the reciprocation of affection dates from beyond time, belongs to the very being of God. The Unitarian idea of a solitary God profoundly affects our conception of God, reduces it to mere power, identifies God with abstract cause and thought. Love is grounded in power, not power in love. The Father is merged in the omniscient and omnipotent genius of the universe." Hence 1 John 2: 23-"Whatsoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father." Hutton, Essays, 1: 239–“ We need also the inspiration and help of a perfect filial will. We cannot conceive of the Father as sharing in that dependent attitude of spirit which is our chief spiritual want. It is a Father's perfection to originate-a Son's to receive. We need sympathy and aid in this receptive life; hence the help of the true Son. Humility, self-sacrifice, submission, are heavenly, eternal, divine. Christ's filial life is the root of all filial life in us." See Gal. 2: 20-"I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me." On the practical uses of the doctrine, see Sermon by Gans, in South Church Lectures, 300-310. On the doctrine in general, see Robie, in Bib. Sac., 27; 262-289; Pease, Philosophy of Trinitarian Doctrine; N. W. Taylor, Revealed Theology, 1: 133; Schultz, Lehre von der Gottheit Christi.

On heathen trinities, see Bib. Repos., 6: 116; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt and Christian Belief, 266, 267—“ Lao-tse says, 600 B. C., ‘Tao, the intelligent principle of all being, is by nature one; the first begat the second; both together begat the third; these three made all things."-The Egyptian triad of Abydos was Osiris, Isis his wife, and Horus their Son. But these were no true persons; for not only did the Son proceed from the Father, but the Father proceeded from the Son; the Egyptian trinity was pantheistic in its meaning. See Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, 29; Rawlinson, Religions of the Ancient World, 46, 47.--The Brahman Trimurti, or trinity, to the members of which are given the names Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, is represented in the three mystic letters of the syllable Om, or Aum, and by the image at Elephanta of three heads and one body; see Hardwick, Christ and Other Masters, 1: 276. The places of the three are interchangeable. Williams: "In the three persons the one God is shown; Each first in place, each last, not one alone; Of Siva, Vishnu, Brahma, each may be, First, second, third, among the blessed three." There are ten incarnations of Vishnu for men's salvation in various times of need; and the one Spirit which temporarily invests itself with the qualities of matter is reduced to its original essence at the end of the æon (Kalpa). This is only a grosser form of Sabellianism, or of a modal Trinity. According to Renouf it is not older than A. D. 1400. Buddhism in later times had its triad. Buddha, or Intelligence, the first principle, associated with Dharma, or Law, the principle of matter, through the combining influence of Sangha, or Order, the mediating principle. See Kellogg, The Light of Asia and the Light of the World, 184, 355. It is probably from a Christian source. The gropings of the heathen religions after a trinity in God, together with their inability to construct a consistent scheme of it, are evidence of a rational want in human nature which only the Christian doctrine is able to supply.

CHAPTER III.

THE DECREES OF GOD.

I. DEFINITION OF DECREES.

By the decrees of God we mean that eternal plan by which God has rendered certain all the events of the universe, past, present, and future. Notice in explanation that:

(a) The decrees are many only to our finite comprehension; in their own nature they are but one plan, which embraces not only the ends to be secured but also the means needful to secure them.

In Rom. 8: 28" called according to his purpose"-the many decrees for the salvation of many individuals are represented as forming but one purpose of God. Eph. 1: 11-"foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will"-notice again the word "purpose," in the singular. Eph. 3: 11-" according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." This one purpose or plan of God includes both means and ends, prayer and its answer, labor and its fruit. Tyrolese proverb: "God has his plan for every man." Every man, as well as Jean Paul, is "der Einzige "-the unique. There is a single plan which embraces all things; 'we use the word 'decrees' when we think of it partitively" (Pepper). See Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 1st ed. 165; 2nd ed. 200-"In fact, no event is isolated-to determine one involves determination of the whole concatenation of causes and effects which constitutes the universe."

(b) The decrees, as the eternal act of an infinitely perfect will, though they have logical relation to each other, have no chronological relation. They are not therefore the result of deliberation, in any sense that implies short-sightedness or hesitancy.

Logically, in God's decree the sun precedes the sunlight, and the decree to bring into being a father precedes the decree that there shall be a son. God decrees man before he decrees man's act; he decrees the creation of man before he decrees man's existence. But there is no chronological succession. "Counsel" in Eph. 1: 11-" the counsel of his will "means, not deliberation, but wisdom.

(c) Since the will in which the decrees have their origin is a free will, the decrees are not a merely instinctive or necessary exercise of the divine intelligence or volition, such as pantheism supposes.

It belongs to the perfection of God that he have a plan, and the best possible plan. Here is no necessity, but only the certainty that infinite wisdom will act wisely. God's decrees are not God; they are not identical with his essence; they do not flow from his being in the same necessary way in which the eternal Son proceeds from the eternal Father. There is free will in God, which acts with infinite certainty, yet without necessity. To call even the decree of salvation necessary is to deny grace, and to make an unfree God. See Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1: 355; lect. 34.

(d) The decrees have reference to things outside of God. God does not decree to be holy, nor to exist as three persons in one essence.

Decrees are the preparation for external events-the embracing of certain things and acts in a plan. They do not include those processes and operations within the Godhead which have no reference to the universe.

(e) The decrees primarily respect the acts of God himself, in Creation, Providence, and Grace; secondarily, the acts of free creatures, which he foresees will result therefrom.

While we deny the assertion of Whedon that "the divine plan embraces only divine actions," we grant that God's plan has reference primarily to his own actions, and that the sinful acts of men, in particular, are the objects, not of a decree that God will efficiently produce them, but of a decree that God will permit men, in the exercise of their own free will, to produce them.

(f) The decree to act is not the act. The decrees are an internal exercise and manifestation of the divine attributes, and are not to be confounded with Creation, Providence, and Redemption, which are the execution of the decrees.

The decrees are the first operation of the attributes, and the first manifestation of personality of which we have any knowledge within the Godhead. They presuppose those essential acts or movements within the divine nature which we call generation and procession. They involve by way of consequence that execution of the decrees which we call Creation, Providence, and Redemption, but they are not to be confounded with either of these.

(g) The decrees are therefore not addressed to creatures; are not of the nature of statute-law; and lay neither compulsion nor obligation upon the wills of men.

So ordering the universe that men will pursue a given course of action is a very different thing from declaring, ordering, or commanding that they shall. "Our acts are in accordance with the decrees, but not necessarily so-we can do otherwise and often should” (Park).

(h) All human acts, whether evil or good, enter into the divine plan and so are objects of God's decrees, although God's actual agency with regard to the evil is only a permissive agency.

No decree of God reads: "You shall sin." For (1) no decree is addressed to you: (2) no decree with respect to you says shall; (3) God cannot cause sin, or decree to cause it. He simply decrees to create, and himself to act, in such a way that you will, of your own free choice, commit sin. God determines upon his own acts, foreseeing what the results will be in the free acts of his creatures, and so he determines those results. This permissive decree is the only decree of God with respect to sin. Man of himself is capable of producing sin. Of himself he is not capable of producing holiness. In the production of holiness two powers must concur, God's will and man's will, and God's will must act first. The decree of good, therefore, is not simply a permissive decree, as in the case of evil. God's decree, in the former case, is a decree to bring to bear positive agencies for its production, such as circumstances, motives, influences of his Spirit. But, in the case of evil, God's decrees are simply his arrangement that man may do as he pleases, God all the while foreseeing the result.

(i) While God's total plan with regard to creatures is called predestination, or foreordination, his purpose so to act that certain will believe and be saved is called election, and his purpose so to act that certain will refuse to believe and be lost is called reprobation. We discuss election and reprobation, in a later chapter, as a part of the Application of Redemption.

God's decrees may be divided into decrees with respect to nature, and decrees with respect to moral beings. These last we call foreordination, or predestination; and of these decrees with respect to moral beings there are two kinds, the decree of election, and the decree of reprobation.

II. PROOF OF THE DOCTRINE OF DECREES.

1. From Scripture.

A. The Scriptures declare that all things are included in the divine decrees. B. They declare that special things and events are decreed; as,

for example, (a) the stability of the physical universe; (b) the outward circumstances of nations; (c) the saving work of Christ; (d) the length of human life; (e) the mode of our death; (f) the free acts of men, both good acts and evil acts.

A. Is. 14: 26-"This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations; for the Lord of hosts hath purposed and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?" 46: 10, 11 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure.... yea, I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed, I will also do it." Dan. 4: 35-"doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?" Eph. 1: 11-" the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will."

B. (a) Ps. 119: 91-"For ever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: Thon hast established the earth and it abideth. They abide this day according to thine ordinances; For all things are thy servants." (b) Acts 17: 26-" he made of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; cf. Zech. 6:1-" came four chariots out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass the fixed decrees from which proceed God's providential dealings? (c) 1 Cor. 2: 7-" the wisdom which hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory"; Eph. 3: 10, 11-" manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." (d) Job 14: 5—"Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with thee, and thou hast determined his bounds that he cannot pass." (e) John 21: 19" this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he should glorify God."

(f) Good acts: Is. 44: 28-" that saith of Cyrus. He is my shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying of Jerusalem, She shalt be built; and to the temple. Thy foundation shall be laid"; Eph. 2: 10-" for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them." Evil acts: Gen. 50: 20-"As for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive "; 1 K. 12: 15-" Wherefore the King hearkened not unto the people, for the cause was from the Lord"; 24-"for this thing is from me"; Luke 22: 22" for the Son of man indeed goeth, as it hath been determined: but woe unto that man through whom he is betrayed"; Acts 2: 23-"him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay"; 4: 27, 28—— **of a truth in this city against thy holy Servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel foreordained to come to pass"; Rom. 9: 17" for the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power": 1 Pet. 2: 8-"they stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed"; Rev. 17: 17-"for God did put in their hearts to do his mind, and to come to one mind, and to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God should be accomplished."

2. From Reason.

(a) From the divine foreknowledge.

From eternity God foresaw all the events of the universe as fixed and certain. This fixity and certainty could not have had its ground either in blind fate or in the variable wills of men, since neither of these had an existence. It could have had its ground in nothing outside of the divine mind, for in eternity nothing existed besides the divine mind. But for this fixity there must have been a cause; if anything in the future was fixed, something must have fixed it. This fixity could have had its ground only in the plan and purpose of God. In fine, if God foresaw the future as certain, it must have been because there was something in himself which made it certain; or, in other words, because he had decreed it.

To meet the objection that God might have foreseen the events of the universe, not because he had decreed each one, but only because he had decreed to create the universe and institute its laws, we may put the argument in another form. In eternity there could have been no cause of the future existence of the universe, outside of God himself, since no being existed but God himself. In eternity God foresaw that the creation of the

world and the institution of its laws would make certain its actual history even to the most insignificant details. But God decreed to create and to institute these laws. In so decreeing, he necessarily decreed all that was to come. In fine, God foresaw the future events of the universe as certain, because he had decreed to create; but this determination to create involved also a determination of all the actual results of that creation; or, in other words, God decreed those results.

We grant that God decrees primarily and directly his own acts of creation, providence, and grace; but we claim that this involves also a secondary and indirect decreeing of the acts of free creatures which he forsees will result therefrom. There is therefore no such thing in God as scientia media, or knowledge of an event that is to be, though it does not enter into the divine plan; for to say that God foresees an undecreed event, is to say that he views as future an event that is merely possible; or, in other words, that he views an event not as it is.

Knowledge of a plan as ideal or possible may precede decree; but knowledge of a plan as actual or fixed must follow decree. Only the latter knowledge is properly foreknowledge. God therefore foresees creation, causes, laws, events, consequences, because he has decreed creation, causes, laws, events, consequences; that is, because he has embraced all these in his plan. The denial of decrees logically involves the denial of God's foreknowledge of free human actions; and to this Socinians, and some Arminians, are actually led.

An Arminian example of this denial is found in McCabe, Foreknowledge of God, and Divine Nescience of Future Contingencies a Necessity. Per contra, see notes on God's foreknowledge, in this Compendium, pages 134, 135. Pepper: "Divine volition stands logically between two divisions and kinds of divine knowledge." God knew free human actions as possible, before he decreed them; he knew them as future, because he decreed them. Logically, though not chronologically, decree comes before foreknowledge. When I say, "I know what I will do," it is evident that I have determined already, and that my knowledge does not precede determination, but follows it and is based upon it. It is therefore not correct to say that God foreknows his decrees. It is more true to say that he decrees his foreknowledge. He foreknows the future which he has decreed, and he foreknows it because he has decreed it. His decrees are eternal, and nothing that is eternal can be the object of foreknowledge. Finney, quoted in Bib. Sac., 1877: 723—“The knowledge of God comprehended the details and incidents of every possible plan. The choice of a plan made his knowledge determinate as foreknowledge." There are therefore two kinds of divine knowledge: (1) knowledge of what may beof the possible (scientia simplicis intelligentiæ); and (2) knowledge of what is, and is to be, because God has decreed it (scientia visionis). Between these two Molina, the Spanish Jesuit, wrongly conceived that there was (3) a middle knowledge of things which were to be, although God had not decreed them (scientia media). This would of course be a knowledge which God derived, not from himself, but from his creatures! See Dick, Theology, 1:351. A. S. Carman: "It is difficult to see how God's knowledge can be caused from eternity by something that has no existence until a definite point of time." If it be said that what is to be will be "in the nature of things," we reply that there is no "nature of things" apart from God, and that the ground of the objective certainty, as well as of the subjective certitude corresponding to it, is to be found only in God himself.

But God's decreeing to create, when he foresees that certain free acts of men will follow, is a decreeing of those free acts, in the only sense in which we use the word decreeing, viz., a rendering certain, or embracing in his plan. No Arminian who believes in God's foreknowledge of free human acts has good reason for denying God's decrees as thus explained. Surely God did not foreknow that Adam would exist and sin, whether God determined to create him or not. Omniscience, then, becomes foreknowl