nature and experience, we might still know God, since we are made in God's image, and there are important analogies between the divine nature and our own.

Versus Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 79-82-“ Knowledge is recognition and classification." But we reply that a thing must first be perceived, in order to be recognized, or compared with something else; see Porter, Human Intellect, 206; Sir Wm. Hamilton, Metaphysics, 351, 352. We reject Monism in both its forms: 1. Materialism' which says that mind knows matter because mind is matter; and 2. Idealisın, which says that mind knows matter because matter is mind. Porter, Human Intellect, 486"Induction is possible only upon the assumption that the intellect of man is a reflex of the divine intellect, or that man is made in the image of God." Note, however, that man is made in God's image, not God in man's. The painting is the image of the landscape, not vice versa; for there is much in the landscape that has nothing corresponding to it in the painting. Idolatry perversely makes God in the image of man. Murphy, Scientific Bases, 122; McCosh, in International Rev., 1875: 105; Bib. Sac., 1867: 624.

C. Because we know only that of which we can conceive, in the sense of forming an adequate mental image. We reply: (a) It is true that we know only that of which we can conceive, if by the term 'conceive' we mean our distinguishing in thought the object known from all other objects. But, (b) The objection confounds conception with that which is merely its occasional accompaniment and help, namely, the picturing of the object by the imagination. In this sense, conceivability is not a final test of truth. (c) That the formation of a mental image is not essential to conception or knowledge, is plain when we remember that, as a matter of fact, we both conceive and know many things of which we cannot form a mental image of any sort that in the least corresponds to the reality; for example, force, cause, law, space, our own minds. So we may know God, although we cannot form an adequate mental image of him.

Versus Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 25-36, 98-"The reality underlying appearances is totally and forever inconceivable by us." Per contra, see Mansel, Prolegomena Logica, 77, 78 (cf. 26)-"The first distinguishing feature of a concept, viz.: that it cannot in itself be depicted to sense or imagination." Porter, Human Intellect, 392 (see also 429, 656)—“The concept is not a mental image: we recall an individual percept, one or many." Sir Wm. Hamilton: "The unpicturable notions of the intelligence.” Martineau, Religion and Materialism, 39, 40-“This doctrine of Nescience stands in exactly the same relation to causal power, whether you construe it as Material Force or as Divine Agency. Neither can be observed; one or the other must be assumed. If you admit to the category of knowledge only what we learn from observation, particular or generalized, then is Force unknown; if you extend the word to what is imported by the intellect itself into our cognitive acts, to make them such, then is God known." Spencer himself calls the inscrutable reality back of phenomena an infinite and absolute Force and Cause. "It seems," says Father Dalgairns, "that a great deal is known about the Unknowable." See McCosh, Intuitions, 186-189 (Eng. ed., 214); Murphy, Scientific Bases, 133; Bowne, Review of Spencer, 30-34; New Englander, July, 1875: 543, 544; Oscar Craig, in Presb. Rev., July, 1883: 594-602.

D. Because we can know truly only that which we know in whole and not in part. We reply: (a) The objection confounds partial knowledge with the knowledge of a part. We know the mind in part, but we do not know a part of the mind. (b) If the objection were valid, no real knowledge of anything would be possible, since we know no single thing in all its relations. We conclude that, although God is a being not composed of parts, we may yet have a partial knowledge of him, and this knowledge, though not exhaustive, may yet be real, and adequate to the purposes of science.

Versus Mansel, Limits of Relig. Thought, 97, 98. Per contra, see Martineau, Essays, 1:291. The mind does not exist in space, and has no parts (sides, corners). Yet we find the material for mental science in partial knowledge of the mind. We are not "geographers of the divine nature"-Bowne, Review of Spencer, 72-but we say with Paul, not 'now know we a part of God," but "now know we [God] in part" (1 Cor. 13:12); cf. John 17:3 -"this is life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true God;" Jer. 9: 24-"let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth, and knoweth me.' We may know truly what we do not know exhaustively; see Eph. 3: 19-"to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." Dorner: "Only he who knows God, knows his unfathomableness."

E. Because all predicates of God are negative, and therefore furnish no real knowledge. We answer: (a) Predicates derived from our own consciousness, such as spirit, love, and holiness, are positive. (b) The terms 'infinite' and 'absolute', moreover, express not merely a negative but a positive idea-the idea, in the former case, of the absence of all limit, the idea that the object thus described goes on and on forever; the idea, in the latter case, of entire self-sufficiency. Since predicates of God, therefore, are not merely negative, the argument mentioned above furnishes no valid reason why we may not know him.

Versus Sir Wm. Hamilton, Metaph., 530-"The absolute and the infinite can each only be conceived as a negation of the thinkable; in other words, of the absolute and infinite we have no conception at all." Hamilton here confounds the infinite, or the absence of all limits, with the indefinite, or the absence of all known limits. Per contra, see Calderwood, Moral Philosophy, 248; Philosophy of the Infinite, 272-" Negation of one thing is possible only by affirmation of another." McCosh, Intuitions, 194, note; Porter, Human Intellect, 651, 652; Mivart, Lessons from Nature, 363. Yet a plane which is unlimited in the one respect of length may be limited in other respects, such as breadth. Our doctrine here is not therefore inconsistent with what immediately follows.

F. Because to know is to limit or define. Hence the Absolute as unlimited, and the Infinite as undefined, cannot be known. We answer: (a) God is absolute, not as existing in no relation, but as existing in no necessary relation; and, (b) God is infinite, not as excluding all co-existence of the finite with himself, but as being the ground of the finite, and so unfettered by it. (c) God is actually limited by the unchangeableness of his own attributes and personal distinctions, as well as by his self-chosen relations to the universe he has created and to humanity in the person of Christ. God is therefore limited and defined in such a sense as to render knowledge of him possible.

Versus Mansel, Limits of Religious Thought, 75-84, 93-95. Cf. Spinoza: "Determinatio est negatio"; hence to define God is to deny him. But we deny that all limitation is imperfection. Man can be other than he is. Not so God-at least internally. But this limitation, inherent in his unchangeable attributes and personal distinctions, is his perfection. Externally, all limitations upon God are self-limitations, and so are consistent with his perfection. That God should not be able thus to limit himself in creation and redemption would render all self-sacrifice in him impossible, and so would subject him to the greatest of limitations. Perfection necessarily implies the power of self-limitation. See Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 1: 189, 195; Porter, Human Intellect, 653; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 130; Calderwood, Philos. of Inf., 168; McCosh, Intuitions, 186; Hickok, Rational Cosmology, 85.

G. Because all knowledge is relative to the knowing agent; that is, what we know, we know, not as it is objectively, but only as it is related to our own senses and faculties. In reply: (a) We grant that we can know only that which has relation to our faculties. But this is simply to say that we know only that which we come into mental contact with, that is, we know only what we know. But, (b) We deny that what we come into mental

contact with is known by us as other than it is. So far as it is known at all, it is known as it is. In other words, the laws of our knowing are not merely arbitrary and regulative, but correspond to the nature of things. We conclude that, in theology, we are equally warranted in assuming that the laws of our thought are laws of God's thought, and that the results of normally conducted thinking with regard to God correspond to the objective reality. Versus Sir Wm. Hamilton, Metaph., 96-116, and H. Spencer, First Principles, 68-97. The doctrine of relativity is derived from Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, who holds that a priori judgments are simply "regulative." But we reply that when our primitive beliefs are found to be simply regulative, they will cease to regulate. The forms of thought are also facts of nature. The mind does not, like the glass of a kaleidoscope, itself furnish the forms; it recognizes these as having an existence external to itself; see Bishop Temple, Bampton Lectures for 1884: 13. W. T. Harris, in Journ. Spec. Philosophy, 1:22, exposes Herbert Spencer's self-contradiction: "All knowledge is, not absolute, but relative; our knowledge of this fact however is, not relative, but absolute." On Sir Wm. Hamilton's theory of knowledge, see H. B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy, 297-336; J. S. Mill, Examination, 1 : 113-134; Herbert, Modern Realism Examined; Pres. M. B. Anderson, art.: "Hamilton," in Johnson's Encyclopædia; McCosh, Intuitions, 139-146, 340, 341, and Christianity and Positivism, 97-123; Maurice, What is Revelation? Alden, Intellectual Philos., 48-79 (esp. 71–79); Porter, Human Int., 525; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 103; Bib. Sac., Apr., 1868; 341; Princeton Rev., 1864: 122; Bowne, Review of H. Spencer, 76; Bowen, in Princeton Rev., Mar., 1878: 445-448; Mind, April, 1878: 257; Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 117; Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 109-113; Inverach, in Present Day Tracts, 5: no. 29.

3. In God's actual revelation of himself and certain of these relations. As we do not in this place attempt a positive proof of God's existence or of man's capacity for the knowledge of God, so we do not now attempt to prove that God has brought himself into contact with man's mind by revelation. We shall consider the grounds of this belief hereafter. Our aim at present is simply to show that, granting the fact of revelation, a scientific theology is possible. This has been denied upon the following grounds.

A. That revelation, as a making known, is necessarily internal and subjective-either a mode of intelligence, or a quickening of man's cognitive powers-and hence can furnish no objective facts such as constitute the proper material for science.

The objection here mentioned is urged by the idealistic school of thinkers, as the objections previously considered are mainly urged by those who incline to materialism. As the pendulum of thought seems now about to swing once more in the direction of idealism, a careful examination of the objection before us is indispensable. It may be found stated in Morell, Philos. of Religion, 128-131, 143-"The Bible cannot in strict accuracy of language be called a revelation, since a revelation always implies an actual process of intelligence in a living mind"; F. W. Newman, Phases of Faith, 152-" Of our moral and spiritual God we know nothing without-everything within"; Theodore Parker: "Verbal revelation can never communicate a simple idea like that of God, Justice, Love, Religion"; see review of Parker in Bib. Sac., 18: 24-27.

In reply to this objection,

(a) We grant that revelation, to be effective, must be the means of inducing a new mode of intelligence, or, in other words, must be understood. We grant that this understanding of divine things is impossible without a quickening of man's cognitive powers. We grant, moreover, that revelation, when originally imparted, was often internal and subjective.

(b) But we deny that external revelation is therefore useless or impossible. Even if religious ideas sprang up wholly from within, an external revelation

might stir up the dormant powers of the mind. Religious ideas, however, do not spring wholly from within. External revelation can impart them. Man can reveal himself to man by external communications, and if God has equal power with man, God can reveal himself to man in like manner.

(c) Hence God's revelation may be, and, as we shall hereafter see, it is, in great part, an external revelation in works and words. We claim, moreover, that in many cases where truth was originally communicated internally, the same Spirit who communicated it has brought about an external record of it and so has insured its preservation in permanent and written form.

d) With this external record we shall also see that there is given upon proper conditions a special influence of God's Spirit, so to quicken our cognitive powers that the external record reproduces in our minds the ideas with which the minds of the writers were at first divinely filled.

(e) Internal revelations thus recorded, and external revelations thus interpreted, both furnish objective facts which may serve as proper material for science. Although revelation in its widest sense may include, and as constituting the ground of the possibility of theology does include, both insight and illumination, it may also be used to denote simply a provision of the external means of knowledge, and theology has to do with inward revelations only as they are expressed in, or as they agree with, this objective standard.

We may illustrate the need of internal revelation from Egyptology, which is impossible so long as the external revelation in the hieroglyphics is uninterpreted. External revelation (pavépwσis, Rom. 1: 19, 20) must by supplemented by internal revelation (áπokádvķis, 1 Cor. 2: 10-12). Christ is the organ of external, the Holy Spirit the organ of internal, revelation. In Christ (2 Cor. 1: 20) are "the yea" and "the Amen" the objective certainty and the subjective certitude, the reality and the realization. Revelation objective, as at Sinai; subjective, as in Elisha's knowledge of Gehazi (2 K. 5: 26). On the whole subject, see Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3: 37-43; Nitzsch, Syst. Christ. Doctrine, 72; Luthardt, Fund. Truths, 193; Auberlen, Div. Rev., Introd., 29; Martineau, Essays, 1: 171, 280; Bib. Sac., 1867: 593, and 1872: 428; Porter, Hum. Intellect, 373-375; Mead, in Boston Lectures, 1871: 58.

B. That many of the truths thus revealed are too indefinite to constitute the material for science, because they belong to the region of the feelings, because they are beyond our full understanding, or because they are destitute of orderly arrangement.

See Jacobi and Schleiermacher, who regard theology as a mere account of devout Christian feelings, the grounding of which in objective historical facts is a matter of comparative indifference; see Hagenbach, Hist. Doctrine, 2: 401-403. Allied to this is the view of Feuerbach, to whom religion is a matter of subjective fancy, and the view of Tyndall, who would remit theology to the region of vague feeling and aspiration, but would exclude it from the realm of science; see Feuerbach, Essence of Christianity, translated by Marian Evans, and Tyndall, Belfast Address.

We reply:

(a) Theology has to do with subjective feelings only as they can be defined, and shown to be effects of objective truth upon the mind. These are not more obscure than the facts of morals or psychology, and the same objection which would exclude such feelings from theology, would make these latter sciences impossible. Moreover,

(b) Those facts of revelation which are beyond our full understanding, may, like the nebular hypothesis in astronomy or the atomic theory in chemistry, furnish a principle of union between great classes of other facts

otherwise irreconcilable. We may define our concepts of God, and even of the Trinity, at least sufficiently to distinguish them from all other concepts, and whatever difficulty may encumber the putting of them into language only shows the importance of attempting it and the value of even an approximate success.

(e) Even though there were no orderly arrangement of these facts, either in nature or in Scripture, an accurate systematizing of them by the human mind would not thereby be proved impossible, unless a principle were assumed which would show all physical science to be equally impossible. Astronomy and geology are constructed by putting together multitudinous facts which at first sight seem to have no order. So with theology. And yet, although revelation does not present to us a dogmatic system readymade, a dogmatic system is not only implicitly contained therein, but parts of the system are wrought out in the epistles of the New Testament, as for example in Rom. 5: 12-19; 1 Cor. 15:3, 4; 8:6; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 6:1, 2. We may illustrate the construction of theology from the dissected map, two pieces of which are already put together. Origen: God gives us truth in single threads, which we must weave into a finished texture. Scripture hints at the possibilities of combination, in Rom. 5: 12-19, with its grouping of the facts of sin and salvation about the two persons, Adam and Christ; in Rom. 4: 24, 25, with its linking of the resurrection of Christ and our justification; in 1 Cor. 8: 6, with its indication of the relations between the Father and Christ; in 1 Tim. 3: 16, with its poetical summary of the facts of redemption (see Commentaries of DeWette, Meyer, Fairbairn); in Heb. 6: 1, 2, with its statement of the first principles of the Christian faith. On the whole subject see Martineau, Essays, 1 : 29, 40 ; Am. Theol. Rev., 1859: 101-126-art. on the Idea, Sources, and Uses of Christian Theology.

IV. NECESSITY.-The necessity of theology has its grounds

(a) In the organizing instinct of the human mind. This organizing principle is a part of our constitution. The mind cannot endure confusion or apparent contradiction in known facts. The tendency to harmonize and unify its knowledge appears so soon as the mind becomes reflective; just in proportion to its endowments and culture, does the impulse to systematize and formulate increase. This is true of all departments of human inquiry, but it is peculiarly true of our knowledge of God. Since the truth with regard to God is the most important of all, theology meets the deepest want of man's rational nature. Theology is a rational necessity. If all existing theological systems were destroyed to-day, new systems would rise to-morrow. So inevitable is the operation of this law that those who most decry theology, show nevertheless that they have made a theology for themselves, and often one sufficiently meagre and blundering. Hostility to theology, where it does not originate in mistaken fears for the corruption of God's truth, or in a naturally illogical structure of mind, often proceeds from a license of speculation which cannot brook the restraints of a complete Scriptural system.

"Every man has as much theology as he can hold." Consciously or unconsciously, we philosophize, as naturally as we speak prose. See Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 27-52; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 195–199.

(b) In the relation of systematic truth to the development of character. Truth thoroughly digested is essential to the growth of Christian character in the individual and in the church. All knowledge of God has its influence upon character, but most of all the knowledge of spiritual facts in