trine of necessity, which in this place it is not necessary to discuss. On the main principle of the theory just mentioned, that the prescience of contingent events is impossible, because their nature would be destroyed by it, we may add a few remarks. That the subject is incomprehensible as to the manner in which the Divine Being foreknows future events of this or of any kind, even the greatest minds which have applied themselves to such speculations have felt and acknowledged. The fact, that such a property exists in the Divine Nature, is, however, too clearly stated in Scripture to allow of any doubt in those who are disposed to submit to its authority; and it is not left to the uncertainty of our speculations on the properties of spiritual natures, either to be confirmed or disproved. Equally clear is it that the moral actions of men are not necessitated, because human accountability is the main pillar of that moral government, whose principles, conduct, and ends are stated so largely in Divine revelation. Whatever, therefore, becomes of human speculations, these points are sufficiently settled on an authority which is abundantly sufficient. To the objection of metaphysicians of different classes, against either of these principles, that such is not the sense of the Scriptures, because the fact "cannot be so, it involves a contradiction," not the least importance is to be attached, when the plain, concurrent, and uniform sense of Scripture, interpreted as any other book would be interpreted, determines to the contrary. It surely does not follow that a thing cannot be, because men do not see, or pretend not to see, that it can be. This would lay the foundation of our faith in the strength or weakness of other men's intellect. We are not, however, in many cases, left wholly to this answer, and it may be shown that the position, that certain prescience destroys contingency, is a mere sophism, and that this conclusion is connected with the premise, by a confused use of terms. conceived to be causal, unconnected with exerted But The foreknowledge of God has then no influence upon either the freedom or the certainty of actions, for this plain reason, that it is knowledge, and not influence; and actions may be certainly foreknown, without their being rendered necessary by that foreknowledge. But here it is said, If the result of an absolute contingency be certainly foreknown, it can have no other result, it cannot happen otherwise. This is not the true inference. It will not happen otherwise; but I ask, why can it not happen otherwise? Can is an expression of potentiality, it denotes power or possibility. The objection is, that it is not possible that the action should otherwise happen. But why not? What deprives it of that power? If a necessary action were in question, it could not otherwise happen than as the neThe great fallacy in the argument, that the certain cessitating cause shall compel; but then that would prescience of a moral action destroys its contingent na- arise from the necessitating cause solely, and not from ture, lies in supposing that contingency and certainty are the prescience of the action, which is not causal. the opposites of each other. It is, perhaps, unfortunate if the action be free, and it enter into the very nature that a word which is of figurative etymology, and which of a voluntary action to be unconstrained, then it might consequently can only have an ideal application to such have happened in a thousand other ways, or not have subjects, should have grown into common use in this happened at all; the foreknowledge of it no more affects discussion, because it is more liable, on that account, its nature in this case than in the other. All its potento present itself to different minds under different tiality, so to speak, still remains, independent of foreshades of meaning. If, however, the term contingent knowledge, which neither adds to its power of happenin this controversy has any definite meaning at all, as ing otherwise, nor diminishes it. But then we are applied to the moral actions of men, it must mean their told, that the prescience of it, in that case, must be unfreedom, and stands opposed not to certainty, but to certain not unless any person can prove, that the necessity. A free action is a voluntary one; and an Divine prescience is unable to dart through all the action which results from the choice of the agent, is workings of the human mind, all its comparison of distinguished from a necessary one in this, that it might things in the judgment, all the influences of motives on not have been, or have been otherwise, according to the the affections, all the hesitancies, and haltings of the self-determining power of the agent. It is with refer-will, to its final choice. "Such knowledge is too wonence to this specific quality of a free action, that the derful for us," but it is the knowledge of him, who term contingency is used,-it might have been other- "understandeth the thoughts of man afar off." wise; in other words, it was not necessitated. Contingency in moral actions is, therefore, their freedom, and is opposed not to certainty but to necessity. The very nature of this controversy fixes this as the precise meaning of the term. The question is not, in point of fact, about the certainty of moral actions, that is, whether they will happen or not; but about the nature of them, whether free or constrained, whether they must happen or not. Those who advocate this theory, care not about the certainty(7) of actions, simply considered, that is, whether they will take place or not; the reason why they object to a certain prescience of moral actions is, that they conclude, that such a prescience renders them necessary. It is the quality of the action for which they contend, not whether it will happen or not. If contingency meant uncertainty, the sense in which such theorists take it, the dispute would be at an end. But though an uncertain action cannot be foreseen as certain, a free, unnecessitated action may; for there is nothing in the knowledge of the action, in the least, to affect its nature. Simple knowledge is, in no sense, a cause of action, nor can it be (7) Certainty is, properly speaking, no quality of an action at all, unless it be taken in the sense of a fixed and necessitated action; in this controversy it means the certainty which the mind that foresees has, that an action will be done, and the certainty is therefore in the mind and not in the action. But if a contingency will have a given result, to that result it must be determined. Not in the least. We have seen that it cannot be determined to a given result by mere precognition, for we have evidence in our own minds, that mere knowledge is not causal to the actions of another. It is determined to its result by the will of the agent; but even in that case, it cannot be said, that it must be determined to that result, because it is of the nature of freedom to be unconstrained; so that here we have an instance in the case of a free agent that he will act in some particular manner, but that it by no means follows from what will be, whether foreseen or not, that it must be. On this subject, so much controverted, and on which so much, in the way of logical consequence, depends, I add a few authorities. Dr. S. Clarke observes, "They who suppose that events which are called contingent cannot be certainly foreknown, must likewise suppose, that when there is not a chain of necessary causes, there can be no certainty of any future events: but this is a mistake; for let us suppose, that there is in man a power of beginning motion, and of acting with what has, of late, been called philosophical freedom; and let us suppose, farther, that the actions of such man cannot possibly be foreknown; will there not yet be in the nature of things, notwithstanding this supposition, the same certainty of event in every one of the man's actions, as if they were ever so fatal and necessary? For instance, as even you may be considered accessary to the event suppose the man, by an internal principle of motion, | rendering that necessary which he foreknows-just and an absolute freedom of mind, to do some particular action to-day, and suppose it was not possible that this action should have been foreseen yesterday, was there not, nevertheless, the same certainty of event, as if it had been foreseen, and absolutely necessary? That is, would it not have been as certain a truth yesterday, and from eternity, that this action was an event to be performed to-day, notwithstanding the supposed freedom, as it is now a certain and infallible truth that it is performed? Mere certainty of event, therefore, does not in any measure, imply necessity. And surely it implies no contradiction to suppose, that every future event which, in the nature of things, is now certain, may now be certainly known by that intelligence which is omniscient. The manner how God can foreknow future events, without a chain of necessary causes, it is ⚫ indeed impossible for us to explain, yet some sort of general notion of it we may conceive. For, as a man who has no influence over another person's actions, can yet often perceive beforehand what that other will do; and a wiser and more experienced man, with still greater probability, will foresee what another, with whose disposition he is perfectly acquainted, will in certain circumstances do; and an angel, with still less degree of error, may have a farther prospect into men's future actions: so it is very reasonable to conceive that God, without influencing men's wills by his power, or subjecting them to a chain of necessary causes, cannot but have a knowledge of future free events, as much more certain than men or angels can possibly have, as the perfection of his nature is greater than that of theirs. The distinct manner how he foresees these things, we cannot, indeed, explain; but neither can we explain the manner of numberless other things, of the reality of which, however, no man entertains a doubt. Dr. Copleston judiciously remarks:"The course indeed of the material world seems to proceed upon such fixed and uniform laws, that short experience joined to close attention is sufficient to enable a man, for all useful purposes, to anticipate the general result of causes now in action. In the moral world much greater uncertainty exists. Every one feels, that what depends upon the conduct of his fellow-creatures is less certain, than what is to be brought about by the agency of the laws of matter: and yet even here, since man is a being of a certain composition, having such and such faculties, inclinations, affections, desires, and appetites, it is very possible for those who study his nature attentively, especially for those who have practical experience of any individual or of any community of men, to foretel how they will be affected, and how they will act under any supposed circumstances. The same power (in an unlimited degree as before) it is natural and reasonable to ascribe to that Being, who excels the wisest of us infinitely more than the wisest of us excels his fellow-creatures. "It never enters the mind of a person who reflects in this way, that his anticipation of another's conduct lays any restraint upon that man's conduct when he comes to act. The anticipation indeed is relative to himself, not to the other. If it affected him in the remotest degree, his conduct would vary in proportion to the strength of the conviction in the mind of the thinker that he will so act. But no man really believes in this magical sympathy. No man supposes the certainty of the event (to use a common, but as I conceive, an improper term), to correspond at all with the certainty of him who foretels or expects it. In fact, every day's experience shows, that men are deceived in the event, even when they regarded themselves as most certain, and when they would readily have used the strongest phrases to denote that certainty, not from any intention to deceive, but from an honest persuasion that such an event must happen. How is it then? God can never be deceived-his knowledge, therefore, is always accompanied or followed by the event-and yet if we get an idea of what is knowledge is, by our own, why should we regard it dragging the event along with it, when in our ow. case we acknowledge the two things to have no connexion? "But here the advocate for necessity interposes, and says, True, your knowledge does not affect the event, over which you have no power: but God, who is all powerful, who made all things as they are, and who knows all that will come to pass, must be regarded as In answer to the common argument, is, such is the knowledge of it: future contingencies are uncertain, therefore they cannot be known as certain," he observes, "It is wonderful that acute minds should not have detected the fallacy of this paralogism. For the major, which is vaunted as an axiom of undoubted truth, is most false unless it be properly explained. For if a thing is evil, shall the knowledge of it be evil? Then neither God nor angels could know the sins of men, without sinning themselves? Again, should a thing be necessary, will the knowledge of it, on that account, be also necessary? But many things are necessary in the nature of things, which either are unknown to us, or only known doubtfully. Many persons doubt even the existence of God, which in the highest sense is necessary, so far are they from having a necessary knowledge of him. That proposition, therefore, is only true in this sense, that our knowledge must agree with the things which are known, and that we know them as they are in reality, and not otherwise. Thus I ought to think, that the paper on which I write is white and the ink black; for if I fancy the ink white and the paper black, this is not knowledge but ignorance, or rather deception. In like manner, true knowledge ought to regard things necessary as necessary, and things contingent as contingent: but it requires not that necessary things should be known necessarily, and contingent things contingently; for the contrary often happens. "But the minor of the above syllogism is ambiguous and improper. The things about which our minds are exercised, are in themselves neither certain nor uncertain. They are called so only in respect of him who knows them; but they themselves are necessary or contingent. But if you understand by a certain thing, a necessary one, and by an uncertain thing, that which is contingent, as many by an abuse of terms do, then your minor will appear to be identical and nugatory, for it will stand, 'Future contingencies are contingent,' from which no conclusion can be drawn. It is to be concluded, that certitude and incertitude are not affections of the things which are or may be known, but of the intellect of him who has knowledge of them, and who forms different judgments respecting them. For one and the same thing, without any change in itself, may be certain and uncertain at the same time: certain indeed to him who knows it certainly, but to him who knows it not, uncertain. For example, the same future eclipse of the sun shall be certain to a skilful astronomer who has calculated it, uncertain to him who is ignorant of the laws of the heavenly bodies. But that cannot be said concerning the necessity and contingency of things. They remain such as they are in their own nature, whether we know them or not; for an eclipse, which from the laws of nature must necessarily take place, is not made contingent by my ignorance and uncertainty whether it will or will not happen. For this reason they are mistaken who say, that things determined by the decree of God, are necessary in respect of God; but that to us, who know not his decrees, they are contingent; for our ignorance (8) Inquiry into Necessity, &c. cannot make that which is future and necessary, because God hath decreed it, change its nature, and become contingent. It is no contradiction, indeed, to say, that one and the same thing may be at once necessary and yet uncertain, but that it should be necessary and contingent is a manifest contradiction. To God, therefore, whose knowledge is infinite, future contingencies are indeed certain, but to angels and men, uncertain; nor are they made necessary because God knows them certainly. The knowledge of God influences nothing extrinsically, nor changes the nature of things in any wise. He knows future necessary things as necessary, but contingencies as contingencies; otherwise he would not know them truly, but be deceived, which cannot happen to God."(9) The rudiments of the third theory which this controversy has called forth, may be found in many theological writers, ancient and modern; but it is stated at large in the writings of Archbishop King, and requires some notice, because the views of that writer have of late been again made a subject of controversy. They amount, in brief, to this, that the foreknowledge of God must be supposed to differ so much from any thing of the kind we perceive in ourselves, and from any ideas which we can possibly form of that property of the Divine Nature, that no argument respecting it can be grounded upon our imperfect notions; and that all controversy on subjects connected with it is idle and fruitless. In establishing this view, Archbishop King, in his Sermon on Divine Predestination and Foreknowledge, has the following observations: "It is in effect agreed on all hands, that the nature of GOD is incomprehensible by human understanding; and not only his nature, but likewise his powers and faculties, and the ways and methods in which he exercises them, are so far beyond our reach, that we are utterly incapable of framing exact and adequate notions of them. "We ought to remember, that the descriptions which we frame to ourselves of God, or of the Divine Attributes, are not taken from any direct or immediate perceptions that we have of him or them; but from some observations we have made of his works, and from the consideration of those qualifications, that we conceive would enable us to perform the like. "It doth truly follow from hence, that God must either have these, or other faculties equivalent to them, and adequate to these mighty effects which proceed from them. And because we do not know what his faculties are in themselves, we give them the names of those powers that we find would be necessary to us in order to produce such effects, and call them wisdom, understanding, and foreknowledge: yet at the same time we cannot but be sensible, that they are of a nature altogether different from ours, and that we have no direct and proper notion or conception of them. Only we are sure, that they have effects like unto those that proceed from wisdom, understanding, and foreknowledge in us; and that when our works fail to resemble them in any particular, it is by reason of some defect in these qualifications. full of mercy and provoked to revenge. And yet on reflection we cannot think, that any of these passions literally affect the Divine Nature. "And as the passions of men are thus by analogy ascribed to God, because these would in us be the principles of such outward actions, as we see he has performed; so by the same condescension to the weakness of our capacities, we find the powers and operations of our minds ascribed to him. "The use of foreknowledge with us, is to prevent any surprise when events happen, and that we may not be at a loss what to do by things coming upon us unawares. Now, inasmuch as we are certain that nothing can surprise God, and that he can never be at a loss what to do; we conclude that God has a faculty to which our foreknowledge bears some analogy, therefore we call it by that name. "But it does not follow from hence, that any of these are literally in God, after the manner they are in us, any more than hands or eyes, than love or hatred are; on the contrary, we must acknowledge, that those things which we call by these names, when attributed to God, are of so very different a nature from what they are in us, and so superior to all that we can conceive, that in reality there is no more likeness between them, than between our hand and God's power. Nor can we draw consequences from the real nature of one to that of the other, with more justness of reason, than we can conclude, because our hand consists of fingers and joints, therefore the power of God is distinguished by such parts. "So that to argue, 'because foreknowledge, as it is in us, if supposed infallible, cannot consist with the contingency of events, therefore what we call so in God cannot,' is as far from reason, as it would be to conclude, because our eyes cannot see in the dark, therefore, when God is said to see all things, his eyes must be enlightened with a perpetual sunshine; or because we cannot love or hate without passion, therefore, when the Scriptures ascribe these to God, they teach us, that he is liable to these affections as we are. "We ought, therefore, to interpret all these things, when attributed to God, only by way of condescension to our capacities, in order to help us to conceive what we are to expect from him, and what duty we are to pay to him. Particularly, the terms of foreknowledge, predestination, nay, of understanding and will, when ascribed to him, are not to be taken strictly or properly, nor are we to think that they are in him in the same sense that we find them in ourselves; on the contrary, we are to interpret them only by way of analogy and comparison." These views have recently been advocated by Dr. Copleston, in his "Inquiry into the Doctrines of Necessity and Predestination;" but to this theory the first objection is, that, like the former, it does not, in the least, relieve the difficulty, for the entire subduing of which it was adopted. For though foreknowledge in God should be admitted to be something of a "very different nature" to the same quality in man, yet as it is represented as some"Thus our reason teaches us to ascribe these attri-thing equivalent to foreknowledge, whatever that somebutes to God, by way of analogy to such qualities as we find most valuable in ourselves. "If we look into the Holy Scriptures, and consider the representations given us there of God or his attributes, we shall find them plainly borrowed from some resemblance to things, with which we are acquainted by our senses. Thus, when the Holy Scriptures speak of God, they ascribe hands, and eyes, and feet to him: not that we should believe he has any of these members, according to the literal signification; but the meaning is, that he has a power to execute all those acts, to the affecting of which these parts in us are instrumental: that is, he can converse with men, as well as if he had a tongue and mouth; he can discern all that we do or say, as perfectly as if he had eyes and ears; he can reach us as well as if he had hands and feet; he has as true and substantial a being, as if he had a body; and he is as truly present every where as if that body were infinitely extended. "After the same manner, we find him represented as affected with such passions as we perceive to be in ourselves, namely, as angry and pleased, as loving and hating, as repenting and changing his resolutions, as (9) CURCELLEUS, De Jure Dei, 1645. thing may be; as, in consequence of it, prophecies have actually been uttered and fulfilled, and of such a kind, too, as relate to actions for which men have in fact been held accountable; all the original difficulty of reconciling contingent events to this something, of which human foreknowledge is a "kind of shadow," as "a map of China is to China itself," remains in full force. The difficulty is shifted, but not removed; it cannot even be with more facility slided past; and either the Christian world must be content to forego all inquiries into these subjects,-a consummation not to be expected, however it may be wished,-or the contest must be resumed on another field, with no advantage from better ground or from broader daylight. A farther objection to these notions is, that they are dangerous. For if it be true, that the faculties we ascribe to God are "of a nature altogether"uifferent from our own, and that we have no direct and proper notion or conception of them," then, in point of fact, we have no proper revelation at all of the nature of God, and of his attributes, in the Scriptures; and what we esteem to be such, is a revelation of terms to which we can attach no proper notion." If this conclusion be well founded, then it is so monstrous, that the premises on which it hangs must be unsound and anti-scriptural. This | of our Lord with the woman of Samaria, forbids this. alone is a sufficient general refutation of the hypothesis: but a more particular examination will show, that it rests upon false assumptions; and that it introduces gratuitous difficulties, not called for by the supposed difficulty of reconciling the foreknowledge of God with the freedom of human actions. 1. It is assumed, that the descriptions which we frame to ourselves of God, are taken from the observations we have made on his works, and from the consciousness of those qualifications, which, we conceive, would enable us to perform the like. This might be, in part, true of heathens left without the light of revelation; but it is not true of those who enjoy that advantage. Our knowledge of God comes from the Scriptures, which are taught to us in our infancy, and with which, either by reading or hearing, we become familiar as we grow up. The notions we have of God, so far as they agree with the Scriptures, are, therefore, not those which we have framed by the process assumed by the Archbishop, but those which have been declared to us in the Scriptures by God himself, as descriptions of his own nature. This makes a great difference. Our own modes of forming conceptions of the Divine Nature would have no authority higher than ourselves; the announcements of Scripture are the word of God, communicating by human language the truth and reality of things, as to himself. This is the constant profession of the sacred writers; they tell us, not what there is in man which may support an analogy between man and God, but what God is in himself. It is a declaration of the nature of God, and of the worship suited to his nature; and the word employed is that by which both Jews and Samaritans had been taught by the same inspired records, which they each possessed, to designate and conceive of the intellectual nature of man. The nature of God, and the nature of man, are not the same; but they are similar, because they bear many attributes in common, though on the part of the Divine Nature in a degree of perfection infinitely exceeding. The difference of degree, however, cannot prove a difference of essence, no, nor the circumstance that one has attributes which the other has not,-in any sense of the word difference which could be of service to the advocates of this hypothesis. But if a total difference is proved as to the intellectual attributes of God and men, that difference must be extended to the moral attributes also; and so the very foundation of morals and religion would be undermined. This point was successfully pressed by Edwards against Archbishop King, and it is met very feebly by Dr. Copleston. "Edwards," he observes, "raises à clamour about the moral attributes, as if their nature also must be held to be different in kind from human virtues, if the knowledge of God be admitted to be different in kind from ours." Certainly this follows from the principles laid down by Archbishop King; and if his followers take his conclusions as to the intellectual attributes, they must take them as to the moral attributes also. If the faculties of God be "of a nature altogether different from ours," we have no more reason to except from this 2. It is assumed, that because the nature of God is rule the truth and the justice, than the wisdom and the "incomprehensible," we have no "proper notion or con- prescience of God; and the reasoning of Archbishop ception of it." The term "proper notion" is vague. King is as conclusive in the one case as in the other. It may mean "an exact and adequate notion," which it The fallacy of the above assumptions is sufficient to may be granted without hesitation that we have not; or destroy the hypothesis which has been built upon them; it may mean a notion correct and true in itself, though and the argument from Scripture may be shown to be not complete and comprehensive. A great part of the as unfounded. It is, as the above extract will show, fallacy lies here. To be incomprehensible, is not, in in brief this, that as the Scriptures ascribe, by anaevery case, and assuredly not in this, to be unintelli-logy, hands, and eyes, and feet to God, and also the gible. We may know God, though we cannot fully passions of love, hatred, anger, xc., "because these know him; and our notions may be true, though not would be in us the principles of such outward actions adequate; and they must be true, if we have rightly as we see he has performed; so, by the same condeunderstood God's revelation of himself. Of being, for scension to the weakness of our capacities, we find the instance, we can form a true notion, because we are powers and operations of our minds ascribed to him." conscious of our own existence; and though we cannot But will the advocates of this opinion look steadily to its extend the conception to absolute being or self-existence, legitimate consequences? We believe not; and those because our being is a dependent one, we can yet supply consequences must, therefore, be its total refutation. the defect, as we are taught by the Scriptures, by the For if both our intellectual and moral affections are negative notion of independence. Of spirit we have a made use of but as distant analogies and obscure intitrue notion, and understand, therefore, what is meant, mations, to convey to us an imperfect knowledge of the when it is said, that "God is a Spirit;" and though we intellectual powers and affections of the Divine nature, can have but an imperfect conception of an infinite in the same manner as human hands and human eyes Spirit, we can supply that want also, to all practical are made to represent his power and his knowledge,purposes, by the negative process of removing all imper- it follows, that there is nothing in the Divine nature fection, or limit of excellence, from our views of the which answers more truly and exactly to knowledge, 'Divine Nature. We have a true notion of the presence justice, truth, mercy, and other qualities in man, than of one being with other beings, and with place; and the knowledge of God answers to human organs of though we cannot comprehend the mode in which God vision, or his power to the hands or the feet; and from is omnipresent, we are able to conceive without diffi- this it would follow, that nothing is said in the Scrip culty the fact, that the Divine presence fills all things. tures of the Divine Being, but what is in the highest We have true notions of power and knowledge; and sense figurative and purely metaphorical. We are no can suppose them infinite, though how they should be more like God in our minds than in our bodies, and it so, we know not. And as to the moral attributes, such might as truly have been said with respect to man's as truth, justice, and goodness, we have not only true, bodily shape as to his mental faculties, that man was but comprehensive, and, for any thing that appears to made in the image of God."(1) the contrary, adequate notions of them; for our difficulties as to these attributes do not arise from any inca- (1) "Though his grace rightly lays down analogy for pacity to conceive of what is perfect truth, perfect jus- the foundation of his discourse, yet, for want of having tice, and perfect goodness, but from our inability to show thoroughly weighed and digested it, and by wording how many things which occur in the Divine govern- himself incautiously, he seems entirely to have dement are to be reconciled to these attributes;-and stroyed the nature of it; insomuch that, while he rethat, not because our notions of the attributes them-jects the strict propriety of our conceptions and words selves are obscure, but because the things, out of which such questions arise, are either in themselves, or in their relations, but partially understood or greatly mistaken. Job and his friends did not differ in abstract views of the justice of the moral government of God, but in reconciling Job's afflictions with it. 3. It is assumed that the nature of God is essentially different from the spiritual nature of man. This is not the doctrine of Scripture. When it says, that "God is a spirit" we have no reason to conclude, that a distant analogy, such a one as springs out of mere relation, which, in a poetic imagination, might be sufficient to support a figure of speech, is alone intended. The very argument connected with these words, in the discourse on the one hand, he appears to his antagonists to run into an extreme, even below metaphor, on the other. "His greatest mistake is, that through his discourse he supposes the members and actions of a human body, which we attribute to God in a pure metaphor, to be equally upon the same foot of analogy with the passions of a human soul, which are attributed to him in a lower and more imperfect degree of analogy; and even with the operations and perfections of the pure mind or intellect, which are attributed to him in a yet higher and more complete degree. In pursuance of this oversight, he expressly asserts love and anger, wisdom and goodness, knowledge and foreknowledge, and all the other Divine attributes, to be spoken of God, It is also to be observed, that when the Scriptures speak of the knowledge, power, and other attributes of God in figurative language, taken from the eyes or hands of the body, it is sufficiently obvious that this language is metaphorical, not only from the reason of things itself, but because the same ideas are also quite as often expressed without figure; and the metaphor, therefore, never misleads us. We have sufficient proof, also, that it never did mislead the Jews, even in the worst periods of their history, and when their tendency to idolatry and gross superstition was most powerful. They made images in human shape of other gods; but never of JEHOVAH. The Jews were never Anthropomorphites, whatever they might be besides. But it is equally certain, that they did give a literal interpretation to those passages in their Scriptures, which speak of the knowledge, justice, mercy, &c. of God, as the same in kind, though infinitely higher in their degree of excellence, with the same qualities in men. The reason is obvious; they could not interpret those passages of their Holy Writings which speak of the hands, the eyes, and the feet of God, literally; because every part of the same sacred revelation was full of representations of the Divine nature, which declared his absolute spirituality; and they could not interpret those passages figuratively which speak of the intellectual and moral qualities of God in terms that express the same qualities in men; because their whole revelation did not furnish them with any hint, even the most distant, that there was a more literal or exact sense in which they could be taken. It was not possible for any man to take literally that sublimely figurative representation of the upholding and ruling power of God, where he is said to "hold the waters of the ocean in the hollow of his hand," unless he could also conclude that where he is said to "weigh the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance," he was to understand this literally also. The idea suggested is that of sustaining, regulating, and adjusting power; but if he were told that he ought to take the idea of power in as figurative a sense as that of the waters being held in the hollow of the hand of God, and his weighing the mountains in scales, he would find it impossible to form any idea of the thing signified at all. The first step in the attempt would plunge him into total darkness. The figurative hand assists him to form the idea of managing and controlling power, but the figurative power suggests nothing; and so this scheme blots out entirely all revelation of God of any kind, by resolving the whole into figures, which represent nothing of which we can form any conception. The argument of ARCHBISHOP KING, from the passions which are ascribed to God in Scripture, is not more conclusive. "After the same manner we find him represented as affected with such passions as we perceive to be in ourselves, as angry and pleased, as loving and hating, as repenting and changing his resolutions, as full of mercy and provoked to revenge; and yet, on reflection, we cannot think that any of these passions literally affect the Divine nature." But why as improperly as eyes or ears; that there is no more likeness between these things in the Divine nature and in ours, than there is between our hand and God's power, and that they are not to be taken in the same sense. "Agreeably to this incautious and indistinct manner of treating a subject curious and difficult, he hath unwarily dropped some such shocking expressions as these, the best representations we can make of God are infinitely short of truth. Which God forbid, in the sense his adversaries take it; for then all our reasonings concerning him would be groundless and false. But the saying is evidently true in a favourable and qualified sense and meaning; namely, that they are infinitely short of the real, true, internal nature of God as he is in himself. Again, that they are emblems indeed, and parabolical figures of the Divine attributes, which they are designed to signify; as if they were signs or figures of our own, altogether precarious and arbitrary, and without any real and true foundation of analogy between them, in the nature of either God or man; and accordingly, he unhappily describes the knowledge we have of God and his attributes, by the notion we form of a strange country by a map, which is only paper and ink, strokes and lines."-Bishop BROWN'S Procedure of Human Understanding. not? As they are represented in Scripture to be affections of the Divine nature, and not in the gross manner in which they are expressed in this extract, there seems nothing improper in taking them literally; and no necessity is made out to compel us to understand them to signify somewhat for which we have not a name, and of which we can form no idea. The Scriptures nowhere warrant us to consider God as a cold, metaphysical abstraction; and they nowhere indicate to us, that when they ascribe affections to him, they are to be taken as mere figures of speech. On the contrary, they teach us to consider them as answering substantially, though not circumstantially, to the innocent affections of men and angels. Why may not anger be "literally" ascribed to God, not indeed as it may be caricatured to suit a theory, but as we find it ascribed in the Scriptures? It is not malignant anger, nor blind, stormy, and disturbing anger, which is spoken of; nor is this always, nor need it be at any time, the anger of creatures. There is an anger which is without sin in man, "a perception of evil and opposition to it, and also an emotion of mind, a sensation, or passion, suitable thereto."(2) There was this in our Lord, who was without sin; nor is it represented by the Evangelists, who give us the instances, as even an infirmity of the nature he assumed. In God, it may be allowed to exist in a different manner to that in which it is found even in men who are "angry and sin not;" it is accompanied with no weakness, it is allied to no imperfection; but that it does exist as truly in him as in man is the doctrine of Scripture; and there is no perfection ascribed to God, to which it can be proved contrary, or with which we cannot conceive it to coexist. (3) Not only anger, we are told, is ascribed to God, but "the being pleased." Let the term used be complacency, instead of one which seems to have been selected to convey a notion of a lower and less worthy kind; and there is no incongruity in the idea. HE is the blessed or happy God, and therefore capable of pleasure. He looked upon his works and saw that they were" good," very good,"-words which suggest the idea of his complacency upon their completion; and this, when separated from all connexion with human infirmity, appears to be a perfection, and not a defect. To be incapable of complacency and delight is the character of the Supreme Being of EPICURUS and of the modern Hindoos, of whose internal state, so to speak, deep sleep, and the surface of an unruffled lake, are favourite figurative representations. But of this refinement we have nothing in the Bible, nor is it in the least necessary to our idea of infinite perfection. And why should not love exist in God in more than a figurative sense? For this affection to be accompanied with perturbation, anxiety, and weak or irrational partiality, is a mere accident. So we often see it in human beings; but though this affection, without any concurrent infirmity, be ascribed to God, it surely does not follow that it exists in him as something in nature," wholly different" from love in wise and holy creatures, in angels, and in saints. Not only the beauty, the force, and the encouragement of a thousand passages of Scripture would be lost upon this hypothesis, but their meaning also. Love in God is something, we are told, which is so called, because it produces similar effects to those which are produced by love in man; but what this something is we are not informed. And the revelation of Scripture as to God is thus reduced to a revelation of 66 (2) WESLEY. (3) Melancthon says, "The Lord was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him; and I [Moses] prayed for Aaron also at the same time. (Deut. ix. 20.) Let us not elude the exceedingly lamentable expressions which the Holy Ghost employs, when he says, God was very angry; and let us not feign to ourselves a God of stone, or a Stoical Deity. For though God is angry in a different manner from men, yet let us conclude that God was really angry with Aaron, and that Aaron was not then in [a state of] grace, but obnoxious to everlasting punishment. Dreadful was the fall of Aaron, who had through fear yielded to the madness of the people when they instituted the Egyptian worship. Being warned by this example, let us not confirm ourselves in security, but acknowledge that it is possible for elect and renewed persons horribly to fall," &c.Loci Præcipui Theologi, 1543 |