 17 13 If our Lord was The man of sorrows

Starting point is 02:11:37 He was more profoundly Still the man of joy Of the lighter pleasurable emotions That flit across the mind In response to appropriate incitements arising occasionally in the course of social intercourse We also hear little in the case of Jesus It is not once recorded that he laughed

Starting point is 02:11:53 We do not ever hear even that he smiled Only once are we told That he was glad And then it is rather sober gratification an exuberant delight which is spoken of in connection with him, John 11, verse 15. But then we also hear little also of his passing sorrows. The sight of Mary and her companions, wailing at the tomb of Lazarus, agitated his soul and caused him tears, John 11, verse 35.

Starting point is 02:12:20 The stubborn unbelief of Jerusalem drew from him loud wailing. Luke 19, verse 41. He sighed at the sight of human suffering, Mark 7 verse 34, and side. deeply over men's hardened unbelief, chapter 8 verse 12. Man's inhumanity to man smote his heart with pain, chapter 3 verse 5. But it is only with reference to his supreme sacrifice that his mental sufferings are emphasized. This supreme sacrifice cast, it is true, its shadows before it.

Starting point is 02:12:50 It was in the height of his ministry that our Lord exclaimed, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straightened till it be accomplished? Luke 12 verse 50. floods lie before him under which he is to be submerged and the thought of passing beneath their waters straightens his soul. The term rendered straightened imports oppression and affliction and bears witness to the burden of anticipated anguish which our lord bore throughout life. The prospect of his sufferings, it has been justly said, was a perpetual Gethsemini, and how complete this foretaste was we may learn from the incident recorded in John 12, verse 27, although this antedated Gathseman. Although this antedated

Starting point is 02:13:29 Gethsemini by only a few days. Now is my soul troubled, he cries, and adds a remarkable confession of shrinking at the prospect of death, with, however, an immediate revulsion to his habitual attitude of submission to, or rather, of hearty embracing of his father's will. And what shall I say, Father save me from this hour? But for this cause came I to this hour. Father glorify thy name. He had come into the world to die, but as he vividly realizes what The death is, which he is to die, there rises in his soul a yearning for deliverance, only, however, to be at once repressed. The state of mind in which this sharp conflict went on is described by a term,

Starting point is 02:14:11 the fundamental implication of which is agitation, disquietude, perplexity. This perturbation of soul is three times attributed by John to Jesus, Chapter 11, verse 33, chapter 12, verse 27, chapter 13, verse 21, and always as expressing the emotions which conflict with death stirred in him. The anger roused in him by the sight of the distress into which death had plunged Mary and her companions, chapter 11 verse 33, the anticipation of his own betrayal to death, chapter 13 verse 21, the clearly realized approach of his death, chapter 12 verse 27, threw him inwardly into profound agitation. It was not always the prospect of his own death, chapter 12 verse 27, chapter 13,

Starting point is 02:14:56 in verse 21, but equally the poignant realization of what death meant for others, chapter 11 verse 33, which had the power thus to disquiet him. His deep agitation was clearly, therefore, not due to mere recoil from the physical experience of death, though even such a recoil might be the expression, not so much of a terror of dying, as of a repugnance to the idea of death. Behind death he saw him who had the power of death, and that sin which constitutes the sting of death. His whole being revolted from that final and deepest humiliation, in which the powers of evil were to inflict upon him the precise penalty of human sin. To bow his head beneath this

Starting point is 02:15:37 stroke was the last indignity, the hardest act of that obedience, which it was his to render in his servant form, and which we are told with significant emphasis extended up to death, Philippians 2 verse 8. so profound a repugnance to death, and all that death meant, manifesting itself during his life, could not fail to seize upon him with peculiar intensity at the end. If the distant prospect of his sufferings was a perpetual Gethsemini to him, the immediate imminence of them in the actual Gethsemini could not fail to bring with it that, quote, awful and dreadful torture, end quote, which Calvin does not scruple to call the exordium of the pains of hell themselves.

Starting point is 02:16:16 Matthew and Mark almost exhausts the resources of language to convey to us some conception of our Lord's agony as an early interpolator of Luke, Luke 22 verse 44, calls it, in this dreadful experience. The anguish of reluctance which constituted this agony is in part described by them both. They alone of the evangelists enter into our Lord's feelings here. By a term, the primary idea of which is loathing, aversion, perhaps not unmixed with despondency, This term is adjoined in Matthew's account to the common word for sorrow in which, however, here the fundamental element of pain, distress is prominent, so that we may perhaps render Matthew's account. He began to be distressed and despondent, Matthew 26 verse 37. Instead of this wide word for distress of mind, Mark employs a term which more narrowly defines the distress as consternation, if not exactly dread, yet alarmed dismay. He began to be appalled and despondent. Mark 14, verse 33. Both accounts add our Lord's own pathetic declaration, My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death, the central term in which expresses a sorrow,

Starting point is 02:17:28 or perhaps we would better say, a mental pain, a distress, which hems in on every side, from which there is therefore no escape, or rather, for the qualification imports that this hemming in distress is mortally acute, is an anguish of a sort that no issue but death can be thought of, which presses in and besets from every side and therefore leaves no place for defence. The extremity of this agony may have been revealed, as the interpolator of Luke tells us, by sweat dropping like clots of blood on the ground, as our Lord ever more importunately urged that wonderful prayer, in which, as Banger strikingly says, the horror of death and the ardor of obedience met,

Starting point is 02:18:08 Luke 22 verse 44. This interpolator tells us, Luke 22 verse 43, also, that he was strengthened for the conflict by an angelic visitor, and we may well suppose that, had it not been for some supernatural strengthening, mercifully vouchsafed, compared John 12, verse 27 and following, the end then would have come. But the cup must needs be drained to its dregs, and the final drop was not drunk until that cry of desertion and desolation was uttered, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Matthew 27, verse 46, Mark 15, verse 34. This culminating sorrow was actually unto death.

Starting point is 02:18:49 In these supreme moments our Lord sounded the ultimate depths of human anguish and vindicated on the score of the intensity of his mental sufferings, the right to the title of Man of Sorrows. The scope of these sufferings was also very broad, embracing that whole series of painful emotions, which runs from a consternation that is appalled dismay, through a despondency which is almost despair, to a sense of well-nigh complete desolation.

Starting point is 02:19:13 in the presence of this mental anguish the physical tortures of the crucifixion retire into the background and we may well believe that our lord though he died on the cross yet died not of the cross but as we commonly say of a broken heart that is to say of the strain of his mental sufferings the sensitiveness of his soul to affectional movements and the depth of the currents of feeling which flowed through his being are thus thrown up into a very clear light and yet it is noticeable that while they tore his heart and perhaps in the end broke the bonds which bound his fluttering spirit to its tenement of clay. They never took the helm of life or overthrew either the judgment of his calm understanding or the completeness of his perfect trust in his father. If he cried out in his agony for deliverance,

Starting point is 02:20:00 it was always the cry of a child to a father whom he trusts with all and always, and with the explicit condition, howbeit not what I will but what thou wilt. If the sense of desolation invades his soul, he yet confidingly commends his departing spirit into his father's hands. Luke 23 verse 46. And through all his agony, his demeanour to his disciples, his enemies, his judges, his executioners, his instinct with calm self-mastery. The cup which was put to his lips was bitter. None of its bitterness was lost to him as he drank it, but he drank it, and he drank

Starting point is 02:20:36 it as his own cup, which it was his own will, because it was his father's will, to drink. the cup which the father hath given me shall i not drink it john eighteen verse eleven it was in this spirit not of unwilling subjection to unavoidable evil but a voluntary endurance of unutterable anguish for adequate ends that he passed into and through all his sufferings his very passion was his own action he had power to lay down his life and it was by his own power that he laid down his life and by his own power that he trod the whole pathway of suffering which laid up to the formal act of his laying down to his life. Nowhere is he the victim of circumstances or the helpless sufferer. Everywhere and always it is he who possesses the mastery both of circumstances and of himself. The completeness of Jesus' trust in God which is manifested in the unconditional, nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt, of the agony, and is echoed in the father into thy hands I commend my spirit of the cross, finds endless illustration in the narratives of the evangelists. Trust is never, however, explicitly attributed to him in so many words,

Starting point is 02:21:46 except in the scoffing language with which he was assailed as he hung on the cross. He trusteth in God, let him deliver him now if he desireth him. Matthew 27 verse 43, the term trust is never so much as mentioned in connection with his relations with God, nor is the term faith, nor indeed are many of what we may call the fundamental religious affections directly attributed to him, although he is depicted as literally living, moving, and having his being in God. His profound feeling of dependence on God, for example, is illustrated in every conceivable way, not least strikingly in the constant habit of prayer which the evangelists ascribe to him. But we are never directly told that he felt his dependence on God, or feared God, or felt the

Starting point is 02:22:31 emotions of reverence and awe in the divine presence. We are repeatedly told that he returned thanks to God, but we are never told in so many words that he experienced the emotion of gratitude. The narrative brings Jesus before us as acting under the impulse of all the religious emotions, but it does not stop to comment upon the emotions themselves. The same is true of the more common emotions of human life. The narrative is objective throughout in its method. On two occasions we are told that Jesus felt the occurrences which he witnessed were extraordinary and experienced the appropriate emotion of wonder regarding them.

Starting point is 02:23:07 Matthew 8 verse 10, Luke 7 verse 9, Mark 6 verse 6. Once desire is attributed to him, Luke 22 verse 15, he had set his heart, as we should say, upon eating the final Passover with his disciples, the term used emphasizing the affectional movement. And once our Lord speaks of himself as being conceivably the subject of shame, the reference being, however, rather to a mode of action consonant with the emotion than to the feeling itself. Mark 8, verse 38, Luke 4 verse 26. Besides these few chance suggestions, there are none of the numerous emotions that rise and fall in the human soul, which happen to be explicitly attributed to our Lord. The reader sees them all in play in his vividly narrated life experiences, but he is not told of them. We have now passed in review the whole series of explicit attributions to our Lord in the Gospels of specific emotional movements.

Starting point is 02:24:04 It belongs to the occasional manner in which these emotional movements find record in the narrative that it is only our Lord's most noticeable displays of emotion which are noted. One of the effects of this is to give to his emotions, as noted, the appearance of peculiar strength, vividness and completeness. This serves to refute the notion, which has been sometimes advanced under the influence of the apathetic conception of virtue, that emotional movements never ran their full course in him as we experienced them, but stopped short. at some point in their action deemed the point of dignity. In doing so, it serves equally, however, to carry home to us a very vivid impression of the truth and reality of our Lord's human nature.

Starting point is 02:24:46 What we are given is no doubt only the highlights, but it is easy to fill in the picture mentally with the multitude of emotional movements, which have not found record just because they were in no way exceptional. Here, obviously, is a being who reacts as we react to the incitements which arise in daily intercourse with men and whose reactions bear all the characteristics of the corresponding emotions we are familiar with in our experience. Perhaps it may be well explicitly to note that our Lord's emotions fulfilled themselves as ours do in physical reactions. He who hungered, Matthew 4 verse 2, firsted, John 19 verse 20, was weary, John 4 verse 6, who knew both physical

Starting point is 02:25:29 pain and pleasure, experienced also in bodily affections, the emotions that stirred his soul, that he did so is sufficiently evinced by the simple circumstance that these emotions were observed and recorded, but the bodily expression of the emotions is also frequently expressly attested. Not only do we read that he wept, John 11, verse 35, and wailed, Luke 19, verse 41, sighed, mark 7, verse 34, and groaned, mark 8, verse 12, but we read also of his angry glare, Mark 3 verse 5, his annoyed speech, Mark 10, verse 14, his chiding words, for example, Mark 3, verse 12, the outbreaking evolution of his rage, for example, John 11 versus 33 and 38. Of the agitation of his bearing, when under strong feeling, John 11 verse 35,

Starting point is 02:26:18 the open exultation of his joy, Luke 10 verse 21, the unrest of his movements in the face of anticipated evils, Matthew 27 verse 37, the loud crown. which was rung from him in his moment of desolation, Matthew 27 verse 46. Nothing is lacking to make the impression strong that we have before us, in Jesus a human being like ourselves. It is part of the content of this impression that Jesus appears before us in the light of the play of his emotions as a distinct human being with his own individuality, and shall we not say it, even temperament. It is indeed sometimes suggested that the Son of God assumed at the incarnation, not a human nature but human nature, that is to say, not human

Starting point is 02:27:01 nature as manifesting itself in an individual, but human nature in general. Generic or universal human nature, the idea which it is meant to express is not a very clear one and is apparently only a relic of the discountenanced fiction of the real existence of universals. In any case, the idea receives no support from a survey of the emotional life of our Lord as it is presented to us in the evangelical narratives. The impression of a distinct individuality acting in accordance with its specific character as such, which is left on the mind by these narratives, is very strong. Whether our Lord's human nature is generic or individual, it certainly, the evangelists being witness, functioned in the days of his flesh,

Starting point is 02:27:43 as if it were individual, and we have the same reason for pronouncing it an individual human nature that we have for pronouncing such any human nature of whose functioning we have knowledge. This general conclusion is quite independent of the precise determination of the peculiarity of the individuality which our lord exhibits. He himself, on a great occasion, sums up his individual character, in express contrast with other individuals, in the declaration, I am meek and lowly of heart, and no impression was left by his life manifestation more deeply imprinted upon the consciousness of his followers than that of the noble humility of his bearing. It was by the meekness and gentleness of Christ that they encouraged one another to a life becoming a Christian man's profession.

Starting point is 02:28:29 2 Corinthians 10 verse 1 For the patience of Christ they prayed in behalf of one another as a blessing worthy to be set in their aspirations by the side of the love of God. 2 Thessalonians 3 verse 5 To the imitation of Christ's meek acceptance of undeserved outrages that they exhorted one another in persecution Because Christ also suffered for sin, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.

Starting point is 02:28:53 who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered, threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, 1 Peter 2, verse 21 to 23. Nevertheless, we cannot fix upon humility, as in such a sense our lord's quality, as to obscure in him other qualities,

Starting point is 02:29:14 which might seem to stand in conflict with it, much less as carrying with it those defects which are apt to accompany it when it appears as the quality of others, Meekness in our Lord was not a weak bearing of evils, but a strong forbearance in the presence of evil. It was not so much a fundamental characteristic of a nature constitutionally averse to asserting itself as a voluntary submission of a strong person bent on an end. It did not, therefore, so much give way before indignation, when the temptation became too great for it to bear up against, as coexist with a burning indignation at all that was evil in a perfect

Starting point is 02:29:49 equapoise which knew no wavering to this side or that. It was, in a word, only the manifestation in him of the mind which looks not on its own things but the things of others, Philippians 2 verse 5, and therefore spells mission, not temperament. We cannot in any case define his temperament as we define other men's temperaments by pointing to his dominant characteristics or the prevailing direction of his emotional discharges. In this sense, he had no particular temperament, and it might with truth be said that his human nature was generic, not individual. The mark of his individuality was harmonious completeness. Of him alone of men it may truly be said that nothing that is human was alien to him, and that all that is human manifested itself in him in perfect proportion

Starting point is 02:30:36 and balance. The series of emotions attributed to our Lord in the evangelical narrative, in their variety and their complex but harmonious interaction, illustrate, though of course they cannot of themselves demonstrate this balanced comprehensiveness of his individuality. Various as they are, they do not inhibit one another. Compassion and indignation rise together in his soul. Joy and sorrow meet in his heart and kiss each other. Strong as they are, not mere joy but exaltation, not mere irritated annoyance, but raging indignation, not mere passing pity, but the deepest movements of compassion

Starting point is 02:31:13 and love, not mere surface distress but an exceeding sorrow even under to death. They never overmaster him. He remains ever in control. Calvin is, therefore, not without justification, when telling us that in taking human affections, our Lord did not take inordinate affections, but kept himself even in his passions in subjection to the will of the father. He adds, footnote, in short, if you compare his passions with ours, they will differ not less than the clear and pure water flowing in a gentle course, differ from dirty and muddy foam, end quote. The figure, which is here employed, may no doubt be unduly pressed, but Calvin has no intention of suggesting doubt of either the reality or the strength of our Lord's emotional reactions.

Starting point is 02:32:00 He expressly turns away from the tendency, from which even an Augustine is not free, to reduce the affectional life of our Lord to a mere show, and commends to us rather as scriptural, the simplicity which affirms that, quote, the son of God, having clothed himself with our flesh, of his own accord clothed himself also with human feelings, so that he did not differ at all from his brethren, sin only accepted, end quote. He is only solicitous that, as Christ did not disdain to stoop to the feeling of our infirmities, we should be eager, not indeed to eradicate our affections, quote, seeking after that inhuman apathia, commended by the Stoics, but to correct and subdue that obstin,

Starting point is 02:32:41 which pervades them on account of the sin of Adam, end quote, and to imitate Christ our leader, who is himself the rule of supreme perfection in subduing all their excesses. For Christ, he adds for our encouragement, and this very thing in view, when he took our affections upon himself, that through his power we might subdue everything in them that is sinful, end quote. Thus Calvin, with his wanted eagerness for religious impression, points to the emotional life of Jesus, not merely as a proof of his humanity, but as an incitement to his followers to a holy life according with the will of God. We are not to be content to gaze upon him or to admire him. We must become imitators of him until we are metamorphosed into the same image.

Starting point is 02:33:24 Even this is, of course, not quite the highest note. The highest note, Calvin does not neglect it, is struck by the epistle to the Hebrews, when it declares that it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Hebrews 2 verse 17. Surely, says the prophet, as I. 53, verse 4, he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. A general statement to which an evangelist, Matthew 8 verse 1, has given a special application as a case in point when he adduces it in the form himself took our infirmities and bore our diseases. He subjected himself to the conditions of our human life, that he might save us from the evil

Starting point is 02:34:10 that curses human life in its sinful manifestation. When we observe him, exhibiting the movements of his human emotions, we are gazing on the very process of our salvation. Every manifestation of the truth of our Lord's humanity is an exhibition of the reality of our redemption. In his sorrows he was bearing our sorrows, and having passed through a human life like ours, he remains forever able to be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. Such a high priest in the language of the epistle to the Hebrews became us.

Starting point is 02:34:41 We needed such an one. When we note the marks of humanity in Jesus Christ, we are observing his fitness to serve our needs. We behold him made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, and our hearts add our witness that it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory to make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. It is not germane to the present inquiry to enter into the debate as to whether

Starting point is 02:35:08 in assuming flesh, our Lord assumed the flesh of fallen or of unfallen man. The right answer, beyond doubt, is that he assumed the flesh of unfallen man. It is not for nothing that Paul tells us that he came not in sinful flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh. Romans 8 verse 3. But this does not mean that the flesh he assumed was not under a curse. It means that the curse under which his flesh rested was not the curse of Adam's first sin, but the curse of the sins of his people. Him who knew no sin, he made sin in our behalf. He who was not, even as man under a curse, became a curse, became man, but because he bore the sins of his people. He suffered and died, not because of the flesh he took, but because of the sins he took. He was accursed, not because of the

Starting point is 02:35:58 took. He was, no doubt, born of a woman, born under the law, Galatians 4, in one concrete act. He issued from the Virgin's womb already our sin-bearer, but he was not sin-bearer because, made of a woman. He was made of a woman that he might become sin-bearer. It was because of the suffering of death that he was made a little lower than the angels, Hebrews 2-9. It is germane to our inquiry, therefore, to take note of the fact that, among the emotions which are attested as having found place in our Lord's life experiences, there are those which belong to him not as man but as sin-bearer, which never would have invaded his soul in the purity of his humanity, save as he stood under the curse incurred for his people's sins.

Starting point is 02:36:43 The whole series of his emotions are, no doubt, affected by his position under the curse. Even his compassion receives from this a special quality. Is this not included in the Great Declaration of Hebrews 4 verse 15? can we doubt that his anger against the powers of evil which afflict man borrowed particular force from his own experience of their baneful working, and the sorrows and dreads which constricted his heart in the prospect of death, culminating in the extreme anguish of the dereliction, do not these constitute the very substance of his atoning sufferings? As we survey the emotional life of our Lord, as depicted by the evangelists, therefore, let us not permit it to slip out of sight that we are not only observing the proofs of

Starting point is 02:37:27 the truth of his humanity, and not merely regarding the most perfect example of a human life which is afforded by history, but are contemplating the atoning work of the Savior in its fundamental elements. The cup which he drank to its bitter dregs was not his cup, but our cup, and he needed to drink it only because he was set upon our salvation. End of On the Emotional Life of Our Lord Part 2 by B.B. Warfield Astonishment, astonished by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 02:38:12 These terms occur with some frequency in the English version of the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, only in the historical books except John, and in the revised version only in the synoptic gospels, except Acts 3 verse 12. They are always used in the New Testament as an expression of one of the emotions aroused by supernatural manifestations. The noun occurs once only in either version, but in different passages. Authorized version, Mark 5 verse 42, revised version, Mark 16, verse 8. The verb more frequently appears. In the authorized version, the term translates sometimes

Starting point is 02:38:51 Ecclesome, Matthew 7 verse 28, 13 verse 54, 22 verse 33, Mark 6 verse 2, 7 verse 37, 10 verse 26, 11 verse 18, Luke 4 verse 32, Acts 13 verse 12. Sometimes, existame, or ecstasis, Mark 5, 42, Luke 247, 856, 2422, Acts 10 verse 45, 12, verse 16, and sometimes Thamvesome or Thamboth. Mark 10, verse 24, Luke 5 verse 9, Acts 9 verse 6. In the revised version, it is reserved for eclesome, except Mark 168, where astonishment represents ecstasis, of which it is the uniform rendering. In its etymological implication, it very fairly represents eclesome, which is literally to be struck out of the senses by a blow, and,

Starting point is 02:39:50 Hence to be stunned, shocked, astonished. For its relation to words implying fear, see Schmidt, synonymic der Greekishan sprager, number 139. For its place among the terms descriptive of the effect of our Lord's ministry on its witnesses, see article, Amazement.

Starting point is 02:40:11 End of Astonishment, astonished, by B.B. Warfield. Amazement by B.B. Warfield. This is a, Librevox recording, all Librevox recordings are in the public domain, for more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The interest of this word to students of the Gospels is twofold, and arises out of its employment, on the one hand, as one of the terms used to express the effect upon the people

Starting point is 02:40:44 of our Lord's supernatural manifestation, and on the other, in one unique instance, to describe an emotion which tore the heart of the godman himself. The nominal form, amazement, is of rare occurrence in English versions, only Acts 3 verse 10, 1 Peter 3 verse 6, for Ptoeces in the authorised version. Mark 5 verse 42, Luke 4 verse 36, 5 verse 26, Acts 3 verse 10 in the revised version. The passive verb, to be amazed, occurs not infrequently in the narrative books of the New Testament, rarely in the Old Testament, for example, Exodus 15 verse 15. They are especially characteristic of the synoptic Gospels and are currently employed in their narratives

Starting point is 02:41:29 along with several kindred terms to describe the impression made by our Lord's wonderful teaching and his miraculous works. In the authorised version, they translate in these narratives a number of Greek words, Thamvos, Thamveome, ectasis, existame, eclesome. But the revised version, study in greater uniformity of rendering, omits

Starting point is 02:41:53 Ek plesome from the list and makes amazement to be amazed the stated representatives of the other

Starting point is 02:42:00 two groups exceptions are Mark 168 where ex-thasis is rendered astonishment Acts 3 verse 10

Starting point is 02:42:07 and following where Thamveos Ek Thumbos are represented by wonder passages like Mark 3 verse 21

Starting point is 02:42:14 2 Corinthians 513 and again Acts 10 11 verse 15 22 verse 17 are of course not in question

Starting point is 02:42:22 To EK pleisome, it uniformly assigns astonish, astonishment, and to the accompanying terms of kindred implications similarly appropriate renderings. To Fav Mazo, Ek Fav Mazzo, Mark 12, verse 17, generally to Marvel, but to wonder, Matthew 15, verse 31, Luke 2 verse 18, 4 verse 22, 24 versus 12 and 41, also Acts 731, and to Faveome Fovos, Matthew 14, 26, Mark 441, Luke 526, 7 verse 16, 8 verse 37. Compare, Tarasa, Matthew 14, verse 26, Mark 6 verse 50, Thromos, Mark 16, verse 8, Tremo, Mark 5 133, Luke 8 verse 47, to be afraid, varied to fear. The constant recurrence in the synoptic narrative of one or other of these terms, a comment upon the effect of our Lord's teaching or works imparts to the reader a vivid sense of the supernaturalness of his manifestation and of the deep impression that it made as such on the

Starting point is 02:43:30 people. Sometimes it appears to have been the demeanour or bearing of our Lord which awoke wonder or struck with awe. Matthew 27 verse 14, Mark 15 verse 5, Mark 9 verse 15, 10 verse 32, compare Luke 2 verse 48. Sometimes the emotion was aroused rather by the tone of his teaching, as with his great, I say unto you, he taught them as having authority and not as the scribes. Mark 122, Luke 423, Matthew 728. Compare Mark 11, 18, Matthew 22, 33. At other times, it was more distinctly what he said, the matter of his discourse, that excited the emotion in question, its unanticipated literalness, or its unanticipatable judiciousness, wisdom, graciousness, or the radical paradox of its

Starting point is 02:44:20 announcements. Luke 2, verse 47 and 48, 4 verse 22, Matthew 13, verse 54, Mark 6 verse 2, John 7 verse 15, Matthew 19 verse 25, Mark 10 verse 26, Matthew 22 verse 22, Mark 12 verse 17, Luke 20 20 verse 26. Most commonly, however, it was one of his wonderful works which brought to the spectators the dread sense of the presence of the supernatural. Luke 5 verse 9, Mark 1 verse 27, Luke 4 verse 36, Mark 2 verse 12, Luke 5 verse 26, Matthew 9 verse 8, Luke 7 verse 16, 11 verse 14, Matthew 12 verse 23, Matthew 8 verse 27, Mark 4 verse 41, Luke 8 verse 25, Mark 5 verse 15, Luke 8 verses 32 and 37, Mark 5, verses 30, 33 and 42, Luke 8 verse 35, Matthew 9 verse 33, Mark 6, verse 51, John 6 verse 19, Matthew 6 verse 26, Mark 7 verse 37, Luke 9 verse 43, Matthew 21

Starting point is 02:45:32 20, and filled the country with wonder, Matthew 15 verse 31. The circle affected naturally varies from a single individual, Mark 5, verse 33, or the few who happen to be concerned, Luke 2, verse 48, 5, verse 9, or the body of his immediate followers, Matthew 17 verse 6, Mark 10 versus 24 and 26, Matthew 19 verse 25, 21 verse 20, up to a smaller or larger assemblage of spectators. Luke 2 verse 47, 4 verse 22, Mark 1 verse 22, Luke 4 verse 32, Mark 1 verse 27, Luke 4 verse 36, Mark 2 2 verse 12, Luke 7 verse 16, 8 verse 25 and 37, Mark 5 verse 42, Matthew 13 verse 54, Mark 6 verse 51, John 619, Matthew 14 verse 26, Mark 6 verse 50, Mark 7 verse 27, Luke 9 verse 43, Mark 16 verse 8, Matthew 22

Starting point is 02:46:40 22, Mark 12 verse 17, Luke 20 verse 26. These spectators are often expressly declared to have been numerous. They are described as the multitudes, or all the multitudes, all the people of the country, or quite generally, when not a single occasion, but a summary of many is in question, Great Multitudes. Matthew 9 verse 8, Luke 5 verse 26, Matthew 7 verse 28, 12 verse 23, Luke 11 verse 14, 8 verse 35, Mark 5 15, Mark 8 verse 20, Matthew 9 verse 33, 15 verse 31, Mark 9 verse 15, John 7 verse 15, Mark 11 verse 18, Matthew 22 verse 33.

Starting point is 02:47:23 These several terms employed by the evangelists to describe the impression on the people of these supernatural manifestations express the feelings natural to man in the presence of the supernatural. In their sound, they leave on the reader's mind a very complete sense of the reality and depth of the impression made. Their detailed synonymy is not always, however, perfectly clear. The student will find discriminating discussions of the two groups of terms which center respectively around the notions of wonder and fear in J. H. Heinrich Schmitz, well-known synonymic der Grishishishen at numbers 168 and 139. It will probably suffice here to indicate very briefly the fundamental implication of each term in its present application.

Starting point is 02:48:09 Thav Mazo is a broad term, primarily expressing the complete engagement of the mind with an object which seizes so powerfully upon the attention as to compel exclusive occupation with it. It is ordinarily used in a good sense and readily takes on the implication of admiration, but it often occurs also when the object, contemplated, arouses internal opposition and displeasure. What it always implies is that its object is remarkable, extraordinary, beyond not so much expectation as ready comprehension, and therefore irresistibly engages attention and awakens wonder. It does not import surprise, but rather, if you will, curiosity or better interestedness. In this, it separates itself from Thamvehome, in which the notion of unexpectedness is at least originally inherent. This latter term gives expression to the sense of mental helplessness,

Starting point is 02:49:02 which oppresses us on the occurrence of an unanticipated and astonishing phenomenon. The affection of the mind it suggests is one of mingled admiration and fear, and in the usage of the word, this passes both downward to consternation, strengthened to fright and terror, and upward into awe and veneration. In the Septuagint, the lower senses are predominant. For example, Syrac 12 verse 5, Canticles 3 verse 8, 6 verse 3 and 4, 9 verse 10, Ezekiel 7 verse 18, 1 Kings 14 verse 15, 2 Samuel 7 verse 15, Wisdom 17 verse 3, Deuteronomy 8 verse 17 and 18, 1 Maccabees 6 verse 8, Deuteronomy 7 verse 7, Syrac 30 verse 9.

Starting point is 02:49:52 In the evangelical passages now before us, on the other hand, the high sensors come forward and the idea expressed lies nearer to awe and the term comes thus into close synony with for veome the notion of surprise which underlies thumb veome seems to be much more prominent in existame this term broad enough to be applied to any derangement bodily or mental was particularly employed with or without a defining adjunct to describe that aberration of the mind, the subjects of which in English, too, we speak of simply as demented, two Corinthians 5 verse 13. In its more ordinary usage, the implication is no more than that the subject is

Starting point is 02:50:38 thrown out of his normal state into the condition of ecstasy or extreme emotion. The emotion in question being of varied kind, but more commonly an amazement which carries with it, at least, a suggestion of perplexity, if not of bewilderment. When this surprise rises to its height, however, especially if it is informed with alarm, the appropriate term to express it would seem to be eclesome, although this term is used so frequently for intellectual effects arising from intellectual causes, that it falls readily into the sense of pure astonishment. Nevertheless, the element of alarm inherent in it places it among the synonyms of foveoma, from which it differs as a sudden access of fright, differs from an abiding state of fear, or as in

Starting point is 02:51:27 connections like those at present engaging our attention to be awestruck differs from the continuous sense of awful reverence which prompts to withdrawal from the dread presence. The same fundamental emotion of fear, which finds its most natural expression in Foveome is more rarely given expression also in such terms as Tarasso, the basal implication of which is agitation, perturbation, passing on into the disquietude on the one side of that troubled worry, the extreme of which is expressed by Avemonneo, and on the other, into that terrified consternation which finds its extreme

Starting point is 02:52:05 expression in Ptoe'eome, Luke 24-37, or as Teremo, which, in its application to the trembling of the mind, to mental shivering, draws near to the notions of anxiety and horror. The emotions signalized, as called out by the manifestation of Jesus in his word and work, it will be seen, run through the whole gamut of the appropriate responses of the human spirit and the presence of the supernatural. Men, seeing and hearing him, wondered, were awestruck,

Starting point is 02:52:35 amazed, astonished, made afraid, with a fear which disquieted their minds and exhibited itself in bodily trembling. The confusion by the revised version under the common rendering amaze, amazement of two of these groups of terms, Thamvos, Thumbaeome, e'embeome, and, and and ecstasis, existame, seem scarcely to do justice to the distinctive implications of either, and especially fails to mark the clear note of the higher implication of awe that sounds in the former. The interest of noting how completely the notion of surprise,

Starting point is 02:53:12 originally present in Thamvas, has in usage retired into the background in favour of deeper conceptions, is greatly increased by the employment of the strengthened form of the verb Ektham Vejome by St. Mark, 14, verse 33, to describe an element in our Lord's agony in Gathsemini. When St. Matthew, 26 verse 37, tells us that Jesus began to be sorrowful, loopiste, and sorely troubled. Are they monin? St. Mark, varying the phraseology, says in the revised version that he began to be greatly amazed, Ekthamviste and sore troubled. 14, verse 33. Surely the red her Endering amazed, however, misses the mark here.

Starting point is 02:53:55 The note of the word as a parallel to Ave Monin and Lupiste is certainly that of anguish, not of unexpectedness, and the commentators appear, therefore, to err when they lay stress on the latter idea. The usage in the Septuagent, both of the word itself, Serac 30 verse 9, where also, oddly enough, it is paralleled with Lupea, and of its cognates seems decisively to suggest a sense for which it will emphasize, not the unexpectedness of our Lord's experience, but its dreadfulness, and will attribute to our saviour on this awful occasion, therefore not surprise, but anguish and dread, depression and alarm, J.A. Alexander, or even inconceivable or sweet. The difficulty of the passage, let it be remarked, is not a dogmatic but an exegetical one.

Starting point is 02:54:45 There is no reason why we should not attribute to the human soul of the Lord, all the emotions which are capable of working in the depths of a sinless human spirit. Compare J.A. Alexander's excellent note on Mark 8.10 and sweets on Mark 66, but certainly the employment of the verb Exthamvehome is here by St. Mark affords no warrant for thinking of the agony of Gathsemini as if it exceeded the expectation of our lord, or as if it consisted in large part of the surprise and perplexity incident upon discovering it to be worse than he had anticipated. Compare the otherwise admiral note of Dr. Sweet in Locke. Long as he had foreseen the passion, when it came clearly into view, its terrors exceeded

Starting point is 02:55:31 his anticipations, end quote. A.J. Mason, the conditions of our Lord's life on earth, pages 135 to 138. When the hour came, it exceeded all his expectations, end quote. On the contrary, the usage of the word combines with the context here to suggest that its whole force is absorbed in indicating the depths of soul agony through which our Lord was called upon to pass in this mysterious experience. On the terms employed, the note of Pearson on the Creed, edition 1835, page 281, edition New York, 1847, pages 288 to 289, is still worth consulting. In studying the emotional life of our Lord's human spirit during his life on earth, as it is exhibited to us in the gospel narratives, nothing in point of fact is more striking than the richness of the vocabulary, by means of which he is pictured to us as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and the slenderness of the suggestion that he may have been subject to the surprises which constitutes so large an element in the lives of mere men. So far as the explicit assertions of the evangelical narratives go, it would seem that the unexpected never happened to Jesus. Neither surprise, nor astonishment, nor amazement, nor suspense, nor embarrassment, nor perplexity, nor distraction, is ever in so many words attributed to him.

Starting point is 02:56:53 Those who would discover in the narratives, nevertheless, some ground for supposing that he may have experienced these emotions. For example, A.J. Mason, the conditions of our Lord's Life on Earth, pages 1.35 to 138, T. Adamson, Studies of the Mind in Christ, page 11, 12, and 167, and in its extremity, E.A. Abbott, Philomuthos, on which see Southern Presbyterian Review, October 1844, some recent apocryphal Gospels, page 733 in following, must needs depend on an inferential method, the inconclusiveness of which has been repeatedly pointed out of old, as, for example, by Augustine, for example contra faustus the manichaean 22-13 who remarks upon its equal applicability to the anthropomorphisms of the old testament wonder authorized version revised version marvelling to be sure is attributed to jesus on two occasions matthew eight verse ten luke seven verse nine mark six verse six but the term used thavmaso is on both occasions precisely that one which least of

Starting point is 02:58:03 implies surprise, which declares its object rather extraordinary than unexpected. Thav Mazor remarks Schmidt, opposite page 184, quote, is perfectly generally to wonder or to admire, and is distinguished from Thav Mazin, precisely as the German, Zich Wundon, or Bevundon, is from Staun, that is what has especially seized on us is, in the case of Thav Mazin, the extraordinary nature of the thing, while in the case of Thamvien, it is the unexpectedness and suddenness of the occurrence." All that needs to be imported by these passages is that the circumstances adverted to were in themselves remarkable

Starting point is 02:58:43 and that Jesus recognised felt and remarked upon their remarkableness, in the one instance with the implication of admiration, and the other with that of reprobation, that the circumstances which called out his sense of the incongruity in the situations he remarks upon were unanticipated by our Lord, and therefore, when observed, struck him with a shock of surprise, we are not told. End of Amazement by B.B. Warfield.

Starting point is 02:59:14 Doubt by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. The Hebrew of the Old Testament seems to lack an exact equivalent to our term doubt when used in a religious reference. Some have indeed understood doubters, skeptics to be meant when the psalmist who loves God's law and hopes in his word and delights in

Starting point is 02:59:43 in keeping his commandments declares that he hates them that are of a double mind. Psalm 119 verse 13. Say affim. Apparently, however, it is rather hypocrites, what we should call double-minded men who are meant, and it seems to be hypocrisy rather than doubt, which is in mind. Also in one king's 18 verse 21, where the kindred term, say ifim occurs and also in one chronicles 12 verse 33 Psalm 12 verse 2 where the similar phrase double heart lev vilev appears as well as in hosaiah 10 verse 2 where the commentaries differ as to whether

Starting point is 03:00:23 the words halak liveam are to be translated their heart is divided or perhaps better their heart is smooth i.e deceitful in the new testament on the other hand we made with a series of terms which run through the shades of meaning expressed by our words, perplexity, suspense, distraction, hesitation, questioning, skepticism, shadowing down into unbelief. Perplexity is expressed by the verb, Aporeo. Mark 6, verse 20, Luke 24, 4,

Starting point is 03:00:51 John 13, verse 24, Acts 25, 20, 2 Corinthians 4 verse 8, Galatians 4 verse 20, with its strengthened compound, the aporeo. Luke 9 verse 7, Acts 2, verse 12, 5 verse 24, 10, 17. expressing thorough perplexity when one is utterly out of loss and the still stronger compound exaporeo

Starting point is 03:01:13 2 Corinthians 1 verse 8 4 verse 8 in which perplexity has passed into despair this perplexity is never assigned in the new testament to the sphere of religion even in such instances as luke 24 verse 4 where we are told that the women finding the lord's tomb empty were perplexed thereabout mark six verse 20 Luke 9 verse 6 where herod's perplexity over john's preaching and the subsequent preaching of Jesus and his followers is spoken of, and Acts 2 verse 12, where the extreme perplexity of those who witnessed the wonders of the day of Pentecost is adverted to. It is not a state of religious doubt, but of pure mental bewilderment which is described. The women merely had no explanation of the empty tomb ready. They were at a loss how to account for it.

Starting point is 03:01:57 Herod simply found John's preaching and the reports concerning the preaching and work of Jesus and his disciples inexplicable. he had no theory ready for their explanation. The marvels of Pentecost before Peter's explanation of them were wholly without meaning to their witnesses, and similarly in Acts 10 verse 17, Peter was just at a complete loss to understand what the vision he had received could mean, and required a revelation to make it significant to him. It was this state of mind, a state of what we may call objective suspense due to lack of light, which the Jews claimed for themselves, when in John 10 verse 21st, they demanded of Jesus, how long dost thou lift up our soul? Then psychenemon eris. If thou art the

Starting point is 03:02:42 Christ, tell us plainly. They would suggest that they were in a state of strained expectation regarding his claims and that the lagging of their decision was due not to subjective causes rooted in an evil heart of unbelief, but to a lack of bold frankness on his part. Jesus, in his reply, repels this insinuation and describes the fault to their own unbelief. They were not eager, seekers after truth, held in suspense by his ambiguous speech, they were men in possession of full evidence, who would not follow it to a conclusion opposing their wishes. They were therefore not perplexed, but unbelieving. For the doubt of the distracted mind, the New Testament appears to have two expressions, Mete orizes there, Luke 12 verse 29, and Distrazin, Matthew 14

Starting point is 03:03:27 13, verse 13. This state of mind is superinduced on faith and is a witness to the faith which lies behind it, only those who have faith can waver or be distracted from it, but the faith to which it witnesses is equally necessarily an incomplete and imperfect faith, only an imperfect faith can waver or be distracted from its firm assurance. The exultation, be ye not of a wavering mind, is appropriately given therefore in Luke 12 verse 29, to those who are addressed as of little faith of whom it is the specific characteristic. It is to trust in God's providential care without carking anxiety as to our food and drink and clothing that the Saviour is exhorting his hearers in this context. To fullness of faith, which, according to its definition in Hebrews 11 verse 1,

Starting point is 03:04:14 is absorbed in the unseen and future in contrast with the seen and present. Those who have full faith will have their whole life hid with God, and in proportion as care for earthly things enters, in that proportion do we fall away from the heights of faith and exhibit a wavering mind. It was a similar weakness which attacked Peter When walking by virtue of faith upon the water to come to Jesus He saw the wind and was afraid Matthew 14 verse 31 And accordingly our saviour addressed him similarly

Starting point is 03:04:41 O thou of little faith Wherefore didst thou doubt Here again is real faith though weak But a faith that is distracted by the entrance of fear The same term and surely with similar implications Is used again and on an even more interesting occasion when the disciples of Jesus came to the mountain where he had appointed them, and there saw their risen Lord, we are told, Matthew 28, verse 17, they worshipped,

Starting point is 03:05:06 but some doubted, hei's this same doubt of imperfect and distracted faith, and not the sceptical doubt of unbelief that is intended. All worshipped him, though some not without that doubt of the distracted mind, which is no more psychologically absurd here than in Luke 12 verse 29 and Matthew 14 verse 31. whence the distraction arose, whether possibly from joy itself, as in Luke 24 verse 41, or from a less noble emotion, as possibly in John 20 verse 25, we do not know. But the quality of doubt resulting from it, although manifesting the incompleteness of the disciples' faith, was not inconsistent with its reality, and the record of it is valuable to us as showing, along with such passages as Luke 24 versus 37 to 41, John 20 verse 25, that the Apostle's testimony to the resurrection, was that of convinced rather than of credulous witnesses. A kindred product of weak faith, the doubt of questioning hesitation, is expressed in the New

Starting point is 03:06:05 Testament by the term diologism. Luke 24 verse 38, Romans 14, verse 1. Philippians 2 verse 14, 1 Timothy 2 verse 8. It is the nemesis of weakness of faith that it is pursued by anxious questionings and mental doubts. Thus when Christ appeared to his disciples in Jerusalem, they were terrified and affrighted and suppose that they had beheld a spirit, Luke 24 verse 36, provoking their master's rebuke, wherefore do questionings arise in your heart?

Starting point is 03:06:32 And in St. Paul's epistles, the timid outlook of the weak in faith is recognized as their chief characteristic. This seems to be the meaning of Romans 14, verse 1, where he that is weak in faith is to be received into full Christian brotherhood, but not for the adjudication of questionings. Compare the crineto of verse 3 and the crinnon of verse 4. here is a man whose mind is crowded with scruples and doubts. He is to be received, of course, but not as if his agitated conscience were to be the law of the community. He is to be born with,

Starting point is 03:07:04 not to be obeyed. The same implication underlies Philippians 2 verse 14, where the contrast between murmurings and disputings seems to be not so much between moral and intellectual rebellion as between violent and timid obstacles in the Christian pathway, a contrast which appears also in 1 Timothy 2 verse 8. It would seem that those those who are troubled with questionings are everywhere recognized as men who possess faith, but who are deterred from a proper entrance into their privileges and a proper performance of their Christian duties by a settled habit of hesitant casuistry, which argues lack of robustness in their faith. The New Testament term, which expresses that deeper doubt, which argues not merely the

Starting point is 03:07:41 weakness, but the lack of faith is the verb the archeryness there. Matthew 21, verse 21, Mark 11 verse 23, Romans 4 verse 20, chapter 14 verse 23, James 1, verse 6, Biss, Jude 22. Wherever this critical attitude towards divine things is found, their faith is absent. The term may be used in contrast to that faith by which miracles are wrought or in which God is approached in prayer, Matthew 21 verse 21, Mark 11 verse 23, James 1 verse 6, bis. In either case, it implies the absence of the faith in question, and the consequent faith of the result. He that doubteth, in this sense, cannot expect to receive anything of the Lord.

Starting point is 03:08:24 It may be used of a frame of mind in which one lives his life out in the Christian profession, Romans 14 verse 23. In this case, the intrusion of this critical spirit vitiates the whole course of his activities because they are no longer of faith and whatsoever is not a faith is sin. Or it may be used as the extreme contrast to that fullness of faith which Abraham exhibited in his typical act of faith, and then it is represented as the outgrowth of unbelief, Romans 4 verse 20. From the full description of its opposite here and the equally full description of it itself in James 1 verse 6 in following, see Maya's note, we may attain a tolerably

Starting point is 03:09:01 complete conception of its nature as the critical, self-debating habit of the typical skeptic, which casts him upon life like a derelict ship upon the sea, and makes him in all things double-minded and unstable. Such a habit of mind is the extreme contradiction of faith and cannot coexist with it, and it is therefore treated everywhere with condemnation, unless Jude 22 be an exception

Starting point is 03:09:24 and there the reading is too uncertain to justify its citation as such. See further, faith. End of doubt by B.B. Warfield. On faith, in its psychological aspects, by B.B. Warfield.

Starting point is 03:09:44 This is a Librevonk's recording, All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravax.org. The English word faith came into the language under the influence of the French, and is but a modification of the Latin Fides, which is itself cognate with the Greek pistis. Its root meaning seems to be that of binding. Whatever we discover to be binding on us is the object of faith. The corresponding Germanic term represented by the English word believe and the German Glaubm goes back to a root meaning to be agreeable represented by our English leaf and seems to present the object of belief as something which we esteem which we have estimated or weighed and approved.

Starting point is 03:10:35 The notion of constraint is perhaps less prominent in belief than in faith, its place being taken in belief by that of approval. We believe in what we find worthy of our confidence. We have faith in what compels our confidence, but it would be easy to press this too far, and it is likely that the two terms, faith, belief, really express much the same idea. The natural use of language, therefore, which is normally controlled by what we call etymology,

Starting point is 03:11:06 that is by the intrinsic connotation of the terms, when we say faith, belief. Our minds are preoccupied with the, the grounds of the conviction expressed. We are speaking of a mental act or state to which we feel constrained by considerations objective to ourselves, or at least to the act or state in question. The conception embodied in the terms belief, faith, in other words, is not that of an arbitrary act of the subjects, it is that of a mental state or act which is determined by sufficient reasons. In their fundamental connotation, thus, these terms are very broad. There seems nothing in the terms

Starting point is 03:11:43 themselves indeed, to forbid their employment in so wider sense as to cover the whole field of sureness, conviction. Whatever we accept as true or real, we may very properly be said to believe, to have faith in. All that we are convinced of may be said to be a matter of belief, faith. So the terms are accordingly very often employed. Thus, for example, Professor J. M. Baldwin defines belief simply as, quote, mental endorsement or acceptance of something thought of as real, end quote, and remarks of conviction that it, quote, is a loose term whose connotation so far as exact is near to that here given to belief, end quote. He even adds, we think with less exactness, that judgment is merely, quote, the logical or formal side of the same state

Starting point is 03:12:31 of mind, end quote, which on the psychological side is called belief. To us, judgment appears a broader term than belief, expressing a mental act which underlies belief indeed, but cannot be identified with it. Meanwhile, we note with satisfaction that Professor Baldwin recognises the element of constraint, blindingness in belief, and distinguishes it clearly from acts of the will, thereby setting aside the definition of it, quite commonly given, which finds the differentiator of beliefs among convictions in this, that they are, quote, voluntary convictions, end quote. Quote, there is, he says, a distinct difference in consciousness between the consent of belief and the consent of will. The consent of belief is, in a measure,

Starting point is 03:13:18 a forced consent. It attaches to what is, to what stands in the order of things, whether I consent or no. The consent of will is a forceful consent, a consent to what shall be through me, end quote. That is to say, with respect to belief, it is a mental recognition of what is before the mind, as objectively true and real, and therefore depends on the evidence that a thing is true and real, and is determined by this evidence. It is the response of the mind to this evidence, and cannot arise apart from it. It is therefore impossible that belief should be the product of a volition. Volitions look to the future and represent our desires. Beliefs look to the present, and represent our findings. Professor Baldwin does not recognize this, however, in its entirety,

Starting point is 03:14:05 as is already apparent from the qualification inserted into his description of belief. Quote, says he in a measure a forced consent, end quote. He wishes, after all, to leave room for, quote, voluntary beliefs, end quote. Accordingly, he proceeds, quote, in cases in which belief is brought about by desire or will, there is a subtle consciousness of inadequate evidence until by repetition the item desired or willed no longer needs volition to give it a place in the series deemed objective. Then it is for the first time belief, but then it is no longer will, end quote. Beliefs then, according to Professor Baldwin, although not to be confounded with acts of the will,

Starting point is 03:14:47 may yet be produced by the action of the will, even while the evidence on which they should more properly rest, is recognised by the mind willing them to be insufficient. We cannot help suspecting this suggestion to rest on a defective analysis of what actually goes on in the mind in the instances commented on. These appear to us to be cases in which we determined to act on suppositions recognized as lacking sufficient evidence to establish them in our minds as according with reality, and therefore not accepted as according with reality, that is to say, as beliefs. If they pass, as Dr. Baldwin suggests, gradually into beliefs, when repeatedly so acted upon,

Starting point is 03:15:25 is that not because the mind derives from such repeated action, resulting successfully additional evidence that the suppositions in question do represent reality and may be safely acted upon as such? Would not the thing acted on in such? be more precisely stated as the belief that these suppositions may be accordant with reality, not that they are. The consciousness that the evidence is inadequate which accompanies such action, though Dr. Baldwin calls it, quote, subtle, end quote, it is not in fact just the witness of consciousness that it does not assert these suppositions

Starting point is 03:16:00 to be accorded with reality and does not recognize them as beliefs, though it is willing to act on them on the hypothesis that they may prove to be accordant with reality, and thus make good their aspirations to become beliefs. And can any number of repetitions? Repetitions of what, by the way, make this testimony of consciousness void? Apparently, what we repeat is simply volitions founded on the possibility or probability of the suppositions in question being in accordance with reality, and it is difficult to see how the repetition of such volitions can elevate the suppositions

Starting point is 03:16:33 in question into the rank of beliefs, except by eliminating doubt as to their accordance with reality by creating evidence for them through their, quote, working well, end quote. The repetition of a volition to treat a given proposition as true, especially if it is accompanied by a consciousness, however subtle, that there is no sufficient evidence that it is true, can certainly not result in making it true, and can scarcely of itself result in producing an insufficiently grounded conviction in the mind, always at least subtly conscious that it rests on insufficient evidence, that it is true, and so in, quote, giving it a place in the series deemed objective, end quote.

Starting point is 03:17:14 A habit of treating a given proposition as correspondent to reality may indeed be formed, and as this habit is formed, the accompanying consciousness that it is, in point of fact, grounded in insufficient evidence, may no doubt drop into the background or even wholly out of sight. Thus we may come to act, instinctively, shall we say, or inadvertently, on the supposition of the truth of the proposition in question. But this does not seem to carry with it as inevitable implication that beliefs may be created by the action of the will. It may only show that more or less probable or more or less improbable suppositions, more or less clearly envisaged as such, may enter into the complex of conditions which influence action,

Starting point is 03:17:57 and that the human mind in the process of its ordinary activity does not always keep before it in perfect clearness, the lines of demarcation which separate the two classes of its beliefs and its conjectures, but may sometimes rub off the labels which serve to mark its convictions off from its suppositions and to keep each in their proper place. It would seem to be fairly clear that belief is always the product of evidence and that it cannot be created by volitions, whether singly or in any number of repetitions. The interaction of belief and volition is, questionless, most intimate and most varied, but one cannot be successfully transmuted into the other, nor one be mistaken for the other.

Starting point is 03:18:40 The consent of belief is in its very nature and must always be what Dr. Baldwin calls, quote, forced consent, end quote, that is to say, determined by evidence, not by volition, and when the consent of will is secured by a supposition, recognized by consciousness as inadequately based in evidence, the consent of will has no tendency to act as evidence and raise the supposition into a belief, its tendency is only to give to a supposition the place of a belief in the ordering of life. We may infer from this state of the case that, quote, preparedness to act, and quote, is scarcely a satisfactory definition of the state of mind, which is properly called faith, belief.

Starting point is 03:19:19 This was the definition suggested by Dr. Alexander Bain. Faith, belief, certainly expresses a state of preparedness to act, and it may be very fairly contended that, quote, preparedness to act, end quote, supplies a very good test of the faith. the genuineness of faith belief. A so-called faith belief on which we are not prepared to act is near to no real faith belief at all. What we are convinced of we should certainly confide in, and what we are unwilling to confide in we seem not quite sure of. We do not appear thoroughly to believe to have faith in. But though all faith belief is preparedness to act, it does not

Starting point is 03:19:59 follow that all preparedness to act is faith belief. We may be prepared to act on some other ground than faith belief. On knowledge, say, if knowledge may be distinguished from belief, or, as we have already suggested, on supposition, on a probability or even a possibility. To be sure, as we have already noted, the real ground of our action in such cases may be stated in terms of faith belief. Our preparedness to act may be said to be our belief, our conviction that if the supposition in question is not yet shown to be in conformity to reality. It yet may be so. Meanwhile, it is clear that the supposition in question is not a thing believed to be in accordance with fact, and is therefore not a belief but a supposition, not a conviction, but a conjecture. Belief, faith, is the

Starting point is 03:20:45 consent of the mind to the reality of the thing in question, and when the mind withholds its consent to the reality, belief, faith is not present. These terms are not properly. These terms are not employed except when a state of conviction is present. They designate the response of the mind to evidence in a consent to the adequacy of the evidence. It, of course, does not follow that all our beliefs, faiths correspond with reality. Our convictions are not infallible. When we say that belief, faith is the product of evidence and is in that sense a compelled consent, this is not the same as saying that consent is produced only by compelling evidence, that is evidence which is objectively adequate.

Starting point is 03:21:26 Objective adequacy and subjective effect are not exactly correlated. The amount, degree and quality of evidence which will secure consent varies from mind to mind, and in the same mind from state to state. Some minds or all minds in some states will respond to very weak evidence with full consent. Some minds or all minds in some states will resist very strong evidence. There is no faith, belief, possible without evidence, or what the mind takes for evidence. Faith, belief, is a state of mind grounded in evidence and impossible without it, but the fullest faith belief may ground itself in very weak evidence, if the mind mistakes it for

Starting point is 03:22:07 strong evidence. Faith, belief, does not follow the evidence itself, in other words, but the judgment of the intellect on the evidence. And the judgment of the intellect naturally will vary endlessly, as intellect differs from intellect, or as the states of the same intellect differ from one another. From this circumstance has been taken an attempt to define faith belief more closely than merely mental endorsement of something as true as broadly the synonym of conviction, and to distinguish it as a specific form of conviction from other forms of conviction. Faith, belief, it is said, for example, by Khand, is conviction founded on evidence which is subjectively adequate. Knowledge is convicted founded on evidence which is objectively adequate. That faith and knowledge

Starting point is 03:22:52 do differ from one another we all doubtless feel, but it is not easy to believe that their specific difference is found in this formula. It is, of course, plain enough that every act of faith, belief, rests on evidence which is subjectively adequate. But it is far from plain that this evidence must be objectively inadequate on pain of the mental response ceasing to be faith belief and becoming knowledge. Are all beliefs, faiths, specifically such, in their very nature, inadequately established convictions. Convictions indeed, matters of which we feel sure, but of which we feel sure on inadequate grounds, grounds either consciously recognized by us as inadequate, or, if supposed by us to be adequate, yet really inadequate. No doubt there is a usage of the terms current,

Starting point is 03:23:40 especially when they are set in contrast with one another, which does conceive them after this fashion, a legitimate enough usage because it is founded on a real distinction in the connoissexion. of the two terms. We do sometimes say, I do not know this or that to be true, but I fully believe it, meaning that though we are altogether persuaded of it, we are conscious that the grounds for believing it fall short of complete objective coerciveness. But this special usage of the terms ought not to deceive us as to their essential meaning. And it surely requires little consideration to assure us that it cannot be of the essence of faith, belief, that the grounds on which it rests are, consciously or unconsciously, objectively inadequate. Faith must not be distinguished

Starting point is 03:24:25 from knowledge, only that it may be confounded with conjecture. And how in any case shall the proposed criterion of faith be applied, to believe on grounds of the inadequacy of which we are conscious, is, on the face of it, an impossibility. The moment we perceive the objective inadequacy of the grounds on which we pronounce the reality of anything, they become subjectively inadequate also, and so long as they appear to us subjectively adequate, the resulting conviction will be indistinguishable from knowledge. To say that knowledge is a justified recognition of reality, and faith, belief is an unjustified recognition of reality, is to erect a distinction which can have no possible psychological basis. The recognizing mind makes and can make no such distinction between the soundness

Starting point is 03:25:11 and unsoundness of its own recognitions of reality. An outside observer might suddenly distribute into to two such categories the convictions of a mind brought under his contemplation, but the distribution would represent the outside observer's judgment on the grounds of these convictions, not that of the subject himself. The moment the mind observed itself introducing such a distribution among its convictions, it would remove the whole class of convictions to which it assigns an inadequate grounding out of the category of convictions altogether. To become conscious that some of its convictions were unjustified would be to abolish them at best as convictions and to remove them into the category at best of conjectures, at worst of erroneous judgments.

Starting point is 03:25:52 We accord with Dr. Baldwin, therefore, when he declares of this distinction that it is, quote, not psychological. The mind knows and can know nothing of objectively and subjectively adequate grounds in forming its convictions. All it is conscious of is the adequacy or inadequacy of the grounds on which its convictions are based. If they appeal to it as, adequate, the mind is convinced. If they do not, it remains unconvinced. Faith, belief is to consciousness, just an act or state of conviction, of being sure, and therefore cannot be explained as something less than a conviction, something less than being sure, or as a conviction indeed, but a conviction which differs from other convictions, by being, if not ungrounded, yet not adequately grounded.

Starting point is 03:26:37 That were all one with saying it is a conviction, no doubt, but nevertheless not quite a conviction, a manifest contradiction in terms. The failure of this special attempt to distinguish between faith and knowledge need not argue, however, that there is no distinction between the two. Faith may not be inadequately grounded conviction any more than it is voluntary conviction. The two come to much the same thing, and yet be a specific mode of conviction over against knowledge as a distinct mode of conviction. The persistence with which it is set over against knowledge in our popular usage of the words as well as in the definitions of philosophers may be taken as an indication that there is some cognizable distinction between the two could we but fasten upon it, and the persistence

Starting point is 03:27:24 with which this distinction is sought in the nature of the grounds on which faith in distinction from knowledge rests is equally notable. Thus we find Dr. Alexander T. Ormond, defining faith as, quote, the personal acceptance. of something as true or real, but the distinguishing mark, on grounds that, in whole or in part, are different from those of theoretic certitude, end quote. Here, faith is distinguished from other forms of conviction, knowledge being apparently in mind, as the other term of contrast, and the distinguishing mark of faith is found in the nature of the grounds on which it rests. The nature of these grounds, however, is expressed only

Starting point is 03:28:04 negatively. We are not told what they are, but only that they are, in whole or in part, different to, quote, those of theoretic certitude, end quote. The effect of the definition as it stands is therefore only to declare that the term faith does not express all forms of conviction but one form only, and that this form of conviction differs from the form which is given the name of theoretic certitude, that is to say, doubtless knowledge in the grounds on which it rests. But what the positive distinguishing mark of the grounds on which the mode of conviction which we call faith rests is, we are not told. Dr. Orman does indeed go on to say that, quote, the moment of will enters into the ascent of faith, end quote, and that, quote, in the form of

Starting point is 03:28:49 some subjective interest or consideration of value, end quote. From this, it might be inferred that the positive differentiation of faith, unexpressed in the definition, would be that it is voluntary conviction. Conviction determined not by the evidence of reality present to our minds, but our desire or will that it should be true. This desire or will expressing, quote, some subjective interest or consideration of value, end quote. Put boldly, this might be interpreted as meaning that we know what is established to us as true, we believe what we think we should be advantaged by, if true. We know what we perceive to be real, we believe what we should like to be real. To put it so, boldly may no doubt press Dr. Orman's remark beyond his intention. He recognizes that,

Starting point is 03:29:35 quote, some faith judgments are translatable into judgments of knowledge, end quote. But he does not believe that all are, and he suggests that, quote, the final test of the validity, end quote, of these latter must lie in, quote, the sphere of the practical, rather than in that of theoretical truth, end quote. The meaning is not throughout perfectly clear, but the upshot seems to be that in Dr. Orman's opinion, that class of convictions which we designate faith differs from that class of convictions which we designate knowledge by the fact that they rest, in whole or in part, not on theoretical but on practical grounds, that is to say, not on evidence, but on considerations of value. And that appears ultimately to mean that we know a thing which is proved to us to be

Starting point is 03:30:19 true or real, but we believe a thing which we would fain should prove to be true or real. Some of the things which we thus believe may be reduced to knowledge because there may be proofs of their reality available which were not, or not fully present to our minds, quote, when we believed, end quote. Others of them may be incapable of such reduction, either because no such proofs of their truth or reality exist, or because those proofs are not accessible to us. But our acceptance of them, all alike, as true, rests not on evidence that they are true, but, in whole or in part, on, quote, some subjective.

Starting point is 03:30:56 interest, end quote, or, quote, consideration of value, end quote, failing knowledge, we may take these things on faith, because we perceive that it would be well if they were true, and we cannot believe that that at least is not true, of which it is clear to us that it would be in the highest degree well if it were true. It is not necessary to deny that many things are accepted by men as true and accorded with reality on grounds of subjective interest or considerations of value, or that men may be properly moved to the acceptance of many things as true and real by such considerations. Considerations of value may be powerful arguments. They may even constitute proofs of truth and reality. But it appears obvious enough that all of those convictions which we know as beliefs,

Starting point is 03:31:44 faiths, do not rest on, quote, subjective interests or considerations of value, end quote, either holy or even in part. Indeed, it would be truer to say that none of them rest on subjective interests or considerations of value as such, but whenever such considerations enter into their grounds, they enter in as evidences of reality, or as factors of mental movement, lending vividness and vitality to elements of proper evidence before the mind. Men do not mean by their faiths, beliefs, things they would fain be true, they mean things they are convinced are true. Their minds are not resting on considerations of value, but on what they take to be evidences of reality. The employment of these terms to designate, quote, acceptance as true and real, end quote, on the ground of

Starting point is 03:32:30 subjective interest or of considerations of value represents, therefore, no general usage but is purely an affair of the schools, or rather of a school. It does violence, not only to the general convictions of men, but also to the underlying idea of the terms. No terms, in fact, lend themselves more reluctantly to the expression of a, quote, voluntary acceptance, end quote, in any form than these. have already seen they carry with them the underlying idea of bindingness worthiness of acceptance. They express, in Dr. Baldwin's phrase, a, quote, forced consent, end quote, and whenever we employ them, there is present to the mind a consciousness of grounds on which they firmly rest as expressive of reality. Whatever may be the differentiator of belief, faith, as a specific form of conviction,

Starting point is 03:33:18 we may be sure, therefore, that desire or will cannot be the determining element of the grounds on which this conviction rests. What we gain from Dr. Orman's definition then is only the assurance that by faith is denoted not all forms of conviction but a specific form, that this specific form is differentiated from other forms by the nature of the grounds on which the conviction called faith rests, and that the grounds on which this form of conviction rests are not those of theoretic certitude. The form of conviction which rests on grounds adapted to give theoretic certitude, we call knowledge, what the special character of the grounds on which the form of conviction we call faith rests remains yet to seek. This gain, although we may speak of it, as for the main matter only negative, is not therefore unimportant,

Starting point is 03:34:06 to have learnt that, in addition to the general usage of faith, belief, in which it expresses all, quote, mental endorsement or acceptance of anything as real, end quote, and is iguipollant with the parallel term conviction, there is a more confined usage of it expressing a specific form of conviction, in contrast with the form of conviction called knowledge is itself an important gain. And to learn further that the specific character of the form of conviction which we call knowledge is that it rests on grounds which give, quote, theoretic certitude, end quote, is an important aid by way of elimination in fixing on the specific characteristic of the form of conviction,

Starting point is 03:34:43 which in contrast to knowledge we call faith. Faith, we know now, is a form of conviction which arises differently to theoretic certitude, and if certain bases for its affirmation of reality, which have been suggested, have been excluded in the discussion, such as that it rests on a volition or a series of volitions, rather than of reality, on evidence only subjectively but not objectively adequate, the way seems pretty well cleared for a positive determination of precisely what it is that it does rest on. We have at least learned that while distinguishing it from knowledge, which is conviction of the order of theoretic certitude, we must find some basis for faith, belief, which will preserve its full character as conviction

Starting point is 03:35:24 and not sublimate it into a wish or a will, a conjectural hypothesis or a mistake. It was long ago suggested that what we call faith, belief, as contradistinguished from knowledge is conviction grounded in authority as distinguished from conviction grounded in reason. Quote, we know, says Augustine, what rests upon reason,

Starting point is 03:35:46 we believe what rests upon authority, end quote. and Sir William Hamilton pronounces this accurately said. It is not intended, of course, to represent faith, belief as irrational, any more than it is intended to represent knowledge, as free from all dependence on taking on trust. It was fully recognised by Augustine as by Sir William Hamilton that an activity of reason underlies all faith, and an act of faith underlies all knowledge. Quote, but reason itself, says Sir William Hamilton, expounding Augustine's dictum, must rest at last upon authority for the original data of reason,

Starting point is 03:36:23 do not rest upon reason, but are necessarily accepted by reason on the authority of what is beyond itself. These data are, therefore, in rigid propriety, beliefs or trusts. Thus it is that, in the last resort we must, perforce, philosophically admit that belief is the primary condition of reason, and not reason the ultimate ground of belief, end quote. With equal frankness, Augustine allows that reason underlies all acts of faith. That mental act which we call faith, he remarks, is one possible only to rational creatures, and of course we act as rational beings in performing it, and we never believe

Starting point is 03:37:01 anything until we have found it worthy of our belief. As we cannot accord faith then, without perceiving good grounds for according it, reason as truly underlies faith as faith reason. It is with no intention then of denying or even obscuring this interaction of faith, and knowledge, what may be justly called their interdependence, that they are distinguished from one another in their secondary applications as designating two distinguishable modes of conviction, the one resting on reason, the other on authority. What is intended is to discriminate the proximate grounds on which the mental consent designated by the one and the other rests. When the proximate ground of our conviction is reason, we call it knowledge. When it is authority,

Starting point is 03:37:47 we call it faith, belief. to put it in other but equivalent terms, we know what we are convinced of on the ground of perception, we believe what we are convinced of on the ground of testimony. Quote, with respect to things we have seen or see, says Augustine, we are our own witnesses, but with respect to those we believe, we are moved to faith by other witnesses, end quote. We cannot believe any more than we can know without adequate grounds. It is not faith but, quote, credulity, end quote. to accord credit to insufficient evidence, and an unreasonable faith is no faith at all.

Starting point is 03:38:25 But we are moved to this act of conviction by the evidence of testimony, by the force of authority, rationally determined to be trustworthy, and not by the immediate perception of our own rational understandings. In a word, while both knowing and believing our states of conviction, sureness, and the surety may be equally strong, they rest approximately on different grounds. knowing is seeing faith is crediting it powerfully commends this conception of the distinction between faith and knowledge that it employs these terms to designate a distinction which is undoubtedly real whatever we choose to call these two classes of convictions these two classes of convictions unquestionably exist as augustin puts it quote no one doubts that we are impelled to the acquisition of knowledge by a double impulse of authority and of reason end quote we do possess convictions which are grounded in our own rational apprehension, and we do possess convictions which are grounded in our recognition of authority. We are erecting no artificial categories then when we distinguish between these two classes of convictions and label them respectively

Starting point is 03:39:33 knowledges and beliefs, faiths. At the worst, we are only applying to real distinctions, artificial labels. It may possibly be said that there is no reason in the fitness of things why we should call those convictions which are of the order of theoretical certitude knowledge and those which represent the certitude born of approved testimony faith. But it cannot be said that no two such categories exist. It is patent to all of us that some of our convictions rest on our own rational perception of reality and that others of them rest on the authority exercised over us by tested testimony. The only question which can arise is whether knowledge, faith,

Starting point is 03:40:15 are appropriate designations by which we call these two classes of convictions. No one, of course, would think of denying that the two terms, knowledge and faith, belief, are frequently employed as wholly equivalent, each designating simply a conviction without respect to the nature of its grounds. Augustine already recognized this broad use of both terms to cover the whole ground of convictions, but neither can it be denied, that they are often brought into contrast with one another as expressive each of a particular class of convictions distinguishable from one another. The distinction indicated, no doubt, is often a distinction not in the nature of the evidence on which the several classes of conviction rest, but in, shall we say,

Starting point is 03:41:00 the firmness, the clearness, the force of the conviction? The difficulty of finding the exact word to employ here may perhaps be instructive. When we say, for example, I do not know it, but I fully believe it, is it entirely? Is it entirely? clearly clear that we are using knowledge merely of a higher degree of conviction than faith expresses. No doubt such a higher degree of conviction is intimated when, for example, to express the force of our conviction of a matter which nevertheless we are assured of only by testimony, we say emphatically, I do not merely believe it, I know it. But may it not be that it would be more precise to say that knowledge even here expresses primarily rather a more direct and

Starting point is 03:41:40 immediate grounding of conviction, and faith, belief, a more remote and immediate grounding of it, and that it is out of this primary meaning of the two terms, that a secondary usage of them has arisen to express what on the surface appears as differing grades of convictions, but in the ultimate analysis is really differing relations of immediacy on the evidence on which the conviction rests. It adds not a little to the commendation of the distinction between knowledge and faith under discussion at all events that it provides a starting point on the assumption of which other current usages of the terms may find ready and significant explanations. When we come to inquire after the special appropriateness of the employment of the term's

Starting point is 03:42:21 faith, belief, to designate those convictions which rest on authority or testimony, in distinction from those which rest on our immediate perception, physical or mental, attention should be directed to an element in faith, belief, of which we have as yet spoken little, but which seems always present and indeed characteristic. This is the element of trust. There is an element of trust lying at the bottom of all our convictions, even those which we designate knowledge, because, as we say, they are of the order of theoretic certitude or rational assurance.

Starting point is 03:42:55 Quote, the original data of reason, says Sir William Hamilton truly do not rest on reason, but unnecessarily accepted by reason on the authority of what is beyond itself, end quote. These data, he adds, are therefore in rigid propriety, beliefs or trusts, end quote. The collocation of the terms here, beliefs or trusts, should be observed. It betrays the prolinquity of the two ideas. To say that an element of trust underlies all our knowledge is therefore equivalent to saying that all our knowledge rests on belief. The conceptions of believing and trusting go then together, and what we have now to suggest is that it is this open implication of trust in the conception of

Starting point is 03:43:37 belief, faith, which rules the usage of these terms. There is, as we have said, an element of trust in all our convictions, and therefore faith, belief may be employed of them all. And when convictions are distinguished from convictions, the convictions in which the element of trust is most prominent tend to draw to themselves the designations of faith, belief. It is not purely arbitrary, therefore, that those convictions which rest on our rational perceptions are called knowledge, while those which rest on authority or testimony receive the name of belief, faith. It is because the element of trust is, not indeed more really but more prominently

Starting point is 03:44:18 present in the latter than in the former. We perceive and feel the element of trust in according our mental assent to facts brought to us by the testimony of others and accepted as facts on their authority as we do not in the findings of our own rational understandings. and therefore we designate the former matters of faith, belief, and the latter matters of knowledge. Knowing, we then say, is believing, believing is crediting, and that is only another way of saying that knowledge is the appropriate designation of those convictions which rest on our own mental perceptions, while faith, belief, is the appropriate designation of those convictions which rest on testimony or authority. While we may use either term broadly for all convictions,

Starting point is 03:45:02 we naturally employ them with this discrimination when they are brought in contrast with one another. It appears therefore not only that we are here in the presence of two classes of convictions, the difference between which is real, but that when these two classes are designated respectively by the terms knowledge and faith belief, they are appropriately designated. These designations suggest a real difference which exists between the two classes of convictions. Matters of faith, matters of belief are different from matters. matters of knowledge, not as convictions resting on grounds less objectively valid, not as convictions

Starting point is 03:45:39 determined rather by desire, will, than by evidence, but as convictions resting on grounds less direct and immediate to the soul, and therefore involving a more prominent element of trust, in a word as convictions grounded in authority, testimony, as distinguished from convictions grounded in rational proof. The two classes of convictions are psychologically just convictions. They are alike in Dr. Baldwin's phrase, quote, forced consents, end quote, they rest equally on evidence and are equally the product of evidence.

Starting point is 03:46:11 They may be equally clear, firm, and assured, but they rest on differing kinds of evidence and differ, therefore, in accordance with this difference of kind in the evidence on which they rest. In knowledge, as the mental response to rational considerations, the movement of the intellect is prominent to the obscuration of all else.

Starting point is 03:46:30 Of course, the whole man is active in knowledge, too, for it is the man in his complex presentation who is the subject of the knowledge, but it is reason which is prominent in the activity, which assures itself of reality on grounds of mental perception. In faith, on the other hand, as the mental response to testimony, authority, the movement of the sensibility in the forms of trust is what is thrust forward to observation. Of course, every other faculty is involved in the act of belief, and particularly the intellectual faculties to which the act of crediting belongs.

Starting point is 03:47:02 but what attracts the attention of the subject is the prominence in this act of crediting of the element of trust which has retired into the background in those other acts of assent which we know as knowledge. Faith then emerges as the appropriate name of those acts of mental consent in which the element of trust is prominent. Knowledge is seeing, faith belief is trusting. In what we call religious faith, this prominent implication of trust reaches its height. belief may differ from other belief only in the nature of its objects. Religious beliefs are beliefs which have religious conceptions as their contents, but the complex of emotions which accompany acts of assent to propositions of religious content

Starting point is 03:47:46 and form the concrete state of mind of the believer is, of course, indefinitely different from that which accompanies any other act of believing. What is prominent in this state of mind is precisely trust. Trust is the act of expression of that sense of dependence in which religion largely consists, and it is its presence in these acts of faith belief, which communicates to them their religious quality and raises them from mere beliefs of propositions, the contents of which happen to be of religious purport, to acts possessed of religious character. It is the nature of trust to seek a personal object on which to repose, and it is only

Starting point is 03:48:23 natural, therefore, that what we call religious faith does not reach its height in ascent to propositions of whatever religious content and however well fitted to call out religious trust but comes to its rights only when it rests with adoring trust on a person. The extension of the terms faith, belief, to express an attitude of mind towards a person does not wait, of course, on their religious application. We speak familiarly of believing in or having faith in persons in common life, and we perceive it once that our justification in doing so rests on the strong implication of trust resident in the terms. It has been suggested, not without justice, that the terms show

Starting point is 03:49:03 everywhere a tendency to gravitate towards such an application. This element at all events becomes so prominent in the culminating act of religious faith when it rests on the person of God, our benefactor, or of Christ our Saviour, as to absorb the prior implication of crediting almost altogether. Faith in God, and above all faith in Jesus Christ, is just trust in him in its purity. Thus, in its higher applications, the element of trust which is present in faith in all its applications grows more and more prominent until it finishes by becoming well-nigh the entire connotation of the term, until it finishes by becoming well-nigh the entire connotation of the term, and to believe in, to have faith in, comes to mean simply entrust yourself

Starting point is 03:49:47 too. When faith can come thus to mean just trust, we cannot wonder that it is the implication of trust in the term which rules its usage and determines its applications throughout the whole course of its development. The justification of the application of the terms believing, faith, to these high religious acts of entrusting oneself to a person, does not rest, however, entirely upon the circumstance that the element of trust which in these acts absorbs attention is present in all other acts of faith, and only here comes into full prominence. It rests also on the circumstance that all the other constituent elements of acts of faith, belief in the general connotation of these terms are present in these acts of religious faith.

Starting point is 03:50:29 The more general acts of faith, belief, and the culminating acts of religious belief, faith, that is, differ from one another, only in the relative prominence in each of elements common to both. For example, religious faith at its height, the act by which we turn trustingly to a being conceived as our righteous governor, in whose hands is our destiny, or to a being conceived as our divine saviour, through whom we may be restored from our sin and entrust ourselves to him, is as little a matter of the will and as truly a forced consent, as is any other act called faith, belief. The engagement of the whole man in the act involving the response of all the elements of his nature

Starting point is 03:51:09 is no doubt more observable in these highest acts of faith than in the lower, as it is altogether natural it should be from the mere fact that they are the highest exercises of faith. but the determination of the response by the appropriate evidence. Its dependence on evidence as its ground is no less stringent or plain. Whenever we obtain a clear conception of the rise in the human soul of religious faith, as exercised thus at its apex as saving trust in Christ, we perceive with perfect plainness that it rests on evidence as its ground. It is not unusual for writers who wish to represent religious faith

Starting point is 03:51:46 in the form of saving trust in Christ as an act of the will to present the case in the form of a strict alternative. This faith, they say, is an exercise not of the intellect, but of the heart. And then they proceed to develop an argument, aiming at a reductio ad absurdum, of the notion that saving faith can possibly be conceived as a mere ascent of the intellect. A simple ascent of the mind, we are told, quote, always depends on the nature and amount of proof, end quote, presented, and is in a true sense involuntary. When a proposition is present, and sufficiently supported by proof, quote, a mind in a situation to apprehend the proof believes inevitably, end quote.

Starting point is 03:52:29 Quote, if the proposition or doctrine is not supported by proof or if the mind is incapable from any cause of appreciating the proof, unbelief or doubt is equally certain, end quote. Such a theory of faith would therefore suspend our belief or unbelief, and consequently our salvation or damnation upon the manner in which truth is presented to our minds, or our intellectual capacity of its appreciation, end quote. To express the whole matter briefly, concludes the writer whose argument we have been following, it excludes the whole matter of the will and makes faith or unbelief a matter of necessity,

Starting point is 03:53:07 end quote. It is not necessary to pause to examine this argument in detail. What it is at the moment important to point out is that the fullest agreement, that saving faith is a matter not of the intellect but of the heart, that it is confidence rather than conviction, does not exclude the element of intelligent assent from it altogether, or escape the necessity of recognizing that it rests upon evidence. Is the confidence which faith in this its highest exercise has become an ungrounded confidence, a blind and capricious act of the souls due to a purely arbitrary determination of the will, must it not rest on a perceived, that is to say, a well-grounded trustworthiness in the obvious, on which it reposes. In a word, it is clear enough that a conviction lies beneath this confidence,

Starting point is 03:53:56 a conviction of the trustworthiness of the object, and that this conviction is produced, like other convictions, just by evidence. Is it not still true, then, that the confidence in which saving faith consists is inevitable if the proof of the trustworthiness of the object on which it reposes is sufficient? Or, as we truly phrase it, compelling, and the mind is in a situation to appreciate this proof, and doubt is inevitable if the proof is insufficient or the mind is incapable from any cause of appreciating the proof. Is not the confidence, which is the faith of the heart, therefore, in any case, as truly as the conviction which is the faith of the intellect, suspended, quote, upon the manner in which truth is presented, or our capacity of its appreciation,

Starting point is 03:54:41 end quote. In a word, is it not clear that the ascent of the intelligence is an inadmissible element of faith, even in its highest exercises, and it never comes to be an arbitrary matter of choice, in which I may do as I choose. For the exercise of this faith, must there not then always be present to the mind, one, the object on which it is to repose in confidence, two, adequate grounds for the exercise of this confidence in the object, and must not the mind be in a situation to appreciate these grounds. Here, too, faith is in Dr. Baldwin's phrase a forced consent, and is the product of evidence. The impulse of the writer whose views we have just been considering to make saving faith a so-called act of free volition is derived from the notion that only thus can man be

Starting point is 03:55:29 responsible for his faith. It is a sufficiently odd notion, however, that if our faith be determined by reasons and these reasons are good, we are not responsible for it, because forsooth, we then, quote, believe inevitably, end quote, and our faith is a, quote, matter of necessity, end quote. Are we to hold that responsibility attaches to faith only when it does not rest on good reasons, or, in other words, is ungrounded, or insufficiently grounded, and is therefore arbitrary? In point of fact, we are responsible for our volitions, only because our volitions are never arbitrary acts of a faculty within us called will, but determined acts of our whole selves and therefore represent us. And we are responsible for our faith in precisely the same way, because it is our faith and represents us.

Starting point is 03:56:15 For it is to be born in mind that faith, though resting on evidence and thus in a true sense, as Professor Baldwin calls it, a forced consent, is not in such a sense the result of evidence that the mind is passive in believing, that the evidence when adequate objectively is always adequate subjectively or vice versa, quite independently of the state of the mind that believes. Faith is an act of the mind and can come into being only by an act of the mind, expressive of its own state. are two factors in the production of faith. On the one hand, there is the evidence on the ground of which the faith is yielded. On the other hand, there is the subjective condition by virtue of which the evidence can take effect in the appropriate act of faith. There can be no belief, faith, without evidence. It is on evidence that the mental exercise which we call belief, faith, rests, and the exercise or state of mind cannot exist apart from its ground in evidence. But evidence cannot produce belief, faith, except in a mind open to this evidence and capable

Starting point is 03:57:19 of receiving, weighing, and responding to it. A mathematical demonstration is demonstrative proof of the proposition demonstrated, but even such a demonstration cannot produce conviction in a mind incapable of following the demonstration. When musical taste is lacking, no evidence which derives its force from considerations of melody can work conviction. No conviction, whether of the order of what we call knowledge or of faith, can be produced by considerations to which the mind to be convinced is in Habil. Something more, then, is needed to produce belief, faith, besides the evidence which constitutes its ground. The evidence may be objectively sufficient, adequate, overwhelming.

Starting point is 03:58:01 The subjective effect of belief, faith is not produced unless this evidence, is also adapted to the mind, and to the present state of that mind which is to be convinced. The mind itself, therefore, and the varying states of the mind, have their parts to play in the production of belief, faith, and the effect which is so designated is not the mechanical result of the adduction of the evidence. No faith without evidence, but not no evidence without faith. They may stand in the way of the proper and objectively inevitable effect of the evidence, the subjective nature or condition to which the evidence is addressed. This is the ground of responsibility for belief, faith.

Starting point is 03:58:39 It is not merely a question of evidence, but of subjectivity, and subjectivity is the other name for personality. Our action under evidence is the touchstone by which is determined what we are. If evidence which is objectively adequate is not subjectively adequate, the fault is in us. If we are not accessible to musical evidence, then we are by nature unmusical, or in a present state of unmusicalness. If we are not accessible to moral evidence,

Starting point is 03:59:06 we are either un-moral or being moral beings immoral. The evidence to which we are accessible is irresistible if adequate, and irresistibly produces belief faith, and no belief faith can arise except on the ground of evidence duly apprehended, appreciated, weighed. We may cherish opinions without evidence, or with inadequate evidence, but not possess faith any more than knowledge. All convictions of whatever order are the products of evidence in a mind accessible to the evidence appropriate to these particular convictions. These things being so, it is easy to see that the sinful heart, which is enmity towards God, is incapable of that supreme act of trust in God, or rather of entrusting itself to God its

Starting point is 03:59:51 saviour, which has absorbed into itself the term faith in its Christian connotation. And it is to avoid this conclusion that many have been tempted to make faith not a rational act of conviction passing into confidence, resting on adequate grounds in testimony, but an arbitrary act of sheer will produced no one knows how. This is not, however, the solution of the difficulty offered by the Christian revelation. The solution it offers is frankly to allow the impossibility of faith to the sinful heart, and to attribute it, therefore, to the gift of God. Not, of course, as if this gift were communicated to man in some mechanical manner, which would ignore or do violence to his psychological constitution or to the psychological nature of the act of faith.

Starting point is 04:00:34 The mode of the divine giving of faith is represented rather as involving the creation by God, the Holy Spirit, of a capacity for faith under the evidence submitted. It proceeds by the divine illumination of the understanding, softening of the heart and quickening of the will, so that the man so affected may freely and must inevitably perceive the force and yield to the compelling power of the evidence of the trustworthiness of Jesus Christ as Savior submitted to him in the gospel. In one word, the capacity for faith and the inevitable emergence in the heart of faith are attributed by the Christian revelation to that great act of God the Holy Spirit which has come in Christian theology to be called by the significant name of

Starting point is 04:01:15 regeneration. If sinful man as such is incapable of the act of faith, because he is in Habil to the evidence on which alone such an act of confident resting on God the Savior can repose, renewed man is equally incapable of not responding to this evidence, which is objectively compelling by an act of sincere faith. In this its highest exercise, faith thus, though in a true sense the gift of God, is in an equally true sense man's own act, and bears all the character of faith as it is exercised by unrenewed man in its lower manifestations. It may conduce to a better apprehension of the essential nature of faith

Starting point is 04:01:52 and its relation to the evidence in which it is grounded, if we endeavor to form some notion of the effect of this evidence on the minds of men in the three great stages of their life on earth, as sinless in paradise, as sinful, as regenerated by the spirit of God into newness of life. Like every other creature, man is, of course, absolutely dependent on God. But unlike many other creatures, man, because in his very nature self-conscious, is conscious of his dependence on God. His relation of dependence on God is not merely a fact, but a fact of his self-consciousness. This dependence is not confined to any one element of human nature,

Starting point is 04:02:30 but runs through the whole of man's nature, and as self-conscious being, man is conscious of his absolute dependence on God, physically, psychically, morally, spiritually. It is this comprehensive consciousness of dependence on God for and in all the elements of his nature and life, which is the fundamental basis in humanity of faith, in its general religious sense. This faith is but the active,

Starting point is 04:02:54 aspect of the consciousness of dependence, which therefore is the passive aspect of faith. In this sense, no man exists or ever has existed or ever will exist who has not faith, but this faith takes very different characters in man as unfallen and as fallen and as renewed. In unfallen man, the consciousness of dependence on God is far from a bare recognition of a fact. It has a rich emotional result in the heart. This emotional product, of course, includes fear in the sense of all, and reverence, but its peculiar quality is just active and loving trust. Sinless man delights to be dependent on God and trusts him wholly.

Starting point is 04:03:34 He perceives God as his creator, upholder, governor, and bountiful benefactor and finds his joy in living, moving, and having his being in him. All the currents of his life turned to him for direction and control. In this spontaneous trust of sinless man, we have faith at its purest. Now when man fell, the relation in which he stood to God, was fundamentally altered, not as if he ceased to be dependent on God in every sphere of his being and activity, nor even as if he ceased to be conscious of this his comprehensive dependence on God. Even as sinner, man cannot but believe in God, the very devils believe and tremble.

Starting point is 04:04:12 It cannot escape the knowledge that he is utterly dependent on God for all that he is and does, but his consciousness of dependence on God no longer takes the form of glad and loving trust. precisely what sin has done to him is to render this trust impossible. Sin has destroyed the natural relation between God and his creature, in which the creature trusts and has instituted a new relation which conditions all his imminent as well as transient activities God would. The sinner is at enmity with God and can look to God only for punishment. He knows himself absolutely dependent on God, but in knowing this,

Starting point is 04:04:48 he knows himself absolutely in the power of his enemy. A fearful looking forward to judgment conditions all his thought of God. Faith has accordingly been transformed into unfaith, trust into distrust. He expects evil and only evil from God. Knowing himself to be dependent on God, he seeks to be as independent of him as he can. As he thinks of God, misery and fear and hatred take the place of joy and trust and love. Instinctively, and by his very nature, the sinner not being able to escape from his belief in God, yet cannot possibly have faith in God, that is to trust him in trusting himself to him.

Starting point is 04:05:25 The re-establishment of this faith in the sinner must be the act not of the sinner himself but of God. This because the sinner has no power to render God gracious, which is the objective root, or to look to God for favour, which is the subjective root of faith in the fiducial sense. Before he can thus believe there must intervene the atoning work of Christ, cancelling the guilt by which the sinner is kept under the wrath of God, and the recreative work of the Holy Spirit by which the sinner's heart is renewed in the love of God. There is not required a creation of something entirely new,

Starting point is 04:05:57 but only a restoration of an old relation and a renewal therewith of an old disposition. Accordingly, although faith in the renewed man bears a different character from faith in unfallen man inasmuch as it is trust in God not merely for general goodness, but for the specific blessing of salvation, that is to say it is satirological,

Starting point is 04:06:18 It yet remains essentially the same thing as in unfallen man. It is in the one case, as in the other, just trust. That trust which belongs of nature to man as man in relation to his God, and therefore, though in renewed man it is a gift of God's grace, it does not come to him as something alien to his nature. It is beyond the powers of his nature as sinful man, but it is something which belongs to human nature as such, which has been lost through sin,

Starting point is 04:06:45 and which can be restored only by the power of God. In this sense, faith remains natural, even in the renewed sinner, and the peculiar character which belongs to it as the act of a sinner, namely its satirological reference, only conditions and does not essentially alter it. Because man is a sinner, his faith terminates not immediately on God, but immediately on the mediator, and only through his mediation on God, and it is approximately trust in his mediator for salvation, relief from the guilt and corruption of sin, and only immediately through this relief for other goods. But it makes its way through these intermediating elements to terminate ultimately on God himself and rest on him for all goods.

Starting point is 04:07:28 And thus it manifests its fundamental and universal character as trust in God, recognized by the renewed sinner, as by the unfallen creature, as the inexhaustible fountain to his creatures of all blessedness, in whom to live and move and have his being is the creature's highest felicity. In accordance with the nature of this faith, the Protestant theologians have generally explained that faith includes in itself the three elements of Noesia, ascensus, fiducius. Their primary object has been, no doubt, to protest against the Romish conception which limits faith to the ascent of the understanding. The stress of the Protestant definition lies, therefore, upon the fiducial element.

Starting point is 04:08:09 This stress has not led Protestant theologians generally, however, to eliminate from the conception of faith the elements of understanding and assent. No doubt this has been done by some, and it is perhaps not rare even today to hear it asserted that faith is so purely trust that there is no element of assent in it at all. And no doubt theologians have differed among themselves as to whether all these elements are to be counted as included in faith, or some of them treated rather as preliminary steps to faith or effects of faith. But speaking broadly, Protestant theologians have reckoned all these elements as embraced within the mental movement we call faith itself, and they have obviously been right in so doing. Indeed, we may go farther and affirm that all three of these elements are always present in faith, not only in that culminating form of faith which was in the mind of the theologians in question, saving faith in Christ, but in every movement of faith whatever from the lowest,

Starting point is 04:09:06 to the highest instance of its exercise. No true faith has arisen unless there has been a perception of the object to be believed or believed in, an assent to its worthiness to be believed or believed in, and a commitment of ourselves to it as true and trustworthy. We cannot be said to believe or to trust in a thing or person of which we have no knowledge. Implicit faith in this sense is an absurdity. Of course we cannot be said to believe or to trust the thing or person to whose worthiness of our belief or trust, assent has not been obtained, and equally we cannot be said to believe that which we distrust too much to commit ourselves to it. In every movement of faith, therefore, from the lowest to the highest, there is an intellectual, an emotional and a voluntary element, though

Starting point is 04:09:54 naturally these elements vary in their relative prominence in the several movements of faith. This is only as much as to say that it is the man who believes, who is the subject of faith, and the man in the entirety of his being as man. The central movement in all faith is no doubt the element of assent. It is that which constitutes the mental movement, so-called a movement of conviction. But the movement of assent must depend, as it always does depend, on a movement, not specifically of the will, but of the intellect. The ascensis issues from the noesia.

Starting point is 04:10:27 The movement of the sensibilities which we call trust is, on the contrary, the product of the ascent. and it is in this movement of the sensibilities that faith fulfills itself, and it is by it that as specifically faith it is formed. End of On Faith in its Psychological Aspects by B.B. Warfield. Peter by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. The Greek form of the Aramaic surname Seifus

Starting point is 04:11:09 John 1 verse 42 on Corinthians 112 3 verse 22 9 verse 5 15 verse 5 Galatians 1 18 2 verse 9 11 and 14 meaning a rock which Christ bestowed upon Simon or more properly simeon Acts 15 verse 14 2 beta 1 1 1 revised version margin on his first appearance before him John 1, verse 42, and afterwards explained more fully in its prophetic import, Matthew 16, verse 18, and following Mark 3 verse 16. Simon was the son of a certain John, John 1, verse 42, revised version, 21, verse 15, 16 and 17, revised version, or Jonah, Matthew 16, verse 17, probably a syncope of John, who, with his sons, Andrew and Peter, prosecuted the trade of a fisherman on the sea. of Galilee in partnership with Zebedee and his sons, Matthew 4 verse 18, Mark 1, 16, Luke 5, verse 3 in following. He was a native of Bethsaider, John 1.44, and subsequently dwelt with his family at Copernium, Matthew 8, verse 14, Luke 4 verse 38. Peter was probably a disciple of John the Baptist,

Starting point is 04:12:26 and was in the first instance brought to Jesus by his brother, Andrew. John 1, verse 41 and 42, who was one of the favoured two disciples of John, whom he pointed to Jesus immediately after his return from the temptation in the wilderness, John 1, verse 35, and following. With prophetic insight into his character, Jesus had once conferred upon him the surname of Cephas or Peter, that is Rock, John 142. In common with the earliest followers of Jesus, Peter received three separate calls from his master, first to become his disciple, John 1, 40 and following, compare 2 verse 2, secondly, to become his constant companion, Matthew 419, Mark 117, Luke 5, 10, and thirdly to be his apostle. Matthew 10 verse 2, Mark 3 verse 14 and 16, Luke 6 verse 13 and 14.

Starting point is 04:13:20 Peter's ardour, earnestness, courage, vigor and impetuosity of disposition marked him from the first as the leader of the disciples of Jesus. He is always named first in the lists of the apostles. Matthew 10 verse 2, Mark 3, verse 16, Luke 6 verse 14, Acts 1, verse 13. In the more intimate circle of the most favored three disciples, he is likewise always named first. Matthew 17 verse 1, Mark 5 verse 37, 9 verse 2, 13 verse 3, 14 verse 33, Luke 8 verse 51, 9 verse 28. He was the natural spokesman of the apostolic band, He was the first to confess Jesus as the Christ of God,

Starting point is 04:14:01 Matthew 16, verse 16, Mark 8, verse 29, but was equally forward to dissuade him from his chosen path of suffering, Matthew 16, verse 22, Mark 8, verse 33, receiving from Christ the appropriate praise and blame. Peter's life exhibited three well-marked stages. First, there is the period of training, as exhibited in the gospel narrative. During these years of personal association with Christ,

Starting point is 04:14:27 he learned to know both Christ and himself, and though he brought them to an end in a threefold denial of the master whom he had boasted that he at least would never forsake, Matthew 26 verse 69 and following, Mark 14, verse 66 in following, Luke 22, verse 54 in following, John 18 verse 15 in following. Jesus closed them with a loving probing of his heart and restoration of his peace and confidence,

Starting point is 04:14:53 John 21 verse 15 in following. Secondly, the period of leadership in the church, as exhibited in the earlier chapters of the Acts. During these years Peter justified his surname and fulfilled the prophecy that on him should the edifice of the church be raised. It was by his bold and strong hand that the church was led in every step. It was he who moved the disciples to fill up the broken ranks of the apostolate. Acts 1 verse 15. It was he who proclaimed to the assembled multitudes the meaning of the Pentecostal effusion. chapter 2 verse 14 he was the leader in the public healing of the lame man and in the subsequent sermon and defence

Starting point is 04:15:30 chapter 3 verse 4 verse 12 chapter 4 verse 8 it was by his voice that ananias and sapphira were rebuked chapter 5 verse 3 and 8 above all it was by his hand that the door of salvation was opened alike to the jews in the great sermon at pentecost chapter 2 verse 10 and 38 and to the gentiles in the case of cornelius chapter 10 Thirdly, the period of humble work in the Kingdom of Christ exhibited in the epistles of the New Testament. When the foundations of the church had been laid, Peter takes a subordinate place and in humble labours to spread the boundaries of the kingdom disappears from the page of history. In the church at Jerusalem, James takes henceforth the leading place. Chapter 12, 17, chapter 15, verse 13, chapter 21 verse 18, Galatians 2, verses 9 and 12. The door had been opened to the Gentiles, and Paul now becomes the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Starting point is 04:16:26 Galatians 2 verse 7. As the Apostle to the Circumcision, verse 8, Peter prosecuted henceforth his less brilliant work, wherever Jews could be found and contentedly left Jerusalem to James and the civilized world to Paul. The book of the Acts closes its account of him at the meeting at Jerusalem, Acts 15, when his policy of breaking down the barriers for the Gentiles met with universal acceptance, We hear of him afterwards at Antioch, Galatians 2 verse 11, possibly at Corinth, 1 Corinthians 1 verse 12, certainly in the far east at Babylon, 1 Peter 513, and certainly as prosecuting his work through missionary journeys, taking his wife with him, 1 Corinthians 9 verse 5. Finally, we know that he glorified God by a martyr's death, John 21 verse 19.

Starting point is 04:17:15 Beyond this, scripture tells us nothing of his fortunes, labours, sufferings, or successes, except what can be learnt from his two epistles. In them, he stands before us in a singularly beautiful humility, not pressing the recognition of personal claims to leadership upon the Christian community, but following up the teaching of Paul or of Jude with his own and exhorting his readers to hold fast to the common faith. No character in scripture history, we may even say in all literature is drawn for us more clearly or strongly than Peters. In the Gospels, in the Acts and in the epistles, it is the same man that stands out before us in dramatic distinctness. Always eager, ardent, impulsive,

Starting point is 04:17:56 he is preeminently the man of action in the apostolic circle and exhibits the defects of his qualities as well as their excellences throughout his life. Matthew 16 verse 22, chapter 26 versus 69 to 75, Galatians 2 verse 11. His virtues and faults had their common root in his enthusiastic disposition. It is to his prayer. that, along with the weed of rash haste, there grew more strongly into his life the fair plant

Starting point is 04:18:25 of burning love and ready reception of truth. He was treated with distinguished honor by his Lord. He was made the recipient of no less than three miracles in those early days of the Gospels. He was granted a special appearance after the resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 5. Jesus could find time in his own passion, and while saving the world to cast on him a reminding glance and to bind up his broken heart. Accordingly, the life of Peter is peculiarly rich in instruction, warning and comfort for the Christian, and his writings touch the very depths of Christian experience, and soar to the utmost heights of Christian hope. Authentic history adds but little to our knowledge of Peter's life beyond what we glean from the New Testament.

Starting point is 04:19:12 conformably to the notice of his martyrdom in John 21 verse 19, we are credibly told that he died by crucifixion about the same time with Paul's death by the sword, that is about 8068. The place of his death is not incredibly witnessed to be Rome. Legend was early busy with his life. The Roman legend of a 25 years episcopate in Rome has its roots in early apocryphal stories

Starting point is 04:19:37 originating among the heretical Ebonites and is discredited not less by its origin and manifest internal inconsistencies than by all authentic history. The first epistle general of Peter. The author of this epistle announces himself as the Apostle Peter, Chapter 1 verse 1, and the whole internal character of the letter, as well as exceptionally copious historical attestation, bears out the assertion. It is addressed to the elect who are sojourners of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Capadocia, Asia and Bithinia, Chapter 1, 1, which is evidently a somewhat metaphorical description

Starting point is 04:20:16 of the whole body of Christians, inhabiting the region comprised in modern Asia Minor. That the readers in the mind of the author were largely of Gentile origin is clear from such passages as Chapter 1, verse 14, Chapter 2 verse 9 and 10, Chapter 3 verse 6, chapter 4 verse 3. These were churches founded and nurtured in large part by the Apostle Paul, and to them Paul had written his letters to the Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians. Peter writes to them as those who owed their conversion to others than himself, Chapter 1, verse 12 and 25, and in order to testify that the gospel they had received was the true grace of God and to exhort them to stand fast therein, Chapter 5 verse 12.

Starting point is 04:20:59 Thus he publishes his hearty agreement with the Apostle Paul, and at the same time pens what is preeminently the epistle of hope. The order in which the countries to which it was sent are enumerated, chapter 1 verse 1, names them from east to west, and suggests that the letter was written in the east. This is borne out by the salutations sent from the Babylonian Church, chapter 5 verse 13. Its date is set by its pretty copious use of the epistle to the Ephesians on the one side and the death of Peter on the other, as between AD 63 and AD 67. It is most probable that it was written about 64 or 65.

Starting point is 04:21:39 The style in which the letter is written is at once simple, striking and forcible, abounding in sudden and abrupt transitions, and admirably reflecting the character of the writer. The whole mode of presentation of its matter is special and characteristic, though the doctrine presented is distinctly the same as that of the epistles of Paul, set forth here with prevailing reference to the grace of God and the future hope. The epistle is filled to a remarkable degree with reminiscences of earlier Christian writings, particularly of the epistles to the Romans and Ephesians and James, thus revealing a characteristic

Starting point is 04:22:15 of Peters. It is remarkable for the combined depth and beauty of its Christian teaching. After the greeting, chapter 1 verses 1 and 2, there follows an introductory section, chapter 1 verses 3 to 12, in which God is praised for the blessings of salvation. The body of the letter, chapter 1, verse 3 to chapter 5 verse 11, consists of 1, a series of exortations to a diligent Christian walk, correspondent to the teaching its readers had received, chapter 1 verse 13, chapter 2 verse 10. 2, a number of particular directions for the special relationships of life, chapter 2 verse 11 to chapter 4 verse 6, and 3, some closing instructions for the present needs of the readers, chapter 4 verse 7 to chapter 5 verse 11.

Starting point is 04:23:00 It ends with salutations and announcements, chapter 5 verses 12 to 14. Though after an allusion in 2 Peter 3 verse 1, it is first mentioned explicitly by name by Ironaeus in the later second century. This epistle has from the very beginning always held a secure place in the Christian Bible in every part of the world and has always been in the fullest use by Christians of every land. The second epistle general of Peter. The author of this epistle describes, himself as Simeon Peter, a bond servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. Chapter 1, verse 1, verse 1, 1, verse 1, verse 1, verse 1, 1, 1, 1, 4, compared John 21, version, and represents himself as having

Starting point is 04:23:39 been present at Christ's transfiguration, chapter 1, 16, and as having received from him a prediction as to his death, chapter 1, 14, compare John 21, verse 19, and also as standing on an equality with the Apostle Paul, Chapter 3, verse 15. This distinct claim of the authors to be the Apostle Peter is borne out by the character of the letter itself, which does not lack traits characteristic of Peter's manner or points of likeness to his speeches recorded in the Acts, and to the first epistle, to which it alludes chapter 3 verse 1. Traces of its use in the very earliest days of the church are not numerous or very clear, but origin at the opening of the third century speaks of it in a manner which shows that it was used

Starting point is 04:24:23 in the church of his day, and although doubts were cherished in some quarters concerning its authorship, These are overborne by the weighty historical evidence. The form of its address is quite general, to them that have obtained a like precious faith with us, chapter 1 verse 1, but chapter 3 verse 1 shows that the same readers are in view to whom 1 Peter had been sent. The place from which it was written cannot be confidently ascertained, if the illusion in chapter 1 verse 14 implies that Peter was on the verge of his martyrdom, we may think of Rome. In this case the letter should be dated.

Starting point is 04:24:58 dated in AD 68, and the nature of the errors rebuked in it, and its use of the epistle of Jude, as well as its allusion to one Peter, will accord with this date. Its object is declared in chapter 3, verses 1, 17, and 18, to be to stir up the minds of its readers to remember what had been taught them, to the end that they might be saved from the errors now becoming prevalent, and might grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It was written, in other words, to rebuke the nascent Gnosticism, creeping in the end of into the churches and to build up Christians in true knowledge and purity.

Starting point is 04:25:33 The contents of the letter are in full accord with its object. After the usual apostolical greeting, chapter 1, verse 1 and 2, it passes insensibly into an earnest exhortation to growth in grace and knowledge, verses 3 to 11, and thence into a reminder of the grounds on which this knowledge, itself the basis of piety, rests, chapter 12, verses 12 to 21, and a denunciation of the false teachers, chapter 2 versus 1 to 22. The readers are then reminded of the nature and surety of the teaching given them as to the second advent at the end of the world, chapter 3 versus 1 to 13,

Starting point is 04:26:10 and the letter closes with an exhortation to them to make their calling and election sure, including a commendation of Paul's letters, and concludes with a doxology. Versus 14 to 18. End of Peter by B.B. Warfield. Regeneration by Bibi Warfield This is a Librevox recording All LibreVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org

Starting point is 04:26:43 From Latin, re again, genera, baguette A theological term used to express the initial stage of the change experienced by one who enters upon the Christian life. It is derived from the New Testament where the new birth, 1 Peter 1 verse 3 and 23, Titus 3 verse 5, John 3 verse 3, 3 in following, is the beginning of that renewal which produces the new creature. In the history of theology, the term has been used with varying latitude of meaning. Among the Jews, it was employed in an external sense to express the change of relation,

Starting point is 04:27:19 which took place when a heathen became a Jew. From them, it was adopted in this sense by many of the fathers, and is still so used by many advocates of... baptismal regeneration. It is used in the Latin Church to express the whole real change which corresponds to this external change of relation. The reformers separated justification by itself as something wrought on not in the sinner and employed regeneration to express the whole process of inner renovation in all its stages. In the development of Protestant theology, the term has been still further narrowed, first to express the opening stage of this subjective work as distinguished from its continuance in sanctification,

Starting point is 04:28:02 and then, since the 17th century, to express the initial divine act in this opening stage itself as distinguished from the broader term conversion, which includes, along with the act of God, revivifying man, also the act of man in turning to God. The nature of regeneration is of course variously conceived by different schools, according to their various views of the nature of the soul and its relation to God, of original or habitual sin and of divine grace. First, Pelagians. In accordance with their view of freedom and of sin, necessarily regard regeneration as a self-determined change in the general moral course of man's life,

Starting point is 04:28:42 an act of the man himself, without any gracious assistance other than that involved in instruction and favorable providential conditions. This was the teaching of a fact of the human being. Pelagius in the early part of the 5th century, and although not adopted by an historical church, it has been reproduced in various combinations by rationalists and Sassinians. Second, the semi-Palajian doctrine taught by John Cassian died 440, admits that divine grace, Asistencia is necessary to enable a sinner to return unto God and live, yet holds that from the nature of the human will, man may first spontaneously of himself, desire.

Starting point is 04:29:22 and attempt to choose and obey God. They deny the necessity of provenient, but admit the necessity of cooperative grace, and conceive regeneration as the product of this cooperative grace. Third, the medieval and papal doctrine, which is practically that of Thomas Aquinas, and is hence often called Thomism, admits original sin and the necessity of provenient grace, but places the efficacy of grace in the non-resistance of the subject. See the Council of Trent, Session 6, Canon 4, chapters 5 and 6, and 6, and 6, and 6. But this grace is supposed to be exercised only through the instrumentality of baptism, which acts as an Opus operatum, ex viaccionis Ipsis,

Starting point is 04:30:10 affecting regeneration and the entire removal of sin, and consequently of guilt, from every infant and from every adult who does not willfully resist, non-ponentipus obisem. of Trent session 7 canon 6, Bellamine, de sacramentis, to one. Fourth, the Armenian view of regeneration

Starting point is 04:30:31 admits total depravity and consequent moral impotency, yet holds that man is not really responsible until there is redemptively bestowed upon him for Christ's sake, sufficient grace, to endow him with ability, gracious, substituted for natural, to do right,

Starting point is 04:30:48 which grace becomes efficient when the sinner cooperates with it, and thus, affects the end intended. Fifth, the synergistic view was held by a party among the Lutherans under the leadership of Melanchthon. At the Leipzig Conference, 1548, Malankton said, quote, there concur three causes of a good action, the Word of God, the Holy Spirit,

Starting point is 04:31:11 and the human will assenting not resisting the word of God. End quote, Locicumunes. Page 90. 6th, the Lutheran standard, the Formula Conco teaches that, one, human nature is spiritually dead, and two, the Holy Ghost is the sole-efficient agent, who quickens the dead soul to life, without the least cooperation of the will of the subject, but the non-regeneration of the unbeliever is referred not to the absence nor to any deficiency of grace, but to the positive resistance of the man himself.

Starting point is 04:31:46 Formulae Concordiae pages 662-66-582-67. 7th. The Reformed Doctrine teaches as follows. 1. As to the nature of regeneration, A, there are in the soul, besides its several faculties, habits or dispositions, innate or acquired, besides its several faculties, habits or dispositions innate or acquired, which lay the foundation for a soul's exercising its faculties in a particular way. B, these dispositions, moral, are anterior to moral action, and determine its character. as good or evil. C. In creation, God made the dispositions of Adam's heart holy. D. In regeneration, God recreates the governing dispositions of the regenerated man's heart holy. Regeneration is therefore essentially the communication of a new spiritual life

Starting point is 04:32:42 and is properly called a new birth. 2. As to its efficient cause, it is affected by divine power acting supernaturally and immediately upon the soul, quickening it to spiritual life, and implanting gracious principles of action. 3. As to man's action, conversion, conversio actualis, instantly follows as the change of action consequent upon the change of character, and consists in repentance, faith, holy obedience, etc. 39 articles, Article 10. Canons of the Synod of Dort, Chapter 3, Article 3, Westminster Confession, Chapter 10. What is called baptismal regeneration is held by members of the Church of England and others in various senses. One, some hold that the Holy Spirit through the instrumentality of baptism

Starting point is 04:33:32 implants a germ of spiritual life in the soul, which may long remain latent and may be subsequently developed in conversion or blasted. Two, others hold that there are two regenerations, one a change of state or relation, and the other a change of nature. The first is baptismal and the second moral, though both are spiritual, since both are wrought by the Holy Ghost. End of Regeneration by B.B. Warfield. On the unity and antiquity of the human race by B.B. Warfield, this is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org.

Starting point is 04:34:20 The fundamental assertion of the biblical doctrine of the origin of man is that he owes his being to the creative act of God. Subsidiary questions growing out of this fundamental assertion, however, have been thrown from time to time into great prominence, as the changing forms of current anthropological speculation have seemed to press on this or that element, in, or corollary from the biblical teaching. The most important of these subsidiary questions has concerned the method of the divine procedure in creating man. Discussion of this question became acute on the publication of Charles Darwin's treatise on the origin of species in 1859 and can never sink again into rest until it is thoroughly understood in all quarters that

Starting point is 04:35:03 evolution cannot act as a substitute for creation, but at best can supply only a theory of the method of the divine providence. Closely connected with this discussion of the mode of origination of man has been the discussion of two further questions, both older than the Darwinian theory, to one of which it gave, however, a new impulse, while it has well-nigh destroyed all interest in the other. These are the questions of the antiquity of man and the unity of the human race, to both of which a large historical interest attaches, though neither of them can be said to be burning questions of today. The question of the antiquity of man has, of itself, no theological significance. It is to theology, as such, a matter of entire indifference

Starting point is 04:35:47 how long man has existed on earth. It is only because of the contrast which has been drawn between the short period which seemed to be allotted to human history in the biblical narrative, and the tremendously long period which certain schools of scientific speculation have assigned to the duration of human life on earth, that theology has become interested in the topic at all. There was thus created the appearance of a conflict

Starting point is 04:36:11 between the biblical statements and the findings of scientific investigators, and it became the duty of theologians to investigate the matter. The asserted conflict proves, however, to be entirely factitious. The Bible does not assign a brief span to human history. This is done only by a particular mode of interpreting the biblical data, which is found on examination to rest on no solid basis. Science does not demand an inordinate period for the life of human beings on Earth. This is done only by a particular school of speculative theorizers,

Starting point is 04:36:43 the validity of whose demands on time exact investigators are more and more cherry of allowing. As the real state of the case has become better understood, the problem has therefore tended to disappear from theological discussion. Till now it is pretty well understood

Starting point is 04:36:59 that theology as such has no interest in it. It must be confessed indeed that the impression is readily taken from a prima facie view of the biblical record of the course of human history, that the human race is of comparatively recent origin. It has been the year, usual supposition of simple Bible readers, therefore, that the biblical data allow for the duration

Starting point is 04:37:18 of the life of the human race on earth, only a paltry 6,000 years or so, and this supposition has become fixed in formal chronological schemes which have become traditional, and have even been given a place in the margins of our Bibles to supply the chronological framework of the scriptural narrative. The most influential of these chronological schemes is that which was worked out by Archbishop Asha in his Analys Vetteri and Novi Testaments 1650 to 54, and it is this scheme which has found a place in the margin of the authorised English version of the Bible since 1701. According to it, the creation of the world is assigned to the year 4004 BC. Asher's own dating was 4,188 BC, while according to the calculation of Patau in his Rationarium Temporum, The most influential rival scheme, it is assigned to the year 3983 BC.

Starting point is 04:38:15 On a more careful scrutiny of the data on which these calculations rest, however, they are found not to supply a satisfactory basis for the constitution of a definite chronological scheme. These data consists largely and at crucial points solely of genealogical tables, and nothing can be clearer than that it is precarious in the highest degree to draw chronological inferences from genealogical tables. From the period from Abraham down, we have, indeed, in addition to somewhat minute genealogical records, the combined evidence of such so-called long dates as those of 1 Kings 6-1, Galatians 3 verse 17, and several precise statements concerning the duration of definite shorter periods, together with whatever aid it may be possible to derive from a certain amount of contemporary

Starting point is 04:39:03 extra-biblical data. For the length of this period, there is no difficulty, therefore, in reaching an entirely satisfactory general estimate. But for the whole space of time before Abraham, we are dependent entirely on inferences drawn from the genealogies recorded in the 5th and 11th chapters of Genesis. And if the scriptural genealogies supply no solid basis for chronological inferences, it is clear that we are left without scriptural data for forming an estimate of the duration of these ages. For aught we know, they may have been of immense length. The general fact that the genealogies of Scripture were not constructed for a chronological purpose and lend themselves

Starting point is 04:39:42 ill to employment as a basis for chronological calculations has been repeatedly shown very fully. But perhaps by no one more thoroughly than by Dr. William Henry Green in an illuminating article published in the Bibliotheca Sacra for April 1890. These genealogies must be esteemed trustworthy for the purposes for which they are recorded, but they cannot safely be pressed into use for other purposes for which they were not intended and for which they are not adapted. In particular, it is clear that the genealogical purposes, for which the genealogies were given, did not require a complete record of all the generations through which the descent of the persons to whom they are assigned runs, but only an adequate indication of the particular line

Starting point is 04:40:27 through which the descent in question comes. Accordingly, it is found on examination that the genealogies of Scripture are freely compressed for all sorts of purposes. and that it can seldom be confidently affirmed that they contain a complete record of the whole series of generations, while it is often obvious that a very large number are omitted. There is no reason inherent in the nature of the scriptural genealogies why a genealogy of ten recorded links, as each of those in Genesis 5 and 11 is may not represent an actual descent of a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand links. The point established by the table is not that these are older links, between the beginning and the closing names, but that this is the line of descent, through which

Starting point is 04:41:11 one traces back to or down to the other. A sufficient illustration of the freedom with which the links in the genealogies are dealt with in our biblical usage is afforded by the two genealogies of our Lord, which are given in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. For, it is to be noted that there are two genealogies of Jesus given in this chapter, differing greatly from each other in fullness of record, no doubt, but in no respect either in trustworthiness or in principle of record. The one is found in the first verse, and it traces Jesus back to Abraham in just two steps, Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. The other is found in verses 2 to 17, and expands this same genealogy into 42 links, divided for purpose of symmetrical record

Starting point is 04:41:54 and easy memorizing into a threefold scheme of 14 generations each, and not even in this longer record a complete one. A comparison with the parallel records in the Old Testament will quickly reveal the fact that the three kings, Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah, are passed over, and Joram is said to have begotten Uzziah, his great-great-grandson. The other genealogies of scripture present similar phenomena, and as they are carefully scrutinized, it becomes ever clearer that, as they do not pretend to give complete lists of generations, they cannot be intended to supply a basis for chronological calculation, and it is illegitimate and misleading to attempt to attempt to. to use them for that purpose. The reduction for extraneous reasons of the genealogy of Christ in the first chapter of Matthew into three tables of 14 generations each may warn us that the reduction of the patriarchal genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 into two tables of 10 generations each may equally be due to extraneous considerations, and that they may be represented by each of

Starting point is 04:42:56 these 10 generations adequately for the purposes for which the genealogy is recorded, a very much longer actual series of links. It must not be permitted to drop out of sight to be sure that the appearance of supplying data for a chronological calculation is in these particular genealogies not due entirely to the mere fact that these lists are genealogies. It is due to a peculiarity of these special genealogies by which they are differentiated from all other genealogies in scripture. We refer to the regular attachment to each name in the lists of the age of the father at the birth of his son. The effect of this is to provide what seems to be a continuous series of precisely measured generations, the numbers having only to be added together to supply an exact

Starting point is 04:43:40 measure of the time consumed in their sequence. We do not read merely that Adam begat Seth, and Seth begat Inos, and Inos begat Kenan. We read rather that Adam lived in 130 years and begat Seth, and Seth lived an 105 years and begat Enoch, and Enoch lived 90 years and begat Keenan. It certainly looks at first sight, as if we needed only to add these 130, 105, and 90 years together, in order to obtain the whole time which elapsed from the creation of Adam to the birth of Keenan, and accordingly, as if we needed only to add together the similar numbers throughout the lists in order to obtain an accurate measure of the whole period from the creation to the deluge. Plausible as this procedure seems, however, it appears on a closer scrutiny

Starting point is 04:44:27 unjustified, and it is the special service which Dr. William Henry Green in the article already mentioned has rendered to the cause of truth in this matter, that he has shown this clearly. For if we will look at these lists again, we shall find that we have not yet got them in their entirety before us. Not only is there attached to each name in them, a statement of the age at which the father begot his son, but also a statement of how long the father lived after he had begot his son, and how many years his lifespan counted up altogether. If we do not read merely Adam begat Seth and Seth begat Inosh and Inos begat Kenan, neither do we read merely Adam lived 130 years and begat Seth, and Seth lived 105 years in begat Inos, and Inos lived 90 years

Starting point is 04:45:12 and begat Kinan. What we read is Adam lived in hundred and thirty years and begat a son in his own likeness after his image and called his name Seth and the days of Adam after he begat Seth were 800 years and he begat other sons and daughters and all the days that Adam lived were 930 years and he died and Seth lived in 105 years and begat Inos and Seth lived after he begat Inos 8707 years and begat sons and daughters and all the days of seven years and all the days of Seth were 912 years and he died. And Enoch lived 90 years and begat Keenan, and Enoch lived after he began Keenan 815 years and begat sons and daughters, and all the days of Enoch were 925 years, and he died. There is, in a word, much more information furnished with respect to each link in the chain,

Starting point is 04:46:03 than merely the age to which each father had attained when his son was begotten, and all this information is of the same order and obviously belongs together. It is clear that a single motive has determined the insertion of all of it, and we must seek a reason for its insertion, which will account for all of it. This reason cannot have been a chronological one, for all the items of information furnished do not serve a chronological purpose. Only the first item in each case can be made to yield a chronological result, and therefore not even it was intended to yield a chronological result, since all these items of information are too closely bound together in their common character to be separated in their intention. They too readily explain themselves, moreover, as serving an obvious common end, which was clearly in the mind of the writer, to justify the inscription of a different end to any one of them. When we are told of any man that he was an hundred and thirty years old when he begat his heir, and lived after that 800 years begetting sons and daughters, dying only at the age of 930 years, all these items cooperate to make a vivid impression upon us of the vigor and grandeur of humanity in those old days of the world's prime. crime. In a sense different indeed from that which the words bear in Genesis 6, but full of meaning to us, we exclaim, surely there were giants in those days. This is the impression which the items

Starting point is 04:47:24 of information inevitably make on us, and it is the impression they were intended to make on us, as is proved by the simple fact that they are adapted in all their items to make this impression, while only a small portion of them can be utilized for the purpose of chronological calculation. Having thus found a reason which will account for the insertion of all the items of information which are given us, we have no right to assume another reason to account for the insertion of some of them. And that means that we must decline to look upon the first item of information given in each instance, as intended to give us chronological information. The conclusion which we thus reach is greatly strengthened when we observe another fact with regard to these items of information,

Starting point is 04:48:06 This is that the appearance that we have in them of a chronological scheme does not reside in the nature of the items themselves, but purely in their sequence. If we read the items of information attached to each name, apart from their fellows attached to the succeeding names, we shall have simply a set of facts about each name, which in their combination make a strong impression of the vigor and greatness of humanity in those days, and which suggest no chronological inference. It is only when the names with the accompanying comments are put together one after the other that a chronological inference is suggested. The chronological suggestion is thus purely the effect of the arrangement of the names in immediate sequence and is not intrinsically resident in the items of information themselves.

Starting point is 04:48:50 And now we must call attention to a characteristic of scripture genealogies in general which seems to find a specially striking illustration in these comments. This is the habit of interposing into the structure of the genealogy. genealogies, here and there, a short note attached to this name or that, telling some important or interesting fact about the person represented by it. A simple genealogy would run thus, Adam begat Seth and Seth begat Inosh and Inosh begat Kinan and the like. But it would be quite in the biblical manner if they were attached to some or even to each of these names, parenthetical remarks, calling attention to something of interest regarding the several persons. For example, it would be

Starting point is 04:49:30 quite after the biblical fashion, should we have rather had this. Adam, who was the first man, begat Seth, and Seth, he it was, who was appointed as another seed in the stead of Abel, whom Cain slew, begat Enoch, and Enoch at his birth men began to call on the name of Jehovah, begat Keenan. The insertion of such items of information does not in the least change the character of the genealogy, as in itself a simple genealogy, subject to all the laws, which governed the formation and record of the scriptural genealogies, including the right of free compression with the omission of any number of links. It is strictly parenthetical in nature. Several examples of such parenthetical insertions occur in the genealogy of Jesus,

Starting point is 04:50:14 recorded in the first chapter of Matthew to which we have already referred for illustration. Thus in verse two, the fact that Judah had brethren is interposed in the genealogy, a fact which is noted also with respect to two others of the names which occurred. in the list, verses 3 and 11. It is noted here doubtless because of the significance of the 12 sons of Jacob as tribe fathers of Israel. Again, we find in four instances a notification of the mother interposed Tamar, verse 3, Rahab verse 5, Ruth verse 5, her of Uriah, verse 6. The introduction of the names of these notable women, which prepares the way for the introduction of that of Mary in verse 16, constitutes a very remarkable feature of this particular genealogy.

Starting point is 04:50:59 Another feature of it is suggested by the attachment to the name of David, verse 6, the statement that he was the king, and to the name of Jechaniah, the statement that his lifespan fell at the time of the carrying away to Babylon. The account of these insertions being found, doubtless in the artificial arrangement of the genealogy, in three symmetrical tables. The habit of inserting parenthetical notes, giving items of interest, connected with the names which enter into the genealogies, is doubtless sufficiently illustrated by these insurmounted.

Starting point is 04:51:29 instances. The only point in which the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 differ in this respect from the one in Matthew 1 is that such items of information are inserted with reference to every name in those genealogies, while they are inserted only occasionally in the genealogy of our Lord. This is, however, a difference of detail, not of principle. Clearly, if these notes had been constant in the genealogy in Matthew 1 instead of merely occasional, its nature, as a genealogy would not have been affected, it would still have remained a simple genealogy subject to all the customary laws of simple genealogies,

Starting point is 04:52:04 that they are constant in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 does not then alter their character as simple genealogies. These additions are in their nature parenthetical and are to be read in each instance strictly as such, and with sole reference to the names to which they are attached, and cannot determine whether or not links have been omitted in these genealogies, as they are freely omitted in other genealogies.

Starting point is 04:52:27 It is quite true that when brought together in sequence, name after name, these notes assume the appearance of a concatenated chronological scheme, but this is pure illusion, due wholly to the nature of the parenthetical insertions which are made. When placed one after the other, they seem to play into one another, whereas they are set down here for an entirely different purpose and cannot without violence be read with reference to one another. If the items of information were of a different character, we should never think of reading

Starting point is 04:52:56 them otherwise than each with sole reference to its own name. Thus, if they were given to show us how nobly developed primitive men were in their physical frames and read something as follows, Adam was eight cubits in height and begat Seth, and Seth was seven cubits in height and begat Enoch, and Enoch was six cubits in height and begat Keenan, we should have no difficulty in understanding that these remarks are purely parenthetical and in no way argue that no links have been omitted. The case is not altered by the mere fact that other items than these are chosen for notice with the same general intent, and we actually read, Adam lived in 130 years and begat Seth, and Seth lived in 105 years, and begat

Starting point is 04:53:37 Inos, and Inos lived 90 years and begat Kenan. The circumstance that the actual items chosen for parenthetical notice are such that when the names are arranged one after the other, they produce the illusion of a chronological scheme is a mere accident arising from the nature of the items chosen and must not blind us to the fact that we have before us here nothing but ordinary genealogies accompanied by parenthetical notes which are inserted for other than chronological purposes and that therefore these genealogies must be treated like other genealogies and interpreted on the same principles but if this be so then these genealogies too not only maybe but probably are much compressed, and merely record the line of descent of Noah from Adam and of Abraham

Starting point is 04:54:21 from Noah. Their symmetrical arrangement in groups of ten is indicative of their compression, and for all we know, instead of 20 generations and some 2,000 years, measuring the interval between the creation and the birth of Abraham, 200 generations and something like 20,000 years, or even 2,000 generations and something like 200,000 years may have intervened. In a word, the scriptural data leaves us wholly without guidance in estimating the time which elapsed between the creation of the world and the deluge and between the deluge and the call of Abraham. So far as the scripture assertions are concerned, we may suppose any length of time to have intervened between these events which may otherwise appear reasonable.

Starting point is 04:55:04 The question of the antiquity of man is accordingly a purely scientific one, in which the theologian as such has no concern. As an interested spectator, however, he looks on as the various schools of scientific speculation debate the question among themselves, and he can scarcely fail to take away as the result of his observation two well-grounded convictions. The first is that science has, as yet in its hands, no solid data for a definite estimate of the time during which the human race has existed on earth. The second is that the tremendous drafts on time, which were accustomed to be made by the geologists about the middle of the last century, and which continue to be made by one school of speculative biology today, have been definitely set.

Starting point is 04:55:44 aside, and it is becoming very generally understood that man cannot have existed on the earth more than some 10,000 to 20,000 years. It was a result of the manner of looking at things inculcated by the Hattonian geology, that speculation during the first three-quarters of the 19th century estimated the age of the habitable globe in terms of hundreds of millions of years. It was under the influence of this teaching, for example, that Charles Darwin in 1859 supposed that 300 million years were an underestimate for the period which had elapsed since the latter part of the secondary age. In reviewing Mr. Darwin's argument, in his student's manual of geology, Professor Dukes remarked on the vagueness of the data on which his estimates were formed, and suggested

Starting point is 04:56:31 that the sum of years asserted might with equal reasonableness be reduced or multiplied a hundredfold. He proposed therefore three million and thirty billion years as the minimum and maximum limits of the period in question. From the same fundamental standpoint, Professor Poulton in his address as the president of the Zoological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Liverpool, September 1896, treats as too short, from his biological point of view, the longest time asked by the geologists for the duration of the habitable earth, some say 400 millions of years. Dwelling on the number of distinct types of animal existence already found in the lower Cambrian deposits, and only necessarily, as he thinks, slow progress of evolution, he

Starting point is 04:57:16 stretches out the time required for the advance of life to its present manifestation practically illimitably. Taking up the cudgels for his biological friends, Sir Archibald Gaiki, chivalrously offers them all the time they desire, speaking on his own behalf, however, of one hundred million years as possibly sufficient for the period of the existence of life on the globe. As these general estimates imply, of course, a very generous allowance for the duration of human life on Earth, but many anthropologists demand for this period even more than they allow. Thus, for example, Professor Gabriel de Mottelier reiterates

Starting point is 04:57:50 his conviction that the appearance of man on Earth cannot be dated less than 230,000 years ago, and Professor A. Penk would agree with this estimate, while Dr. A. R. Wallace has been accustomed to ask more than double that period. These tremendously long estimates of the duration of life on earth, and particularly of the duration of human life, are, however, speculative, and indeed largely the creation of a special type of evolutionary speculation, a type which is rapidly losing ground among recent scientific workers. This type is that which owes its origin to the brooding mind of Charles Darwin, and up to recent times it has been the regnant type of evolutionary philosophy. Its characteristic contention is that the entire development of animate forms has been the

Starting point is 04:58:34 product of selection by the pressure of the environment of infinitesimal variations in an almost infinite series of successive generations, or to put it rather brusquely, but not unfairly, that chance plus time are the true causes which account for the whole body of differentiated forms, which animate nature presents to our observation. Naturally, therefore, heavy drafts have been made on time to account for whatever it seemed hard to attribute to brute chance, as if you could admit the issuing of any effect out of any conditions if you only conceive the process of production as slow enough. James Hutton had duly warned his followers against the temptation to appeal to time as if it were itself an efficient cause of effects. Quote, with regard to the effects of time, he said,

Starting point is 04:59:20 though the continuance of time may do much in those operations which are extremely slow, where no change to our observation had appeared to take place, yet where it is not in the nature of things to produce the change in question, the unlimited course of time would be no more effectual than the moment by which we measure events in our observation, end quote. The warning was not heeded. Men seemed to imagine that, if only time enough were given for it, effects for which no adequate cause could be assigned might be supposed to come gradually of themselves. Aimless movement was supposed, if time enough were allowed for it, to produce an ordered world.

Starting point is 04:59:57 it might as well be supposed that if a box full of printers types were stood up long enough with a stick, they could be counted on to arrange themselves in time, in the order in which they stand, say, in Kant's critic of pure reason. They will never do so, though they be stood to eternity. Dr. J. W. Dawson points out the exact difficulty when he remarks that, quote, the necessity for indefinitely protracted time does not arise from the facts, but from the attempt to explain the facts without any adequate cause, and to appeal to an infinite series of chance interactions apart from a designed plan,

Starting point is 05:00:33 and without regard to the consideration that we know of no way in which, with any conceivable amount of time, the first living and organized being could be produced from dead matter, end quote. Nothing could be more certain than that what chance cannot begin the production of in a moment, chance cannot complete the production of in an eternity. The analysis of the complete effect into an infinite series of parts, and the distribution of these parts over an infinite series of years leaves the effect as unaccounted for as ever. What is needed to account for it is not time in any extension but an adequate cause.

Starting point is 05:01:09 A mass of iron is made no more self-supporting by being forged into an illimitable chain formed of innumerable infinitesimal links. We may cast our dice to all eternity with no more likelihood than at first throw of ever turning up double-sevenths. It is not, however, the force of such reasoning, but the pressure of hard facts, which is revolutionizing the conceptions of biologists today as to the length of the period during which man has existed on Earth. It is not possible to enumerate here all the facts which are cooperating to produce a revised and greatly reduced estimate of this period. First among them may doubtless be placed the calculations of the life period of the

Starting point is 05:01:50 globe itself, which have been made by the physicists with ever-increasing confidence. Led by such investigators as Lord Kelvin, they have become ever more and more insistent that the time demanded by the old uniformitarian and new biological speculator is not at their disposal. The publication in the seventh decade of the past century of Lord Kelvin's calculations going to show that the sun had not been shining 60 millions of years, already gave pause to the reckless drafts which had been accustomed to be made on time, and the situation was rendered more and more acute by subsequent revisions of Lord Kelvin's work, progressively diminishing this estimate. Sir Archibald Gaiki complains that, quote, Lord Kelvin has cut off slice after slice

Starting point is 05:02:35 from the allowance of time he was at first prepared to grant for the evolution of geological history, end quote, until he has reduced it from 40 to 20 millions of years, quote, and probably much nearer 20 than 40, end quote. This estimate of the period of the sun's light would allow only something like six millions of years for geological time, only some one-sixteenth of which would be available for the Sinozoic period, of which only about one-eighth or 40,000 years or so, could be allotted to the Pleistocene age in the course of which the remains of man first appear. Even this meagre allowance is cut in half by the calculation of Professor Tate, while the general conclusions of these investigators have received the support of independent calculations by Dr. George

Starting point is 05:03:20 H. Darwin and Professor Newcomb, and more recently still, Mr. T. J.J.J.C. of the Naval Observatory at Washington has published a very pretty speculation in which he determines the total longevity of the sun to be only 36 millions of years, 32 of which belong to its past history. It is not merely the physicists, however, with whom the biological speculators have to do, the geologists themselves have turned against them. Recent investigations may be taken as putting pre-quaternary man out of the question. The evidence was reviewed by Sir John Evans, in his address at the Toronto Meeting of the British Association,

Starting point is 05:03:59 August 18, 1897, and revised estimates of the rate of denundation, erosion, deposition of alluvial matter in deltas, or of stalagmetic matter on the floors of caves, have greatly reduced the exaggerated conception of its slowness, from which support were sought for the immensely long periods of time demanded. The post-glacial period, which will roughly estimate the age of man, it is now pretty generally agreed, quote, cannot be more than 10,000 years,

Starting point is 05:04:27 or probably not more than 7,000 in length, end quote. In this estimate, both Professor Winchell and Professor Salisbury agree. And to its establishment, a great body of evidence derived from a variety of calculations concur. If man is of post-glacial origin, then his advent upon Earth need not be dated more than five or six thousand years ago, or if we suppose him to have appeared at some point in the later glacial period, as Professor G.F. Wright does, then certainly Professor Wright's estimate of 16,000 to 20,000 years is an ample one. The effect of these revised estimates of geological time has been greatly increased by growing uncertainty among biologists themselves

Starting point is 05:05:08 as to the soundness of the assumptions upon which was founded the demand for long periods of time. These assumptions were briefly those which underlie the doctrine of evolution in its specifically Darwinian form, in the form, that is to say, in which the evolution is supposed to be accomplished by the fixing through the pressure of the environment of minute, favorable variations, arising accidentally in the midst of minute variations in every direction indifferently. But in the progress of biological research, the sufficiency of this natural solution, to account for the development of organic forms has come first to be questioned, and then in large circles to be denied. In proportion, however, as evolution is conceived as advancing in determined

Starting point is 05:05:49 directions, come the determination from whatever source you choose, and in proportion as it is conceived as advancing onwards by large increments instead of by insensible changes. In that proportion, the demand on time is lessened, and even the evolutionary spectator feels that he can get along with less of it. He is no longer impaled to assume behind the high type of man, whose remains in the post-glacial deposits, are the first intimation of the presence of man on earth, an almost illimitable series of lower and ever lower types of man, through which gradually the brute struggled up to the high humanity, records of whose existence alone have been preserved to us. And he no longer requires to postulate immense stretches of time for the progress of this man,

Starting point is 05:06:34 through Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Metal-using periods, for the differentiation of the strongly marked characteristics of the several races of man, for the slow humanizing of human nature and the slower development of those powers within it, from which at length, what we call, civilization emerged, once allow the principle of modification by leaps, and the question of the length of time required for a given evolution passes out of the sphere of practical interest. The height of the leaps becomes a matter of detail,

Starting point is 05:07:03 and there is readily transferred to the estimation of it, the importance which was formally attached to the estimation of the time involved. Thus it has come about that, in the progress of scientific investigation, the motive for demanding illimitable stretches of time for the duration of life, and specifically for the duration of human life on Earth, has gradually been passing away, and there seems now a very general tendency among scientific investigators to acquiesce in a moderate estimate, in an estimate which demands for the life of man on earth not more than, say, 10 or 20,000 years. If the controversy upon the antiquity of man is thus rapidly losing all but a historical interest, that which once so violently raged upon the unity of the race may be said already to have reached this stage.

Starting point is 05:07:49 The question of the unity of the human race differs from the question of its antiquity, in that it is of indubitable theological significance. It is not merely that the Bible certainly teaches it, while, as we have sought to show, it has no teaching upon the antiquity of the race. It is also the postulate of the entire body of the Bible's teaching, its doctrine of sin and redemption alike, so that the whole structure of the Bible's teaching, including all that we know as its doctrine of salvation, rests on it and implicates it. There have been times, nevertheless, when it has been vigorously assailed from various motives, from within as well as from without the church and the resources of Christian reasoning have been taxed to support it.

Starting point is 05:08:31 These times have now, however, definitely passed away. The prevalence of the evolutionary hypotheses as removed all motive for denying a common origin to the human race and rendered it natural to look upon the differences which exist among the various types of man as differentiations of a common stock. The motive for denying their conclusiveness has been thus removed, the convincing evidences of the unity of the race have had opportunity to assert their force. The result is that the unity of the race, in the sense of its common origin, is no longer a matter of debate, and although actually some erratic writers may still speak of it as open to discussion,

Starting point is 05:09:10 they are not taken seriously, and practically it is universally treated as a fixed fact that mankind in all its varieties is one, as in fundamental characteristics, so also in origin. In our natural satisfaction over this agreement between Scripture and modern science, with respect to the unity of humanity, we must not permit ourselves to forget that there has always nevertheless existed among men a strong tendency to deny this unity in the interests of racial pride. Outside the influence of the biblical revelation indeed, the sense of human unity has never been strong and has ordinarily been non-existent.

Starting point is 05:09:46 Footnote. Compare H. Bavink, The Philosophy of Revelation, pages 137 and following in footnote. The Stoics seem to have been the first among the classical peoples to preach the unity of mankind and the duty of universal justice and philanthropy founded upon it. With the revival of classical ideas which came in with what we call the Renaissance, there came in also a tendency to revive heathen polygenism, which was characteristically reproduced in the writings of Blunt and others of the deists. A more definite co-adamitism, that is to say, the attribution of the descent of the several

Starting point is 05:10:22 chief racial types to separate original ancestors, has also been taught by occasional individuals, such, for example, as Paracelsus, and the still more definite pre-Adamitism, which conceives man indeed as a single species derived from one stock, but represents Adam not as the root of this stock, but as one of its products, the ancestor of the Jews and white races alone, has always found teachers, such as, for example, Zanini. The advocacy of this pre-Adamitic theory by Isaac de la Perrier. In the middle of the 17th century roused a great debate, which soon died out, although leaving echoes behind it in Bale, Arnold Swedenborg. A sort of pre-Adamitism has continued to be taught by a series of philosophical speculators from shelling down, which look upon

Starting point is 05:11:11 Adam, as the first real man, rising in developed humanity above the low, beast-like condition of his ancestors. In our own day, George Catlin, and especially Alexander Winchell, have revived in its essentials the teaching of della Perrier. Quote, Adam, says, Professor Winchell is descended from a black race, not the black race from Adam, end quote. The advancing knowledge of the varied races of man produced in the latter part of the 18th and the earlier 19th century, a revival of co-adamination. Sullivan, Kruger, Ballenstead, Cordonier, Gobinue, which was even perverted into a defense of slavery,

Starting point is 05:11:50 Dobbs, Morton, Knott and Glidden. It was in connection with Not and Glidden's types of mankind that Agaziz first published his theory of the diverse origin of the several types of man, the only one of these theories of abiding interest because the only one arising from a genuinely scientific impulse and possessing a really scientific basis. Agaziz's theory was the product of a serious study of the geographical distribution of animate life, and one of the results of Agaziz's classification of the whole of animate creation into eight well-marked types of fauna involving, so he thought, eight separate centres of origin. Pursuant to this classification, he sought to distribute mankind also into eight types,

Starting point is 05:12:33 to each of which he ascribed a separate origin, corresponding with the type of fauna with which each is associated. But even Agaziz could not deny that men are, despite their eightfold separate creation, all of one kind. He could not erect specific differences between the several types of man. The evidence which compelled him to recognize the oneness of man in kind remains in its full validity after advancing knowledge of the animal kingdom and its geographical distribution has rendered Agaziz's assumption of eight centres of origination, not merely distribution, a violent hypothesis, and the entrance into the field of the evolutionary hypothesis has consigned all theories formed without reference to it to oblivion.

Starting point is 05:13:15 Even some early evolutionists, it is true, played for a time with theories of multiplex times and places where similar lines of development culminated alike in man. And perhaps there is now some sign of the revival of this view, but it is now agreed with practical unanimity that the unity of the human race in the sense of its common origin is a necessary corollary of the evolutionary hypothesis, and no voice raised in contradiction of it stands much chance to be heard. It is, however, only for its universal allowance at the hands of speculative science that the fact of the unity of the human race has to thank the evolutionary hypothesis. The evidence by which it is solidly established is of course

Starting point is 05:14:01 independent of all such hypotheses. This evidence is drawn almost equally from every department of human manifestation, physiological, psychological, philological, and even historical. The physiological unity of the race is illustrated by the nice gradations, by which the several so-called races into which it is divided pass into one another, and by their undiminished natural fertility when intercrossed, by which Professor Owen was led to remark that, quote, man forms but one species, and differences are but indications of varieties, which merge into one another by easy gradations, end quote. It is emphasized by the contrast which exists between the structural characteristics,

Starting point is 05:14:43 osteological, cranial, dental, common to the entire race of human beings of every variety, and those of the nearest animal types, which led Professor Huxley to assert that, quote, every bone of a gorilla bears marks by which it may be distinguished from the corresponding bones of a man, and that, in the present creation at any rate, no immediate link bridges over the gap between homo and troglodytes, end quote. The psychological unity of the race is still more manifest. All men of all varieties are psychologically men and prove themselves possesses of the same mental nature and furniture.

Starting point is 05:15:19 Under the same influences, they function mentally and spiritually in the same fashion, and prove capable of the same mental reactions. They, they all and they alone, in the whole realm of animal existences, manifest themselves as rational and moral natures, so that Mr. Fisk was fully justified when he declared that, though, for zoological man, the erection of a distinct family from the chimpanzee and orang may suffice, quote, on the other hand, for psychological man, you must erect a distinct kingdom, nay, you must even dichotomize the universe, putting man on one side and all things else on the other, end quote.

Starting point is 05:15:56 Among the manifestations of the psychological peculiarities of mankind, as distinguished from all other animate existences is the great gift of speech, which he shares with no other being. If all human languages cannot be reduced to a single root, they all exhibit a uniquely human faculty working under similar laws, and bear the most striking testimony to the unity of the race, which alone has language at its command. The possession of common traditions by numerous widely separated peoples is only a single one of many indications of a historical intercommunion between the several peoples, through which their essential unity is evinced, and by which the biblical account of the origination of the

Starting point is 05:16:37 various families of man in a single centre, from which they have spread out in all directions, is powerfully supported. The assertion of the unity of the human race is embedded in the very structure of the biblical narrative. The biblical account of the origin of man, Genesis 1, verses 26 to 28, is an account of his origination in a single pair who constituted humanity in its germ, and from whose fruitfulness and multiplication, all the earth has been replenished. Therefore, the first man was called Adam, man, and the first woman, Eve, because she was the mother of all living, Genesis 3, verse 20,

Starting point is 05:17:15 and all men are currently spoken of as the son of Adam, or man, Deuteronomy 32 verse 8, Psalm 11 verse 4, 1 Samuel 26 verse 19, 1 Kings 8 verse 39, Psalm 145 verse 12, etc. The absolute restriction of the human race within the descendants of this single pair is emphasized by the history of the flood in which all flesh is destroyed and the race given a new beginning in its second father, Noah, by whose descendants again the whole earth was overspread. Genesis 9 verse 19, as is illustrated in detail by the Table of Nations recorded in Genesis 10. A profound religious ethical significance is given to the differentiation of the peoples in the story of the Tower of Babel in the 11th chapter of Genesis, in which the divergences and

Starting point is 05:18:01 separations which divide mankind are represented as the product of sin, and what God had joined together, men themselves pulled asunder. Throughout the scriptures, therefore, all mankind is treated as, from the divine point of view, a unit, shares not only in a common nature, but in a common sinfulness, not only in a common need, but in a common redemption. Accordingly, although Israel was taught to glory in its exultation by the choice of the Lord to be his peculiar people, Israel was not permitted to believe

Starting point is 05:18:31 there was anything in itself which differentiated it from other peoples, and by the laws concerning aliens and slaves, was required to recognize the common humanity of all sorts and conditions of men. What they had to distinguish themselves from others was not of nature, but of the free gift of God in the mysterious working out of his purpose of good, not only to Israel but to the whole world. This universalism in the divine purposes of mercy already inherent in the old covenant, and often proclaimed in it,

Starting point is 05:18:59 and made the very keynote of the new for which the old was the preparation, is the most emphatic possible assertion of the unity of the race. Accordingly, not only do we find our lord himself setting his seal upon the origination of the race in a single pair, and drawing from that fact the law of life, for men at large. Matthew 19 verse 4, and Paul explicitly declaring that God has made of one every nation of men, and having for his own good ends appointed to each its separate habitation, is now dealing with them all alike in offering them a common salvation. Acts 17 verse 26

Starting point is 05:19:34 and following, but the whole New Testament is instinct with the brotherhood of mankind, as one in origin and in nature, one in need and one in the provision of redemption, the fact of racial sin is basal to the whole Pauline system. Romans 5 verse 12 and following, 1 Corinthians 15 verse 21 and following, and beneath the fact of racial sin lies the fact of racial unity. It is only because all men were in Adam as their first head that all men share in Adam's sin and with his sin in his punishment. And it is only because the sin of man is thus one in origin and therefore of the same nature and quality that the redemption which is suitable and may be made available for one is equally suitable and may be made available for all. It is because the race is one and

Starting point is 05:20:21 its need one. Jew and Gentile are alike under sin that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile in the matter of salvation either, but as the same God is Lord of all, so he is rich in Christ Jesus unto all that call upon him and will justify the uncircumcision through faith alone, even as he justifies the circumcision only by faith. Romans 9, verses 20 to 23, verse 28 and following chapter 10 verse 12. Jesus Christ, therefore, as the last Adam, is the Savior not of the Jews only, but of the world. John 4 verse 42, 1 Timothy 4 verse 10, 1 John 4 verse 14, having been given to this his great work only by the love of the father for the world, John 3 verse 16. The unity of the human race is therefore made in scripture, not merely the basis of a demand that we shall recognize the

Starting point is 05:21:09 dignity of humanity in all its representatives of however lowly a state or family, since all bear alike the image of God in which man was created, and the image of God is deeper than sin and cannot be eradicated by sin. Genesis 5 verse 3, chapter 9 verse 6, 1 Corinthians 11 verse 7, Hebrews 2 verse 5 in following, but the basis also of the entire scheme of restoration devised by the divine love for the salvation of a lost race. So far is it from being of no concern to Theosal, but Therefore, that it would be truer to say that the whole doctrinal structure of the Bible account of redemption is founded on its assumption that the race of man is one organic whole and may be dealt with as such.

Starting point is 05:21:51 It is because all are one in Adam that in the matter of sin there is no difference but all have fallen short of the glory of God, Romans 3 verse 22, as well that in the new man there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman, but Christ is all and in all, Colossians 3 verse 11. The unity of the old man in Adam is the postulate of the unity of the new man in Christ. End of on the antiquity and the unity of the human race by B.B. Warfield. A calm view of the Friedman's case by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 05:22:39 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox. We already recognize it as a commonplace to say that the greatest work before the American people today is the elevation and civilization of the 7 million of blacks that form so large a section of its 50 million of souls. But like so many other commonplaces, it is easier to bandy this phrase from mouth to mouth than thoroughly to realize the very serious meaning that lies in it. Some appear to think that they have done all that can be required of them when they have yielded their assent to the assertion, though at that rate we cannot hope that the great work thus acknowledged will be soon overtaken. Almost nowhere, however, is its magnitude adequately appreciated, although it is difficult to see how anyone who has had much contact with the masses of the blacks, with his eyes and heart open to see and feel, can have escaped a certain.

Starting point is 05:23:38 an amount of deep anxiety as to their future. He sees adequate capacities for rising in them, but he sees also great obstacles to their rising, and he asks himself in doubt whether any capacities can avail to lift a people upward on whom rests so great a weight of prejudice, evil custom, and sad fate. We need not speculate as to the causes of so great an apathy in the face of so great a problem. Men are indifferent only because men are insufficiently acquainted with the true state of the case, and have inadequately realized the difficulty of the task now set before the American people. For instance, the terrible legacy of evil, which generations of slavery have left to our freedmen, is scarcely appreciated by any of us. We are prone to represent the

Starting point is 05:24:25 average slave to ourselves as a carefully nurtured and taught inmate of a Christian household, sent out at last into the world to care for himself with almost the same preparation in character and moral training that was given to the sons of the house themselves. The foundation of this fancy is a no more than just recognition of the constant efforts of the slaveholders of the South to teach their bondmen the truths of religion and to frame within them a sound system of morals. But when we so state the results attained, we forget two very important considerations that the house servants were but a small proportion of the whole body of slaves on the one side

Starting point is 05:25:05 and on the other that the very fact of slavery was the most potent of demoralizers. The southern slaveholders did what they could to teach true Christianity to their slaves, and the results attained by them, which all things considered, are nothing less than marvelous, are the sufficient proof not only of their own vital and yearning piety, but also of the strenuousness of their efforts to indoctrinate the souls which were in their charge with the truths of religion. but the masses of plantation hands could be only partially reached by any efforts, and as a mere matter of fact, here, as always elsewhere, the fruit of slavery was ingrained immorality.

Starting point is 05:25:45 When we grieve over the odd divorce of religion and morality, which is so frequently met with among the blacks, let us not indeed blame the slaveholders for it, as if their Christian teaching was at fault, but let us equally remember that slavery itself is responsible for it. I do not forget what contact with Christian masters of a higher race has done for the thousands of heathen savages which were being continually landed on our shores up to the very outbreak of the war itself. Let anyone simply compare the average self-respecting Negro in America with the naked savage of the African forests

Starting point is 05:26:20 and thank God for the marvelous change. But I'm concerned to have it clearly seen what the very conditions of slavery prevented this contact from accomplishing and in what moral state it necessarily sent forth its millions of freedmen to cope with the world. Let us only remember that by its very nature slavery cannot allow to its victim a will of his own, that it leaves him master of none of his deeds, that it permits him ownership in nothing, not even in his honour or virtue. Who need ask after the moral effect of such a state of things?

Starting point is 05:26:53 How could the moral instruction of one member of the family hope to overcome the immoral compulsion of others, I could name some coloured women who were nothing less than martyrs of chastity, but the masses are never martyrs, and the curse of slavery eats to the roots of all life. This, it is to be observed, is not to deny that slavery did form and compact a moral character in the bondman. It is to point out what kind of moral character is compacted. There is an honour among thieves, and there is a strict and binding morality among slaves, but as in the one case it is a different honour from that that obtains among honest men, so in the other it is a morality of a different stamp and of a separate standard from what

Starting point is 05:27:37 obtains among freemen. What is virtue in the slave is vice in the freeman, and this reversal of all moral principle is one of the chief characteristics of the terrible institution of human slavery. The task now before us would be easier, had slavery only demoralized, as a matter of fact it did worse, it moralized on a false and perverted system. The freedman has his code of morals, and in his way, and from the slave's point of view, he is an intensely moral man. He is not un-moral, he is an enthusiast for an immoral ethic, an ethic that now he is a freedman, will not range with his new position and his new duties. In a word, slavery, so far from fitting its victims for freedom, unfitted them for it. The task before the American people in dealing with the blacks

Starting point is 05:28:24 is nothing less, then, than the uprooting and expulsion of a settled and ingrained system of immorality in order that a true morality may be substituted for it. It is another result of the state of things which I have tried to point to as the inevitable effect of generations of slavery that the freedman's sons are, morally speaking, a distinct deterioration from the freedman himself. That this is a fact every careful observer at the South recognises, though it must not be misunderstood, as if it involved a denial of the very rapid growth upwards of those who have had the opportunity of growth. Unfortunately, however, it is the few of the new generation who have

Starting point is 05:29:05 received this opportunity, while the many thus far have been caught in the toils of necessity and are working out their own destruction without help from without. We do not share fully in the distress of many that the old type of negro is dying out with the generation which had the severe discipline of slavery, but it is a fact that it is dying out, and that, generally speaking, what it leaves behind is something apparently worse. But the very reason of this sad phenomenon is that the old type was an artificial product. The slave was trained into and held in a bearing of dignity and self-respecting conduct by external pressure. He stood by virtue of props from without. When those props were removed, he still stood by virtue of old habit, but there was no

Starting point is 05:29:51 sufficient inner centripetal force to hold him together. It was like a barrel which has stood so long that its contents have solidified, and when the hoops are knocked off, still retains its uprightness. The sons of the freedmen came into the world without hope, and they simply betray to us the artificiality of the product which we have admired. Their morality is not only wrongly centered, but it is in a fluid state, and it is our task to see that it crystallizes around some solid kernel of truth and righteousness. This were better than to gather it up and try, as of old, to tie it into shape by the pressure of outside institutions. And here we are face to face with our problem, for it is with the sons of the freedmen that our generation has especially to deal,

Starting point is 05:30:37 and we are face to face with the naughtiest part of the task. What pressure can we bring to bear on these wandering souls to draw them within the formative influences of a true and sound morality. The strongest motive with most men is the hope of rising. The most degraded immigrant that reaches our shores is under this spell, the lure of hope dances ever before his eyes. However high above him, others may stand, he has but to lift his eyes to see that the plain pathway runs from his feet to theirs, and it is only a question as to whether he is willing to climb, whether he will not stand by their sides tomorrow. If he has no ambition for himself, he has for his children,

Starting point is 05:31:20 and it is rare indeed that the civilising influence of this single hope is not the sufficient excitement to endeavour, self-respect and growth. But this is lost for the African. The class to which he belongs by birth is the class with which he must make his home until death sets him free. He bears a brand on his brow that closes all avenues of advance before him, and the despondency of his heart that makes him reckless of public opinion as to his deeds is but the inward answer to the stern outward fact that,

Starting point is 05:31:51 become what he individually may, he cannot rise into the classes above him. It is probably impossible for any of us to realize the deadening burden of this hopelessness. It clips the wings of every soaring spirit and drives every ambition back to nor its own tongue in unavailing pain. Yet an adequate appreciation of it is one of the first. the conditions of our understanding the gravity of the problem that is before us in our efforts to raise and educate the blacks to take their proper place in our Christian civilization. Those who expect, in such circumstances, the freedmen to elevate themselves, are building castles in Spain with a vengeance, and it is but little less unreasonable to expect the South

Starting point is 05:32:34 to take the whole burden of their training for the important duties of free men and women. To go no further, the South has not the means. in men or money for the task. Apparently, illiteracy is increasing among the blacks even now, and it is certain that, were northern aid removed, the burden would be so hopeless that it could not even be undertaken. It must be sorrowfully added, for I too am a Southerner in birth, training, and affiliations, that the southern people are not thoroughly awake either to the necessity of or to their duty in this matter. Many individuals are already alive to. it, the Christian South has not lost its pity for these suffering and ignorant claimants to its

Starting point is 05:33:17 aid, and multitudes there are ready for any personal sacrifice for their elevation and improvement, as they understand what their elevation and improvement ought to be. But the spirit of caste, for it cannot be called by any milder name, is practically universal, and colours the opinions and paralyzes the efforts of the whole South to such an extent as to render it unfit for much useful work in this field. for it cannot be too strongly emphasized that it is not he who feels persuaded that the negro was made a little lower than man, and who is graciously willing to train him into fitness for such a position, who can educate him into true and self-centered manhood.

Starting point is 05:33:57 It is only he who is thoroughly persuaded that God has made of one blood all the nations of the earth, that has the missionary spirit, or that can serve as the hand of the most high in elevating the lowly and rescuing the oppressed. I'm not saying that the spirit of caste is confined to the south, I have met with it in full bloom in the north also, but it is practically universal in the south, and the community is so entirely imbued with it that it can scarcely believe any other sentiment possible to self-respecting people, and gravely asserts it when intending to deny it. Quote, it has been charged, said a Mississippi delegate, only the other day to the general conference of the Protestant Episcopal.

Starting point is 05:34:40 church held at Chicago, that the colored race has been expelled from attending church by the white members. This is not so. They would be gladly welcomed, and seats have been set aside for them in all the churches, end quote. The saddest thing about it is that the good brother actually seemed to suppose that he had made out his point. Quote, only such a prejudice, end quote, exists against the colored people, quote, as would exist against any uneducated and unrefined people, end quote, indeed. In what community are special seats set aside, quote, in all the churches, end quote, for the, quote, uneducated and unrefined, end quote. It would be a marvellously instructive sight to see this division carried through by some sure touchstone. Ah, no, we are hand to hand here

Starting point is 05:35:31 with the pure spirit of caste, a caste which we cannot call unnatural when all the circumstances are taken into consideration, and which I should be one of the last too sharply to blame the South for entertaining, but nonetheless a caste, the existence of which we must explicitly and calmly recognise if we are ever to grasp all the contents of the problem of the elevation of the coloured population of the South, and which it is painful to see in this 19th century anywhere out of India. I have myself known a Negro woman, who had in anxiety for her soul, ventured to enter a crowded church during a series of revival meetings, to be asked out by the elders. It would be unfair to say it is the settled policy of the South toward the Negro,

Starting point is 05:36:18 but it is at least the inbred instinct of southern men and women, whether in church or state, to make the Negro know what they are pleased to call, quote, his place, end quote, as if forsooth, his place as a man was not side by side with men, and his place as a Christian was not in the midst of God's children. Are we today to reverse the inspired declaration that, in Christ Jesus, there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision, circumcision, barbarian, Scythian, Bondman, Freeman? The harm that cast does towards those whom we would elevate cannot be overestimated. It kills hope, it paralyzes effort, it cuts away all of those excitements to endeavor that

Starting point is 05:37:00 come of intimacy with those above us, and the example of those who, having trodden where our feet now walk, have passed into the regions beyond, leaving footprints for us to follow. It is a marvel to me that its dangers, too, are not more fully appreciated. Apart from all question of religion and the kingdom of God, is it good public policy to compact a lower class, escape from which, by reason of the indelible stain of colour, cannot be had, into a solid phallings of opposition to the ruling class, and by heaping, year after year, petty injustices and insults upon it,

Starting point is 05:37:36 to beget undying hatred in its heart, and to perpetuate all the evils of race alienation into an indefinite future, if not even to treasure up for ourselves wrath against a day of wrath. For after a while this blind Samson must awake, and the issues which depend on these two things, that when he awakes he shall not be still unmaral, and that he shall not awake with a deep sore in his heart against his fellow citizens of another colour, are simply tremendous, for the South and for the nation. What I have said, I have said only with the purpose of outlining the seriousness of the problem now before the American people. But it seems to me that it will avail also to suggest the instrumentalities by which alone the problem can be successfully attacked. If it is a true

Starting point is 05:38:24 moralization of the blacks that is needed, this can be secured only by a careful moral teaching, such as can be furnished only by religious organizations which will educate as well as preach. secular training will do small good, simple preaching of the gospel does not reach deep enough. We must have Christian schools everywhere where Christianity, as a revealed system of truth and of practice, is daily taught by men and women whose hearts are aglow with missionary fervor, who find in every creature of God the promise and potency of all higher life. Can the Presbyterian Church safely neglect to do her part in this great work? End of A Calm View of the Friedman's case by B.B. Warfield.

Starting point is 05:39:12 The relation of the Presbyterian Principle to the Historic Episcopate by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The Presbyterian principle is usually summed up in the three propositions of the rights of the people, the parity of the ministry and the unity of the church. More largely stated, that is to say, Presbyterianism holds that, one, the visible Church of Christ,

Starting point is 05:39:43 consists of all those who profess the true religion together with their children, and that it is in the church as a whole, not in any part of, or class in it, that the continuity, life, and all the functions of the church subsist, and all church power radically vests, and by it, that all church powers ultimately are exercised.

Starting point is 05:40:03 2. To this church, Christ has given a ministry for its instruction, government and administration, which, by apostolic appointment, consists fundamentally in each local church of a body of presbyters with their helpers, the deacons, but normally in a differentiation of function which we believe to have apostolic sanction, of a bishop or pastor or teaching elder, standing as Primus Interpares, at the head of a board of presbyters together with the helping deacons. 3. The visible Church is universal and ought to realize its Catholicity in a visible unity, and it is most in accordance with the principles involved in the institutions prescribed by the scriptures that its unity should be given visible expression through representative courts

Starting point is 05:40:50 constituted of the equal presbyters of several congregations, through which the Universal Church exercises its governing powers, and each part is subordinated to the whole. This conception of the Constitution of the Church comes into contact with the Prolatic Theory at very many points. There is much that the two have in common, and there is much and much that is fundamental in which they are at variance. Among these differences, the question of the historic episcopate takes by no means the chief place. The insertion of it, however, among the unchangeable marks of the true church, in the somewhat remarkable proposals for home reunion issued by the American bishops in 1886, and repeated by the Lambeth Conference of 1888 gives it temporary importance and forces us to take into careful renewed consideration the relation of the Presbyterian principle to this item of the Prolatic Theory.

Starting point is 05:41:43 So approaching the subject we may outline the Presbyterian position towards the Historic Episcopate in the following propositions. One, the Presbyterian principle is irreconcilably out of harmony with the theory that the historic episcopate is essential to the being of the Church. With the whole conception of what is commonly known as the High Church Theory, the theory according to which Episcopacy is not only a lawful method, but the only lawful method of church organization, and without a distinct order of bishops, a church ceases to be a church, is without ordination,

Starting point is 05:42:16 without a valid ministry, without valid administration of the Lord's Supper, without the covenanted promise of blessing, the Presbyterian conception of the church stands in fundamental opposition. It denies that the continuity and life of the church and the fulfillment of God's covenanted promises have been conditioned upon the perpetuation of any external form of organization, and much more that God has suspended the continuance of saving ordinances in the world upon the unbroken preservation of what has been justly called, quote,

Starting point is 05:42:46 the mere ligature of succession, end quote, that is the scrupulous performance of the right of ordination. According to the Presbyterian principle, as according to the whole body of the precession, Protestant confessions, including the Articles of the Church of England and the earliest fathers, the criterion of the true church is, quote, the word and the sacraments, end quote, or more simply still, quote, the word, end quote, that is, the profession of the true religion. It heartily adopts the definition of Irenaeus that, quote, where the spirit of God is, there is the

Starting point is 05:43:19 church and all grace, end quote, and it asserts with all the emphasis of a profound conviction that it is this church, the, quote, congregation of faithful men, end quote, which the scriptures call the pillar and ground of the truth, to which all the promises are given, in which all powers in here, and upon which all graces creating offices are poured out from on high. If the invitation of the American bishops to the church at large to accept the historic episcopate means to imply that episcopacy as a form of government is of the essence of the church, Presbyterians are bound to look upon it as a schismatic proposition with which they can have no dealings. It is with great pleasure, therefore, that we observe a tendency

Starting point is 05:44:00 among high churchmen of adequate learning and historical sense to abate somewhat the extremity of this position. Quote, no one, says Mr. Charles Gore, in his, in many respects admirable treatise on the church and the ministry, page 344. No one of whatever part of the church can maintain that the existence of what may be called, for lack of a distinctive term, mon episcopacy, is essential to the continuity of the church. Such mon episcopacy may be the best mode, it may most aptly symbolize the divine monarchy, it may have all spiritual expediency and historical precedent on its side,

Starting point is 05:44:39 nay more, it may be of apostolic institution, but nobody could maintain that the continuity of the church would be broken if in any given diocese, all the presbyters were consecrated to the Episcopal office, and governed as a coordinate college of bishops, end quote. We submit that it is then an inconsistency for Mr. Gore to invalidate Presbyterian orders as he does, and that solely on an unscriptural and unprimitive overestimation of the, quote, mere ligature of succession, end quote. 2. The truth of history prevents Presbyterians from allowing that the historic episcopate is an apostolic or primitive institution. Here, no doubt, it is necessary to define somewhat closely,

Starting point is 05:45:20 what we mean by the historic episcopate. Presbyterians also believe in and possess an historic episcopate, the apostolicity and primitiveness of which they are ready to defend, and the members of the same communion with Bishop Lightfoot ought to be the last to deny. But the primitive parochial episcopate, already possessed by Presbyterianism, the apostolic authorisation of which, has been so admirably re-argued by Dr. Lightfoot, is certainly not what is intended by the historic Episcopate, which the American bishops ask the Presbyterians to adopt. But to ask us today to allow that the Episcopate, in any other sense than is illustrated by the Presbyterian pastor, ruling over the local church, as Primus among his equal presbyters,

Starting point is 05:46:03 is, quote, a part of the sacred deposit of Christian faith and order committed by Christ and his apostles to the church, end quote, is to ask us to affirm what the well-nigh universal consensus of competent scholarship pronounces to be against historical verity. No result of biblical exegesis is more certain than that the New Testament knows nothing of an episcopate separate from the Presbytery which governed every organized church. No result of the critical study of primitive Christianity is more sure, or more universally recognized among competent scholars of all schools, than that the Episcopate rose out of the Presbyteriate,

Starting point is 05:46:39 and only gradually acquired powers and extension until it became, in the third century, the superior and diocesan historical episcopate, that we are now asked to adopt as part of, quote, the deposit committed by Christ and his apostles to the church, end quote. What is confessed scarcely needs arguing. Let us observe then that the best scholarship among the prelatists abandons the New Testament field and appeals to the right of long prescription. Thus Dr. Sanday genially writes, quote, Our confessional differences represent not conflicting and irreconcilable conceptions of the original constitution of the church, but only successive stages in the growth of that constitution.

Starting point is 05:47:21 The church passed through a congregational stage, and if we exclude the activity of the apostles as exceptional, it also passed through a Presbyterian stage. If anyone wishes to single out these stages and to model the society to which he belongs upon them, he is zealous for a pure and primitive polity. He clings to the Bible and what he finds in the Bible. He will not allow himself to wander far from that ideal

Starting point is 05:47:44 which he thinks that Christ and his apostles have left him. Can we condemn him for this? Shall we not rather say, Evocimita, or yet need that prevent us from thinking that we have a more excellent way of our own? We do not think it right to limit the promises and they're working to a single generation. The whole Christian world was in a state of movement, which did not cease with the death of the last apostle. The impulse once given to it was too strong to spend its strength so soon. I cannot myself think that 50 years, or even a hundred years more or less, in the date in which an institution became fixed,

Starting point is 05:48:22 makes so vital a difference in its character. The cold eye of science may look at these things and point out the causes that were in operation. Those causes were the fruit of human experience, groping its way toward the means best adapted to its end, the preservation and due transmission of the word. Even science will probably decide that there has been a survival of the fittest, that under the circumstances of those times a better constitution could not easily have been devised.

Starting point is 05:48:49 End quote. 3. Presbyterians cannot allow that the historic episcopate is essential to the well-being of the church, or even that it is the best or the natural form of church government. They hold that the proof that our Lord and his apostles did not institute the church on hierarchical lines is tantamount to the proof that a hierarchical form is not essential to its well-being. They take it for granted that the foresuit that the foresopholesal. form given the church by the apostles is, so far as it goes, the best form for it to take,

Starting point is 05:49:18 and that it is meant to teach us how it should be conducted in the House of God, which is the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, so that if extensions are to be made, they may be most fitly made on the same lines and by the further application of the same principles. They observe that the Church of the First Ages, in seeking due expression of her unity, sought it naturally through representative councils, wherein the numerous pastors of the flocks met to consider their interests, while it was only under the pressure of Roman imperialism and barbarian feudalism, that it was forced into the unnatural prolatic moulds of the later ages.

Starting point is 05:49:54 They believe that the principle of representative and collegiate government, of diffused episcopacy, if you choose the phrase, is embodied in the prescribed polity of the local church, and is the true scriptural principle for its general organization. And they believe this to be, not only the scriptural form, but, as it has been excellently phrased, quote, the natural form and therefore the natural law of the church, the mould and type into which it runs, when all external pressure and all artificial influence are removed. End quote.

Starting point is 05:50:25 They believe it to be God's will that his church should be so constituted. They believe that the church is destined to be so constituted. They believe that her efficiency in the fulfillment of her high mission will be indefinitely increased, when she is so constituted, and they therefore cannot accept the historic episcopate as either desirable or natural. 4. Nevertheless, Presbyterians are not inclined to erect their own conception of the divinely appointed constitution of the church into the criterion of the true church. It is their fundamental principle that where the saving truth of God is, there is the church, and they conceive

Starting point is 05:51:02 themselves to be bound to maintain holy fellowship and communion, quote, which communion as God offereth opportunity is to be extended unto all those who, at every place, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, end quote. They cannot but deprecate, therefore, the apparent erection by their Episcopal brethren of a mere denominational peculiarity into a condition of intercommunion. As such, they cannot accept it. For themselves, they ask nothing as a condition of intercommunion but faith in our common Lord. They seek first the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, and are ready not indeed to yield their witness to what they believe the truth of God in doctrine, practice or government, but to subordinate all else to the presence of the spirit himself.

Starting point is 05:51:46 They have no faith in efforts to seek unity or organization by enforced uniformity. They do not believe it can be attained by, quote, building a great house around a divided family. End quote. In the words of a typical high churchman, they believe that, quote, the instrument of unity is the spirit, the basis of unity is Christ the man, mediator, the center of unity is in the heavens, where the church's exalted head lives in eternal majesty, human yet glorified, end quote. And they believe that the path to visible unity lies in the cordial recognition that all those, under whatever diversity of creed, worship,

Starting point is 05:52:21 organization are one body who cling by a living faith to the one head. If one Presbyterian may be permitted frankly to speak his mind, the present writer thinks that the first practical step toward realizing the grand dream of giving visible unity to the Protestant world must come through a federation rather than an assimilation of denominations. If all denominations that are willing to subscribe the apostles and Nicene creeds together with the doctrinal basis of the evangelical alliance, and this last he holds essential, since there are some of us who will not easily consent to yield

Starting point is 05:52:56 what has been bought in the throes and blood of the Reformation, would appoint delegates according to some equitable basis, mutually agreed upon, who should constitute a court to which should be committed the care of all strictly interdenominational matters, visible unity would be accomplished, and no denominational peculiarity would be interfered with. Is it not, after all, such a true unity as this, rather than mere uniformity that we long for? End of the relation of the Presbyterian principle to the historic episcopate by B.B. Warfield. How Princeton's Seminary Got to Work by Bibi Warfield.

Starting point is 05:53:40 This is a Libravox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibrovox.org. The plan under the provisions of which Princeton Theological Seminary was founded a hundred years ago is a great document. With comprehensive sweep, it draws the outlines of a great institution, and it fills in the details with the firmest of modelling. The seminary has been trying to grow up to it ever since, and has not yet quite accomplished it. At first, of course, it was all on paper. The beginnings of the actual seminary were necessarily very small, and the first steps by which it worked its way upwards towards the

Starting point is 05:54:23 fulfilment of its ambitious plan were slow and tentative. Some of them are even a little puzzling as we look back upon them after the lapse of a century. It is already a very well. It is already puzzling, for example, why the seminary should have opened its doors and begun its work on August 12th of that fateful year of beginning. The plan under which it was established provided that the scholastic year should begin in November and should consist of two sessions, a winter session six months long and a summer session three. Quote, there shall be two vacations in the seminary of six weeks continuance each in every year. The spring vacation shall commence on the Monday, immediately preceding the third Thursday of May, the vacation in the autumn shall

Starting point is 05:55:10 commence on the first Wednesday of October, end quote. The first session of the year was to run then from the middle of November to the middle of May, and the second from the 1st of July to the 1st of October. Why then, the founders of the seminary did not wait quietly until the middle of November to begin, it was not so far off, but actually opened the seminary on August 12th, in the middle of the last session of a normal scholastic year, according to their constitution, is something of a riddle. The effect of this premature opening naturally was very confusing, and this confusion was greatly increased by the habit which was at once formed of receiving new students at the opening

Starting point is 05:55:52 of every session, that is to say, twice a year. The admission of students rested in the hands of the board of directors, and the board, after the first year, acted through a committee which it created May 18, 1813. Among the standing rules adopted on that day are these, quote, 15, the board shall tri-annially choose a committee of three of its members, namely two ministers and an elder, which shall be styled the Committee of Admission. 16, it shall be the duty of the Committee of Admission to receive all applications from students for admission into the seminary, during any session of the board, to examine the testimonials of such applicants, and to lay before the board a faithful

Starting point is 05:56:32 account of everything pertaining to them and bearing on the question of admission which they may judge expedient, end quote. The committee thus appointed did the work assigned to it up to the summer session of 1815 when the matter of admissions was delegated to the faculty. At the opening of the first session, August 12, 1812, the board acted directly in the matter of the admission of students and records in its minutes, quote, the following persons v. William Blaine, John Covert, and Henry Blatchford, Applied to be admitted as students in the seminary, the board, having received the testimonials in their behalf required by the Constitution, agreed to receive them. The following resolution was also passed,

Starting point is 05:57:14 whereas there may be a number of students desire us to participate in the benefits of the theological seminary, who may already have made considerable progress in their theological studies under the care of presbyteries, or whose circumstances may be otherwise peculiar, It was on motion resolved that the consideration of these cases be referred to the committee appointed to assist the professor, end quote. This is the only provision that appears in the minutes of the board, which could even seem to touch on the admission of students in the intervals between the meetings of the board. From the beginning, however, students were admitted in these intervals, and indeed, after the first admissions of August 12, 1812, only in these intervals. For the board met statedly at the close and not at the beginning of the session. and students were admitted normally, of course, only at the beginning of the session.

Starting point is 05:58:04 The work of admitting them was also apparently done by the Committee of Admission and not by the Committee to Assist the Professor. A straggler was admitted on August 22, Leverett I. F. Huntington, and then at the opening of the winter session, November 18th, William A. McDowell, 21st, James H. Palmer. 26th Henry R. Weed and Halsey Wood, 27th Benjamin F. Stanton. During the winter session 1812 to 1813, there were nine students in attendance. Four of these had been admitted at the opening of the summer session, middle of August,

Starting point is 05:58:42 and five at the opening of the winter session, middle of November. Yet they were all in one class and received their instruction together. One of those who had entered in November, to be sure, William A. McDowell. had been admitted in accordance with the resolution of August 12 to advanced standing. He had been graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1809 and had passed a large part of the intervening time in the study of theology. He had been licensed to preach by the Presbytery of New Brunswick and had left the seminary before the end of the session, May 1813.

Starting point is 05:59:18 His presence in the class was scarcely calculated to mitigate the difficulties of welding the two groups of students, of which it was composed into a scholastic unit. This difficulty was materially increased by the introduction into the class in the summer of 1813 of yet a third group of students. For the summer session of 1813 was counted a part of the first year. We read in the board's minutes of May 25th, quite simply, quote, of that part of the first year which is passed, end quote. The five new students who were matriculated, June 28th, July 1st, 5th,

Starting point is 05:59:51 and ninth were simply incorporated into the existing class, the professor merely reporting to the board, minutes of September 30, quote, those who entered the seminary this session have been added to the class previously existing and have pursued the same studies with them, except that in the Hebrew it was necessary to form a new class, end quote. When this first class had completed its first year, therefore, there were some of them who had pursued their studies for three sessions, aggregating 11 months. Some of them for two sessions, aggregating nine months, and some of them for only one session of only three months. They all, however, appear to have had good standing, and they certainly were advanced together to the next class.

Starting point is 06:00:35 It seems, however, that no student was, quote, graduated, end quote, who had not remained three full years in the seminary, and had not completed the full course offered to the students. That was the provision of the plan, and was apparently lived up to in practice. at least all the early graduates belonged to the group of students who had attended the seminary for two sessions in their first year. This confusing jumbling of men of different attainments in one class it will be observed was not, or only partly, due to exigencies attending the putting of the enterprise on its feet. It was inherent in the absurd provision by which students were received into the seminary regularly twice a year at the opening of both winter and summer sessions. not only the first class that entered the seminary, but every class that followed it was, therefore, affected by it. Every first-year class consisted of two groups, one of which received nine and the other only three months of instruction.

Starting point is 06:01:31 This might be interpreted as treating six months of the first-year's residence in the seminary as negligible. We feel little wonder when we find the professors complaining that the students exhibited a tendency to treat the remaining three months as negligible too. Many students they report spent only a small portion of that session at the seminary. That such a scheme could be worked at all is probably due to the very miscellaneous character of the curriculum administered in the first year.

Starting point is 06:01:58 Dr. Alexander taught the students the first year of the seminary's existence, the Hebrew language, patriarchal and mosaical institutions, Jewish antiquities, scriptural chronology and geography, biblical history, connection between sacred and profane history, and between the history of the old and the new the Greek of the Gospels, with a select number of Campbell's critical dissertations,

Starting point is 06:02:21 along with much analytical study of the English Bible. He met his class only once a day, and it is likely that this long list of subjects was so strung out through the succession of weeks that any section or sections of it could be separately studied without prejudice to any whole. The process of simply incorporating newly entering students into the existing class could not go on indefinitely, and it was indeed contemplated from the beginning that a progressive course of study of three years' length should be developed. When the new matriculence of the winter session of 1813 came upon the scene, therefore, 11 in number, the whole attendance at the end of the session was 19,

Starting point is 06:02:58 against the 13 of the preceding summer session, they were formed into a second first-year class. The professors simply report to the board at its spring meeting, May 17, 1814, quote, it was found necessary at the commencement of the present session to form a second class, which was made up of such students as yet had made no progress in theological studies, end quote. The way the matter is phrased in the order of the faculty itself is this, quote, all those who had entered the seminary previously to the commencement of the present session, that is, the winter session of 1813 to 1814, shall be considered as belonging to the first class,

Starting point is 06:03:37 the remainder to the second class, end quote. The first upper class devoted itself to the study of biblical criticism, didactic theology, and ecclesiastical history. The second lower class was employed in the study of the Hebrew and Greek languages, Jewish antiquities, biblical history, and scriptural chronology, quote, and in reading and analyzing the scriptures in regular order, end quote, that is what we should now call the English Bible. At the meeting of the board at the end of this, the second,

Starting point is 06:04:07 year, September 27th, 1814, the faculty for Dr. Miller had been working at Dr. Alexander's side, though not at his full strength, since near the beginning of this year. To be exact, since December 30th, memorialized it as follows. Quote, if any considerable number of students should enter the seminary at the commencement of the next session, that is, of the winter session of 1814 to 1815, it may become necessary to form a third class, consisting of those who have made no progress in the course of study pursued in the seminary, end quote, that is to say the new entrance, with the exception of any who might enter to an advanced standing. Quote, in this case, it will not be practicable for each class to recite every day, without

Starting point is 06:04:49 great disadvantage, both to the professors and pupils. Under these circumstances, the professors take for granted that the board will approve of their making such arrangements with regard to recitations, as may be found in practice most conducive to the benefit of the pupils until the choice of a third professor shall render it practicable to afford to each class a recitation every day, end quote. In response the board resolved that, quote, an increase of the classes in case of an increase of theological students will be indispensable, end quote, but left, quote, the arrangements as regards recitations to the discretion of the professors, end quote.

Starting point is 06:05:27 The third class was therefore duly formed, and we read, quote, the classes are now denominated first, second, and third, end quote, the order of enumeration being from the highest downward. The distribution of the studies between the three classes was as follows. During the winter session, the first, highest class, studied didactic and polemic theology, ecclesiastical history, and church government, the second middle class, scriptural chronology, sacred geography, biblical and ecclesiastical history and didactic The Third, Lowest Class, the Hebrew Language, Scriptural Chronology, Biblical History, and Jewish Antiquities. During the summer session, the first class studied pastoral care and the composition and delivery of sermons,

Starting point is 06:06:11 the second class, didactic theology and ecclesiastical history, and the third class, the English Bible, biblical history, and the original languages of Scripture, with some of Campbell's dissertations. In subsequent years, this general scheme was generally, although not precisely repeated. There were 36 students in attendance during the winter session, 32 of whom held out to the end, and the attendance in the summer session was approximately the same. It will have been observed from the Faculty's Memorial to the Board, which has just been cited,

Starting point is 06:06:43 that each class had been accustomed to have just one class exercise a day, an arrangement which gave to each of the two professors, also just one classroom exercise a day. This was evidently held to be the ideal arrangement. It was feared that it could not be maintained with three classes and only two professors. A third professor had been contemplated from the beginning, and it is not impossible that the professor's memorial was in part intended to hasten this advent. It was not until some years later, 1820, however, that this additional instructor came in the person of young Charles Hodge.

Starting point is 06:07:19 Meanwhile, the two professors on the ground adjusted the work for the enlarged number of classes, so as not to wound their ideal of the proper measure of a professor's labors. They maintain the principle of just one hour a day for each professor, and in order to maintain it, reduce the classroom work of the students to four hours a week apiece, instead of six hours as here to four, assigning each of the three classes to each professor two hours weekly. Here is the schedule of the classroom work for the year 1814 to 1815, and later.

Starting point is 06:07:52 The symbols A and M standing for doctor, doctors, Alexander and Miller, respectively. Monday, 1st class Miller, 2nd class Alexander, Tuesday, 1st class Alexander, 3rd class Miller, Wednesday, 2nd class Miller, 3rd class Alexander,

Starting point is 06:08:10 Thursday, 1st class Alexander, 2nd class Miller, Friday, 1st class Miller, 3rd class Alexander, Saturday, 2nd class Alexander, 3rd class Miller. We receive a very strong impression that the students of the opening years of the seminary

Starting point is 06:08:26 were in no great danger of being overworked. There were distractions, to be sure, which interfered with their labours. When an epidemic of sickness broke out in the college, one of the seminary students gave himself with such assiduity to nursing the sick that Dr. Alexander expressed doubt whether he really remained a student in the seminary. It was wartime and students were called off by the authorities to receive military training and stood in danger of being summoned to actual service. The faculty complains of this in 1814 and joyfully

Starting point is 06:08:56 reports in 1815 that the legislature had passed an exemption act. It proved difficult to keep the students through their final year. Presbyteries had an irritating way of licensing them to preach in the latter part of the winter session, and off they went to charges and left the latter part of their final year unaccomplished. The faculty report to the board, May 15, 1815, quote, within a few weeks, eight of the pupils of the seminary have been licensed to preach the gospel by the presbyteries, to which they respectively belong. How many of them will continue in the seminary until they shall have finished the prescribed course

Starting point is 06:09:32 is yet uncertain, end quote. Next year they had nine to report, and they enter a strongly worded protest against the Presbytery's doings and beg that the evil be abated, in response to which the board merely says nothing can be done. We do not know whether we may properly speak of those

Starting point is 06:09:51 who thus left the seminary prematurely as failing to be graduated, there does not seem to be anything in the minutes of either the Board of Directors or the faculty about graduation. We read only such language as this, in the Faculty's report to the Board at its meeting of September 26, 1815, quote, a part of that class, that is of the first class, having passed through the whole course of study, and having remained through the whole length of time prescribed for such a course in the Constitution, will be ready to undergo their final examination at the present meeting of the Board, end quote. We hear of the students being examined, as we hear of the other students being examined,

Starting point is 06:10:29 and we hear of their examination being approved, as we hear of the examinations of other students being approved. We hear of the boards dismissing the students for their six weeks vacation as usual. This was always a somewhat formal function. Thus, we read in the minutes of the board for September 29, 1813, at the close of the first academic year, quote, the students of the seminary appeared after an address and prayer by the president of the board were dismissed and required to return in six weeks from this time. We hear, however, of nothing more than this at the close of the third academic year.

Starting point is 06:11:06 If there were any graduating exercises, they have not been recorded. Surely something took place which amounted to a graduation. The students who had accomplished the prescribed work of three-year study must have received in some way or other the certificate of approbation which the plan expressly requires should be given to them, and which, indeed, the board reports to the General Assembly had been given to them, minutes of the board, May 1816, and again of May 1817, minutes of the General Assembly from 1818 on.

Starting point is 06:11:36 But there does not seem to be any record of their being given. Perhaps they were put under the plates at breakfast time on graduation morning, or Dr. Alexander handed his informally to each student when he called to say goodbye, or Dr. Miller since he was the clerk of the faculty. There is no record whatever of a formal graduation scene. The curtain drops silently down as the first class, which completed its full course of study in the seminary. There were four members of it, made its exit. There is an odd phrase in the faculty's report to the board of their granting certificates

Starting point is 06:12:08 to the first graduates, which may or may not be significant. Quote, and through the year, it says, through the year the following students having finished the course prescribed in the plan have received certificates from the professors of their having finished the regular course viz john covert junior henry r weed halsey wood and leverett i f huntington end quote Does the phrase through the year mean that these certificates were not all given at one time? One would scarcely think so as these men all completed their time at the end of the summer session of 1815. Yet we know so little of the minor facts. One thing we do know, however, from this and other notices, the conferring of these certificates was a matter that belonged to the professors.

Starting point is 06:12:52 The board did not meddle with it, except to serve as the medium for communicating the fact to the assembly. The examinations were held, however, by the board. There has been a precise reversal of this in later years. There is one item in the faculty's report to the board in the spring of 1816, which we must mention on pain of leaving our account of how the seminary got to work fatally incomplete. It is given in the following words, quote, since the last meeting of the board, that is, the meeting of September 1815,

Starting point is 06:13:23 the professors, besides the Sabbath evening lectures, which they have for a considerable time maintained for the benefit of the pupils have thought at their duty to employ a part of each Sabbath afternoon in serious conference with the students on subjects relating more immediately to experimental religion, end quote.

Starting point is 06:13:42 There is recorded here the origin of the famous Princeton conferences, which for a hundred years maintained their place as the centre of the religious life of the seminary. There was from the beginning a preaching exercise on Sabbath forenoon in the college hall,

Starting point is 06:13:56 which the students of both institutions attended, the preachers being drawn in rotation from the faculties of both. This joint preaching service was maintained until 1826 when the seminary set up a separate Sabbath morning service of its own, at first in the oratory of the seminary building, and after a chapel had been acquired, 1834, in it. The Sabbath evening lectures spoken of in the faculty report were those remarkable sermons inaugurated by Dr. Alexander, as it seems during the first year of the seminary's life, which set the whole town on fire with religious enthusiasm. They were delivered first in Dr. Alexander's own house to the students of the seminary and a few

Starting point is 06:14:36 invited guests, as many as could find place in the restricted space. They were then removed to a room fitted for the purpose of the college building and thrown open to the public, whereupon they were driven by the crowds pressing into the refractory, the largest room in the college. After a few years they were given up, and so far as the seminary was concerned, absorbed into the conferences. These conferences were instituted, it will be seen in the fourth year of the seminary's life, not in time to benefit the first class which it sent out. They kept the fire burning on the altar for a hundred years. The same zeal was not shown, we are sorry to report,

Starting point is 06:15:13 in the matter of daily prayers. The plan prescribed prayers morning and evening, both to be conducted by a professor. Prayers were at once instituted, morning and evening, both conducted by a student. shortly afterwards the professors undertook the conduct of evening prayers in rotation while morning prayers were committed to the care of the students and so it remained for a hundred years recently evening prayers have been abolished and the professors conduct in rotation morning prayers in so simple a matter the professors have never found it convenient just to obey the plan

Starting point is 06:15:45 quote what is the constitution among friends end quote the seminary was obviously still in its infancy when its first class left it We cannot say, left its walls for the seminary as yet had no walls. It was still doing its work in the classrooms of the college, in accordance with the engagement by which it was induced to come to Princeton. Its faculty, even as at first projected, was still incomplete. Its proposed curriculum was still only taught in fragments. Its students were growing in number. They were now running in the 30s, and let us hope also in diligence, though they were still unhappily attending the instructions of the seminary with a certain desultriness, but its machinery had been set in motion

Starting point is 06:16:27 and was now running smoothly with a directing energy throbbing through it, which promised everything for the future. It had as yet done no more than get to work, but it had got to work. End of How Princeton Seminary Got to Work, by B.B. Warfield Christian Evidences How Affected by Recent Criticisms by B.B. Warfield This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. In any age of intellectual activity and rapid growth of knowledge like our own, a continuous process of adjustment is necessary between our mental inheritance and our constantly increasing acquisition. Except to such excessively hospitable minds as can, without discomfort, entertain together contradictory propositions, advancing knowledge, involving this continuous adjustment, unavoidably brings a perpetual criticism of the whole body of knowledge already held, both in its statement and in its ground. An age of investigation is, therefore, also an age of criticism. The total body of old knowledge is

Starting point is 06:17:44 tested and tried afresh when confronted with each new discovery, and we cannot avoid the questions, what effect has this new fact on the old facts? What place can it find among them? Which of there must give place for it. But we must not fail to remember what is sometimes forgotten, that the criticism is reciprocal, and that we must equally ask on each occasion what effect has the body of established facts on this so-called new fact. What place can they find for themselves in union with it? What in it must give way before their pressure? We must, moreover, have our eyes wide enough open to distinguish between the turmoil of the process, the fermentation of the limpid, liquid mass of knowledge, when the new element is

Starting point is 06:18:25 cast into it and the final product. We must not mistake the battle for the victory. We must rather possess our souls in sufficient patience to notice the condition of the field after the conflict, to observe what has been eliminated and cast out in the strife of the elements, whether some part or all of the old or some part or all of the new, or neither the one nor the other. Thus we shall be able to distinguish between the queries what has been criticized and what has been affected by the criticism. Nowhere is it more necessary to make this distinction than when we are inquiring concerning recent criticism of the Christian evidences. If we mean to ask what in them has been subjected to searching criticism by recent thinkers, we may shortly answer everything.

Starting point is 06:19:10 Nothing has been allowed to escape. The validity of all the proofs of the existence of God is questioned. The very capacity of man's mind, not only to attain to the idea of God, but to receive it when presented to it, is denied. historical criticism has been as busy and as radical as philosophical and scientific. Not only are we told, for example, that miracle is impossible and that no evidence would suffice to prove it, but we are also told that there is no evidence worth the name, which can be presented for the Christian miracles, that, as respects historicity, they stand on a similar level with those of the medieval saints, if not with those of Mr. Anse's, a fallen idol.

Starting point is 06:19:50 No single book of either Old or New Testament has been left unassailed. Even such a liberal as Professor Robertson Smith has felt called upon to rebuke the wildness of some of the recent Graphian critics. While as regards the New Testament, grave scholars are telling us that even those books which Bauer left us are all late compositions, the word is literally used, made up of fragments of ancient Jewish writings ignorantly pieced together. If we are of such sensitive disposition, that we dare not assert or believe to be true what some acute or learned critic affirms

Starting point is 06:20:25 to be impossible, we may as well strip off at once all our Christian garments. There are no Christian evidences. Nay, we must in such case strip off still more, and wrapping our heads in our discarded raiment, plunge in complete intellectual nakedness into the gulf of Nisians. There is nothing that has not been criticised. But if what we ask is how the presentation of the Christian Evidences has been affected by recent criticism, we have another story to tell. The Christian Evidences are an essentially persuasive science. They undertake to prove something and to prove it to somebody. They are, therefore, especially sensitive to changes in current thinking. Not only does every attack call out its appropriate defence, but every new point of

Starting point is 06:21:11 view must map out for itself the whole prospect of the world of fact as seen from its vantage ground. Hence every type of thought which takes hold upon men's minds, sooner or later, creates an apologetic for itself, suited to its needs and calculated for its meridian, by which its adherents feel their way to God and to Christ. So ineradicable is belief in divine things, so inseparable a part of human nature is it, that no sooner has a philosopher removed to its own satisfaction all rational foundations of faith, then forthwith faith begins to arise again out of the ruins and to frame for itself a new basis for belief.

Starting point is 06:21:50 Accordingly, we already see building stone by stone before our eyes a series of entirely new systematic natural theologies based on the teachings of our current philosophies. Take such a book, for instance, as Faith and Conduct, recently published anonymously. Here, a new apologetic lays its foundations in philosophical skepticism and then builds a temple out of the material furnished by a thoroughgoing evolutionism, into which it invites all Christian men to come and worship their God and Savior. More constructive work of this kind, valuable as showing us how much can go and yet Christianity not go, may be expected from the adherence of the newer trends of thought every year. From the other side, the mode of presentation of the

Starting point is 06:22:35 evidences by the opponents of each new hypothesis is deeply affected by its nature and its claims, and in this way every criticism creates against itself, so far, a new order of apologetic. The richness of the new apologetic, which has thus been beaten out by the controversies of the last half-century, is almost incredible. The scientific attack on the supernatural, based on the idea of invariable law, for example, has quickened in the apologete, the sense of order and plan and relation, until a new conviction of divine power and presence has grown up, which bids fair permanently to banish daistic conceptions from the minds of men. So the efforts of the naturalistic school of historical criticism to bring into doubt the genuineness and unity of the books of the Bible,

Starting point is 06:23:24 with a view to rearranging their material in an order for which a plausible plea for natural development might be put in, has not only called forth a mass of direct evidence for the authenticity of the books, such as was undreamed of before, but has also given birth to a whole library of more indirect argumentation of a nature and amount sufficient almost to revolutionise the science of the evidences. For example, the attack of the Tubing School on the New Testament has developed a direct historical apologetic, which has well-nigh made a separate science of the history of the second century,

Starting point is 06:23:57 and at the same time has called out a body of reasoning, based on Paul's four chief epistles, which has almost itself grown to the stature of a complete and satisfying sense. system of Christian evidences. The effort to reconstruct the Old Testament history in the same naturalistic interest bids fair to perform a similar service for it. In particular, reply to modern criticism has developed a system of evidences built around and resting upon the unique personality of Jesus, which almost constitutes a new science. It was in answer to Strauss that the argument, best known through Probendary Rose Jesus of the Evangelists, based upon the literary portrait-chart

Starting point is 06:24:37 of the perfect Godman presented in the evangelists was first given vogue among us, and since then it has been successfully adapted, not only to the proof that the evangelical records are true records of a truly supernatural life, which was truly lived in the world, but also to the proof that the writers of these records were divinely aided in their record of such a life,

Starting point is 06:24:56 and not only they, but all those who in the books of the old and new testaments are like testify of him. And thence again to the proof of the divine origin and divine truth of the whole Christian record and sister, It is in opposition to the reconstruction of the Old Testament by the presently prevailing school of negative criticism that appeal is being ever made sharper and sharper to the authority of the Godman when testifying to the origin and meaning of the scriptures which he himself revealed and inspired.

Starting point is 06:25:25 If it be a fact that he lived and taught as Godman and being thus the very word from heaven made assertions as to matters of fact, then there is an end of all dispute as to the reality of the facts asserted by such lips. He asserted, for instance, the reality of miracle. His very life in the world was an assertion of the intrusion of the supernatural into this world of sense. He asserted the supreme evidential authority of miracles, representing them, as in such a degree faith compelling as to detract somewhat from the value of faith as evidence of a right heart. He asserted the divine authority of the scriptures, declaring that no word of them should ever be broken.

Starting point is 06:26:02 He asserted the mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, affirming that Moses spake its laws and wrote its prophecies of him. Men may and men do deny these facts, but when they deny them, they deny them in the face of the assertions of the Godman, and they can save themselves from blasphemy only by taking refuge in a purely humanitarian, or in an extreme conotic theory of the person of Christ, such as reduces his life in the world to the limits of a simple human life, but which is already abundantly refuted in advance by the facts on which the argument from the portraiture of the godman in the Gospels is built. It is just because, this being is obviously represented as living and acting not as a mere man, it is just because

Starting point is 06:26:43 he is obviously consistently represented to us as God manifested in the flesh, that we must believe that he really lived and taught in order to account for the record, and this argument, once developed for this literary purpose, is equally valid to compel us to bow before all his utterances. Thus, about the central figure of Jesus, an entirely new apologetic is organizing itself, which in its own strength is able to hold the field. It is, of course, not to be understood that the sole way in which the presentation of the Christian evidences has been affected by recent criticism has been in the way of addition to them of new lines of thought. Apologies too are but men, and many unsound arguments have been put

Starting point is 06:27:24 forward in defense of truth, which the keen criticism of our critical age has exposed. Professor Huxley tells us that, quote, extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules, end quote. It is easy to retort that they keep company there with an interesting body of scientific lights. But it is wiser to confess the fact and profit by the lesson. Apologetics is wiser than apologies, even as calm-eyed science is wiser than any of her votaries. Many a crude argument has been put forth in her name which she has learned to repudiate. Many an absurd position she has found it for her best interests to desert.

Starting point is 06:28:04 but it is no more desirable to exaggerate this side than the other. Recent criticism has correctingly affected the details and modes of presentation of the old evidences, but it would be beyond the truth to say that it has at all invalidated their essence. Every one of the old lines of proof of the truth of the Christian religion stands today with its validity and cogency unimpaired. The new scientific conception of the world, for example, has not at all either diminished the evidential value of miracles or rendered their occurrence incredible.

Starting point is 06:28:34 They were always marvels, and they owed their evidential value to their marvellessness. But with respect to their relation to physical law, there is not one whit more of difficulty connected with conceiving the intrusion of a divine will into the chain of physical causation than there is in allowing our daily intrusion into it of a human will. We must still within us the ineradicable witness of our consciousness to the spontaneity of our activity and wipe out from the world around us all the manifestations of our directing energy, before we dare deny the possibility of miracle, which differs from our own activity, chiefly in the stupendousness of the effect,

Starting point is 06:29:11 witnessing to the almightiness of the source. The only difficulty of believing in their reality arises from the difficulty of believing that such a power can really exist in the universe, and this difficulty they were intended to raise that they might direct our eyes above the universe for their source. Historical criticism has, in like manner, completely failed to interpret it. invalidate, in the least degree, the old argument from prophecy, although it may be freely admitted that it has set aside many old arguments from prophecies. All the resources of a numerous

Starting point is 06:29:43 body of nobly gifted and splendidly equipped critics have been exhausted in a vain endeavor so to arrange the dates of origin of the biblical books as to eliminate the proofs of prediction from their pages. With a truly herod-like indifference, they have murdered a host of innocent facts which stood in the way of their purposes, and yet the reconstruction still always fails. After all, the Old Testament books were written before Christ, and these are they which testify of him. Through them all, one increasing purpose runs which proclaims them a preparation for something to come, and this something actually does come in the New Testament, and is found to be the centre to which hundreds of typical and prophetic fingers which cannot be obliterated

Starting point is 06:30:22 until we blot out the whole Old Testament record convergingly point. The success of negative criticism in the closely allied attempt to discredit the authenticity and genuineness and consequent historical credibility of the biblical books has been no greater. Every new unearthing of lost documents but drives a new nail into the coffin of unbelief. The discovery of Hippolytus's refutation of all heresies in 1842, of the complete Greek copy of the Clementine homilies in 1853, of the full text of Barnabas in 1859, of the complete text of the letters of Clement of Rome in 1875, of the diatoceron of Tatian in 1876 and 1887, each marks the final settlement of a distinct issue with skepticism in a victory for the old line of the Christian evidences.

Starting point is 06:31:13 Critical investigation has had a similar history, the import of the Basilidean quotations in Hippolytus, the relation of Marcian's gospel to Luke, the source of the evangelical quotations in Justin, the meaning of, of the Logia in Papius, these are but samples of the heated controversies which have, one after the other, issued in decisive victories for the old line of the Christian evidences. The discoveries of archaeology have walked in the same path with those of literary research. Every new illustration from the monuments of either the Old or the New Testament has strengthened the old apologetic. A mere list of the statements of either Testament, which have been paraded as

Starting point is 06:31:52 inaccuracies, but which archaeology has proved to be rather subtle indications of supreme accuracy, would constitute a telling sermon in defence of scripture. These examples must, however, suffice. It must be already apparent that recent criticism has not so affected the old line of Christian evidence as to set them aside or evacuate them of their force. It has rather, by detecting and uncovering their points of weakness, led to the filling up of their gaps, and thus to a large increase in their strength. The single remark that is left to ask has already received its reply in the last remark. What has been then the effect of recent criticisms on the validity and force of the Christian evidences? Is there, on the whole, less cogent reason now available for accepting Christianity

Starting point is 06:32:35 on rational grounds than has seemed to be within reach here to four? A thousand times no. Criticism has proved the best friend to apologetics a science ever had. It is as if it had walked with her around her battlements, and lending her its keen eyes, pointed out an insufficiently guarded place here and an unbuttrous approach there, and then, taking playfully the part of aggressor, made faint after faint towards capturing the citadel, and thus both persuaded and enabled, and even compelled her to develop her resources, throw up new defences, abandon all indefensible positions, and refurbish her weapons, until she now stands, armed, caper p, impregnable to every enemy. The case is briefly this, recent criticism has had a very deep effect upon the Christian evidences in modernizing them,

Starting point is 06:33:22 and so developing and perfecting them, that they should stand now easily victor against all modern assaults. End of Christian Evidences How Affected by Recent Criticisms by B.B. Warfield. Recent American Literature on the New Testament From The Expositor, third series, Volume 2 by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevaalx recording. recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librovocs.org. The most recent general work on the topics of New Testament introduction that

Starting point is 06:34:03 has appeared in America is Mr. Horton's translation of the veteran Oise's history of the sacred scriptures of the New Testament, an appreciative estimate of which was given to the readers of the expositor by Dr. Marcus Dodds in the number for February. Parts of this broad field have been worked also in separate treatises. Dr. Schaff, for instance, has given us an admirable brief treatise on textual criticism, which he has, unfortunately, in our opinion, bound up with an account of the authorized and revised English versions. His purpose was to supply what may be called primary instruction in this imperfect science.

Starting point is 06:34:41 The result, however, is probably the most accurate and careful, as well as the most concise account of the matter of criticism in English, and may be recommended to students, as more trustworthy than even Dr. Scrivener's comprehensive and valuable plain introduction, and far in advance of anything else in the language. One of its useful features is a list of the printed editions of the Greek New Testament based on Royce's Bibliotheica Nouvei Testamenti Greiki, with corrections and additions, enough additions to bring up the total to 923 items. This is the most complete bibliography in existence.

Starting point is 06:35:20 It is the contribution of Professor Isaac H. Hall, who has printed as another fruit of his bibliographical studies, a separate work on American Greek Testaments. The first American Greek Testament was a duodecimal of 478 pages, printed by Isaiah Thomas, at Worcester, Massachusetts in 1800. Its title page declared that it was, though with no more truth than is usual in such cases. Someone of Bauer's many issues appears to have furnished the basis of the text, but it bears the mark of an independent editorial hand and exactly follows no known edition. From 1880 to 1883, Professor Hall catalogs no less than 259 American issues of the whole or a part of the Greek Testament, which he believes to be within 30 or 40 of the actual number.

Starting point is 06:36:21 Some 28 of these, though bearing an American imprint, were actually printed abroad. Besides them, a vast number of foreign copies have been imported. Quote, the American consumption of the home and foreign product can scarcely fall short of half a million copies, and even that number, enormous as it is, all things considered. In its ratio to the supply of other countries, may be an underestimate, end quote, page 74. Perhaps the total world issue of the Greek Testament has been in the neighbourhood of a million and a half, scarcely two million copies, and of these America has absorbed no less than from a quarter to a third. It will not be possible to catalogue here the numerous contributions which Professor Hall is continually making to our knowledge of the Syriac versions and which are generally buried in our periodicals. His most important discovery has been a manuscript containing a pre-Harklusion version of the Gospels,

Starting point is 06:37:19 perhaps the unaltered Philozenian itself. A full account of this Codex, which he calls the Beirut Codex, was given in the Journal of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis for 1882. And now he has issued three beautiful phototyped pages of the manuscript with descriptive letterpress. The most recent American treatise on hominutics is Professor Milton S. Terry's comprehensive work, too comprehensive in that it owes its inconvenient bulk to not strictly confining itself to its proper subject. More recent, and therefore more demanding notice from us, is an interesting paper by Professor George T. Ladd, and over review to pages 18 to 34, July 1884, on the interpretation of the Bible and the doctrine of sacred scroll.

Starting point is 06:38:07 scripture, the purpose of which is to show that the two are mutually dependent. Suggestive as the paper is, in our judgment, it applies its idea too rigidly. So far as the contention is, either that we cannot interpret the Bible without gradually arriving at a doctrine, that is a grounded opinion concerning it, or that no well-grounded doctrine of sacred scripture can be obtained, apart from an exegetical study of its claims and phenomena, it is well-nigh-self-sufficient. Must, however, our doctrine of scripture always sway our interpretation, especially need it sway us in every process of interpretation, for Dr. Ladd asserts even this. We cannot see that text criticism, for instance, in spite of Dr. Ladd's

Starting point is 06:38:50 remarks upon it, need at all depend upon our opinion of what scripture is. We do not need to know the nature of the Bible, nor anything beyond its mechanical side of its origin, in order to reconstruct the text and the knowledge that we need have of the habits and train of thought and style of the writers is wholly apart from anything that may be justly described as a doctrine of sacred scripture. We owe Dr. Ladd much, however, for his fine characterization of the business of the interpreter. Quote, the final purpose of the art of hominutics is the communion of souls, end quote. So large an amount of valuable critical material is found in Professor Fisher's latest volume, that although its purpose is apologetical, it merits mention here.

Starting point is 06:39:35 An interesting, though not satisfying chapter is given to the canon of the New Testament, and the character of Jesus and the origin and trustworthiness of the evangelical narrative and about Gospels are discussed very ingeniously and satisfactorily. It is convincingly shown that the supernatural claims, the sinlessness and the miracle working of Jesus can be established apart from any question of gospel criticism, and then the faithfulness of the gospel records themselves is vindicated, an important chapter being devoted to the apostolic authorship of the Fourth Gospel. The value for practical use of Professor Toy's painstaking work on the New Testament quotations

Starting point is 06:40:15 is greatly lessened by the vigour and rigor with which he has applied in its preparation some very vigorous and rigorous personal theories. It is designed not as a treatise on the hominutical principles of the New Testament writers or their attitude towards the Old Testament, but simply as a collection of the passages drawn by the, them from the Old Testament, with such discussion as will elucidate only the manner and the justice of their quotation. In the former matter, Professor Toye starts with the presupposition that, quote, the quotations in the New Testament from the Old Testament are never made immediately

Starting point is 06:40:50 from the Hebrew, but always from the Greek or Aramaic version, end quote, page nine, and applies it throughout, though not without visible effort at times, and this, although it forces him to assume the existence of an oral targum, not only somewhat earlier than there is any historical trace of one, or probably there was any need of one, but of a sort wholly unlike or rather opposite to all known targums. The latter matter depends on the exegesis of the passages involved, both in their old and new settings, and Professor Toys' exegesis, on the New Testament side at least, is somewhat mechanical, external and inadequate, while on the Old Testament side it is deeply affected, first by his reconstruction of Israel's history and the evolution of its literature in accordance with the findings of the school of Royce, and secondly by his definite persuasion that, quote, there is no room in the Old Testament thought for a double sense, end quote, page 26, by which he apparently intends to exclude all typology as well as allegory.

Starting point is 06:41:53 A book constructed in such a manner, however painstaking and however full of just and suggestive remarks. Professor Toy's book is both cannot but be in many parts useless to all who do not share in all its primal presumptions. When we add that the arrangement is not very convenient to the eye and that the original texts

Starting point is 06:42:13 are not in every case given, it will be seen why we do not expect this work to supersede the other current collections of Old Testament quotations in the new. In exegesis proper, the American press has not been very prolific recently, a revision

Starting point is 06:42:29 of the Edinburgh translation of Meyer's commentary on the New Testament has been in progress since the beginning of 1884, and the four Gospels and Paul's epistles, from Romans to Ephesians, have already appeared. Each volume has been put into the hands of a competent scholar who has revised the rendering, prefixed prefixes, and added here and there a note. The work has been well done. A somewhat different undertaking has given us a new edition of Adam Clark's commentary on the New Testament, quote, condensed and supplemented from the best modern authorities, end quote. The result is a sort of semi-catina. Dr. Samuel T. Lowry has the pre-eminence of having produced the single, important, original

Starting point is 06:43:11 commentary of the year, a work of high value, quite in the spirit and manner of von Hoffmann. In reading it, one feels all the subtlety and finesse that he has been accustomed to think the peculiar property of the German author, all of whose, whose acuteness and originality and strength seem to have passed over to his old pupil across the seas, those who dislike von Hovman are not likely to admire this explanation of Hebrews, but students of the epistle cannot afford to neglect it any more than New Testament students in general can afford to forget von Hofmann himself. They may find much to disagree with in it, provokingly much, but they will find much more that is admirably conceived and strongly said,

Starting point is 06:43:56 and everywhere they will enjoy and learn and feel the hand of a master. The periodical press furnishes us with two important papers on the epistle to the Romans. One is by the late Dr. Isra Abbott on recent discussions of Romans 9 verse 5, Journal of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis for 1883, published in 1884, pages 90 to 100, and 12, supplementing his paper on the same subject in the journal for 1881, and criticizing somewhat severely Dr. Gifford's pamphlet, a letter to Reverend Benjamin Hall Kennedy, D.D., in reply to criticisms on the interpretation of Romans 9 verse 5 in the speaker's commentary. The other is an attempt to trace the train of thought in Romans 9 to 11 by Professor E. P. Gould,

Starting point is 06:44:46 same journal, pages 22 to 41. The difficult verse 2 Peter 1, verse 20, receives a full and very interesting treatment from Mr. Owen Street, Biblioteica Sakara, January 1885, pages 168 to 173, the hinge of which is the close paralleling of its epilucin with the lucin of John 10, verse 35. The one declares the scripture cannot be broken, the other says it is a first truth that it is not to be loosed, end quote. are on the confines of biblical theology in Mr. John Green's spirited paper on life and death in the New Testament. Baptist Quarterly Review, October 1884, 624, pages 411 to 431, the first part of which moves in the purely exegetical sphere. He arranges the word Psyche, Pnefma, Vos, Anastrofe, zoe. In this order, the gradation being partly from inner to outward, partly from lower to higher.

Starting point is 06:45:52 Psyche is the vital principle or the bundle of experiences belonging to man as a conscious being. Vios is the sum of the activities resulting from the Psyche life as made up of phenomena. Anastrofe introduces the moral aspect and relations, while Zouet is the life that is life indeed. The law of rank is so far observed that the lower do not intrude into the sphere of the higher. though Zoe, sometimes, not frequently, invades the province of the lower words. Death has but one term to express it, a negative term, the exact sense of which, in each case, is determined by the sense of life, to which it is explicitly or implicitly opposed.

Starting point is 06:46:38 Finally, there are a few papers on points of New Testament grammar which are worth calling attention to. Dr. Henry A. Batty, the Methodist Review March 1885, pages 215 to 233, discusses the Greek article in admirable style, arriving at the sound principle that its function is to particularize while its absence leaves the qualitative idea of the word prominent. He illustrates chiefly from Nomos and Onomos, taking his stand in his treatment of the distinction by the side of Dr's Lightfoot, Vaughan, Goodwin, etc. The same writer has a paper in an earlier number of the same review, April 1884, pages 337 to 348, attempting to prove the presence of the nomic heiress in the New Testament,

Starting point is 06:47:25 and successfully, as we think, although we cannot admit all of the examples that he adduces. Professor F. B. Dino attempts to reduce to rule, Bibliotheca Sacra, April 1884, pages 384 to 389, the translation into English of the Greek heiress as follows. 1. When the fact of occurrence is prominent and there is no adverbial limitation of time, use the preterate, for example Luke 19 verse 21. 2. Where mere occurrence is indicated, although there are adverbial limitations or contextual indications of time, use the preterate. For example, John 17 verse 1.

Starting point is 06:48:06 3. When the contextual reference is to present time and no adverbial limitation, dates the action specifically, usually use the perfect, for example Acts 12 verse 11. More unsuccessfully in our judgment, Professor William G. Ballantine, Bibliotheca Sacra, October 1884, pages 787 to 799, investigates the usage of the hearist predicateive participle in the New Testament. He is evidently, however, on the right track, and grammarians will do well to consult his paper. End of Recent American Literature on the New Testament From the Expoitre third series, volume 2 by Bibi Warfield

Starting point is 06:48:47 Review of What is Religion by Bibi Warfield This is a Librevox recording All Librevox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Librevox.org What is Religion by Wilhelm Busset Professor in the University of Göttingen, author of Life of Jesus

Starting point is 06:49:13 Translated by F. B. Lowe New York and London G. Puttnam's Sons, 1907 London, London, Williams and Norgate, Crown, Octavo, pages 16 to 304. Professor Busset tells us that, quote,

Starting point is 06:49:30 the object of this little book is to help us to understand the meaning of the phenomenon which we call religion, end quote, page six. It is the phenomenon which he undertakes to expound, that is to say he deals directly with the phenomenology rather than with the philosophy or the psychology of religion. In other words, his method is historical.

Starting point is 06:49:49 He traces what he conceives to be the history of the development of religions from their beginning in the first vague manifestations of the religious aspirations of man to their culmination. We do not say in Christianity, but in the liberal Christianity of the 20th century, and through this medium of history, he seeks to convey to the reader a conception of what religion is. Professor Busset's book is therefore historical in form, but it is not primarily historical in purpose, as there are some novels which are written for the novels sake and some which are written for a purpose, so there are some histories which are written for the history's sake and some histories which are written for a purpose,

Starting point is 06:50:27 and Professor Busset's history of religions is of the latter class. He does not trace the varied forms of religion which have been prevalent among men, merely that he may make these forms known to us, nor even that through them and their sequence he may make the development of religion known to us, nor even that through this development he may make what religion as religion is known to us. His real purpose, dominating his whole undertaking is that he may make Christianity, naturally as he conceives Christianity known to us. The book therefore very properly culminates in two long chapters on the nature and the future of Christianity,

Starting point is 06:51:03 for which, in point of fact, the whole of the preceding chapters have been written, and to which they lead up. In a word, Professor Busset's little book is a study in the nature and prospects of Christianity from the point of view, not so much of comparative religion or of the history of the religions, as of the so-called comparative religion

Starting point is 06:51:20 or history of religion, religion's-gishishishchechnieger school. It is, in other words, an attempt to explain Christianity in its entirety as a religion among religions, the product, like other religions, of the religious nature of man. Professor Busset is quite frank and quite emphatic in the expression of his point of view upon the main matter at issue, whether to wit Christianity is just a religion among religions, the product like all other religions, of the religious nature of man. Nor does he wait for his exposition of the course of religious development to suggest this or to establish it.

Starting point is 06:51:54 He announces it already in his introduction, practically as a postulate, and sets out on his exposition of the course of religious development, therefore, with his goal, well in view. The distinction, so often drawn between revealed and natural religion, as if forsooth, quote, the religion of the Old and New Testaments is revealed religion, and all others are natural religions, the product of man's thought or imagination, end quote, is, in his opinion, thought untenable, quote, impossible, end quote, is his word, page eight, and indeed, quote, irreligious and godless, end quote, page seven. For not only is it not accordant with the principle of historical evolution, but it implies a, quote, narrow-minded and melancholy view of the history of humanity, end quote. This mode of speech is determined by the shock which it gives Professor Bussit that anyone should suppose God to have allowed the nations to go their own way without guidance from him,

Starting point is 06:52:49 the implication being that all religion is the product in a sense of revelation. Elsewhere, his thought swings around the opposite focus of the ellipse. The thinking of men imbued with modern culture, he tells us, quote, rests upon the determination to try to explain everything. that takes place in the world by natural causes, or to express it in another form, it rests upon the determined assertion of universal laws, to which all phenomena, natural and spiritual, are subject, end quote, page 283. Quote, historical science, accordingly, puts before itself the object of explaining all intellectual events by reference to a universal law, end quote, page 288.

Starting point is 06:53:26 There is no doubt always, quote, the riddle of personality and individuality, end quote, which enters everywhere into the fabric of history, but this is not the same thing as, or in any way analogous to, the intrusion of a supernatural factor, the, quote, halo of the supernatural, end quote, which has in the past clung around sacred history, quote, has been disrupted, end quote. We can now believe only in an evolution of religion, shaping itself in accordance with, quote, the universal evolution of civilization, end quote, and it is in consequence no longer possible to, quote, believe in a divine revelation in the old acceptance of the term, which restricted revelation to one special province, end quote, page 289. Thus we see the curve of the ellipse turned back on

Starting point is 06:54:10 itself. When we speak of the natural course of events and of the direction of divine revelation, we are speaking of one and the same thing, and the upshot of it is that Christianity is no more revealed than any other religion, and is just as much a product of human thought and imagination as any other religion. It takes its place among other religions as just one of them. The purest form, the highest and most perfect, religion has yet reached. But certainly not the only true religion, but simply the most complete species of the genus, end quote.

Starting point is 06:54:41 Page 9. It is to exhibit this of Christianity that Professor Busset has written his book. As was natural, he takes his start from the beginning. Religion being natural to man, there never was a time when men did not have religion, or if we, from the evolutionary standpoint, must say that, quote, there must have been some point of time when religion had its beginning, end quote, that point of time must be placed so early that, quote, wherever human life advanced a stage, religion was evolved, end quote, page two.

Starting point is 06:55:11 Its first beginnings were no doubt of a low character, corresponding to the low intellectual and social development of its creators. Professor Busset puts animism at the basis of all religious development. and then traces the gradual evolution of religious conceptions and practices from it, in stages running Paripasur from the development of social organization, up through tribal and natural to universal religions. Professor Bousert is a scholar of wide reading and an expositor of decided gifts, and much that he tells us that these several phases of religious construction

Starting point is 06:55:43 is well-conceived and well-told. But by means of it all, he is working his way steadily onward to an explanation of the religion of the Bible, Or, from his point of view, we should say, of the religions of the Old and New Testament writings in their several stages, as of purely natural origin. He is careful, therefore, to insert accounts of the successive stages of religion, which he thinks he finds set forth progressively in the several strata of the biblical books in their proper places in the advancing evolution.

Starting point is 06:56:12 And so he comes at last to the origin of Christianity. Christianity, like certain other high religions of reform character in this, owes its origin, of course, to the impulse received from a great personality, the greatest religious personality the world has as yet seen. An element of inexplicability is thus introduced into it, for who can read the riddle of powerful personalities? But this does not prevent our perceiving that it grew naturally out of the soil of its own time. What Jesus did may indeed be summed up almost entirely in one word,

Starting point is 06:56:46 he simplified the developed Judaism of his day. The Jewish rabbis are quite right in saying that everything that Jesus taught may be found taught beforehand in Judaism. The proper retort is to acknowledge that the rabbis had said all that Jesus said, and to add that, quote, unfortunately, they said so much else too, end quote, page 217. What Jesus did was not to add to their teaching, but to subtract from it. The note of his teaching was simplification. He freed religion from rationalism, ceremonialism, legalism, and scribism. and doing so he gave us Christianity

Starting point is 06:57:20 for the Christianity of Jesus is just the Judaism of his day freed from those elements and thus reduced to the simple doctrine of God as Father who forgives the sins of men because he is good the Christianity of Jesus we say but not the Christianity we know

Starting point is 06:57:36 or indeed the Christianity a modern man can accept for the development of religion did not stop with Jesus after Jesus came for example Paul and Paul's Christianity is not the Christianity of Jesus For one thing, the Christianity of Paul worships Jesus and Jesus worships God alone. For another thing, the Christianity of Paul talks of an atoning sacrifice, of which Jesus knew nothing. For yet another thing, the Christianity of Paul has incorporated into it sacramental acts, to all which, that of Jesus is a stranger.

Starting point is 06:58:08 Nor did the development stop with Paul. After Paul came old Catholicism, and after old Catholicism, medievalism, and after medievalism, the Reformation, and after the Reformation, and after the Reformation, has come, or at least is coming, modernism. And it is not the Christianity of Jesus or the Christianity of Paul, or even the Christianity of the Reformation, great, as is the advance of the Christianity of the Reformation on all preceding Christianity's, which can lay claim to being the highest of religions, but the Christianity of modernism, now at last assuming firm outlines and a stable form. The old order has changed and given place to a new, quote, the whole

Starting point is 06:58:46 structure of human life has entirely altered since the Reformation and history and experience tell us that when this happens, religion assumes other forms, end quote, page 271. A new Christianity conformable to the data supplied by modern culture is therefore now called for. Quote, the narrow Pauline idea of redemption, which was developed by St. Augustine and strengthened anew by Luther, end quote, page 275, must go. We must, quote, no longer speak of the divinity of Christ, end quote, page 279, and with the divinity of Christ must go all its corollaries, primarily the self-contradictory doctrine of the Trinity. The idea of an atonement and of vicarious sacrifice, of course, goes to,

Starting point is 06:59:28 page 282, and indeed the whole conception of the supernatural, which has hitherto ruled, which contradicts not only, quote, our whole mode of thought, end quote, but also, quote, our changed belief in God, end quote, page 285, and with this idea of supernaturalism must go also, not only the whole notion of an inspired book, but also of a special revelation, page 289. This is not a return to the Christianity of Jesus. The Christianity of Jesus lies at the root of Christianity. It does not appear at its apex. Jesus believed in the supernatural, we cannot, page 286.

Starting point is 07:00:05 We cannot accept his demonology or his eschatology, page 292. Even much of Jesus' moral teaching is too one-sided or ascetic to be possible to a modern man, page 295. It is ours not slavishly to copy, but to grow. Quote, we take our stand by Jesus, end quote, only in the parable of the lost son, and quote, on the ground of the absolutely simple conviction that God is to be found in the good, and that faith in the heavenly father includes moral deeds and moral work in the human community, end quote.

Starting point is 07:00:37 Here is the creed of the Christianity into which all the religious development of all the ages meets and coalesces, quote, God the Father, life in accordance with his will, spent in joyful work for the service of the world, forgiveness of sins and eternal hope, end quote, page 298. We must bear in mind that it is this Christianity which Professor Busset has in view when he tells us that Christianity is the last and best of religions and that the future of religion is bound up in it. What place does Christ take in this Christianity? None whatever. He is merely the impressive religious personality back to who,

Starting point is 07:01:13 impulses traced the development which has issued over 2,000 years in it. If we can say of the Jewish rabbis that they taught all that Christ taught, but the mischief of it is that they taught so very much more. So we must say of Christ that if he taught all of this, quote, abiding, end quote, Christianity, the mischief again is that he taught so very much more. Why call this new Christianity by his name any more than call this Christianity Judaism? He did not more simplify Judaism that our moderns are simplifying Christianity. And let us particularly note that this new simplification reduces us too. It is just God, morality, immortality, God the Father,

Starting point is 07:01:54 life in accordance with His will, spent in joyful work for the service of the world, forgiveness of sins and eternal hope. Is there any religion which does not embrace these three elements of natural religion? No doubt the conception of God, the conception of morality, the conception of immortality, which are commended to us, bear the traces of Christian teaching. It is God the Father. It is life in the service of the world. It is forgiveness of sins. We are thankful that it is proposed to retain this much of the contribution

Starting point is 07:02:23 of Jesus and of his accredited apostles to the religion of the world. But it is worthwhile to observe that when Christianity is reduced to a natural religion in its origin, it is reduced also to a natural religion in its contents. It shrinks at once to the meagre contents of the familiar triology of God, morality, and immortality. The main question, of course, recurs. Has Professor Bussit succeeded in reducing Christianity to a natural religion in its origin? He has certainly put together an account of the origin and development of religion, into which he has interspersed an account of the origin and development of the religions of the

Starting point is 07:03:00 scriptural narrative, including Christianity in all its developments, on the assumption that it is equally with all the rest a natural religion. But this is merely Professor Bussit's. historical argument for the naturalistic origin of Christianity. He says in effect, see, if this be conceived to be the way religion has come into existence and developed itself in the course of the ages, then Christianity may be conceived to be a growth of nature. The if here is, however, a mighty one, and covers an immense assumption, or rather a whole series of immense assumptions. Behind it lies the assumption of the validity of all the results of the

Starting point is 07:03:35 Graf Wehrhausen critical reconstruction of the history of the development of the old Testament religion and of all the results of the history of religion critical reconstruction of the history of the New Testament development. Behind it lies the assumption of the invalidity of all the evidence of the divine origin of the religion of the Bible, of the divine mission of Christ, of the revelation of truth through his spirit to the apostles, in a word of the whole body of the claims of the founders of Christianity, substantiated as those claims are by a mass of the most varied evidence. In one word, behind it lies the simple assumption of the naturalistic origin of Christianity.

Starting point is 07:04:12 Professor Busset's essay amounts, therefore, merely to this declaration. See, if Christianity is merely a natural religion, this is the way it must be conceived to have come into existence. The argumentative value of this presentation will reduce, therefore, simply to this, that a self-consistent scheme of the origin of Christianity as a natural religion can be constructed. For the testing of the value of this presentation as an argument, we should have, therefore, to examine into the self-consistency of the presentation.

Starting point is 07:04:40 primarily, then into the legitimacy of the combinations that are made, the exactness of the facts which are marshalled, and the inclusiveness of the explanations which are offered. This is not the place to enter into such a detailed examination, but it is not out of place to remark simply that in none of these items is Professor Busset's presentation, in our opinion, impeccable. In addition to the primal assumptions to which we have adverted, his presentation is burdened with a mass of minor assumptions. The facts are adjusted to fit the thesis. instead of the thesis inferred from the facts, and the whole presentation takes, therefore,

Starting point is 07:05:15 merely the form of a plausible effort to justify a foregone conclusion. If this is, in its details, at least the course of the development of religion, we must assume, in case Christianity be deemed a natural religion, we can only say that Christianity cannot be deemed a natural religion. It does not naturally emerge out of its environment as here presented. End of Review of What is Religion by Bibi Warfield. Review of The Making of Religion by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 07:05:55 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The Making of Religion by Andrew Lang, M.A. D.D.L. Honorary Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, sometime Gifford Lecturer in the University of St. Andrews. London, New York, and Bombay, Longman's Green and Co. 1898, Octavo, pages 6 to 380. In his dedicatory letter to Principal Donaldson, Mr. Lang intimates that these chapters on the early history of religions, quote, may be taken as representing the Gifford lectures, end quote, delivered by him, quote, though, in fact, he adds, they contain very little

Starting point is 07:06:36 that was spoken from Lord Gifford's chair, end quote. Unsystematic, diffuse, repetitious, desultry, quote, jotty, end quote, The whole discussion nevertheless not only is clothed with that piquant literary quality which Mr. Lang gives his writings, but is also of undeniable scientific importance. The object of the book is to discuss afresh the origin of the two fundamental beliefs which lie at the base of what we call religion, the belief in God and the belief in the immortality of the soul. If these beliefs arose, comments Mr. Lang, quote, in actual communion with deity,

Starting point is 07:07:11 as the first at least did in the theory of the Hebrew scriptures, or if they could be proved to arise in an unanalyzable census nominis, or even in a perception of the infinite, Max Müller, religion would have a divine, or at least a necessary source. To the theist, what is inevitable cannot but be divinely ordained, therefore religion is divinely preordained, therefore in essentials, though not in accidental details, religion is true.

Starting point is 07:07:41 But if religion, as now understood among men, be the latest evolutionary form of a series of mistakes, fallacies and illusions, if its germ be a blunder, and its present form only the result of progressive but unessential refinements on that blunder. The inference that religion is untrue, that nothing actual corresponds to its hypothesis, is very easily drawn, end quote page 51. The latter view has attained among anthropologists almost the position of a fixed truth. The current teaching is briefly that man first derived to the conced. conception of spirit from the phenomena of sleep, dreams, shadow, trance, and hallucination,

Starting point is 07:08:20 that his first worship was directed to the souls of his dead kindred and to spiritual existences fashioned on the same lines, and that, as the result of a variety of processes, these spirits prospered until they became gods, and at last one of them became supreme. Thus, quote, the ideas of God and of the soul are the result of early fallacious reasonings about misunderstood experiences. end quote page one.

Starting point is 07:08:46 Even so, Mr. Lang is not prepared to acknowledge that religion may be lightly set aside as only a huge blunder. Quote, all our science itself is the result of progressive refinements upon hypotheses, originally erroneous, fashioned to explain facts misconceived, end quote. Why may not our religion likewise, quote, even granting that it arose out of primitive fallacies and false hypotheses, end quote, have yet, quote, been refined as science, has been through a multitude of causes into an approximate truth, end quote, page 51. But it seems more directly to the point to ask whether the current teaching is according

Starting point is 07:09:25 with the facts. Mr. Lang thinks that it is not, and it is the object of this book to show that in two crucial points it is not, or as he more coyly expresses it, that, quote, there are two points of view from which the evidence as to religion in its early stages has not been steadily contemplated, end quote, page two. He proposes to reopen the matter at these two points and to raise anew the two questions, whether man arrived at belief in the existence of a soul, solely through a misinterpretation of such simple phenomena as those of sleep and dreams, and whether man attained the conception of God through an evolution from the idea of spirit. To both questions, he returns a negative reply, and it is the purpose of his book to validate these two negative

Starting point is 07:10:12 replies. Mr. Lang justly points out that the two positions thus taken up by him are independent of each other. The establishment of them both would be, of course, the ruin of the presently dominant theory of the origin of religion, but the establishment of both is not essential for that result. It might well be that man arrived at the notion of spirit through a misinterpretation of the phenomena of dreams and the like, and yet if his idea of God is not a development of his doctrine of spirit, this fact would have no bearing on the validity of his doctrine of God. Mr. Lang unites the discussion of the two questions in this volume thus, not because they are essential to one another, but because he conceives that the developed idea of religion as prevalent

Starting point is 07:10:55 among the higher races at present is a complex of the two ideas of the immortality of the soul and of the existence of an infinite moral ruler and judge. He is, therefore, at pains to investigate the origins of both ideas. His book thus falls in into two very different portions. In the first, he seeks to bring forward indications that, quote, the savage theory of the soul may be based, at least in part, on experiences which cannot be made to fit into any purely materialistic system of the universe, and quote, page two. In the second, he presents evidence which shows that the idea of God was not dependent on or derived from the idea of spirit, but was of wholly independent origin, and was capable of a

Starting point is 07:11:36 very high development, apart from the aid of the idea of spirit. Though, of course, this idea supplied a formula by which the mighty being already envisaged could be more adequately conceived, as well as an elevating conception of man's own nature. The importance of thus separating the idea of God from that of spirit is obvious, but we do not see why the idea of immortality also may not equally validly and with equal advantage be separated from that of spirit. Men believed in God, as Mr. Lang shows, without the aid of any metaphysical conception of spirit. Why might they not equally readily have believed in their own future existence,

Starting point is 07:12:13 apart from a conscious elaboration of a doctrine of spirit? It is also a question worth asking at this point, what does Mr. Lang mean by spirit? In this query, we may indeed place our finger on a weak point in the book. Mr. Lang does not seem to keep clearly before him any consistent definition of this term, fundamental though it is to his whole argument. He seems to use it prevailingly as equivalent to ghost, and to conceive it merely negatively as over against solid matter.

Starting point is 07:12:41 Indeed, as we read his pages, we are reminded of the old scholastic pleasantry, which replied to the query, what is matter, never mind, and to the query what is mind, no matter. But what spirit is, as distinguished from what it is not, Mr. Lang does not seem to stop to consider. If, however, spirit means positively nothing but thinking, feeling, willing, being, that is, if it is practically a synonym for person, then of course every person has the idea of spirit,

Starting point is 07:13:13 undeveloped, of course, given in the most immediate and intimate action of his self-consciousness, and the idea of a personal ruler is already the idea of a spiritual God, and as well the idea of the continued life of a person is already the idea of spiritual immortality. The metaphysical development of this conception is, to be sure, a different matter. We are, meanwhile, confused, and we think, Mr. Lang confuses himself by his undefined usage of the term.

Starting point is 07:13:40 We think had he clearly discriminated the differing connotations of the word, he would have argued that the idea of spirit, ghost, was no more necessary to the belief in immortality than it is to the belief in God, and would have sought and found evidence of early belief in continued life and in future rewards and punishments, either before or certainly apart from the emergence in thought of any developed metaphysics of spirit.

Starting point is 07:14:06 Certainly, at all events, such a state of mind is not uncommon today. The whole first section of Mr. Lang's book thus appears to us unnecessary to his avowed purpose. It is not required to show that men arrived at the conception of spirit by a valid pathway in order to obtain a valid starting point for belief in immortality. In the order of developing thought, the idea of immortality would rather precede that of spirit in this sense. Men would naturally believe in their own future existence before they fully roll. out a theory of the mode of that existence. Nevertheless, we are grateful for the chapters which

Starting point is 07:14:41 investigate the possible and the actual grounds in which savage men may have come to the conviction of the existence of a something in man different from his bodily organism, which they could speak of as, quote, that in men which makes them live, end quote, and which they pictured as subject of experiences beyond the confines of the merely bodily life. The professed purpose of these chapters is to offer evidence that the inference drawn by primitive man that he possessed a soul did not necessarily rest on phenomena which readily admit of a materialistic explanation. Mr. Lang marshals an array of supernormal experiences asserted to occur among savage races on the basis of which such an inference would not seem so absurd as it is commonly represented.

Starting point is 07:15:25 He then parallels these asserted supernormal experiences with similar ones, occurring not among savages but among the cultured races of the modern world, and subject to the investigation of trained scientific intellects, with the effect of raising the question whether they are to rank merely among asserted experiences, or must not rather be believed to have actually occurred. Quote, if so, he observes, the savage philosophy and its supposed survivals in belief will appear in a new light, end quote,

Starting point is 07:15:54 and it may at least be wise, quote, to suspend our judgment, not only as to the origin of the savage theory of spirits, but as to the materialistic hypothesis of the absence of a psychical element in man, end quote, page 71. The discussion of these points leads Mr. Lang into a very obscure region, into the region of hypnoticism, clairvoyance, crystal gazing, hallucinations, prophetic dreams and the like. It is too much of a jungle for unwanted feet to tread, but we think he fairly makes out his point,

Starting point is 07:16:25 that there are supernatural experiences in this obscure reality, region, which are as yet insoluble on the ordinary assumptions of materialism. The evidence will, of course, appeal to different minds with different degrees of force, and indeed to the same mind at different times very differently. Personal experience of, or first-hand acquaintance with similar phenomena, will count for much in the estimate put upon the narrative of such experiences in the case of others. But for ourselves, we do not see how it can be successfully denied that such supernormal

Starting point is 07:16:56 events as Mr. Lang relates occur. What interpretation is to be put on them is a different story. The savage man has been prone to explain supernormal knowledge of the remote, for example, by the assumption of the wandering of the separable soul temporarily from the body. Mr. Lang seems now and again to suggest that it may be explained as a telepathic communication from one mind to another. Others fall back on the assumption of common participation in the universal fulendor zeal, or on common contact with the absolute. The savage man's theory does not seem the worst of these guesses, rather than accept any of which we prefer to remain like Mr. Lang without a theory, meanwhile abiding content with the conviction that there are experiences that come to the

Starting point is 07:17:42 human animal which shake the foundations of the materialistic hypothesis. Quote, no more than any other theory, nay, less than some other theories, can it account for the psychical facts which, at the lowest, We may not honestly leave out of the reckoning, end quote, page 172. The great success of the volume is attained, however, in the discussion of the second of the questions to which it is devoted. Here, by an array not of strange experiences drawn from dubious borderland, but of plain and open facts, Mr. Lang demonstrates that so far from belief in a moral supreme being, being the last result of a slow evolution, due to the action of advancing thought upon the

Starting point is 07:18:22 original conception of ghosts, it occurs, often apart from the conception of ghosts, in the lowest-known grades of savagery, in a strikingly pure and complete form, and is so widely spread as to suggest its aboriginal universality. The novelty of this exhibition is perhaps not so great as Mr. Lang thinks, though it is doubtless very novel indeed in the scientific circles for which he specially writes, but the importance of his solid contribution to the establishment of the fact cannot easily be overestimated. After his marshalling of illustrative cases, drawn from every part of the world, and his luminous discussion of the relations of their theism to the other beliefs of savages, it would seem that the crudities of the animistic

Starting point is 07:19:04 theory of the origin of the idea of God are forever antiquated. Quote, the savage supreme being, says Mr. Lang, with added power, omniscience, and morality, is the idealization of the savage as conceived by himself, minus fleshly body as a rule and minus death. He is not necessarily a spirit, though that term may now be applied. to him. He was not originally differentiated as spirit or not spirit. He is a being

Starting point is 07:19:30 conceived of without the question of spirit or no spirit being raised. Perhaps he was originally conceived of before the question could be raised by man. In the original conception he is a powerful intelligence who was from the first, who was already active long before by a breach of his laws

Starting point is 07:19:46 an error in the delivery of a message or breach of ritual or what not, death entered the world. He was not not affected by the entry of death, he still exists. End quote, page 204. In a word, the supreme god of the lowest races, who stands behind and above their animism and fetishism, and even his own mythology, page 198, has not been conceived metaphysically,

Starting point is 07:20:12 but religiously. He was not primarily a spirit, he was, and remains the eternal, omniscient, ethical creator, ruler, and judge of all things. No wonder that Mr. Lang is impelled to exclaim, quote, these high-gauge, guards of low savages preserve from dimest ages of the meanest culture the sketch of a god which our highest religious thought can but fill up to its ideal end quote page 208 to the origin of this conception he devotes little discussion contenting himself with hints that he would reject the assignment of it to a special primeval revelation and would look with favor on the supposition that it

Starting point is 07:20:47 represents an instinctive operation of the causal judgment seeking an adequate cause for the universe to which he doubtless would not object to adding the action of that sense of dependence and responsibility which seems native to man as man. Its history he is inclined to trace in a progressive degeneration incident to the very advance of culture, the vera causa of which he discovers in the, quote, attractions which animism, when once developed, possessed for the naughty natural man, end quote, page 282. He tentatively suggests that four stages in this history may be traced, represented by one, the Australian unpropitiated moral being, two, the African neglected being, still somewhat moral,

Starting point is 07:21:32 three, the relatively supreme being involved in human sacrifice, as in Polynesia, and four, the moral being reinstated philosophically, or as in Israel, page 329. Whether, however, the stages can be made out or not, the massive evidence offered for the main proposition is overwhelming, that we think Mr. Lang has shown with a clearness and force which should convince the most recalcitrant that the conception of a supreme being, the cause of all existences and the moral ruler of the universe, is native to the human race, is possessed by even the lowest representatives, and can only with difficulty be eradicated or even obscure it.

Starting point is 07:22:13 It is natural, of course, that Mr. Lang should wish to see how far his conclusions, quote, can be made to illustrate the faith of Israel, end quote. his closing chapter is given to this subject. Perhaps it is not the most satisfactory portion of his book. Mr. Lang is as chary of the directly supernatural as most men of science of the day. But apart from this, his remarks on the Israelitesish religion and its course are most suggestive. He naturally looks upon the belief in Jehovah as, quote, a shape of the widely diffused conception of a moral supreme being,

Starting point is 07:22:45 at first, or at least when our information begins, envisaged in anthropomorphic form, but gradually purged of all local traits by the unexampled and unique inspiration of the great prophets, end quote, page 294. Quote, had it not been for the prophets, he remarks, Israel, by the time that Greece and Rome knew Israel, would have been worshipping a horde of little gods and even beasts and ghosts, while the eternal would have become a mere name, perhaps like Ndengi and Unculunculuncula, a jest.

Starting point is 07:23:19 The Old Testament is the story of the, prolonged effort to keep Jehovah in his supreme place. To make and succeed in this effort was the Differencia of Israel. Other peoples, even the lowest, had, as we prove, the germinal conception of God, but their foolish heart was darkened, end quote, page 220. Upon the current critical theories of the origin of Jehovah worship, Mr. Lang accordingly pours a well-deserved scorn. Quote, have critics and manual makers, he exclaims, no knowledge of the signs of comparative religion? Are they unaware that peoples infinitely more backward than Israel was, at the date supposed, have already moral supreme beings acknowledged over vast tracts of

Starting point is 07:24:01 territory? Have they a tital of positive evidence that early Israel was benighted beyond the darkness of Bushmen, Andamanis, Pornies, blackfeet, Hurons, Indians of British Guana, Dinkas, Negroes, and so forth? Unless Israel had this rare ill luck, which Israel denies. Of course, Israel must have had a secular tradition, however dim of a supreme being, end quote. Page 312. The uniqueness of the religious history of Israel does not then consist in the mere fact of its theism, but in the preservation and on the whole steady elevation, not of course without periods of decline and degeneration, which Mr. Lang paints far too black, page 283, of this universal high theism.

Starting point is 07:24:47 in the account to be given of, quote, the historically unique genius of the prophets, end quote, by whose instrumentality Israeliteous theism was thus preserved and developed, Mr. Lang certainly falters. The divine purpose was exhibited in it. He is driven to admit, but beyond that single admission he will not go. But of the fact he is clear. Here is a unique experience among the races of men, the progressive broadening and deepening of primitive theism in one race under the influence of a series of unparalleled religious teachers until a greater than all the prophets came to birth. And the uniqueness of the experience of Israel

Starting point is 07:25:25 is all the more marked because of the relative indifference of Israel to the second stream of influence, which in Mr. Lang's theory enters into the formation of religion in our modern conception of that term. Quote, the great prophets of Israel and Israel generally were strangely indifferent to that priceless aspect of animism, the care for future happiness, as conditioned by the conduct of the individual's soul, end quote, page 329. Quote, they carried theism to its austere extreme, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him, while unconcerned about the rewards of animism, end quote, page 295. And so it seems that, quote, early Israel having, as far as we know, a singular lack of interest

Starting point is 07:26:06 in the future of the soul, was born to give himself up to the developing, undisturbed, the theistic conception, the belief in a righteousness eternal, end quote, page 3333. We may not find here quite all that we could wish, but surely we find what is fundamental in the Christian conception of the history and mission of the religion of Israel and the germ of much else. One feels that Mr. Lang needs only to give a somewhat more detailed study to the development of that religion to be forced to posit something more than what we may speak of as natural inspiration in the prophets, for example in order to account for their unique work. And one is strengthened in such a feeling by reading such a treatise, for example, as Grisebrecht's, the berufsbergung of the alt-testimentalien profiteen. Grisembrecht is quite as keen as Mr. Lang can be

Starting point is 07:26:58 to account as far as possible for the prophetic teaching on natural grounds, i.e. without the assumption of direct supernatural revelation and his postulation of a natural arnungsvermogen as the basis of the prophetic phenomena would, one would think, be attractive to Mr. Lang. But a reader of Mr. Lang's acuteness would soon discover that even Grisebrecht does not succeed in accounting for the prophetic phenomena by eliminating all direct supernatural communication from them. And we fancy his candor would gradually lead him to the conviction that there is a deep discrimination between religions that he has not yet clearly made, which nevertheless

Starting point is 07:27:34 the facts require. A discrimination by which, over a discrimination by which, over a against those religions which are the product of men's reaching up after God. If happily they may grasp him, he set the religion which is the product of God's reaching down to men. If happily he may restore them to communion with himself. End of review of the making of religion by B.B. Warfield. Review of naturalism and religion by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevaunx recording. All Librevonk's recordings are in the public domain for more information, or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Naturalism and religion by Dr. Rudolf Otto,

Starting point is 07:28:21 Professor of Theology in the University of Göttingen, translated by J. Arthur Thompson, Professor of Natural History in the University of Aberdeen, and Margaret R. Thompson, edited with an introduction by Reverend W.D. Morrison L.L.D., New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, London, Williams and Norgate, 1907. Crown, Octavo, pages 11 to 374. Dr. Otto is introduced by his English editor to his new audience as, quote, a thinker who possesses the rare merit of combining a high philosophic discipline with an accurate and comprehensive knowledge of the science of organic nature, end quote.

Starting point is 07:29:00 The appearance of the name of Professor Thompson on the title page of the book as translator may be taken as an additional guarantee of the scientific competency of the author. the book itself fully meets the expectations so aroused. We do not indeed share the author's philosophical standpoint, and still less can we homologate the theological conceptions, which may occasionally be read between the lines. But there can be no question that the book is ably thought and attractively written, or that its author is exceptionally well-informed in the current scientific discussion of Germany, and is exceptionally well-equipped to expound it alike in its details and in its general drift.

Starting point is 07:29:37 As a result we have in the book an admirable survey of recent German speculation on the origin and nature of the world and man and a strong and convincing defence of the right of religion in the face of modern thought. Dr. Otto calls his book Naturalism and Religion and explains its purpose as, quote, in the first place to define the relation or rather the antithesis between the two, and secondly to endeavour to reconcile the contradictions and vindicate against the counterclaims of naturalism the validity and freedom of the religious outlook, end quote, page one. Or, as he somewhat more crisply expresses it, at a later point, quote, to define our attitude to naturalism, and to maintain in the teeth of naturalism,

Starting point is 07:30:18 the validity and freedom of the religious conception of the world, end quote, page 278. The real subject of the book is, therefore, naturalism, and its real purpose is to assert over against naturalism the right of religion. Its primary purpose, in other words, is polemic rather than construct. It is less concerned with the positive exposition and development of the religious conception of the world than with the vindication of the right of a religious conception of the world. Of course, Dr. Otto has not written so much without suggesting what, in his view, the religious conception of the world includes.

Starting point is 07:30:52 He has even formally outlined and briefly expounded and even argued its elements. But neither the strength nor the mass of the book is given to it, but is expended rather on a careful, critical survey of current forms of nature. naturalism, with a view to exhibiting its essential failure. From our point of view, the value of the book is immensely increased by this circumstance, for Dr. Otto's philosophical and even theological conceptions would necessarily dominate his positive construction of the worldview to which he would give the name of religious. And as we have already explained, we do not particularly care for Dr. Otto's philosophical

Starting point is 07:31:27 or theological views. But in his exposition and criticism of naturalistic theories, he is moving on ground common to all who would cherish a religious worldview of any sort, and here we can follow his lucid expositions and his trenchant criticisms with unalloyed satisfaction. Dr. Otto's philosophical standpoint is that of a convinced Kantian idealism, or perhaps we ought rather to say he is a disciple of that mixed product of Kant and Jacob Friedrich Fris, who has lately been disinterred in Germany and given at least some semblance of renewed vitality, although he doubtless transcends Frieze's anti-teleological view of nature, some slight echo of it may perhaps be detected

Starting point is 07:32:10 in his willingness to admit that a direct study of nature will not yield a teleological view of it. The Frisian Levin is more in evidence, however, in his view of religion as rooted primarily in a sense of mystery, upon which he then engrafts to be sure the sense of dependence in which religion centers, and the conception of teleology in which, we may say, it culminates. The peculiar extension he gives to the implications of the feeling of dependence, by which he derives from it, the assurance not only that man, the subject of this ineradicable and surely not misleading feeling, is a contingent being, but that so is the whole world itself, has perhaps its roots in the same idealism. The external world, which is our creation, can scarcely be

Starting point is 07:32:54 less dependent than the beings whose creation it is. One gets the impression that Professor Otto's objection to naturalism turns less on the obliteration by naturalism of the distinction between matter and mind than on naturalism's attempt to work this obliteration the wrong way about. The external world from which naturalism would explain mind, he would rather explain from mind, and so it comes about that as the argument runs on, it seems almost to become rather a plea for spiritualism than for what we commonly speak of as a religious interpretation of the world. Its thesis almost appears to be summed up in the striking and strikingly true remark, page 283, that, quote, mental science from logic and epistemology up to, and including the moral and aesthetic sciences,

Starting point is 07:33:39 proves by its very existence and by the fact that it cannot be reduced to terms of natural science, that spirit can neither be derived from nor analysed into anything else, end quote. At this point, however, we are a little puzzled by the rushing in of another current off-dorfer, Dr. Otto's thought, which almost sweeps away this spirit, the substantial existence of which he seems to have so firmly established. We must not talk, it seems, of its, quote, substantial nature, end quote, page 330. It is a matter of entire indifference, page 331. What concerns us is only, quote, its incomparable value, end quote, page 331. Quote, what lives in us is not a finished and spiritual being, but something that develops and becomes actual very gradually, end quote.

Starting point is 07:34:26 9-8. Whence it comes, who can tell, or whither it goes, all we know of it is low, it is here, and that it is the manifestation of something that is. Quote, there is no practical meaning in discussing its origin or its passing away, as we do with regard to the corporeal. Under certain corporeal conditions, it is there, it simply appears, but it does not arise out of them. And as it is not nothing but an actual and effectual reality, it can neither have come out of nothing, nor disappear into nothing again. It appears out of the absolutely transcendental, associates itself with corporeal processes, determines these and is determined by them, and in its own time passes back from this world of appearance to the transcendental again,

Starting point is 07:35:11 end quote, page 358. Is this only one way of saying that, quote, the soul that rises with us, our life's star, hath had elsewhere its setting and cometh from afar, or does it, as we much doubt, mean much more than this. Decidedly, Dr. Otto's philosophy needs watching, and we may be glad it does not form the staple of this book but only lies in its background. What forms the staple of this book is the exposition and criticism of naturalism. Naturalism, he tells us, exists in two forms, naive and speculative. And speculative naturalism entrenches itself in two great contentions,

Starting point is 07:35:50 the one embodied in the Darwinian doctrine of evolution, the other in the mechanical theory of life. To the exposition and criticism of these two great contentions of naturalism, Dr. Otto, accordingly devotes himself. To the Darwinian theory, chapters 4 to 7, pages 85 to 186 are given. To the mechanical theory of life, chapters 8 to 11, pages 187 to 359. The discussion in both cases is full, the exposition clear the criticism telling. In dealing with the Darwinian theory, Dr. Otwo very properly distinguishes between the theory of dissent in general and the specific form given this theory by Darwin's hypothesis of the indefiniteness of variations and the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence.

Starting point is 07:36:33 The former, he points out, has maintained its ground, or perhaps we may even say, has strengthened its stakes. Dr. Otto intimates almost as a matter of course his own adhesion to it. The latter, on the contrary, has become in the estimate of wide circles, not much, merely suspect but even disproved. Dr. Otto intimates that he himself will have none of it. But it is precisely in this peculiarly Darwinian theory of, quote, natural selection, end quote, that the virus of naturalism in current evolutionary speculation is prominent. The theory of descent is in no sense specifically Darwinian. It is far older than Darwin and remains the conviction of multitudes who are definitely anti-Darwinian.

Starting point is 07:37:13 What is specifically Darwinian is the appeal to the factors of overproduction, indefinite variation, struggle for existence and consequent elimination of the unfit and the survival of the fittest, as containing in themselves the true account of the modifications which have produced the multitudinous forms of life. Thus teleology was reduced to an illusion and suitability substituted in its place. Utility became the one sufficient creator of all that is living. The widespread dissatisfaction with and even rejection of this account of organic development, which marks the present state of discussion may be taken as at the same time, therefore,

Starting point is 07:37:51 a refutation of the naturalism which underlies it, because it is an exhibition of the inadequacy of mere utility to account for all things. As investigation has gone on, it has become clearer and clearer to numerous students of the subject that variations do not occur indifferently in every direction, but turn up opportunely, as Dubois Raymond expressed it.

Starting point is 07:38:13 In his vivid way, nature's dice are loaded, not accidentalism but purpose rules her acts. The greater organism of the animate world grows apparently like the lesser organism of the individual being along fixed lines by definite steps to determine ends. Natural selection may have a part to play in the process, but it is in wider and wider circles coming to be believed that it is a very subordinate part, it can work only on what is given it. And it does not seem to have indefinite variations in every direction to work on,

Starting point is 07:38:44 but rather very definite variations in one direction. The goal attained is, therefore, not determined by it, but by the inherent tendency of the developing organism. So at least an increasing number of students of nature are coming to think. Dr. Otto's method is marked by a very large infusion of the concessive spirit. He portrays no tendency to drive antitheses into contradictions, and he does not permit the cause of teleology in nature to be identified with the extremist anti-Darwinian opinions.

Starting point is 07:39:15 On the contrary, he is quick to point out that purpose has no quarrel with means, and can live, therefore, under the strictest reign of law. It is not law which is fatal to purpose, but chance. Nay, says he, quote, absolute obedience to law, and the inexorableness of chains of sequence are, instead of being fatal to teleology, indispensable to it, end quote. Quote, when there is a purpose in view, he argues, it is only where the system means is perfect, unbroken, and absolute, that the purpose can be

Starting point is 07:39:45 realized, and therefore that intention can be inferred, end quote, page 83. Accordingly, therefore, he considers it possible to embrace in a teleological interpretation, quote, the whole system of causes and effects, which, according to the Darwin-Vizmann doctrine, have gradually brought forth the whole diversity of the world of life with man at its head, end quote, for why may not this be looked upon, quote, as an immense system of means, end quote, intricate, no doubt, but working to its end with inevitable necessity, which may therefore be the manifestation of intention, page 151. At a later point when dealing with the mechanical theory of life, he reverts to the same line of remark to show that mechanism has in it nothing inconsistent with purpose, pages 222 to 223. mechanism may be only the way in which purpose realizes itself. Of course, the danger here is that we may fall thus into a deistic conception of the method of what we theologically call providence. But this does not

Starting point is 07:40:48 seem necessary even when the whole of what we call nature is conceived as, quote, a machine, end quote. Though the guiding hand of purpose be conceived as everywhere and at all times immediately operative, nevertheless the whole account of the several phenomena would be found in the efficient, not in the final causes. In no case are the final causes to be conceived as additional efficient causes, producing with them a resultant effect. They are and remain only final causes and operate only through and by means of the efficient causes. Each phenomenon finds its whole account when severally considered accordingly in its efficient causes. It is therefore indifferent to purpose whether the events which occur under its government occur as products of mechanical

Starting point is 07:41:32 or free causes. Providence, then, which is but another way of saying purpose, is as consistent with a mechanical theory as with any other theory of life, because purpose is not discerned in the separate phenomena, but in their combination. Romanois was quite right, therefore, when he regretfully said of his earlier mistake in ruling purpose out of the universe, quote, I had forgotten to take in the whole scope of things, the marvellous harmony of the all, end quote. Dr. Otto is anxious that his readers shall not make the analogous mistake of supposing that because a thing is caused, it is therefore not intended. He does not imagine, of course, that in this vindication of teleology in relation to mechanism, he has done all that is necessary to validate the religious

Starting point is 07:42:18 view of the world. He rightly supposes, however, that he has done by it something to remove some current objections to the religious view of the world, for there are still some who imagine that when they say mechanism, they deny purpose. Our father-alleged mechanism rules is another question. The most striking feature of Dr. Otto's method is, however, his employment of exposition as argument. His book thus becomes a mirror of current thought on the subjects with which he is dealing. The inherent weakness of the Darwinian construction of the factors of evolution, for example,

Starting point is 07:42:52 he exhibits less by direct argument of his own against it than by a running exposition of the course of evolutionary thought in latter-day Germany. The first impression the reader gets from this survey is of the uncertainty of the conclusions which are from time to time announced. He soon perceives, however, that amid the apparent confusion there is a gradual and steady driftage in one direction, and that that direction is away from Darwin's conceptions. Whatever in the end he may come to think of Darwin's theory in its application to nature, he receives a strong impression that it is fairly illustrated in this section of human research

Starting point is 07:43:25 and thought. Here is certainly exhibited indefinite variation in the way. all directions, struggle for existence, and let us hope, the survival of the fittest. It may become us to bear in mind to be sure that the survival of the fittest is not quite the same as the survival of the true. It may be only the survival of the theory that fits in best with the presuppositions and prejudices of the times. Nevertheless, truth is strong, and we can scarcely doubt it will finally prevail.

Starting point is 07:43:55 And one gets the impression that, in this case, what seems likely to prevail in the meantime is the truth, and that this truth is hostile to the anti-teleological schematization of Darwin, and indeed to his whole construction of the main factors of evolution. Indeed, it seems at times as if the new investigators were inclined to react from natural selection a shade too violently, and not content with assigning the Darwinismus to the Sterberbet, were determined to deny to natural selection not only any real effectiveness or capacity for species forming, but even reality itself. Professor Otto avoids this extreme. He not only recognizes its operation in nature as a vera causa, but points out that its obvious reality and actual working

Starting point is 07:44:41 is the main cause of the attractiveness of the theory, which found in it the one-grade agency in species forming, pages 156 to 157. Nevertheless, he holds firmly with the more recent thought which discovers for it only a very subordinate role to play in nature, and he points out with great clearness that its dethronement and the substitution for it of theories of evolution, dominated by the recognition of inherent tendencies in the organism and progression along right lines, is the definite relegation of naturalism to the Sturberlager, so far as it had entrenched itself in the doctrine of evolution. In dealing with the mechanical theory of life, Professor Otto employs much the same method, which he uses in

Starting point is 07:45:24 dealing with the doctrine of evolution. Here too he avoids dogmatism and relies largely on the effect a mere tracing of the history of research is fitted to produce. For the progress of investigation has been away from the mechanical view of life. We have lived to see the dawn of a new age of vitalism, and even where the name is scouted and the thing deprecated, the edges of the old mechanical theory have become very frayed. On the basis of present-day thought, Dr. Otto is justified in emphasizing the mystery of life and in pointing decisively to the supremeness of mind, so making way for the religious view of the world

Starting point is 07:45:59 from this point of sight also. Enough has doubtless been said to manifest the high-value-we-place of Dr. Otto's discussion. It would be difficult to find elsewhere in such brief compass, so full and lucid a survey of the recent German literature on evolution and the nature of life. And it would be, we are persuaded, impossible to find another work of such compressed form

Starting point is 07:46:20 in which the failure of naturalism as a theory of the world is more tellingly argued. End of Review of Naturalism and Religion by B.B. Warfield. Review of Magic and Religion by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Magic and Religion by Andrew Lang, author of Myth Rich. and religion, custom and myth, etc. Octavo, pages 10 to 316, Longman's Green and Co, 39 Paternoster Road, London, New York and Bombay, 1901. Into this volume, Mr. Lang has gathered a series

Starting point is 07:47:14 of papers. The most of them bear on the problem of the origin and early history of religion and tend to strengthen the hypothesis set forth in his making of religion, which was published in 18, and favorably reviewed in this journal at that time. Volume 9, page 744. That hypothesis is stated by an unfriendly critic, Mr. Hartland, as follows. Apparently, it is claimed that the belief in a supreme being came, in some way only to be guessed at, first in order of evolution, and was subsequently obscured and overlaid by belief in ghosts, and in a pantheon of lesser divinities, end quote.

Starting point is 07:47:55 That is to say, Mr. Lang, setting himself against the current of popular speculation, supposes that belief in a supreme being, instead of arising as an evolution from a precedent ancestor worship, or animism, antedated those forms of belief. He was led to this conclusion, he tells us, page 2 to 4, quote, first by observing the reports of belief in a relatively supreme being and maker among tribes who do not worship ancestral spirits, end quote, and, quote, secondly, by remarking,

Starting point is 07:48:25 the otios unworshipped supreme being, often credited with the charge of future rewards and punishments among polytheistic and ancestor-worshipping people, end quote. In defense of himself, against Mr. Hartland's innuendo, Mr. Lang replies that it is true enough that he holds that belief in a, quote, creative being, not a spirit, merely a being, before ghosts are worshipped, came in some way only to be guessed at. But, he adds, if I am to have an hypothesis like my neighbours, I have suggested that early man, looking for an origin of things, easily adopted the idea of a maker, usually an unborn man, who was before death and still exists. Round this being crystallized affection, fear and sense of duty, he sanctions morality and

Starting point is 07:49:14 early man's remarkable resistance to the cosmic tendency, his notion of unselfishness. That man should so early conceive a maker and father seems to me very probable. To my critics it is a difficulty. No speculation seems more inevitable, end quote, page 2 to 5. Readers of our review of Mr. Lang's making of religion, volume 9, page 7444, will remember that in this we are quite of Mr. Lang's mind. That man should instinctively, quote, project himself upon the heavens, end quote, seems to us so inevitable, in fact, that we can account for the difficulties which his critics find with Mr. Lang's postulation of an anthropomorphic religion for early man only by a fatal one-sidedness in their methods, a one-sidedness which, in a word, forgets the subject in absorption of the object. It is not, after all, quote, primitive religion, end quote, in the abstract that we are in search of, but the primitive religion of man.

Starting point is 07:50:13 And the primitive religion of man can never be reached by methods which leave out of consideration man himself, the producing cause of the thing we are investigating. Now, what we are saying amounts, of course, to suggesting that the so-called, quote, anthropological method, end quote, requires to be supplemented by the, quote, psychological method, end quote, in order that we may attain satisfying results in this sphere of investigation. No one will rise from reading the discussions of the origin and early forms of religion by our leading anthropologists without a strong conviction that what is needed by these writers is a fundamental study of the psychology of religion. The scoff implied in Mr. Hartlands professed inability to conceive how man could arrive directly at belief in a man-like

Starting point is 07:51:00 supreme being, grates a little on our susceptibilities. It is all very well to collect the phenomena of religion as they appear in the life of races and peoples and tribes, and to seek from these to construct a phenomenological schema of the course of religious development. Knowledge of how religion arises in the individual mind is nevertheless an indispensable prerequisite to the safe interpretation of these phenomena. No more here than in other spheres of investigation is it other than pseudoscience to seek to interpret phenomena, apart from the constitutive factor by which they were produced. We are not saying that, quote, the anthropological method, end quote, is useless and can lead to no sound conclusions. On the contrary, we welcome Mr. Lang's investigations in this sphere, just because, quote, the anthropological method, end quote, has in his hands led to sound conclusions.

Starting point is 07:51:54 conclusions which we think on, quote, anthropological, end quote, grounds, pure and simple, must stand. Though these conclusions are powerfully commended to us because they are in harmony with the findings suggested to us by the psychological method also, yet their immense importance as, quote, anthropological, end quote, conclusions, is revealed when we attend to another consideration. We can imagine anthropologists objecting to the use of the psychological method altogether, or at least looking at it, with a certain chary distrust on the ground of a formed or half-formed, or even perhaps subconscious, doubt, whether it is legitimate to attribute to, quote, primitive man and quote, the same mental movements observable in civilized man.

Starting point is 07:52:39 We can imagine an extreme evolutionist saying, or at least feeling, that his business is to get behind the man whose mental workings he is conscious of in himself, or can observe in his fellows, or even to get behind man himself, at least as we know, man to the half-beastial creature that once was slowly becoming man. What he wishes to do is to observe how, in the process of other changes, this change also took place. This evolving being became a religious creature. Obviously, from this point of view,

Starting point is 07:53:10 the intrusion into his work of considerations derived from a knowledge of the human mind as at present existing, and its normal workings might confuse his entire reasoning. It is of the utmost significance that Mr. Lang steps in at just this point and shows us that on, quote, anthropological grounds, end quote, themselves, quote, primitive religion, end quote, is exhibited as, quote, anthropomorphic, end quote, rather than as, quote, animistic, end quote, or quote, ancestor worshipping, end quote, and it is because he seems to us to have done this, that we attach an importance to his writings on this subject that from other points of view might well seem excessive. Primitive man is observed to have actually reasoned humanly.

Starting point is 07:53:55 Mr. Lang's main thesis, then, is, let us understand, that, quote, nothing in savage religion is better vouched for than the belief in a being whom narrators of every sort call a creator who holds all in his power, end quote, pages nine to ten, and that this supreme being is not, quote, envisaged as a spirit, but rather as a supernormal magnified man of unbounded power and of limitless duration, end quote page 17. Thus, he contends, the earliest traceable form of religion was relatively high, and it was due to the process of social evolution that it subsequently deteriorated to the low forms now so prevalent among savages. Now, this opinion, he remarks, may be attacked on two sides. It may be said that the loftier religious ideas of the lowest savages have been borrowed from

Starting point is 07:54:44 higher religions into contact with which these savages have been brought, especially from Christianity or Islam, and the validity of the evidence itself by which these higher religious ideas are attributed to lower races may be assailed. The present volume is, for the most part, made up of essays in which these two modes of assault on his theory are met, although other factors in the problem and other attempts at a solution of it are also discussed. First, Mr. Tyler's theory of, quote, lone gods or borrowed religion, end quote, is examined, and it is shown that it will not account for the situation. It remains a fact that low savages, the most remote in time and place from the possibility of having borrowed their, quote, high gods, end quote, yet do believe in a creator

Starting point is 07:55:30 and moral governor of the world. Then Mr. Fraser's idea that magic has everywhere preceded religion, and indeed that religion has been invented only in despair of magic, when men had tried magic and found it wanting, is examined and equally found inconsistent with the facts. quote, as to that despair, it does not exist, end quote. Religion is found not as the successor of magic, but existing fully developed side by side with superabundant magic. Next, the central argument of the new edition of Mr. Fraser's golden bow is taken up, that horrible theory of the origin of the Jewish feast of Purim, by means of which he fancies

Starting point is 07:56:11 he can account for the inscription of deity to our lord. In a running criticism covering about 125 pages, a criticism so desultarily written as to tax the patience of the reader, sadly. This portentous piece of conjectural construction is fairly laughed out of court. Doubtless this was the right way to deal with the nest of unsupported and insupportable hypotheses, out of which Mr. Fraser has built his castle in the air. But it makes certainly very confused reading. The result of the discussion is stated in a question thus, quote, Seriously, have we not in all this book, i.e. the golden bough, to do with that method of arbitrary conjecture which has ruined so many laborious philosophies of religion, end quote.

Starting point is 07:56:58 Two further essays carry on the general line of investigation to which the book is devoted. In one of these, Mr. Fraser's primal theory that built on, quote, the ghostly priest, end quote, is subjected to very, telling criticism. In the other, South African religion is re-studied with a view to validate its original recognition of a, quote, high god, end quote. The volume closes with three essays on folklore and magic, which have no immediate relation to the main subject with which the volume deals. We cannot praise the form into which Mr. Lang has cast the greater part of the discussions included in these pages. It has all of Mr. Lang's worst faults in an exaggerated measure, but we consider the matter of the volume important as a buttress to the suggestions enunciated in the making of religion and as a

Starting point is 07:57:46 really conclusive exposure of the methods of Mr. Fraser in the Golden Bow. We do not see how anyone after reading Mr. Lang's criticisms upon these methods can treat the main lines of argument in that painful book seriously. End of Review of Magic and Religion by B.B. Warfield. Review of mysticism in Christianity by B. B. B. B. Wawfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox. Mysticism in Christianity by the Reverend W. K. Fleming, M.A. B.D. of the College of All Hallows Barking, E.C., London, Robert Scott, New York and Chicago, Fleming H. Revel Company, 1913. Octavo, pages 10 to 282, bibliographies, and indices. Mysticism and Modern Life by John Wright-Buckham, Professor of Christian Theology in Pacific Theological Seminary, author of Christ and the Eternal Order, Personality and the

Starting point is 07:58:59 Christian Ideal, etc. New York and Cincinnati, the Abington Press, 1915, Duodesimo, pages 256 index. These two books illustrate a movement of recent thought, which both of them are eager that we should recognize as in progress. This is a movement toward a reawakened interest in mysticism, and even towards a reversion to it as a satisfying religious point of view. Such a movement was for religious men inevitable in the prevalent decay of confidence in the Christian revelation. For mysticism is religion and supplies a refuge for men of religious mind, who find it no longer possible for them to rest on external authority, as George Tyrell both expounded and illustrated for us. Once turn away from revelation and little choice remains to you about the choice between mysticism and rationalism.

Starting point is 07:59:51 There is not so much choice between these things. It is true as enthusiasts on either side are apt to imagine. The difference between them is very much a matter of temperament, or perhaps we may even say of temperature. The mystic blows hot, the rationalist cold. Warm up, the rationalist, and you inevitably get a mystic, chill down a mystic, and you find yourself with a rationalist on your hands. The history of thought illustrates repeatedly the easy passage from one to the other. Each centres himself in himself, and the human self is not so big that it makes any large difference where within yourself you take your centre. Nevertheless, just because mysticism blows hot, its eccentricity is the more attractive to men of lively religious feeling.

Starting point is 08:00:35 But it is just as scornful as rationalism of the supernatural, of external revelation, of historical foundations for religious, face to face with the supernatural revelations recorded in the Christian scriptures, it reduces them to mystical phenomena and assimilates them to the experiences of a platinus or of a sadi. Face to face with the historical foundations of Christianity, it treats them as symbols of transactions which take place within the souls of men. It is of the very essence of mysticism to find God within the circle of the individual's

Starting point is 08:01:07 experience. So as soon as any other way of coming into contact with God is proposed, that by sinking into ourselves, mysticism is radically deserted, and because not the perception of God, but God himself is found in the human soul, and by implication in every human soul, God is ultimately confounded with the human soul, at his deepest depths man is God. No doubt, being a religion and not merely a philosophy, unification is presented by mysticism as an achievement rather than as a postulate.

Starting point is 08:01:38 And no doubt we may learnedly distinguish between pantheism and panentheism, and panentheism between pantheism and negativism. All such efforts to escape from the coils of the serpent, however, are futile. Mysticism, in its fundamental basis of underlying conception, is just pantheizing anti-supernaturalism, and such it has shown itself, in great or less purity of manifestation in its entire historical development. This is what mysticism, with a capital M is. Spell it with a lowercase M, and we may possibly broaden it out into only another name for natural religion. As it is religion, it is, of course, when so understood admirable, as it remains natural religion, it is equally, of course, for fallen men inadequate. Its relation to Christianity

Starting point is 08:02:23 is that of natural religion to the religion of revelation. It goes without saying that it finds, quote, for itself in Christianity, a field of the richest and most fruitful soil, end quote. This is saying too little. We must say that only in Christianity can it attain its true development and complement. For Christianity is not an unnatural religion disputing the field of religion with natural religion. It is natural religion reinforced by supernatural republication and sanctions, and completed by the addition of what is needed for a religion for men in the unnatural condition induced by sin. It takes up natural religion into itself, and gives it the power to come to its rights, while it enlarges it by adding to it the supernatural religion needed for sinful man.

Starting point is 08:03:11 but it goes equally without saying that mysticism, understood as natural religion, is not, in some of its less complete developments, confined to the soil of Christianity. Just because it is natural religion, it is present wherever human nature is present, and functions religiously, and we do not need Schleiermacher to teach us that there is no human self-consciousness which is destitute of the God consciousness. Of course then, quote, it has been at the root of any and every religion worthy of the name in its original and indefectible feeling after God, if happily it may find him, end quote.

Starting point is 08:03:46 Whenever man exists, he is, quote, in contact, end quote, with God, and wherever men are in contact with God, they may know him, if only they will attend to him in contact with whom they are. We may even use the word know in its full sense. We see no reason to dispute Plotinus's dictum that God to be known must be seen or felt. If God be a mere hypothesis, however fully that hypothesis is verified, he can scarcely be said to be known. That he is, we may be sure, but to know that God is, is not yet to know God. We may acquire, after a while, good reason to believe that Mars, say, is inhabited. That would not warrant us in saying that we know the beings whose bare existence we have found reason to believe in. God is known only by those who being in

Starting point is 08:04:34 contact with him have looked upon him with that eye of the soul to which he is invisible. If this be mysticism, we are all mystics, not merely Augustine, with his doctrine of the intelligible world and the sensus internos, by which it is perceived, but Calvin also with his doctrine of the sensus de tatis, which is the semen religiones. But it certainly is not mysticism in any historical sense of that term. The fault of the books, like those now before us, is that they confound capital M mysticism, which is pantheizing anti-supernaturalism, with lowercase mysticism, conceived as conscious living, moving, and having our being in God,

Starting point is 08:05:14 and then interpret Christianity in terms of the resultant confused idea. The effect is to desupernaturalize and de-historicalize Christianity, and to reduce it to a merely natural religion, or rather to substitute merely natural religion for it. Christ is ranged with other masters, and the Christianity which he died to give to the world, is explained as already in the possession of men, before and quite apart from him, as lying always in fact at the disposal of men and the depths of every man's own heart. This is the fundamental point of view which lies beneath and gives their ground colour to both of the books now before us, though it manifests itself in the discussions of each, of course, in a degree and manner of its own.

Starting point is 08:05:55 Mr. Fleming's book is historical in form. Its task is to present a succinct account of the manifestations of mystical thought and of the mystical attitude in the historical development of Christianity. His mind is on mysticism with a capital M, and he represents its presence in the Christian life and thinking of the ages as the saving salt by virtue of which Christianity has been made and maintained as a religion. Mr. Buckham's book has more the form of a discussion of principles. Some of the chapters which constituted were written originally for separate publication, and the unity of the volume suffers somewhat from this fact. But a sufficient internal unity

Starting point is 08:06:34 is given to the whole by the common purpose, pervading all parts alike, to assimilate mysticism and Christianity to one another. This assimilation is effected by first interpreting mysticism in terms of Christianity. The stages of, quote, the mystic way, end quote, for example, are expounded in a fashion which may enable the Christian to receive it, but scarcely the mystic to recognize it as his own, and then interpreting Christianity in terms of mysticism. What comes out as a result is something which is neither mysticism nor Christianity, but a good deal more the former than the latter. Anti-doctrinal zeal is a fundamental trait of both books. Their misprision of evangelical teaching and practice is marked, their hatred of Calvinism and all its works intense, though not very

Starting point is 08:07:20 intelligible or even intelligent. Observed this list of names brought together by Mr. Buckham, as not very commendable for the theology they represent. Quote, arius, Pelagius, Abelard, Dominic, Sosinus, Calvin, the Westminster Divines, Priestley, end quote. It is interesting to observe what Mr. Buckham makes of Christianity in his determination to give it a common denominator with mysticism. In one passage, he formally expounds, quote, the essence of Christianity, end quote. We do not quarrel with him that, in his anti-dogmatic zeal, he seeks primarily the essence

Starting point is 08:07:54 of Christianity as spiritual experience. What we quarrel with him for is the particular spiritual experience, which he segregates as constituting the specific essence of Christianity. This he phrases as, quote, a filial communion and cooperation with God, so deep and real as to transform life, end quote. Obviously, there is nothing specifically Christian in this. Quote, this spirit came through Jesus, end quote, he says,

Starting point is 08:08:22 but then he adds immediately, quote, not that it is absolutely new with Jesus, end quote. He adds again, indeed, quote, but it was so intense and, fructifying as to exercise an almost. This almost is intensely revealing, creative influence upon those who came to share it with him and through him, end quote. But this does not remove the fatal fact that nothing exclusively Christian is discovered in the essence of Christianity. Christianity may bring what it brings with a special poignancy of appeal, but it is a matter of degree not of kind

Starting point is 08:08:57 after all. So Pelagius said that men could be saved apart from Christianity as truly as by Christianity, only they could be saved more easily under Christianity. Just as a boat would convey you from Carthage to Italy by sale more easily to yourself than if you had to row it across, but you could row it across all right if you had to. Christianity is a good religion, no doubt the best religion, but you can do very well without it. But now how did Mr. Buckham, arrive at this remarkable essence for Christianity. By historical induction, it seems. Quote, it is only as we grasp that which is common in Christian experiences in the first century and in our own and in all that intervene, that we understand the essence of Christianity,

Starting point is 08:09:45 end quote, he tells us. And then he tells us that, proceeding after this fashion, he finds the essence of Christianity, what we have seen. Did anybody ever reason with more delightful circularity. We presume that the spiritual experience of those alone who possess the essence of Christianity is truly Christian experience, and we presume equally that the essence of Christianity is the spiritual experience of those only who are truly Christians. We may know who are truly Christians by observing who have truly Christian experience, and we may know what truly Christian experience is by observing what is the experience of those who are truly Christians. Or shall we say rather that the spiritual experience common to all who call themselves Christians is the essence of Christianity.

Starting point is 08:10:30 If only a single man from the time of Christ until today, who has called himself a Christian, and has not been truly a Christian be included in this induction, the conclusion is vitiated. We should get not what is common to all Christians, but what is common to Christians and non-Christians. This is what has happened to Mr. Buckham. He gives us not the essence of Christianity, which is a specific religion, but the essence from his point of sight of religion. And that is the reason why after saying that this, quote, filial communion and cooperation with God, end quote, to be Christian, must be, quote, so deep and real as to transform life, end quote,

Starting point is 08:11:08 he immediately bethinking himself of the other religions with which Christianity is confounded in his thought qualifies this and says of it that it is only, quote, an almost creative influence, end quote. We have noted that rationalism does not lie any too far away from misdistance. mystics sometimes betray a tendency to rationalistic turns of thought. Mr. Buckham does not altogether escape. Does God send trouble is a question which seems quite to bowl over his attempt to interpret the universe in terms of God? In reporting the attitude of the mystic towards, quote, the disasters and ills, quote, of life, he interjects a remark on his own account to the effect that these disasters and ills of life,

Starting point is 08:11:50 quote, are acts of nature rather than of God, or his only as belonging. into a world that is his." End quote. What wretched dualism have we here? Mr. Buckham seeks to solve his defection by intimating that mysticism, at least, does not go so far astray here as evangelicalism that Bet Noir both of himself and Mr. Fleming.

Starting point is 08:12:12 Quote, evangelicalism, he tells us, went too far, in the direction of attributing the dark and the storm to the sending of God, and interpreting, quote, the lightning javelins of fate as hurled by his hands. end quote. The mystic has not urged, he affirms, that disasters are direct acts of God, and especially not, that they have been sent with punitive intent. He has only endeavored to utilize trouble when it comes for his own purification and perfection. All this is obviously not only un-evangelical, but irreligious, if we can make a distinction here. He, who does not

Starting point is 08:12:47 see the hand of God in all that befalls him, is a rationalist more extreme than even such an extreme rationalist as Wilhelm Hermann. He has not only torn God out of his heart where the mystic finds him, but even out of the universe where the mere theist must see him. Quote, the experience of the mystics as a whole, writes Mr. Buckham,

Starting point is 08:13:07 offers a striking exemplification of the saying of Christ as to the life of the kingdom consisting in a renewed childhood, end quote. What saying of Christ is this? Mr. Buckham seems conscious that there is something wrong here, for he immediately adds, quote,

Starting point is 08:13:22 not that such a life has the weaknesses and limitations of childhood, but rather its vision, its faith, its confiding communion, end quote. As childhood, infancy would be the truer term, quote, vision and faith and confiding communion, end quote. The mistake here is not to be condoned merely because it has become so common. The kingdom of heaven is not an infantile estate in which the immature alone may be at home, nor is it a child's paradise. Men are not to renew their childhood.

Starting point is 08:13:52 in it, but to put away childish things. We rise, not sink into manhood, and the kingdom of heaven consists not in reduced men, but in enlarged men, built up into the fullness of the stature of manhood in Christ. What our Lord said was not that life in the kingdom consisted in a renewed childhood, but that no man can enter the kingdom, save as an infant enters the world, naked and bear of all claims on his own behalf, utterly dependent on God for all and receiving all from his mere grace. It is to that state that we are to turn, humbling ourselves if we are to enter the kingdom. To receive the kingdom as a gratuity from God is a very different thing, however, from using it as a crache. We may of course speak of a, quote, mystical aspect of Christianity,

Starting point is 08:14:39 end quote, and we may even speak of the, quote, doctrine, or rather the experience of the Holy Ghost, end quote, as, quote, the real truth of mysticism, end quote. The term Christ mysticism may have a good meaning. But in the ambiguity of the word mysticism, all such modes of speech may also be gravely misleading. If it be true, as R.C. Mobley said it was true that, quote, had only all Christians understood and lived up to their belief, end quote, in the Holy Ghost, quote, they would all have been mystics, end quote, it is certainly not true, what he immediately adds, quote, or in other words, there would have been no mysticism, end quote. All Christians not only might have been, or maybe, actually are mystics in the sense of the former clause. Communion with God is of the very essence of

Starting point is 08:15:27 Christianity. Paul tells us in so many words that if any man hath not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his. No man is a Christian who has not the experience of the indwelling Christ. But mysticism is still with us and is another matter. This is a pantheizing, anti-supernaturalistic religiousness which must not be permitted to come to us in the sheep's clothing of essential Christianity on the ground that it is only another name for spiritual inwardness. It is most decidedly something very different from that. End of Review of Mysticism in Christianity by B.B. Warfield. Review of the Ice Age in North America and its bearings on the antiquity of man by B.B. Warfield.

Starting point is 08:16:17 This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. The Ice Age in North America and its bearings on the antiquity of man by G. Frederick Wright, D. D. D. L.L.D. F. G.S.A. A. Professor in Oberlin Theological Seminary, Assistant on the United States Geological Survey, etc. With an appendix on the probable cause of glaciation by Warren Uppam, F. G.S.A., etc. With many maps and illustrations, New York, D. Appleton and Co., London, Caxton House, 1889. pages 18 to 622. In this sumptuous volume, Professor Wright has brought together in a form which appeals to the cultivated world, rather than solely to geological specialists, a full and very satisfactory account of glaciation and of the so-called glacial age, especially in North America. Beginning with a simple description of the nature of ice and its behaviour as a semi-fluid, he carries the reader with him, first to an examination of existing glaciers,

Starting point is 08:17:25 and then to an investigation of the remains of the past glaciers, which once covered the whole northern portion of the American continent. Nothing can surpass the expository skill, with which the untechnical reader is made to understand the meaning of the various effects, which have been wrought by the ice and the ice floods, and which stand as their monuments, in the form of morainic ridges, drumlines,

Starting point is 08:17:46 cams, kettle holes, and terraces, and then to reproduce, in imagination, the geography of North America in pre-glacial and glacial time. On the cause of glaciation, Professor Wright occupies, page 440, a somewhat safe, agnostic position. He is skeptical as to the astronomical theory of Mr. Crowell, which has had very great vogue, but which appears to be in conflict with the time measures which seem most easily and safely estimated. These seem to point to a period not more than from 7,000 to 10,000 years ago as marking the close of the Ice Age. Professor Wright also carries the lay mind with him in his suggestion that a single ice age,

Starting point is 08:18:25 with oscillations accounts better for the facts than the common assumption of two great and well-marked periods of general glaciation, divided by a general period of warmer temperature. To the theologian, the most interesting problem connected with the Ice Age is that which concerns the antiquity of man. To this Professor Wright devotes two lucid and instructive chapters, that man existed on this continent not only at the close of this age, as the remains discovered in the Trenton Gravels in Ohio and in Minnesota prove, but also for a long period during it, seems to follow from the discoveries by Mr. Crescent of wrought implements in the older deposits of the Lower Delaware. What we are to think of the apparently still older remains from the

Starting point is 08:19:08 western coast seems not yet obvious. It is perfectly true that all the older estimates of geological time are in course of a revision which much reduces their length and that the close of the glacial era cannot now be assigned to a date much more remote than some seven or eight thousand years. Possibly the oldest human remains of eastern America will not carry the direct evidence of man's existence back to more than double that age. But it would be rash to contend that man existed no earlier than he has been as yet traced by the chance relics that have been preserved of him in gravel heaps and caves. And if, as seems reasonable, the California evidence be admitted, new items of which Professor Wright has himself brought to light since his book was published,

Starting point is 08:19:52 the direct witness to his existence may be pushed considerably further back. On the whole, an agnostic position is safest here, too. Man seems to have existed on the globe at least 10 or 15,000 years. How much longer let the investigations of the future search out for us? Theology, at all events, has nothing to gain or lose by the result. It is exegetically untenable that the earlier genealogies of Genesis supply us with a basis for a chronology. The appearance of a linked chain of generations presented, at the first superficial glance by Genesis 5 and 11, is delusive. The numbers there are obviously

Starting point is 08:20:29 given for the different purpose of emphasizing the vigor and longevity of the antediluvians and would not all be serviceable for a chronological purpose. As another purpose has to be called in in order to account for them all, we have no right to assume that this was the purpose of any of them. Each sentence thus has its whole end in itself and is to be read separately. But if so, any number of generations may have occurred between each name mentioned, just as unnamed generations occurred in the course of the apparently similarly closely jointed genealogy of Matthew 1. The genealogical tables of the Old Testament in a word, as Dr. W.H. Green has lucidly shown, do not supply the material for a chronology.

Starting point is 08:21:10 The age of man on the earth is therefore a question in which theology as such has no more. interest than she has in all truth. Theologians will look to the exegetes of the book of nature to read her this riddle and will rest in their results. End of Review of the Ice Age in North America and its bearings on the Antiquity of Man by B.B. Warfield. Review of Miley's systematic theology by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevaox recording. All Librevalch's recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Miley's Systematic Theology Systematic Theology by John Miley, D.D. L.L.D., Professor of Systematic theology in Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, New Jersey, Volume 1, Octavo, pages 16 to 533, New York, Hunt and Eaton, Cincinnati, Cranston and Stowe, 1892.

Starting point is 08:22:19 $3. The high quality of the biblical and theological library, now publishing by the Methodist Publication House, does honour to the great denomination which it represents. The latest issue in the series, Dr. Miley's systematic theology is highly praised when it is recognized, as it must be, as worthy to stand in company with Dr. Bennett's Christian archaeology and Dr. Terry's biblical hermeneutics. It is written with a direct lucidity, which, is the natural expression of adequate knowledge and clear thinking. It presents its subject in orderly arrangement, in clear definition and with argumentative force, and it is characterized throughout by candor, restraint and modesty, while a quiet humor occasionally

Starting point is 08:23:05 subtly colors a phrase. It is altogether a good book, and the reader of it is sure to rise up and gratefully praise it. If he be an Armenian, he ought to find it a rarely judicious and well-reasoned exposition of his form of faith. If he be a Calvinist, he ought to countered a privilege to be enabled to consider the points in which the two great systems differ, under the leading of so competent a guide, and with such an entire absence of theological rancor. It is somewhat embarrassing to undertake the criticism of a half-finished book. In a case like the present, when the work is occupied with a well-known and well-compacted system, the end is indeed seen from the beginning, and yet there are individual ways of stating and defending, and

Starting point is 08:23:47 deed of conceiving even the formative doctrines of a school of thought, which render it improper to anticipate their actual statement and exposition. In the present instance, the embarrassment is increased by the further fact that a number of detailed discussions underlying or expanding the treatment of matters embraced in the scheme of this first volume have been postponed to appendices to appear at the close of the second volume. There we are to look for full expositions of the doctrines of inspiration and of angels. A study of Romans 5 verse 12 and following, seeking to justify the rejection of the doctrine of the federal headship of Adam, which is thought by many of us to be taught in that text, and a historical

Starting point is 08:24:28 review of the treatment of original sin by Armenian writers, which promises to be very interesting. The volume before us not only closes with anthropology, therefore, but does not give us the whole of the relevant material. Nevertheless, though with it alone before us, we may not catch the proportion of doctrine, as it lies in Dr. Miley's mind, we can scarcely fail to apprehend from his clear writing the elements of the doctrines which he presents. In an introduction of some 50 pages, Dr. Miley gives us his view of the nature, sources, scope, and method of systematic theology. We miss in this a satisfactory indication of the distribution of the disciplines in the theological encyclopedia, and this has affected somewhat the contents of the volume. To our thinking, the great

Starting point is 08:25:14 subject of Theism, which Dr. Miley makes the first division of systematic theology, belongs to the preliminary discipline of apologetics, and its treatment should either have been excluded from this treatise altogether, or made very summary and included in the prologomena. This, we say by way of mere formal criticism, for the actual treatment given to Theism commands our admiration, especially the defence of God as an intuition, which in its last analysis amounts to a defense of a religious nature as a fundamental element of the human constitution. On the other hand, we find in this introduction a luminous discussion of such topics as these. The nature of scientific treatment, which is especially good with reference to the scientific treatment of separate doctrines,

Starting point is 08:25:58 the nature of the scientific basis of Christianity, including an admirable statement of the place of reason in theology, the right of systematization and the value of doctrine, and the method of systematizing, in the course of which there is a very severe criticism of the so-called Christocentric model, and a possibly too extreme statement of the difficulty, Dr. Miley would say the impossibility of finding one unifying principle in theology. Under this view, he holds that the work of systematizing is constructive and must, quote, proceed in a synthetic mode, end quote, i.e. must seek only a logical order. He therefore follows the customary order of topics, beginning with theology and proceeding through Anthropology, Christology,

Starting point is 08:26:43 citerology, ecclesiology, and eschatology. We have no criticism to offer upon the adoption of this general scheme. Most schemes, under whatever name they are put forth, practically follow this order. But a criticism or two may be proper as to the distribution of the matter under these rubrics. We have already pointed out that theism is out of place under the first section and finds its true position in the previous discipline of apologetics. We miss also under the first rubric, as is usual indeed in Armenian systems, but certainly unfortunate, any treatment of the plans or purposes of God. Dr. Miley perceives no doubt that God has not entered upon his works of creation and providence

Starting point is 08:27:25 without a plan. He remarks incidentally on page 295, quote, creation has a purpose and a plan. All things were created in the divine pleasure and for the manifestings. of the divine glory, to the end that men might know God and live to him as their supreme God, end quote. But he passes at once from the topic of the Trinity to that of creation, and this is apt to leave the impression that God is simple activity, and that he is not even rational in his works. For a synthetic order, we must have a discussion here of God's decree.

Starting point is 08:27:59 We do not like either the line of division which is run between Christology and satirology. Certainly if these rubrics are to be distinguished, the work of Christ must be subsumed, along with his incarnation and person under the former, just as the work of God appears as creation and providence under the rubric of theology. Otherwise, the work of Christ and of the spirit are confused under the rubric of satirology. Dr. Miley distributes the sources of theology broadly into nature and revelation, and discriminates these sources at page nine most fruitfully on the basis of, quote, modes of knowledge, end quote.

Starting point is 08:28:36 Knowledge acquired, quote, in the use of human faculties, and quote, is natural, that immediately communicated by divine agency is revealed. In the one case, quote, the mode of acquisition is purely human, the discovery of truth is mediated by the use of our own faculties, end quote, in the other, quote, it is immediately given by the supernatural agency of God, end quote. He remarks justly that, quote, our individual. intuitions of truth are no exceptions, end quote, since intuition is a purely human mode of knowledge. The author remarks with justice, quote,

Starting point is 08:29:12 it is important thus sharply to discriminate these two modes of truth, for only thus can we properly distinguish nature and revelation as sources of theology, end quote. For if we lay the stress on source or agency only without taking into account also the mode of knowledge in our definitions, we may find ourselves helpless before the presently common pantheizing conception of the world, which, by postulating imminent deity in all human thought, confounds the categories of reason and revelation. Readers of Dr. Whitean's recent little book called Gloria Patry will perceive how easy it is through such a conception to do practically away with the category of revelation altogether, by formally subsuming all the deliverances of reason under the category

Starting point is 08:29:56 of revelation. We regret, therefore, to find Dr. Miley at a somewhat later point apparently deserting this ground. On page 11 we read that, quote, the defining fact, end quote, of revelation lies no longer in mode of knowledge, but apparently solely in agency. Quote, religious truth communicated through a supernatural agency of God is a revelation, end quote. And the way thus prepared, we read further that heathen men, feeling after God, if happily they may find him, may receive a divine revelation through their human faculties. quote, according to the defining fact of revelation as above stated,

Starting point is 08:30:34 any religious truth divinely given in such answer, though not verified to the recipient as from God, is yet a revelation, end quote. Quote, and to this source, he continues, we would trace the higher religious truths reached by heathen minds, rather than to unaided reason and the light of nature or to tradition, end quote. But according to the definition on page nine, the question whether they belong to the can,

Starting point is 08:30:59 category of reason or revelation is not one of source merely but of mode of knowledge as well, and specifically turns upon, quote, whether the acquisition of truth is in the use of human faculties, end quote. Dr. Miley appears to us to have stepped over the wall of his own just definition here into the preserve of the Quakers, with the effect of throwing himself helpless into the hands of the mystic rationalists. His doctrine of unrecognizable but real revelation to inquiring heathen is indistinguishable from the Logos doctrine, which Dr. Briggs recently announced in his defense before his presbytery, and would logically lead to the broad conception of religion

Starting point is 08:31:39 in which Gottlieb Philip Christian Kaiser so rejoiced when he commended his biblical theology to readers, quote, who are observant students of mankind, and who refusing to believe that any one church is in sole possession of salvation, are learning to find out and appreciate, the honest worshippers of the divine in every age and clime, whose religion is neither Judaism, Christianity, Muhammadanism, nor paganism, but religious universalism,

Starting point is 08:32:09 Catholicism in the true sense of the word, what our theologians call perfectable Christianity, end quote. On such a conception in a word, there seems no imperative need for distinctive Christianity in the world. We must hasten to add that when Dr. Miley comes to treat formally of mysticism, page 16. He rejects the mystical path as a source of knowledge of religious truth altogether, thus, as it appears to us, reverting to his first and just position. It looks upon mysticism as, quote, the doctrine of an immediate insight into truth. End quote, this, quote, immediate insight into

Starting point is 08:32:48 truth being through some form of divine illumination, the mind being divinely illuminated and lifted above its natural powers, and truth and God being immediately seen, end quote. Is not this just what he had postulated for seeking heathen? Yet he criticizes as follows. Quote, there is a divine illumination which lifts the soul into a higher capacity for knowing God and truth, but there is no new revelation. There are promises of divine inspiration as the mode of higher revelations of truth, but definitely and exclusively to the chosen mediums of such

Starting point is 08:33:24 inspiration and revelation, end quote, i.e. to the prophets and apostles. We know not how these statements can be accorded with the former teaching of a not uncommon revelation to heathen seekers, unless we are to suppose that God is nearer to heathens than to Christians, and deals more intimately with them than with Christians. It is worth noting further in this same connection that in the section which deals with the modern doctrine of, quote, Christian consciousness, and quote, Dr. Miley not only rejects it altogether as a source of Christian doctrine, but even goes to the unwarrantable extreme, as we think it, of refusing to allow, quote, that certain facts of Christian experience witness to the truth of certain correlate tenets of doctrine,

Starting point is 08:34:10 end quote, page 18. He says, page 19, quote, no soul ever reached it, end quote, ae, Christian consciousness, quote, or ever can reach it, through reason or the light of nature. Its essential precondition is knowledge of Christian truth, end quote. And we may note, by the way, the skill and success with which Dr. Miley treats in general the whole matter of the relation of reason and feeling. We should particularly like to quote a fine passage on page 40 as to the value of feeling in religion and its relation to reason. Compare also pages 48 and 49. The topics which fall under the head of theology proper are treated with sufficient fullness and great logical power, along with considerable self-restraint. The term attribute is confined

Starting point is 08:35:00 to too narrow a sense, being limited to those constitutive of personality, but the distinction between these, quote, personal attributes, end quote, and all others, is sound and fruitful. The first of these, quote, personal attributes, end quote, the divine intellect, is discussed under the caption of omniscience, the perplexities presented by which, under the constitutive Armenian principle of freedom are not disguised, page 189, and following. Among these perplexities, Dr. Miley does not include, however, the divine foreknowledge of free actions. This, he explains under the category of Sientia Media, page 189, and defends not only powerfully, but quite unanswerably, against the arguments of Dr. McCabe, page 181, and following.

Starting point is 08:35:48 We cannot think, however, that he has followed his own arguments to their legitimate end, and These arguments not only involve the Calvinistic doctrine of the certainty of free actions, as distinguished from necessity, page 183, but also distinctly imply predestination. For example, it is argued by way of a reductio at absurdum that the difficulties asserted to stand in the way of God's foreknowing the free acts of men, press equally upon his foreknowledge of his own free acts. Quote, if future free volitions are unknowable because free or unknowable for any other reason, then such volitions of God are as completely beyond the reach of his prescience as the

Starting point is 08:36:27 future volitions of men, end quote. This is acute, and will prove very difficult to answer. It will require an even more acute logic, however, to distinguish between God's full knowledge of his future choices and his four intention to make those choices, which is just Calvinistic predestination, and as it will be difficult to disentangle the future choices of God from those of his creatures with which they are woven in the actual web of life. It will be exceedingly difficult to deny these creature choices also a place in the one comprehensive plan already foreknown in all its parts in eternity, and therefore foreintended or predestinated. Again, the objection that it would be inconsistent with the divine goodness to create souls whose rejection of

Starting point is 08:37:12 salvation is certainly foreknown, is justly set aside with the remark that Niscience will not obviate the objection. Inasmuch as it presses almost even, equally against the creation of souls with the known possibility of their loss, and quite equally against the continuance of the race after the experienced fact of such numerous losses. But surely the bottom is not reached thus, for if God creates souls which he foreknowes will certainly be lost, he must, in this sense, create them with the intention that they will be lost, and this is the whole content of the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination in the case, of that Decretum Horribile, to which men say.

Starting point is 08:37:51 seem so ineradicably to object, but which is as surely a truth of reason as it is of scripture. The real difficulty here, Dr. Miley finds in the very existence of moral evil under the government of God, and when he comes to speak of the origin of evil, he allows that a complete theodicy is unattainable to human knowledge, page 429 in following. We cannot consent to stop, however, at the point at which he elects to stay his efforts to discover one. In this matter, as elsewhere, he appears to act upon a principle which is naturally very attractive to minds of analytical power, the principle of the Vida et impera.

Starting point is 08:38:29 The danger is that in the analysis the essence of the question may slip out between the joints. This is what happens here. Dr. Miley shows in turn, one, that the creation of moral beings is permissible. Two, that a probationary economy is permissible. And three, that therefore the fall which was contemplated as a possibility in the probationation. economy is permissible. Excellent, we say. But we still ask, for Dr. Miley fully accepts the doctrine of the divine foreknowledge as we have seen, how was it consistent with God's holiness and goodness that he should create these moral beings and put them in a probationary economy, knowing beforehand,

Starting point is 08:39:08 not that they might possibly fall, but that they certainly would fall. The only tenable ground here is the Calvinistic ground that such action on God's part, of course, involves his creation of man with the intention in this sense that he would fall, and the only possible direction in which to look for a theodicy is in that of an end great and glorious enough to justify the incidental evil arising from this cause. John Wesley saw this, but Dr. Miley rejects Wesley's suggestion out of hand, and with it all similar and better ones, for there are better ones, with the remark that it involves the implication that sin could have been prevented, consistently with human freedom, which cannot be true, he adds, since in that case, quote,

Starting point is 08:39:51 the fall itself must have been completely within the disposition of divine providence, end quote, page 439. But certainly this implication is true, even on the basis of natural religion, and a single question would seem to uncover the fallacy of Dr. Miley's opposite assertion. What required God to create just those free agents whom he foreknew would fall? Why could he not confine himself to creating, such as he foreknew would stand in their probation, or shall we say that while he foreknew that some angels would stand and others fall, it was impossible for him to create a human-free agent

Starting point is 08:40:28 whom he could foreknow would stand. In that case we must say either that human-free action cannot be foreknown, which is contrary to Mr. Miley's doctrine, or else that all possible human beings would certainly fall, which would seem to carry back their fall to necessity of nature. Thus, even on Dr. Miley's own ground, it would seem that we must recognize the fall as, quote, completely within the disposition of divine providence, end quote, and must allow that God made man thus and not otherwise, and placed him in these conditions and not others, knowing that he would fall, and in that sense intending him to fall, and that is but to say that the permission of the fall entered into God's eternal plan, and must be justified by the ultimate end

Starting point is 08:41:14 in view. We may be able to assign this end, or we may not, but we must believe that it exists, and that it will be sufficiently glorious to justify the incidental evil arising in the course of its prosecution. In these remarks on the origin of evil we have, of course, passed out of the domain of theology into that of anthropology, leaving much behind, which we should have liked to speak of. It is in the anthropology of the volume, of course, that the Calvinistic reader will find most, seems to him open to question, and this all the more that Dr. Miley occupies here the extremist Armenian ground. We find much here in the way of careful statement and candid treatment to admire, and we willingly bear our witness to the fairness with which the Augustinian positions are stated.

Starting point is 08:42:03 Dr. Miley divides the great question of original sin into the three of whether there is such a thing as native depravity, whether it is penal, and whether it is guilty. Only the first of these does he answer affirmatively. His doctrine is that all men are natively depraved, and out of that depravity will certainly commit actual sin, but that this depravity comes to them only through the law of nature that like begets like, and is in no sense penalty, and thus that because they are born with it and do not themselves produce it,

Starting point is 08:42:37 they cannot be held responsible for it, and it is, therefore, as our New England brethren have learned to call it, and, quote, uncondemable vittiosity, end quote. Of course, we shall not commit the folly of attempting to refute this, as it seems to us, very refutable position in the course of a brief notice. Let us only remark briefly that it passes the comprehension of our Calvinistically warped mind to understand how so careful a thinker can, on the one hand, hang the whole weight of depravity on a lure of nature,

Starting point is 08:43:07 and on the other deny the condemnability of a state of depravity, which inevitably produces sin in. every action into which it issues. As to the former matter, what is a law of nature but a generalized fact, and what explanation of a fact can be found in simply generalizing it? Even the foolish king was not satisfied when asking how the apple got into the dumpling to be told that all dumplings have apples in them. To point to the law of nature that like begets like as the explanation of universal depravity

Starting point is 08:43:40 can mean nothing more than to subsume this fact as a specific case under the general law of heredity. The mind immediately wants to know then why is Adam's depravity, and not that perhaps greatly increased, or perhaps it may be the greatly lessened depravity of his nearer ancestry that one inherits, a matter by no means explained by Dr. Miley's brief remarks on it. And the mind further wants to know, who made this a law of nature and what right it has to be a law of nature, It wants to know whether this law of nature is not a cruel injustice, under the grinding working of which man has nothing to do but to curse God and die. As long as it is true that, quote, no theory could consent to a purely arbitrary implication

Starting point is 08:44:27 of the race in the Adamic sin, end quote, so long will it be true that we must have an explanation of how it is just and right for man to inherit Adam's depravity, if we would justify the ways of God with man. To say that all that was threatened to Adam for sin, physical death and its precedent weaknesses and pains and spiritual death or depravity, with its tendency to sin, inevitably issuing in actual sinning, has been brought upon mankind simply on the basis of a law of nature, so that all the race is brought through the mediation of depravity into actual sin and guilt, without the possibility of escape, on the sole basis of a law of nature is no just explanation at all.

Starting point is 08:45:08 It is simply to deify a phrase. As to the demerit of native depravity, we recognize indeed the truth of Dr. Miley's contention that Armenianism cannot stand with its admission. But this seems to us as Calvinists only a refutation of Armenianism. Its denial involves, of course, a denial of ethical character to all merely subjective states. We had thought early in the volume that Dr. Miley could escape, this extreme when we read, quote, so much have our subjective states

Starting point is 08:45:37 to do with our judgments, but we are responsible for these states and therefore for the judgments which they so much influence, end quote, page 42. But when Adam's primitive holiness fell to be discussed, page 409, our illusion was dissipated. It seems

Starting point is 08:45:53 that Adam's holiness was, quote, simply a quality of Adam's nature, end quote, and as such, possessed no proper ethical element. It, quote, was simply a subjective state and tendency in harmony with his moral relations and duties, but such a state, however real and excellent and however pleasing to the divine mind, could not have any true ethical quality, or in any proper sense be accounted meritorious or rewardable, end quote.

Starting point is 08:46:20 In like manner our native depravity is only a subjective quality, and though non-excellent and displeasing to God has no ethical quality. This seems to us most remarkable. Here is a depravity which originally arose in personal action, and which is apparently the same in us as in Adam, which is the spring of all our actual sins, and yet which is itself, however, hideous, non-condemable. The theory which requires such a view is in antagonism with the deepest convictions of the human mind. If God looks upon Adam and finds him with a subjective quality excellent, and, quote, pleasing to the divine mind, end quote, how should he not show him his pleasure? And if God looks upon us and finds us with a subjective quality non-excellent and displeasing to his holiness,

Starting point is 08:47:08 how should he not show us his displeasure? Must we look upon God as the most unnatural being in the universe, as a being whose action is entirely divorced from his imminent choice? No wonder our Armenian brethren are continually telling us Calvinists that their God is not our God. End of Review of Miley's Systematic Theology by B.B. Warfield. Review of Some Loose Stones by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org.

Starting point is 08:47:53 Some loose stones being a consideration of certain tendencies in modern theology, illustrated by reference to the book called Foundations. By R.A. Knox, fellow and chaplain of Trinity College Ox, Second Impression, London and New York, Longman's Green and Co, 1913. Crown, Octavo, pages 14 to 233, indices. Mr. Knox is a member of that coterie of young Oxford fellows, out of which came the seven Oxford men who wrote the liberal manifesto called Foundations. See the notice of it in this review for July 1913, 113, pages 5 to 6 to 5 to 8.

Starting point is 08:48:36 not being of their way of thinking and naturally being aware of the approaching publication of the book, he greeted its birth with a brilliant satire, parodying Dryden's Absalom and a Hitterfell under the somewhat lurid title of Absolute and A Bit of Hell. There were those who thought that if the book was to be attacked at all, it would better be seriously attacked, a proposition the universal validity of which would not have been allowed, to be sure, by John Calvin, say, or Pierre Verre, though we are not sure that Mr. Knox would care to support himself on the judgments of precisely these great men.

Starting point is 08:49:11 At any rate, having enjoyed his burst of laughter, Mr. Knox has turned to earnest remonstrance and has written this volume of criticism in which he traverses the main positions taken up by the authors of foundations. He still, however, conceives himself to be engaged rather with the writers of foundations than with their doctrines. Or rather, perhaps we should say, he conceives himself to be engaged with their doctrines, primarily not on their own account, but as expressions of the personalities of their propounders. He insists that he is not writing a theological book, is rather occupied, he suggests, in a study in psychology. What interests him particularly is the psychology, the, quote, far more intricate psychology, end quote, he says, than that of, quote, the prophets or the

Starting point is 08:49:54 apostles, or of the fathers, or of the schoolmen, end quote, of, quote, the modern theologian, end quote. The most wonderful thing about our wonderful modern theology to Mr. Knox is apparently that there are people who can think that way. Even the attitude of the modern theologian to his tasks seems to Mr. Knox an odd one. The modern theologian is apparently less concerned in the discovery of precisely what is true about Christianity than in the ascertainment of how much can be made easily to pass as true among quote modern men, end quote. He seems oppressed by the mass of scientific opinion around him, but what dawns him is not so much the effect of this scientific opinion on his own faith as, quote, its effects on the faith of other people,

Starting point is 08:50:39 end quote. Therefore, there enters into all his work an apologetic tone which produces even, quote, at times a cynical indifference to absolute truth, end quote. Quote, for we are not concerned now to find how we can represent truth most adequately, but how we can represent it most palatibly. We ask of a doctrine, not, is it sound, but couldn't we possibly manage to do without it? Not, is it true, but can I induce Jones to see it in that light? Jones has been to college and has heard of Hegel, end quote. He is a good man, anima naturalita Christiana and all that.

Starting point is 08:51:17 But when it comes to Christian doctrine, Jones has difficulties. Concessions are in order it will not do to a strange Jones's modern mind. Mr. Knox's outrage. by such an attitude. Quote, the great argument used now against any theological proposition, he breaks out, is not that it is untrue or unthinkable or unedifying or unscriptural or unorthodox, but simply that the modern mind cannot accept it. It is the modern mind that accepts this and rejects that, that expresses itself in terms of A rather than in terms of B, that thinks along these lines rather than along those, that shrinks or ratifies or demands. And after reading a few

Starting point is 08:51:56 paragraphs of such ostensibly psychological discussion, I find myself sorely tempted to exclaim in an equally psychological spirit. If the modern mind has really got all these peculiar kinks about it, then in heaven's name let us tripan it, end quote. Even this, however, is, according to Mr. Knox, not the worst of the matter in the case of the authors of foundations. The Jones, to whom they are so assiduous in adjusting their teaching, is a, quote, back number, end quote. quote, in a word our objection is not that Jones is unreal or unimportant or unrepresentative, but that he is 60, end quote. It was 40 years ago that Jones went to college,

Starting point is 08:52:34 and the strenuous efforts which the authors of foundations are making, quote, to convert our great uncles, end quote, must strike the really modern mind as a sad anachronism. The world has moved in this generation. Tempora mutantor, nos et mutamur in Ilis. This modern mind, to fit it into the queer corners of which the authors of foundations are so busy whittling down Christianity, always in impertinence, has become fairly non-existent. Jones has receded into the background, and his grandchildren are of a very different temper. They wish no accommodations of doctrine made for them.

Starting point is 08:53:11 Quote, I have never met, outside of senior common rooms, any demand from questioners for restatement or accommodation of my beliefs to theirs. They want rather to know what the church does say In order to see whether they can accommodate their beliefs to mine End quote Against all this complicated process I am convinced that the cry of the average man is Tell me what you do believe and always have believed And then I will see about it

Starting point is 08:53:36 End quote The modern mind does not want pulp It wants something that it can close its teeth on End quote More dogma is wanted Pulpit's full of it End quote The actual mind

Starting point is 08:53:49 of the day demands not quieting compromises but clearly cut differentiations and consequent consistency of convictions. The fundamental difficulty of the modern theologian, leading him to sit loosely to Christian truths, lies Mr. Knox thinks, in his method of approach to them. He approaches them by way of hypothesis instead of by way of presupposition, or an a posteriori rather than a priori. Looking at them only as so many propositions proposed for consideration, and approaching them, professedly, wholly without prepossessions, he sets to work framing hypotheses on the ground which they may be accounted for. Obviously, any number of conflicting hypotheses may be framed. There are few bodies of alleged facts which may not find some kind of

Starting point is 08:54:35 explanation on any one of a score or of a hundred hypotheses. And at the last resort, there always remains the simple explanation of the amazing report brought by the child, quote, the little boy lied, end quote, more or less. There is no limit to the number of hypotheses which may be suggested to account for any body of alleged facts except the limits of the fertility of the imagination, and there are no final grounds of discrimination between the several hypotheses proposed. More than one will account for the facts on the assumption that it is true, and each man becomes enamoured of his own hypothesis and twists the facts to make them accord with it. We soon find ourselves in the midst not merely of a confused mass,

Starting point is 08:55:17 of hypotheses but also of a confused mass of doubted facts, and we seek in vain for a firm footing. Everything, however, is different if we approach a body of truths presented for our acceptance with presuppositions rather than hypotheses in our hands. Presuppositions are solid things on which we can take our stand. We already believe, say, in God and in a personal God and miserable world for its salvation. We bring these things with us as facts of which we are assured, not as hypotheses which we are testing, and what a different aspect is taken on by the body of Christian doctrine. Now, everything is clear and sure and solid, and the difference hangs, says Mr. Knox in effect, wholly on the differences standpoint. Mr. Knox, it will be seen,

Starting point is 08:56:05 is an, quote, authoritarian, end quote, and that is well. We cannot get along in this world of fact without authority. Without authority, we may assure ourselves it may be of what must be. We cannot be assured of a single thing that merely is, and Christianity, as a historical religion, is a religion of facts, and is therefore built up in all that makes it that specific religion which we call Christianity on authority. We may be theists without authority, but not Christians. The blows which Mr. Knox strikes in the name of authority are without doubt fatal, and he does especially good service when he exposes the inconsequence of the attempt to substitute religious experience for authority as the foundation of conviction. Quote, as a matter of modernist psychology, he writes, this appeal to

Starting point is 08:56:52 experience is very interesting. The modernist will not allow himself to be regarded as, in any way, prejudiced in favour of one particular theological system. He therefore collects together the testimony of innumerable other people, principally bishops, medieval nuns, and contemporary coal burners who were and are, beyond any shadow of dispute, prejudiced theologians, prejudiced by what they believed upon a basis of purely traditional authority, and the result of this appeal is summed up, as if it were the most modern of all critical investigations, an essay in psychology. But if a priori assumptions are to play no part in modern theology, spiritual experience must play no part in modern theology for spiritual experience is based on apriory assumptions, end quote, pages 193 to one

Starting point is 08:57:40 The whole argument from experience, he comments, seems to rest on the assumption that you can first make people believe on the strength of Bible documents or inherited tradition, certain clearly defined dogmas, and then when they have got accustomed to this way of thinking, you can come and knock away the supports on which the belief rests, biblical and traditional, and say, we have now proved the truth of these doctrines because we have reared on them so splendid an edifice of faith, end quote, page 190. Valid, however, as is Mr. Knox's appeal to authority, and sound as is his contention that authority lies at the basis of all Christian faith, it must be confessed that he gives no adequate account, either of the ground or the nature of the authority to which he makes appeal. His argument thus hangs in the air, and the impression is created that the authority on which Christianity rests is accepted by its votaries by a purely arbitrary act of will. This is indeed, to all appearance, true in Mr. Knox's own case, Otherwise, we surely would catch in his numerous allusions to it some hint of a rational basis of his acceptance of authority.

Starting point is 08:58:47 He is, it would seem, just a, quote, traditional, end quote, Christian, and is inclined to give validity to the traditional Christianity which he accepts. Chiefly, one would imagine, despite his solid refutation of that ground of faith, because of the beneficent results of his acceptance of it. He would scarcely expect us to take literally, quote, the crude metaphor, end quote, by which he attempts to illustrate his attitude to Scripture and Tradition, page 33, quote, you have a motor car with two headlights, each throwing out its rays obliquely in either direction. The hedge on each side is illuminated by one lamp only, but in the center of the road the two lights converge,

Starting point is 08:59:24 and mark out a triangular area of brilliant clearness. The two lights of Scripture and Tradition, if we may pursue this crude metaphor, may be said in the same way to provide sufficient guidance for our course, only when they overlap. Beyond this area, speculation is at liberty to, botanize in the hedgerows, end quote. If we were really to, quote, pursue this crude metaphor, end quote,

Starting point is 08:59:47 Mr. Knox would have left himself no authority at all. If neither scripture nor tradition has any authority by itself, and he apparently deprives each severally of authority, they cannot have any authority when combined, on the principle at least in which Mr. Knox tells us he was brought up, page 190, viz that zero plus zero yields still zero. authority is not a thing of degrees. It is either absolute or non-existent. He must therefore look upon either scripture or tradition as by itself authoritative if their combination is to be authoritative.

Starting point is 09:00:19 And it is quite clear that it is to tradition not to scripture that Mr. Knox really accords authority. When he says therefore, quote, it is only at the point where scripture and ecclesiastical tradition combine to form a defined doctrine that he, he who thinks with Mr. Knox, pretends to stand on sure ground in virtue of a presupposition, end quote, page 33. We can but understand him to mean that his faith rests not on scripture simplicitre, but on scripture as interpreted by tradition, that is to say, that he finds his authority not in scripture at all, but in tradition. In other words, that he is a traditionalist in the sense of the Church of Rome. Authority to him thus spells tradition, and tradition spells church, and Church spells practically Rome. Mr. Knox, in a word, is a high Anglican,

Starting point is 09:01:05 indistinguishable in his theory of authority from the general doctrine on this subject of the Roman church, except perhaps for a little drawing back when the place of the Pope in the definition of dogma comes into consideration. Compare page 193. His pleading for a commanding place for authority in religion is largely vitiated, therefore, by the circumstance that his own view of the nature, seat and ground of authority in religion is baseless and untenable. This fundamental inconsequence in his own point of view does not prevent Mr. Knox, however, from exposing the inconsequences of the modernist point of view, as illustrated in the authors of foundations, in a very trenchant manner. In successive chapters, he traverses the greater number of the essays in foundations, and points

Starting point is 09:01:50 out in them tendencies of method and treatment which annull their conclusions. He speaks himself of having dealt only very cursorily with Mr. Mowgli's essay on the Atonement, but we are not sure that the strictures on this essay do not constitute the best piece of criticism in the volume. The notion that our Lord offered for us a, quote, vicarious penitence, end quote, is very properly scored. Can there be such a thing as, quote, vicarious penitence, end quote? If there can be, can it take away sin, and if it can take away sin, must it not be because it, it, as suffering, is, quote, actually allowed to count in the eye of divine justice as satisfaction for sins which we have committed, end quote, and if this is so, how does it avoid the criticism that, quote,

Starting point is 09:02:34 it is immoral that the sufferings of one man should be accepted as satisfaction for the sins of another, end quote. The essence of the matter is touched in a passage like the following, but this surely is clear that if we are to hold the full traditional view of the Atonement, we must suppose that the brand left by our sins is not twofold but threefold. They leave a mark on our own souls true. They leave a mark on the lives of the men around us true. But over and above all this, they leave a mark in the Book of Life, a black mark on our records which no human penitence can efface.

Starting point is 09:03:08 There is an objective disturbance in the moral order which our sins have created, and only one thing could write it, the sacrifice of Christ, to which we have contributed not a jot or a titul in our own part. There can be neither Catholicism nor evangelicalism where this fact is not realized, end quote, page 171. Some of the remarks on the deity of our Lord and the incarnation are equally pungent, and that whether the attempt to substitute the category of will for that of substance in construing the one doctrine or the notion of

Starting point is 09:03:39 canosis in construing the other is under discussion. To be of the same mind with one another is not to have numerically only one mind among us, and when two beings will the same thing, it is not clear that they are therefore but one. And if anything such as the canonists assert happened at the incarnation, we certainly cannot say that Jesus was God, but only that he was a man who once had been God. The verse. birth and the empty tomb, though Mr. Knox stumbles, sadly, with reference to our Lord's resurrection body, and the ascension are dealt with in adequate fashion. Mr. Knox is willing even to become aggressive here. Quote, Mr. Streeter, says he knows of no living theologian, who would maintain

Starting point is 09:04:19 a physical ascension in this crude form. I have no claim to be a theologian, I can only say that, as a person of ordinary education, I believe, as I hope for salvation, in this literal doctrine. I believe that whatever change may have glorified the risen body, when it passed beyond the cloud into a new mode or sphere of existence, the earth has ever since the ascension been lighter by so many pounds' weight, and the sum of matter in the world, the less by so many cubic inches of volume, end quote, page 85. Such materialism may shock some ears, but the issue ultimately comes to just that. There are, of course, other passages with which we feel less satisfaction. We do not go quite with Mr. Knox in his dealing with miracles, especially in his inability to separate between biblical and ecclesiastical

Starting point is 09:05:05 miracles. We certainly do not go with him in his treatment of scripture, especially in his discussion of the eschatological utterances of our Lord. His Romeward tendencies, which are numerous and decisive, are an offence to us. His obsession with freedom is equally regrettable. Even here, however, he shows his characteristic courage, and, in the interests of free will, cheerfully denies that we have any solid ground for anticipating the conversion of the world. Enough, there is much in Mr. Knox's book which is crude and unconsidered, but this cannot destroy its general value as an exposure of the weaknesses of modernism, and it is in this that its significance lies.

Starting point is 09:05:44 It is an earnest and successful plea to reasonable men to draw back from these shifting shoals, where, quote, we have to be reassured by a yearly statement from Dr. Sanday, comparable to the weather report as to what we may still believe and to plant our feet firmly on the rock. The fine air of conviction, which suffuses it, and the brightness of the style should give the book a wide circulation, and we trust will give it in its main message, large acceptance. End of Review of Some Loose Stones by B.B. Warfield.

Starting point is 09:06:23 Review of a Dictionary of the Bible by B.B. Warfield. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevolx recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. A Dictionary of the Bible dealing with its language, literature, and contents including the biblical theology, edited by James Hastings, M.A. with the assistance of John A. Selby M.A. and chiefly in the revision of the proofs of A. B. Davidson, D.D. L.D., Professor of Hebrew, New College, Edinburgh. S.R. Driver, D.D. Litt D. Regis Professor of Hebrew, Oxford. and H. B. Sweet, D. Litt D. Regis Professor of Divinity, Cambridge. Volume 1, A. to Feasts. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, Edinburgh, T.N.T. Clark, 1898. Quarto. Pages 15 to 864.

Starting point is 09:07:25 The first volume of Dr. William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible was published at the end of 1863 and was reissued in America four years later, a thoroughly revised form under the editorial care of Dr. H. B. Hackett and Mr. Ezra Abbott. Before the close of the year 1870, the four volumes of the American edition were in the hands of the public. Of course, there were other works of the kind in the field, the most valuable of which were probably Dr. Patrick Fairbain's The Imperial Bible Dictionary, two volumes, Royal Octavo, London, 1866, and Dr. W. Lindsay Alexander's edition of Kitto's Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, three volumes, Royal Octavo, Philadelphia, 1866. McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature,

Starting point is 09:08:13 the publication of which was begun in 1867, sought to occupy so much wider a field that it hardly came into direct competition with the specific Bible dictionaries. It is true to say at all events that the American Smith immediately took its place on the tables of scholarly American ministers and students of the word as the standard work of the kind. That place it has worthily and almost undisputedly held ever since. Meanwhile, a generation of years has passed, and in these days of restless research, a generation is a very long time, in which many changes of opinion must needs occur, and some not

Starting point is 09:08:50 inconsiderable advance in knowledge may happily be made. It is easy to be sure to overestimate the increase of knowledge that has come with the process of the years. Augustine points out that all the knowledge best worth having is acquired by the human animal in its infancy. It is the pooling metaphysician who accomplishes the task set us by the oracle and learns to know himself, and wiser than he may afterward become, separates off from himself the external world and discovers about him other spirits like himself. It is in our earliest youth that we learn to think and speak and read, and what are all other acquisitions but relatively unimportant growths on these fruitful roots. Similarly, what is best worth knowing about the Bible has not been reserved

Starting point is 09:09:36 for the aging church of the last third of the 19th century to discover. It is all duly set down in our Smith and Kitto and Fairbain and in our calumet too, and in whatever before that served to inform men what the Bible is, what it contains, and what one must know in order to understand and appreciate its message. Whatever else the last 30 years have discovered, they have not discovered the Bible, nor anything about the Bible, of the first importance. Nevertheless, the diligent labors of Bible students during this period have not been in vain. A considerable body of fresh information has been accumulated, sometimes of a corrective, sometimes of a supplementary character. The time has fully come to garner this new material and put it within the reach of all.

Starting point is 09:10:20 The most natural way of doing this was to build on the old foundations, and we were accordingly promised a revised edition of Smith. After the publication of its first installment, however, that project seems to have fallen through. In its stead, we have been bidden to look for two completely new Bible dictionaries. The one of these, projected first by Professor W. Robertson Smith, is being completed under the editorship of Professor T.K. Chain, with the assistance of Dr. J. Sutherland Black, and its first part is announced to appear in the approaching October. It is expected to occupy what is known as a very advanced standpoint, to scorn, quote, average opinion, end quote,

Starting point is 09:11:00 and start out from, quote, the latest that has been written, end quote, on each subject, and to apply the, quote, most exact scientific methods, end quote, and thoroughgoing critical solvents to all that is biblical. The other of our two promised dictionaries, undertaken by the great firm of Mr. T&T Clark of Edinburgh, was understood to be laid out on less extreme lines and to aim at presenting rather what is known about the Bible than the latest conjectures concerning it by the least sober of scholars. It has outstripped its rival in speed of preparation, and its first volume now lies before us. Those who had looked forward to it, however, as throughout a reliable guide to what is really known of biblical matters will be, in some measure, disappointed.

Starting point is 09:11:44 The editor speaks of the care that has been exercised to exclude, quote, unaccepted idiosyncrasies, end quote, from its pages. The success of the effort has been only partial. The trouble has been in the standard assumed. Unaccepted is a good word, but its value can be estimated only when we ask further by whom. Unaccepted by a narrow circle of critical scholars, which has acquired temporary vogue among us, has been the practical answer. And the consequences are that the sober reader finds the book characterized by the abundance of idiosyncrasies which crowd its pages and is offended by its apparent lack of coherence as a whole,

Starting point is 09:12:18 and that the distinction between the two new Bible dictionaries sinks at last very much, much into a question of details. The interval that separates the two is indeed just the interval that divides from one another, the two Oxford colleagues, doctors chain and driver. There is no need to minimize this interval. It is perceptible, but there is no difference in principle between the two. It is only a matter of a little more or a little less. The Edinburgh Dictionary, both profits and loses by the difference. It loses by it in internal consistency and unity and instability and hold upon the future, for, after all, the, quote, moderate criticism, end quote, which it has elected to represent, waivers between two opinions, and must advance in one direction or the other through rapid change.

Starting point is 09:13:05 While for an extremist skepticism, there is always a constituency, few perhaps, but fit. It being true in this sphere, too, that poor, we have always with us. It profits by it, in so much as the frying pan, after all this said, is a better place than the fire, and inso much as the essentially mediating and inconsistent character of the standpoint of moderate criticism, which it assumes has naturally justified the insertion of many articles of a more conservative tendency, although these are mostly on the safe topics, i.e. on such subjects as impinge only indirectly on matters of criticism, and especially has demanded a tolerably conservative attitude in matters connected with the New Testament. Despite its unsatisfactory critical point of view,

Starting point is 09:13:51 accordingly, this new dictionary is not only a rich record of, but also an important contribution to our present knowledge of the Bible. It has been edited with the highest skill and gathers in the most scholarly manner, the results of modern research into biblical matters. It is full, thorough, learned, and bids fair to be the students via the meekum for the next few years. From the bookmaker's point of view, the new dictionary has been modelled on chambers encyclopedia, and its page is a very close reproduction of that, of that work. Perhaps the impression of the type is a little less clear, and certainly it falls short of chambers in the matter of illustrations. Here indeed is the weakest point of the new dictionary from a formal point of view. The illustrations are very few,

Starting point is 09:14:38 only some 44 separate figures occur in this whole volume, and only two articles, agriculture and dress can be called illustrated at all, and also we fear we must add very poor. The preface tells us that, quote, the illustrations are confined to subjects which cannot be easily understood without their aid, end quote, we should never have discovered for ourselves that this was the principle that governed their occurrence. Could we not then have spared the odd ink splotch which is labelled, quote, a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, end quote, page 532? We could not, on the same ground perhaps, asked to be relieved from the, quote, cedar from the

Starting point is 09:15:16 Bersheri Grove, end quote, page 364, but we have our doubts whether it illustrates anything. This cedar of Lebanon and the porcupine, page 304, are the only natural history subjects that are figured. In our judgment, every animal and plant mentioned in the Bible should have been presented to the eye. In the matter of illustrations, the new dictionary falls lamentably not only behind or what was expected of it, but also behind its predecessors. The strength of the volume lies in what we may speak of as the scholarly character of its contents.

Starting point is 09:15:51 Here we are specially struck with the admirable quality of the numerous shorter articles, particularly those on the obsolete and obsolescent words of the English versions, which are mostly written by the editor and leave nothing to be desired. The proper names of the Bible are very thoroughly worked out, and a special word of commendation is due to the geographical. terms. The same is to be said of the ethnological, geological, and natural history articles, the last of which, forming a very notable series of some 60 articles, we are proud to say are from the pen of an American scholar, Dr. George E. Post, Professor in the American College at Byreuth.

Starting point is 09:16:29 Along with Dr. Post, some 13 other American writers appear in this volume. Of these, Dr. Willis J. Beecher has contributed the largest number of articles, which seems to be partly due to his having undertaken the article Giant, to appear in the next volume, with all subsidiary titles. We have from him at any rate the following 12 articles, Anak, Aba, Ava, Beth Dagan, Degan, Delilah, drunkenness, dwarf, Echron, Emerods, Emim, F.S. Damruim. Needless to say, these are thoroughly satisfactory, the most extended one, that on drunkenness being a useful historical study of a rather neglected subject. Dr. Ira M. Price contributes seven articles,

Starting point is 09:17:13 Abrek, Akkad, Asobanipal, Beath, Belshazzar, Caldia, evil mereduc, chiefly, as will be seen on subjects connected with Assyriological learning. Four articles come from the hand of Professor J. H. Thea, Abba, Ba, Eli, Lama Sabakthani, and Ephatha, all of which concern the Aramaic element in the New Testament. Three each are contributed by Professor's F.C. Porter, E. L. Curtis, G. T. Purvis, and H. Porter. Professor Frank C. Porter's contribution consists of the extended and valuable article Apocrypha, along with short accompanying notes on Aikior and Kylod,

Starting point is 09:17:55 Professor Curtis's of the important article on the chronology of the Old Testament and Daniel, man and book, all written from the standpoint of the presently fashionable skeptical criticism, the historical character of the Book of Daniel being denied, and indeed even the historical existence of a Daniel left in doubt. Professor H. Porter writes about cup-bearer, distaff and dying, and Professor Purvis most satisfactorily on Crown, diadem, and darkness. Two articles each are contributed by Professor W.A. Brown, Cross, excommunication, B.B. Warfield, doubt, faith, and Lewis W. Baton, Ezra and Ezra Nehemiah,

Starting point is 09:18:35 from the standpoint of the skeptical criticism. Dr. C. La Merrill contributes a short note on Corazon, Professor J. Poucher, a long account of crimes and punishments, and Professor Francis Brown, a long article on Chronicles, in which, with great minuteness, he gathers together all that contend to break down confidence in the historical trustworthiness of the books. His general conclusion being that, quote, it is plain that the character of the chronicler's testimony,

Starting point is 09:19:01 when we can control it by parallel accounts, is not such as to give us reason to depend on it with security when it stands alone, end quote. In all, the American contribution to the dictionary consists of some 104 articles. It is not such as to render the book an international book, but in point of scholarship it is a creditable aid to a British enterprise, and to it is due some of the longest and most important articles in the volume, such as those on apocrypha, 13 pages, chronology of Old Testament, six pages, chronicles, eight pages, crimes and punishments, seven pages, Daniel, six pages, faith, 12 pages. Perhaps we can scarcely speak of it as fairly representative of American scholarship.

Starting point is 09:19:47 American Old Testament scholarship, for example, is not only prevailingly but overwhelmingly conservative, or as it would be better called historical, while the adherence of the school of skeptical criticism are here thrown prominently forward. Nevertheless, from the standpoint of the dictionary, it cannot be said that American aid has been despised, and certainly the American contribution does not in quality fall below the general standard of the work. Fulness and thoroughness, being among the objects which the editor has set before himself, quite a number of the articles have been allowed, quote, to extend to a considerable length, end quote. We have counted some 75, which extend to a length exceeding two pages, that is to say about 3,000 words each.

Starting point is 09:20:30 One article, Mr. C. H. Turner's comprehensive paper on the chronology of the New Testament, attains the dimensions of a treatise, filling 22 of these large pages. Two others exceed 15 pages each, viz Professor Hommel's noted paper on Babylonia and Mr. Crumbs's, perhaps equally notable paper on Egypt. Professor Hommel's paper on Assyria, almost equals in length and quite equals in value, the paper on Babylonia. Other papers exceeding 10 pages are Mr. Headlam's careful survey

Starting point is 09:20:59 of the book of Acts, 10 pages, Professor Porter's article on the Apocrypha, 13 pages, Professor Stewart's article on Bible, 13 pages, Mr. Gaffer's article on church, 15 pages, Mr. White's article on David, 13 pages, Mr. Strong's admirable paper on ethics,

Starting point is 09:21:16 12 pages, and Professor Warfield's paper on faith, 12 pages. Some 11 more papers exceed 7 pages, Dr. Plummer's baptism, Professor Francis Brown's Chronicles, Mr. Kilpatrick's conscience, Principal Robertson's, two Corinthians, his one Corinthians falls just short of seven pages, Professor Poucher's Crimes and Punishments, Professor Riles' Deuteronomy, Professor Locke's Ephesians, Professor Davidson's Eschatology of the Old Testament, Mr. Charles's Eschatology of the Apocrypha, Professor Salmon's Eschatology of the New Testament,

Starting point is 09:21:50 Mr. Thackeray's Books of Exodus, and Professor Bernard's. fall. Fifteen others exceed five pages, viz Professor Mayer's Brethren of the Lord, Professor Curtis's Chronology of the Old Testament, Principal Robertson's One Corinthians, Principal White House's Cosmogony, Professor Davidson's Covenant, Professor Curtis's Book of of Daniel, Mr. Mackey's dress, Professor Peaks ecclesiastes, Professor Kennedy's education, Mr. Forbes Robinson's Egyptian versions, Mr. Strachan's Elijah, Mr. Hartford-Battisbee's Book of Exodus, Professor Skinner's Ezekiel and Principal Harding's Feasts and Fasts. It will not fail to be observed how many of the titles, thus incidentally mentioned,

Starting point is 09:22:34 concern matters of biblical theology. The effort to give proper treatment to these subjects forms one of the special features of this dictionary. We have noted in the volume such articles as the following which fall under this head. Adoption, J.S. Candlish, one and one half pages. Angel, A. B. Davidson, four pages. wrath of God J. Orr. One page. Ascension. J. Denny. Two pages. Assurance. A steward. One quarter page.

Starting point is 09:23:01 Attournment. J. O. F. Murray. One and one half pages. Baptism. A. Placidna. W. F. Adeny. One half page. Brotherly love. J. Denny. One half page. Calling. J. McPherson. One fifth page. Chastening. J. Denny. Three quarters page.

Starting point is 09:23:18 Christology. J. Egar Beat. 3 pages, Church, SC Gafford, 15 pages, Communion, J.A. Robertson, 2 pages, conscience, T.B. Kilpatrick, 7 and 1 half pages. Conversion, J.S. Banks, 1 half page. Corruption. J. Massey, 1 3rd,000, 1 3rd, 0.000,000, 6 pages. Covenant, A.B. Davidson, 6 pages. Creed, J. Denny, 1.5 pages. Demon, Devil, Owen C. House, 4 and 1 half pages, election, J. O.F. Murray, 4 pages. Eschatology, Old Testament, A. B. Davidson, 6 pages. Apocrypha, R.H. Charles, 8 pages. New Testament, S.D. F.F. Salmon, 7 pages. Ethics. TB Short. 12 pages. Faith, B.B. Warfield. 12 pages. Fall. J.H. Bernard. 7 pages. Fasting. V.H. Stanton, 1 and 2 thirds pages. Fear. W.O.O. borrows, one half-page. Many of these articles are admirable, all of them are carefully written, some of them are adequate. But they certainly are not consentient, and our pity follows the man

Starting point is 09:24:32 who seeks to learn what the teaching of the Bible is by reading consecutively these topics in the dictionary. The individualistic and idiosyncratic character of the volume comes out here, no more strongly than elsewhere, but it is disturbingly present here as elsewhere, and it makes the reader wonder what the editor can mean by speaking of the book as a whole. as, quote, reliable and authoritative, end quote. If Dr. Orr is reliable and authoritative on the wrath of God, for example, as he certainly is, then Dr. Murray cannot possibly be reliable and authoritative on the atonement, for he leaves no place for wrath in God.

Starting point is 09:25:07 And if we rise beyond the question of mere harmony among the several writers, and ask after some general standard of doctrinal truth, which has governed the admission of views, we shall ask in vain. All sorts of theological conceptions here, struggle together and label themselves alike biblical. We can only say that, as in criticism, the standard of the book is mainly what can only be described as skeptical. In theology, it is mainly sassinianizing, though both terms must be taken here, of course, not in their precise, but in their broader connotations. It cannot be said either that the space allowed

Starting point is 09:25:41 for the treatment of the topics under the rubrics of biblical theology is it all nicely proportioned to their relative importance. Surely, in many case, for example, the space allotted to the topics of atonement and baptism is not adjusted to the relative importance of the subjects. Nor indeed is the list of topics treated as complete as it might well be. We miss, for instance, any proper discussion of such topics as creation and fatherhood. The cross-reference is given in neither case filled a need, and we miss altogether such entries as absolution, age, the present and to come, apocatus, apostasy, asceticism, bearing sin, benediction, Beelzebump, birth, new, blood of Christ, ceremonial, communion, conception, miraculous, consummation, descent to hell,

Starting point is 09:26:31 end, other than the mere term, eternity, exaltation, example. In the interests of fullness and accessibility, such topics should not be passed over. We have set down, frankly, the impression the new Bible dictionary has made on us, at first sight. Space would fail us to undertake detailed criticism of the separate articles. Its characteristic mark seems to be accuracy, and it is obviously a book which has information to give with a lavish hand. The student will seldom consult it in vain, though he may sometimes refuse its leading. He will be always stimulated and instructed by its presentation. It is a book, moreover, which will, beyond doubt, improve with acquaintance. We congratulate the

Starting point is 09:27:13 editors and publishers alike on the successful launching of so great an enterprise. End of Review of Dictionary of the Bible by B.B. Warfield.

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