is but a partial expression. Hence the theology of nature and the theology of Scripture are mutually dependent. Natural theology not only prepares the way for, but it receives stimulus and aid from, Scriptural theology. Natural theology may now be a source of truth, which, before the Scriptures came, it could not furnish.

John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 23-"There is no such thing as a natural religion or religion of reason distinct from revealed religion. Christianity is more profoundly, more comprehensively, rational, more accordant with the deepest principles of human nature and human thought than is natural religion; or, as we may put it, Christianity is natural religion elevated and transmuted into revealed." Peabody, Christianity the Religion of Nature, lecture 2—“ Revelation is the unveiling, uncovering of what previously existed, and it excludes the idea of newness, invention, creation. . . . The revealed religion of earth is the natural religion of heaven." Compare Rev. 13: 8 — "the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world" = the coming of Christ was no make-shift; in a true sense the Cross existed in eternity; the atonement is a revelation of an eternal fact in the being of God.

Note Plato's illustration of the cave which can be easily threaded by one who has previously entered it with a torch. Nature is the dim light from the cave's mouth; the torch is Scripture. Kant to Jacobi, in Jacobi's Werke, 3: 523—"If the gospel had not previously taught the universal moral laws, reason would not yet have obtained so perfect an insight into them." Alexander McLaren: "Non-Christian thinkers now talk eloquently about God's love, and even reject the gospel in the name of that love, thus kicking down the ladder by which they have climbed. But it was the Cross that taught the world,the love of God, and apart from the death of Christ men may hope that there is a heart at the centre of the universe, but they can never be sure of it." The parrot fancies that he taught men to talk. So Mr. Spencer fancies that he invented ethics. He is only using the twilight, after his sun has gone down. Dorner, Hist. Prot. Theol., 252, 253-"Faith, at the Reformation, first gave scientific certainty; it had God sure: hence it proceeded to banish scepticism in philosophy and science." See also Dove, Logic of Christian Faith, 333; Bowen, Metaph. and Ethics, 442-463; Bib. Sac., 1874:436; A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 226, 227.

2. Scripture and Rationalism. Although the Scriptures make known much that is beyond the power of man's unaided reason to discover or fully to comprehend, their teachings, when taken together, in no way contradict a reason conditioned in its activity by a holy affection and enlightened by the Spirit of God. To reason in the large sense, as including the mind's power of cognizing God and moral relations- not in the narrow sense of mere reasoning, or the exercise of the purely logical faculty- the Scriptures continually appeal.

A. The proper office of reason, in this large sense, is: (a) To furnish us with those primary ideas of space, time, cause, substance, design, right, and God, which are the conditions of all subsequent knowledge. (0) To judge with regard to man's need of a special and supernatural revelation. (c) To examine the credentials of communications professing to be, or of documents professing to record, such a revelation. (d) To estimate and reduce to system the facts of revelation, when these have been found properly attested. (e) To deduce from these facts their natural and logical conclusions. Thus reason itself prepares the way for a revelation above reason, and warrants an implicit trust in such revelation when once given.

Dove, Logic of the Christian Faith, 318-"Reason terminates in the proposition: Look for revelation." Leibnitz: "Revelation is the viceroy who first presents his credentials to the provincial assembly (reason), and then himself presides." Reason can recognize truth after it is made known, as for example in the demonstrations of geometry, although it could never discover that truth for itself. See Calderwood's illustra

tion of the party lost in the woods, who wisely take the course indicated by one at the tree-top with a larger view than their own (Philosophy of the Infinite, 126). The novice does well to trust his guide in the forest, at least till he learns to recognize for himself the marks blazed upon the trees. Luthardt, Fund. Truths, lect. viii-"Reason could never have invented a self-humiliating God, cradled in a manger and dying on a cross." Lessing, Zur Geschichte und Litteratur, 6: 134-"What is the meaning of a revelation that reveals nothing?"

Ritschl denies the presuppositions of any theology based on the Bible as the infallible word of God on the one hand, and on the validity of the knowledge of God as obtained by scientific and philosophic processes on the other. Because philosophers, scientists, and even exegetes, are not agreed among themselves, he concludes that no trustworthy results are attainable by human reason. We grant that reason without love will fall into many errors with regard to God, and that faith is therefore the organ by which religious truth is to be apprehended. But we claim that this faith includes reason, and is itself reason in its highest form. Faith criticizes and judges the processes of natural science as well as the contents of Scripture. But it also recognizes in science and Scripture prior workings of that same Spirit of Christ which is the source and authority of the Christian life. Ritschl ignores Christ's world-relations and therefore secularizes and disparages science and philosophy. The faith to which he trusts as the source of theology is unwarrantably sundered from reason. It becomes a subjective and arbitrary standard, to which even the teaching of Scripture must yield precedence. We hold on the contrary, that there are ascertained results in science and in philosophy, as well as in the interpretation of Scripture as a whole, and that these results constitute an authoritative revelation. See Orr, The Theology of Ritschl; Dorner, Hist. Prot. Theol., 1: 233-"The unreasonable in the empirical reason is taken captive by faith, which is the nascent true reason that despairs of itself and trustfully lays hold of objective Christianity."

B. Rationalism, on the other hand, holds reason to be the ultimate source of all religious truth, while Scripture is authoritative only so far as its revelations agree with previous conclusions of reason, or can be rationally demonstrated. Every form of rationalism, therefore, commits at least one of the following errors: (a) That of confounding reason with mere reasoning, or the exercise of the logical intelligence. () That of ignoring the necessity of a holy aftection as the condition of all right reason in religious things. (c) That of denying our dependence in our present state of sin upon God's past revelations of himself. (d) That of regarding the unaided reason, even its normal and unbiased state, as capable of discovering, comprehending, and demonstrating all religious truth.

Reason must not be confounded with ratiocination, or mere reasoning. Shall we follow reason? Yes, but not individual reasoning, against the testimony of those who are better informed than we; nor by insisting on demonstration, where probable evidence alone is possible; nor by trusting solely to the evidence of the senses, when spiritual things are in question. Coleridge, in replying to those who argued that all knowledge comes to us from the senses, says: "At any rate we must bring to all facts the light in which we see them." This the Christian does. The light of love reveals much that would otherwise be invisible. Wordsworth, Excursion, book 5 (598) — “The mind's repose On evidence is not to be ensured By act of naked reason. Moral truth Is no mechanic structure, built by rule."

Rationalism is the mathematical theory of knowledge. Spinoza's Ethics is an illustration of it. It would deduce the universe from an axiom. Dr. Hodge very wrongly described rationalism as "an overuse of reason.' It is rather the use of an abnormal, perverted, improperly conditioned reason; see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1: 34, 39, 55, and criticism by Miller, in his Fetich in Theology. The phrase "sanctified intellect" means simply intellect accompanied by right affections toward God, and trained to work under their influence. Bishop Butler: "Let reason be kept to, but let not such poor creatures as we are go on objecting to an infinite scheme that we do not see the necessity or usefulness of all its parts, and call that reasoning." Newman Smyth, Death's Place in Evolution, 86-"Unbelief is a shaft sunk down into the darkness of the earth.

Drive the shaft deep enough, and it would come out into the sunlight on the earth's other side." The most unreasonable people in the world are those who depend solely upon reason, in the narrow sense. "The better to exalt reason, they make the world irrational." "The hen that has hatched ducklings walks with them to the water's edge, but there she stops, and she is amazed when they go on. So reason stops and faith goes on, finding its proper element in the invisible. Reason is the feet that stand on solid earth; faith is the wings that enable us to fly; and normal man is a creature with wings." Compare yrŵois (1 Tim. 6: 20—"the knowledge which is falsely so called ") with ériyvwols (2 Pet. 1: 2-"the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord" full knowledge, or true knowledge). See Twesten, Dogmatik, 1: 467-500; Julius Müller, Proof-texts, 4, 5; Mansel, Limits of Religious Thought, 96; Dawson, Modern Ideas of Evolution.

3.

Scripture and Mysticism. As rationalism recognizes too little as coming from God, so mysticism recognizes too much.

A. True mysticism.-We have seen that there is an illumination of the minds of all believers by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, however, makes no new revelation of truth, but uses for his instrument the truth already revealed by Christ in nature and in the Scriptures. The illuminating work of the Spirit is therefore an opening of men's minds to understand Christ's previous revelations. As one initiated into the mysteries of Christianity, every true believer may be called a mystic. True mysticism is that higher knowledge and fellowship which the Holy Spirit gives through the use of nature and Scripture as subordinate and principal means.

"Mystic" = one initiated, from μv, “to close the eyes" - probably in order that the soul may have inward vision of truth. But divine truth is a "mystery," not only as something into which one must be initiated, but as inepßáλdovσa tŷs yvwσews (Eph. 3:19) -surpassing full knowledge, even to the believer; see Meyer on Rom. 11: 25-"I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery." The Germans have Mystik with a favorable sense, Mysticismus with an unfavorable sense,- corresponding respectively to our true and false mysticism. True mysticism is intimated in John 16: 13—"the spirit of truth . . . shall guide you into all the truth"; Eph. 3:9- "dispensation of the mystery "; 1 Cor. 2: 10"unto us God revealed them through the Spirit." Nitzsch, Syst. of Christ. Doct., 35-"Whenever true religion revives, there is an outcry against mysticism, i. e., higher knowledge, fellowship, activity through the Spirit of God in the heart." Compare the charge against Paul that he was mad, in Acts 26: 24, 25, with his self-vindication in 2 Cor. 5: 13" whether we are beside ourselves, it is unto God."

Inge, Christian Mysticism, 21-" Harnack speaks of mysticism as rationalism applied to a sphere above reason. He should have said reason applied to a sphere above rationalism. Its fundamental doctrine is the unity of all existence. Man can realize his individuality only by transcending it and finding himself in the larger unity of God's being. Man is a microcosm. He recapitulates the race, the universe, Christ himself." Ibid., 5-Mysticism is "the attempt to realize in thought and feeling the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, and of the eternal in the temporal. It implies (1) that the soul can see and perceive spiritual truth; (2) that man, in order to know God, must be a partaker of the divine nature; (3) that without holiness no man can see the Lord; (4) that the true hierophant of the mysteries of God is love. The scala perfectionis' is (a) the purgative life; (b) the illuminative life; (c) the unitive life." Stevens, Johannine Theology, 239, 240-"The mysticism of John... is not a subjective mysticism which absorbs the soul in self-contemplation and revery, but an objective and rational mysticism, which lives in a world of realities, apprehends divinely revealed truth, and bases its experience upon it. It is a mysticism which feeds, not upon its own feelings and fancies, but upon Christ. It involves an acceptance of him, and a life of obedience to him. Its motto is: Abiding in Christ." As the power press cannot dispense with the type, so the Spirit of God does not dispense with Christ's external revelations in nature and in Scripture. E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 364— “The word of God is a form or mould, into which the Holy Spirit delivers us when he creates us anew"; cf. Rom. 6: 17-"ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered"

B. False mysticism. — Mysticism, however, as the term is commonly used, errs in holding to the attainment of religious knowledge by direct communication from God, and by passive absorption of the human activities into the divine. It either partially or wholly loses sight of (a) the outward organs of revelation, nature and the Scriptures; (b) the activity of the human powers in the reception of all religious knowledge; (c) the personality of man, and, by consequence, the personality of God.

In opposition to false mysticism, we are to remember that the Holy Spirit works through the truth externally revealed in nature and in Scripture (Acts 14: 17-"he left not himself without witness "; Rom. 1: 20"the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen"; Acts 7: 51 -"ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye "; Eph. 6: 17-"the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God"). By this truth already given we are to test all new communications which would contradict or supersede it (1 John 4: 1-"believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God"; Eph. 5:10-"proving what is well pleasing unto the Lord"). By these tests we may try Spiritualism, Mormonism, Swedenborgianism. Note the mystical tendency in Francis de Sales, Thomas à Kempis, Madame Guyon, Thomas C. Upham. These writers seem at times to advocate an unwarrantable abnegation of our reason and will, and a "swallowing up of man in God." But Christ does not deprive us of reason and will; he only takes from us the perverseness of our reason and the selfishness of our will; so reason and will are restored to their normal clearness and strength. Compare Ps. 16: 7-"Jehovah, who hath given me counsel; yea, my heart instructeth me in the night seasons' God teaches his people through the exercise of their own faculties.

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False mysticism is sometimes present though unrecognized. All expectation of results without the use of means partakes of it. Martineau, Seat of Authority, 288"The lazy will would like to have the vision while the eye that apprehends it sleeps." Preaching without preparation is like throwing ourselves down from a pinnacle of the temple and depending on God to send an angel to hold us up. Christian Science would trust to supernatural agencies, while casting aside the natural agencies God has already provided; as if a drowning man should trust to prayer while refusing to seize the rope. Using Scripture "ad aperturam libri" is like guiding one's actions by a throw of the dice. Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 171, note-"Both Charles and John Wesley were agreed in accepting the Moravian method of solving doubts as to some course of action by opening the Bible at hazard and regarding the passage on which the eye first alighted as a revelation of God's will in the matter"; cf. Wedgwood, Life of Wesley, 193; Southey, Life of Wesley, 1: 216. J. G. Paton, Life, 2: 74-"After many prayers and wrestlings and tears, I went alone before the Lord, and on my knees cast lots, with a solemn appeal to God, and the answer came: Go home!'" He did this only once in his life, in overwhelming perplexity, and finding no light from human counsel. "To whomsoever this faith is given," he says, "let him obey it."

F. B. Meyer, Christian Living, 18-"It is a mistake to seek a sign from heaven; to run from counsellor to counsellor; to cast a lot; or to trust in some chance coincidence. Not that God may not reveal his will thus; but because it is hardly the behavior of a child with its Father. There is a more excellent way," namely, appropriate Christ who is wisdom, and then go forward, sure that we shall be guided, as each new step must be taken, or word spoken, or decision made. Our service is to be "rational service" (Rom. 12:1); blind and arbitrary action is inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity. Such action makes us victims of temporary feeling and a prey to Satanic deception. In cases of perplexity, waiting for light and waiting upon God will commonly enable us to make an intelligent decision, while "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom. 14: 23). "False mysticism reached its logical result in the Buddhistic theosophy. In that system man becomes most divine in the extinction of his own personality. Nirvana is reached by the eightfold path of right view, aspiration, speech, conduct, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, rapture; and Nirvana is the loss of ability to say: This is I,' and 'This is mine.' Such was Hypatia's attempt, by subjection of self, to be wafted away into the arms of Jove. George Eliot was wrong when she said: 'The happiest woman has no history.' Self-denial is not self-effacement. The cracked bell has no individuality. In Christ we become our complete selves." Col. 2: 9, 10"For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made full."

Royce, World and Individual, 2: 248, 249 — “ Assert the spiritual man; abnegate the natural man. The fleshly self is the root of all evil; the spiritual self belongs to a

higher realm. But this spiritual self lies at first outside the soul; it becomes ours only by grace. Plato rightly made the eternal Ideas the source of all human truth and goodness. Wisdom comes into a man, like Aristotle's vous." A. H. Bradford, The Inner Light, in making the direct teaching of the Holy Spirit the sufficient if not the sole source of religious knowledge, seems to us to ignore the principle of evolution in religion. God builds upon the past. His revelation to prophets and apostles constitutes the norm and corrective of our individual experience, even while our experience throws new light upon that revelation. On Mysticism, true and false, see Inge, Christian Mysticism, 4, 5, 11; Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 289–294; Dorner, Geschichte d. prot. Theol., 48-59, 243; Herzog, Encycl., art.: Mystik, by Lange; Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, 1: 199; Morell, Hist. Philos., 58, 191-215, 556-625, 726; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1: 61-69, 97, 104; Fleming, Vocab. Philos., in voce; Tholuck, Introd. to Blüthensammlung aus der morgenländischen Mystik; William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, 379-429.

4. Scripture and Romanism. While the history of doctrine, as showing the progressive apprehension and unfolding by the church of the truth contained in nature and Scripture, is a subordinate source of theology, Protestantism recognizes the Bible as under Christ the primary and final authority.

Romanism, on the other hand, commits the two-fold error (a) Of making the church, and not the Scriptures, the immediate and sufficient source of religious knowledge; and (b) Of making the relation of the individual to Christ depend upon his relation to the church, instead of making his relation to the church depend upon, follow, and express his relation to Christ.

In Roman Catholicism there is a mystical element. The Scriptures are not the complete or final standard of belief and practice. God gives to the world from time to time, through popes and councils, new communications of truth. Cyprian: "He who has not the church for his mother, has not God for his Father." Augustine: "I would not believe the Scripture, unless the authority of the church also influenced me." Francis of Assisi and Ignatius Loyola both represented the truly obedient person as one dead, moving only as moved by his superior; the true Christian has no life of his own, but is the blind instrument of the church. John Henry Newman, Tracts, Theol and Eccl., 287-" The Christin dogmas were in the church from the time of the apos les,-they were ever in their substance what they are now." But this is demonstrably untrue of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary; of the treasury of merits to be distributed in indulgences; of the infallibility of the pope (see Gore, Incarnation, 186). In place of the true doctrine, "Ubi Spiritus, ibi ecclesia," Roman. ism substitutes her maxim, "Ubi ecclesia, ibi Spiritus." Luther saw in this the principle of mysticism, when he said: "Papatus est merus enthusiasmus." See Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1: 61-69.

In reply to the Romanist argument that the church was before the Bible, and that the same body that gave the truth at the first can make additions to that truth, we say that the unwritten word was before the church and made the church possible. The word of God existed before it was written down, and by that word the first disciples as well as the latest were begotten (1 Pet. 1: 23-"begotten again... through the word of God"). The grain of truth in Roman Catholic doctrine is expressed in 1 Tim. 3: 15-"the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth the church is God's appointed proclaimer of truth; cf. Phil. 2: 16-"holding forth the word of life." But the church can proclaim the truth, only as it is built upon the truth. So we may say that the American Republic is the pillar and ground of liberty in the world; but this is true only so far as the Republic is built upon the principle of liberty as its foundation. When the Romanist asks: "Where was your church before Luther?" the Protestant may reply: "Where yours is not now in the word of God. Where was your face before it was washed? Where was the fine flour before the wheat went to the mill?" Lady Jane Grey, three days before her execution, February 12, 1554, said: "I ground my faith on God's word, and not upon the church; for, if the church be a good church, the faith of the church must be tried by God's word, and not God's word by the church, nor yet my faith."

The Roman church would keep men in perpetual childhood — coming to her for truth