ended one of her brilliant soliloquies by saying: "What a delightful conversation we have had!" We may find a better illustration of the nature of worship in Thomas à Kempis's dialogues between the saint and his Savior, in the Imitation of Christ. Goethe: "Against the great superiority of another there is no remedy but love. . . . To praise a man is to put one's self on his level." If this be the effect of loving and praising man, what must be the effect of loving and praising God! Inscription in Grasmere Church: "Whoever thou art that enterest this church, leave it not without one prayer to God for thyself, for those who minister, and for those who worship here." In James 1: 27-" Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world" - "religion," pηokeia, is cultus exterior; and the meaning is that "the external service, the outward garb, the very ritual of Christianity, is a life of purity, love and self-devotion. What its true essence, its inmost spirit may be, the writer does not say, but leaves this to be inferred." On the relation between religion and worship, see Prof. Day, in New Englander, Jan. 1882; Prof. T. Harwood Pattison, Public Prayer; Trench, Syn. N. T., 1: sec. 48; Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, Introd., Aphorism 23; Lightfoot, Gal., 351, note 2.

CHAPTER II.

MATERIAL OF THEOLOGY.

I. SOURCES OF THEOLOGY.-God himself, in the last analysis, must be the only source of knowledge with regard to his own being and relations. Theology is therefore a summary and explanation of the content of God's self-revelations. These are, first, the revelation of God in nature; secondly and supremely, the revelation of God in the Scriptures.

Ambrose: "To whom shall I give greater credit concerning God than to God himself?" Von Baader: "To know God without God is impossible; there is no knowledge without him who is the prime source of knowledge." C. A. Briggs, Whither, 8—“God reveals truth in several spheres: in universal nature, in the constitution of mankind, in the history of our race, in the Sacred Scriptures, but above all in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord." F. H. Johnson, What is Reality? 39)-"The teacher intervenes when needed. Revelation helps reason and conscience, but is not a substitute for them. But Catholicism affirms this substitution for the church, and Protestantism for the Bible. The Bible, like nature, gives many free gifts, but more in the germ. Growing ethical ideals must interpret the Bible." A. J. F. Behrends: "The Bible is only a telescope, not the eye which sees, nor the stars which the telescope brings to view. It is your business and mine to see the stars with our own eyes." Schurman, Agnosticism, 178-"The Bible is a glass through which to see the living God. But it is useless when you put your eyes out."

We can know God only so far as he has revealed himself. The immanent God is known, but the transcendent God we do not know any more than we know the side of the moon that is turned away from us. A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 113-"The word authority' is derived from auctor, augen, 'to add.' Authority adds something to the truth communicated. The thing added is the personal element of witness. This is needed wherever there is ignorance which cannot be removed by our own effort, or unwillingness which results from our own sin. In religion I need to add to my own knowledge that which God imparts. Reason, conscience, church, Scripture, are all delegated and subordinate authorities; the only original and supreme authority is God himself, or Christ, who is only God revealed and made comprehensible by us." Gore, Incarnation, 181 — “All legitimate authority represents the reason of God, educating the reason of man and communicating itself to it. Man is made in God's image: he is, in his fundamental capacity, a son of God, and he becomes so in fact, and fully, through union with Christ. Therefore in the truth of God, as Christ presents it to him, he can recognize his own better reason, to use Plato's beautiful expression, he can salute it by force of instinct as something akin to himself, before he can give intellectual account of it."

Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 332-337, holds that there is no such thing as unassisted reason, and that, even if there were, natural religion is not one of its products. Behind all evolution of our own reason, he says, stands the Supreme Reason. "Conscience, ethical ideals, capacity for admiration, sympathy, repentance, righteous indignation, as well as our delight in beauty and truth, are all derived from God." Kaftan, in Am. Jour. Theology, 1900; 718, 719, maintains that there is no other principle for dogmatics than Holy Scripture. Yet he holds that knowledge never comes directly from Scripture, but from faith. The order is not: Scripture, doctrine, faith; but rather, Scripture, faith, doctrine. Scripture is no more a direct authority than is the church. Revelation is addressed to the whole man, that is, to the will of the man, and it claims obedience from him. Since all Christian knowledge is mediated through faith, it rests on obedience to the authority of revelation, and revelation is self-manifestation

on the part of God. Kaftan should have recognized more fully that not simply Scripture, but all knowable truth, is a revelation from God, and that Christ is "the light which lighteth every man" (John 1:9). Revelation is an organic whole, which begins in nature, but finds its climax and key in the historical Christ whom Scripture presents to us. See H. C. Minton's review of Martineau's Seat of Authority, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., Apr. 1900: 203 sq.

1. Scripture and Nature. By nature we here mean not only physical facts, or facts with regard to the substances, properties, forces, and laws of the material world, but also spiritual facts, or facts with regard to the intellectual and moral constitution of man, anl the orderly arrangement of human society and history.

We here use the word "nature" in the ordinary sense, as including man. There is another and more proper use of the word "nature," which makes it simply a complex of forces and beings under the law of cause and effect. To nature in this sense man belongs only as respects his body, while as immaterial and personal he is a supernatural being. Free will is not under the law of physical and mechanical causation. As Bushnell has said: "Nature and the supernatural together constitute the one system of God." Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 232–“Things are natural or supernatural according to where we stand. Man is supernatural to the mineral; God is supernatural to the man." We shall in subsequent chapters use the term "nature" in the narrow sense. The universal use of the phrase Natural Theology,' however, compels us in this chapter to employ the word "nature "in its broader sense as including man, although we do this under protest, and with this explanation of the more proper meaning of the term. See Hopkins, in Princeton Review, Sept. 1882: 1838. E. G. Robinson: “Bushnell separates nature from the supernatural. Nature is a blind train of causes. God has nothing to do with it, except as he steps into it from without. Man is supernatural, because he is outside of nature, having the power of originating an independent train of causes." If this were the proper conception of nature, thea we might be compelled to conclude with P. T. Forsyth, in Faith and Criticism, 100-"There is no revelation in nature. There can be none, because there is no forgiveness. We cannot be sure about her. She is only æsthetic. Her ideal is harmony, not reconciliation..... For the conscience, stricken or strong, she has no word.... Nature does not contain her own teleology, and for the moral soul that refuses to be fancy-fed, Christ is the one luminous smile on the dark face of the world." But this is virtually to confine Christ's revelation to Scripture or to the incarnation. As there was an astronomy without the telescope, so there was a theology before the Bible. George Harris, Moral Evolution, 411-"Nature is both evolution and revelation. As soon as the question How is answered, the questions Whence and Why arise. Nature is to God what speech is to thought." The title of Henry Drummond's book should have been: "Spiritual Law in the Natural World," for nature is but the free though regular activity of God; what we call the supernatural is simply his extraordinary working.

(a) Natural theology. The universe is a source of theology. The Scriptures assert that God has revealed himself in nature. There is not only an outward witness to his existence and character in the constitution and government of the universe (Ps. 19; Acts 14:17; Rom. 1:20), but an inward witness to his existence and character in the heart of every man (Rom. 1:17, 18, 19, 20, 32; 2:15). The systematic exhibition of these facts, whether derived from observation, history or science, constitutes natural theology.

Outward witness: Ps. 19:1-6-"The heavens declare the glory of God"; Acts 14:17-"he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons"; Rom. 1: 20" -"for the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity." Inward witness: Rom. 1:19 - Tò yvwσTÒV TOÙ COÛ=== "that which is known of God is manifest in them." Compare the άлокаλUTTETAι of the gospel in verse 17, with the amoкаλÚжTетаι of wrath in verse 18-two revelations, one of opyń, the other of Xápis; see Shedd, Homiletics, 11. Rom. 1: 32-"knowing the ordinance of God "; 2: 15-"they show the

work of the law written in their hearts." Therefore even the heathen are" without excuse" (Rom. 1:20), There are two books: Nature and Scripture-one written, the other unwritten: and there is need of studying both. On the passages in Romans, see the Commentary of Hodge.

Spurgeon told of a godly person who, when sailing down the Rhine, closed his eyes, lest the beauty of the scene should divert his mind from spiritual themes. The Puritan turned away from the moss-rose, saying that he would count nothing on earth lovely. But this is to despise God's works. J. H. Barrows: "The Himalayas are the raised letters upon which we blind children put our fingers to spell out the name of God." To despise the works of God is to despise God himself. God is present in nature, and is now speaking. Ps. 19:1-"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork"--present tenses. Nature is not so much a book, as a voice. Hutton, Essays, 2:236 -- “The direct knowledge of spiritual communion must be supplemented by knowledge of God's ways gained from the study of nature. To neglect the study of the natural mysteries of the universe leads to an arrogant and illicit intrusion of moral and spiritual assumptions into a different world. This is the lesson of the book of Job." Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 85-" Man, the servant and interpreter of nature, is also, and is thereby, the servant and interpreter of the living God." Books of science are the record of man's past interpretations of God's works.

(b) Natural theology supplemented. The Christian revelation is the chief source of theology. The Scriptures plainly declare that the revelation of God in nature does not supply all the knowledge which a sinner needs (Acts 17:23; Eph. 3:9). This revelation is therefore supplemented by another, in which divine attributes and merciful provisions only dimly shadowed forth in nature are made known to men. This latter revelation consists of a series of supernatural events and communications, the record of which is presented in the Scriptures.

Acts 17:23 - Paul shows that, though the Athenians, in the erection of an altar to an unknown God, "acknowledged a divine existence beyond any which the ordinary rites of their worship recognized, that Being was still unknown to them; they had no just conception of his nature and perfections" (Hackett, in loco). Eph. 3:9-"the mystery which hath been hid in God"-this mystery is in the gospel made known for man's salvation. Hegel, in his Philosophy of Religion, says that Christianity is the only revealed religion, because the Christian God is the only one from whom a revelation can come. We may add that as science is the record of man's progressive interpretation of God's revelation in the realm of nature, so Scripture is the record of man's progressive interpretation of God's revelation in the realm of spirit. The phrase "word of God" does not primarily denote a record,—it is the spoken word, the doctrine, the vitalizing truth, disclosed by Christ; see Mat. 13: 19-"heareth the word of the kingdom "; Luke 5: 1-"heard the word of God"; Acts 8: 25-"spoken the word of the Lord"; 13: 48,49-"glorified the word of God: . . . the word of the Lord was spread abroad"; 19: 10, 20-"heard the word of the Lord, mightily grew the word of the Lord"; 1 Cor. 1:18-"the word of the cross"-all designating not a document, but an unwritten word; cf. Jer. 1:4-"the word of Jehovah came unto me"; Ez. 1:3-"the word of Jehovah came expressly unto Ezekiel, the priest."

(c) The Scriptures the final standard of appeal. —Science and Scripture throw light upon each other. The same divine Spirit who gave both revelations is still present, enabling the believer to interpret the one by the other and thus progressively to come to the knowledge of the truth. Because of our finiteness and sin, the total record in Scripture of God's past communications is a more trustworthy source of theology than are our conclusions from nature or our private impressions of the teaching of the Spirit. Theology therefore looks to the Scripture itself as its chief source of material and its final standard of appeal.

There is an internal work of the divine Spirit by which the outer word is made an inner word, and its truth and power are manifested to the heart. Scripture represents

this work of the Spirit, not as a giving of new truth, but as an illumination of the mind to perceive the fulness of meaning which lay wrapped up in the truth already revealed. Christ is "the truth" (John 14:6); "in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden" (Col. 2:3); the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, "shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you" (John 16:14). The incarnation and the Cross express the heart of God and the secret of the universe; all discoveries in theology are but the unfolding of truth involved in these facts. The Spirit of Christ enables us to compare nature with Scripture, and Scripture with nature, and to correct mistakes in interpreting the one by light gained from the other. Because the church as a whole, by which we mean the company of true believers in all lands and ages, has the promise that it shall be guided "into all the truth" (John 16:13), we may confidently expect the progress of Christian doctrine.

Christian experience is sometimes regarded as an original source of religious truth. Experience, however, is but a testing and proving of the truth objectively contained in God's revelation. The word "experience" is derived from experior, to test, to try. Christian consciousness is not "norma normans," but "norma normata." Light, like life, comes to us through the mediation of others. Yet the first comes from God as really as the last, of which without hesitation we say: "God made me," though we have human parents. As I get through the service pipe in my house the same water which is stored in the reservoir upon the hillside, so in the Scriptures I get the same truth which the Holy Spirit originally communicated to prophets and apostles. Calvin, Institutes, book I, chap. 7—“As nature has an immediate manifestation of God in conscience, a mediate in his works, so revelation has an immediate manifestation of God in the Spirit, a mediate in the Scriptures." "Man's nature," said Spurgeon, "is not an organized lie, yet his inner consciousness has been warped by sin, and though once it was an infallible guide to truth and duty, sin has made it very deceptive. The standard of infallibility is not in man's consciousness, but in the Scriptures. When consciousness in any matter is contrary to the word of God, we must know that it is not God's voice within us, but the devil's." Dr. George A. Gordon says that "Christian history is a revelation of Christ additional to that contained in the New Testament." Should we not say "illustrative," instead of “additional"? On the relation between Christian experience and Scripture, see Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 286309: Twesten, Dogmatik, 1:344-348; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1: 15.

H. H. Bawden: "God is the ultimate authority, but there are delegated authorities, such as family, state, church; instincts, feelings, conscience; the general experience of the race, traditions, utilities; revelation in nature and in Scripture. But the highest authority available for men in morals and religion is the truth concerning Christ contained in the Christian Scriptures. What the truth concerning Christ is, is determined by: (1) the human reason, conditioned by a right attitude of the feelings and the will; (2) in the light of all the truth derived from nature, including man; (3) in the light of the history of Christianity; (4) in the light of the origin and development of the Scriptures themselves. The authority of the generic reason and the authority of the Bible are co-relative, since they both have been developed in the providence of God, and since the latter is in large measure but the reflection of the former. This view enables us to hold a rational conception of the function of the Scripture in religion. This view, further, enables us to rationalize what is called the inspiration of the Bible, the nature and extent of inspiration, the Bible as history-a record of the historic unfolding of revelation; the Bible as literature-a compend of life-principles, rather than a book of rules; the Bible Christocentric-an incarnation of the divine thought and will in human thought and language."

(d) The theology of Scripture not unnatural.-Though we speak of the systematized truths of nature as constituting natural theology, we are not to infer that Scriptural theology is unnatural. Since the Scriptures have the same author as nature, the same principles are illustrated in the one as in the other. All the doctrines of the Bible have their reason in that same nature of God which constitutes the basis of all material things. Christianity is a supplementary dispensation, not as contradicting, or correcting errors in, natural theology, but as more perfectly revealing the truth. Christianity is indeed the ground-plan upon which the whole creation is built-the original and eternal truth of which natural theology