perfection of language, colloquial usage, or a figurative style may have led these writers to adopt. Thus, for instance, when the hand, the arm, the lips of the Deity are spoken of, we do not for a moment suppose that the authors of the Bible meant to imply that the Almighty possesses these bodily parts. We refer at once to their uniform and reiterated assertion of his spirituality, and conclude that these things are spoken after the manner of men, and to aid human comprehension. There is yet another class of expressions, to which we ought to apply the same solution, I mean those which impute wrath and vengeance to the Almighty. These have sometimes been so interpreted, as to clothe the Supremely Good in almost fiendlike attributes. But the Bible throughout represents God as unaffected by gusts of earthly passion, as enthroned in serene majesty, as administering even the harshest discipline by the laws of love; and the predominance of these representations obliges us in fairness to regard those of the opposite class as figuratively employed to denote results from the calm and righteous disapprobation of God, similar to those which are wont to flow from the wrathful and malicious passions of man. Let the same principle be applied wherever the language of scripture seems to militate with the acknowledged attributes of God.

We should, in the next place, employ the ascertained attributes of God as a test of the doctrines which others propose for our belief. With regard to every such doctrine, our first question should be, Is it consistent with what the Bible teaches us of God? If so, it may be true. if not, however plausibly defended, it must be false. Thus, take for instance, the doctrine, that all mankind are answerable for the guilt of Adam's transgression. The only question is: Is this doctrine consonant with that

perfect justice, which the Bible ascribes to God? An earnest and indignant No would be the instinctive response of every honest mind. It is intrinsically and necessarily unjust to deem any individual accountable for sins which he does not individually commit. We should therefore be justified in setting this doctrine aside at once as absolutely untenable, as an idea, which cannot be cherished along with our faith in God. Nor can it be fairly urged that we are incompetent to sit in judgment on the ways of the Most High, and that what would be unjust in man may be just in him. I grant that we have no right to sit in judgment upon what we are certain that he does; but it is our right, nay more, it is our bounden duty to try what men assert that he does by what we know of his nature. Moreover, if what is unjust according to our ideas of right, may yet be just in God, then we know not what justice is, we can form no idea of the divine justice, and the words, God is just, are entirely empty and unmeaning. It is manifest that, when the sacred writers tell us that God is just, good and holy, they use these words in the sense which they commonly bear among men ; and if they use them in any other sense, they are wanton mockers of human ignorance, and not the lights of the world. But with the usual sense of these words we are acquainted, and are amply competent to judge whether the purposes and operations which men ascribe to God,

are consistent with it.

This then must be our criterion. All those dogmas which undermine the throne of God's justice, break the sceptre of his power, dim the vigor of his wisdom, we are bound unhesitatingly to reject. If scriptural proof be urged in favor of such a dogma, we are bound to do

one of these things, to prove that the scriptures do not teach it, to prove that the scriptures cast doubts upon the divine wisdom, mercy or justice, or to regard the Bible as self-contradictory and untrustworthy. To either of these two latter alternatives I apprehend that we shall never be driven; but that we shall always be able to bring ample scriptural testimony against every human dogma that rears itself in conflict with the divine attributes.

But we need not only to try the postulates of others, but to build up our own systems of theology; and this we must do on the attributes of God as a foundation. Truth on all subjects is, (as I have already remarked,) the transcript of the divine ideas, the reflection of the divine attributes. What need we then, in order to ascertain the truth on any and every point, but to reason, from the analogy of what nature and revelation teach us of the character of God, to his will, works, and dispensations.

Thus, with regard to Providence, God's omniscience, justice and goodness, all oppose themselves to the idea of a merely general supervision, and leave us no alternative but the doctrine of a minute, particular, and constant Providence.

So with regard to human nature, if God be its author, it must bear his impress, nor can it be depraved, unless he be depraved; but, if he be good and holy, human nature, as it comes from his hands, must be stainless and pure. Nor will it suffice to say that man was originally thus created, but that from the sin of his progenitors he now comes into the world with a depraved nature. For in order to maintain this, you must either hold that God is not the creator of the men that now are, and thus deny his infinite power and perfect providence, or else,

admitting that each one of us is a child of God no less than Adam was, you must assert that a depravity emanates from him, which you would be shocked to impute to him, but which could not possibly flow from him in his works, unless it were a part of his character.

Thus, too, with regard to the effect of sincere repentance on the divine mind, we have only to combine God's holiness and love, and we cannot for a moment doubt that the penitent are forgiven; for, when infinite holiness has once attained its prime end of awakening the sinner to moral goodness and spiritual life, it would be impossible for perfect love to perpetuate the penal consequences of iniquity.

The nature of the atonement through Christ is also rendered clear and plain by similar considerations. If God be love unmingled and unlimited; if anger and wrath form no part of his character; if punishment be his strange work, and mercy his delight; then must we reject that view of the atonement, which represents Christ as interposing to disarm his Father's vengeance; and must adopt that view, which makes the Father and the Son one in the work of redemption, which teaches us that "God so loved the world as to send his Son to save it," that "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself."

Once more; similar considerations furnish us a guide to the truth, concerning a future retribution. The divine justice and holiness set aside at once the theory, which admits sinners and saints alike, immediately on death, into the same bliss and glory. The justice and mercy of God forbid us also to regard the rewards and punishments of the future life as equal and arbitrary; and comNO. 127.

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pel us to view them as the natural result and proportionate recompence "of the deeds done in the body," so that we shall literally be judged according to our works.

By thus applying our knowledge of the divine attributes to all the topics of theological inquiry, and adjusting our opinions by the analogy of those attributes, we may construct for ourselves a compact, uniform, and selfconsistent system of Christian doctrine, which, if not absolutely and in all its details true, shall yet be relatively true, compared with systems formed on a different basis, and constructed on different principles.

In recommending this process, I do not mean to undervalue the diligent and prayerful study of the Bible, but only to urge the importance of its systematic study. The Bible is our prime source of light and truth; and on every point should be carefully and reverently consulted. But it is, as it seems to me, for want of systematic research into its contents, that men vary so widely in interpreting them. The course which I recommend is, first to ascertain all that the Bible teaches of the divine nature, so as to obtain definite and coherent ideas of it, and then to make these ideas our key to the interpretation of what the Bible says on all other subjects. Thus, when the language of a passage of scripture taken by itself, will bear, and receives from different sects of christians two different meanings, we may be able to determine the true meaning, by ascertaining which accords with scriptural views of the divine character. No doubt the doctrines which God has revealed in the Bible, form a complete, harmonious, and coherent system, of which he is the centre, basis and sum. By commencing our researches with him, founding our doctrines upon his char