In both passages it is plain from the context that the wickedness and guilt of all concerned in causing Jesus to be crucified are emphasized.

Fourthly, the same recognition of man's free agency with God's providential government and purpose is exemplified in the whole biblical record of the history of Israel. The prophets in successive generations habitually recall to remembrance the fact that it was God, known by his memorial name Jehovah as the God of Israel by the covenant of his grace, who brought them out from Egypt and their slavery there. Throughout all the history of Israel, in its great epochs and its critical emergencies, and in the common course of events, the hand of Jehovah is recognized, while the freedom and moral responsibility of the people, alike in their obedience and their disobedience, and their actual efficiency in determining the course of events, are emphatically declared. This freedom and responsibility are assumed by all the prophets, and are the very ground why God sends them to utter their prophetic warnings. The providence of God and the freedom and responsibility of the people in all the history of Israel were recognized in their public worship, and solemnly chanted in the temple (Psalms cv., cvi., cvii.).

In the revelation of these two factors the history of Israel is the type of all history. In it the veil is lifted and God's providential purpose and agency are clearly revealed with and above man's free and responsible efficiency. The same two factors are in the history of Christendom, and in all history, although in some nations and periods the divine providence is more clearly revealed than in others. God has always advanced his kingdom through the agency of chosen peoples. God's hand in America has been the theme of discourses and of written essays; it is as really evident as in the history of Israel. All true philosophy of history must recognize these two factors, the providential purpose and government of God and the agency, plans, and institutions of men. Positivists have sometimes said there can be no philosophy of human history.1 On the basis of Positivism this is true; and it equally precludes philosophy from every sphere of knowledge and limits science to the phenomena of sense. The only basis for philosophy is the recognition of the fact that the universe is ultimately grounded in Reason freely but progressively

1 Popular Science Monthly, Dec. 18, 1873.

revealing in it the archetypal ideal of eternal reason in accordance with its eternal truths and laws. The only basis for the philosophy of human history is the recognition of the providential purpose and government of God, under the guidance of eternal wisdom and love, progressively realizing the ideal of all perfection and good through the free agency of rational and morally responsible persons. Every great advance in human progress, like the extinction of negro slavery in the United States of America, and many other great events in recent times, throws light on the moral significance of events, not understood when they were occurring, in their relation to human progress. The growth of God's kingdom in the future will more and more reveal the significance of his providential government, till at last, in the consummation of the divine work of redemption, his grand purpose to declare his glory will be made evident; and then will be heard, "as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigneth. Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto him" (Rev. xix. 6, 7). So the whole history of the world has shown and will continue to demonstrate that "wisdom is justified of her children."

Thus the Bible everywhere recognizes and emphasizes in the history of nations and in all the affairs of men both God's providential purpose and government and man's free will and moral responsibility and his real efficiency in determining the course of events. The inspired writers seem to see no incompatibility of these two factors of human history. They present no theory to explain the mode of their co-operation. The fact that they thus emphasize both proves that the doctrine of God's universal providential purpose and government, as they conceived it, contains no elements incompatible with the free agency and moral responsibility of man, and sets forth purpose and government planned in eternal reason, accordant with its truths and laws, for the realization of all perfection and good, and administered through the whole history of man in perfect wisdom and love.

CHAPTER XVI

PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT IN RELATION TO SIN

THAT the fact of sin does not disprove either the love or the power of God was established in the discussion of God's moral attributes. It only remains to ascertain what additional light, from the point of view now attained, is thrown on the true significance of the doctrine that the sin of free agents is included under the providential government and purpose of God, and of the biblical representations of it.

I. From our present point of view we see that God's purpose of the holy character and actions of his rational creatures is positive; his purpose of their sinful character and action is negative. God's purpose is revealed in what he does. His purpose of holy character and action is positive; it is the purpose always to act in the interest of holiness or universal love. In all his action in creating and governing the universe he is revealing his perfections and thus presenting to all rational beings motives to trust and serve him in the life of universal love; in addition to this, in his Holy Spirit poured out on all, he is exerting direct and positive influence to induce men to lead lives of righteousness and good-will; and all his action in his providential government is accordant with the moral law of universal love and subordinated to moral ends in the advancement of his kingdom, the universal reign of righteousness and good-will. And, as already shown, in the case of every individual he does all to prevent his sinning, or, if he is a sinner, to reclaim him to the life of holiness, which perfect wisdom and love require or permit. When he does anything it is because perfect wisdom and love require it; if he does not do more or otherwise, it is because perfect wisdom and love do not permit him to do more or otherwise. Therefore

God's purpose of the right character and action of men is positive. On the other hand, his purpose of the wrong character and action of rational beings is negative; because it is his purpose not to do more or otherwise than he does to lead them to holiness. He purposes that all his positive action shall be in the interest of holiness. Then his purpose respecting sin is not to do more or otherwise than he does to prevent it or to reclaim the sinner from it. And the reason is, that in the case of every individual he does all to draw him from sin which wisdom and love permit or require. As Professor Forbes, of Aberdeen, truly says: "In no case, even that of the greatest sinners, has aught been omitted by God which he knew could possibly avail for their amendment."1 Then the purpose not to do more or otherwise is not a positive purpose but negative. It is involved in the positive purpose to do for the prevention of sin or reclamation from it all which wisdom and love require, and nothing which wisdom and love forbid. It is like God's negative purpose not to expend moral influence on a tree to induce it to love God and its neighbor. A purpose to expend moral influence to lead to a holy life on a being that, by its constitution like a tree, or by a character confirmed in wickedness, is beyond the reach of moral influence, would be unreasonable.2 This not doing more or otherwise in any case involves no change in God's good-will, in his gracious disposition toward all his creatures, and his willingness to reclaim them to repentance and filial trust in him, and to receive all who thus return to him and to the life of universal love. This is exemplified in Christ's weeping over Jerusalem while pronouncing the doom which the people had brought on themselves by resisting the long-continued offers and influences of divine love. And God himself declares, "As I live, saith Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but that the wicked turn from his way and live." And Paul says of God: "Who willeth that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth."3

It follows that the providential purpose of God in its true

1 Predestination and Freewill and the Westminster Confession, pp. 18, 19. 2 "Nor is anything ordained by God by which a man is made worse, but

only that by which he is made better is ordained." (Augustine.)

3 Luke xix. 41-44; Ezek. xxxiii. 11; 1 Tim. ii. 4; Matth. xxiii. 37-39; Luke xv. 1-32.

meaning excludes the reprobation of any to Hell by the decree of arbitrary and almighty will unregulated by law and without reference to the foreseen character of the person, and all ordering by God of the person's circumstances for the purpose of excluding him from salvation, and all positive efficiency of God determining the will in fixed necessity at death or at any time, and the regeneration of the elect by almighty power or irresistible grace while arbitrarily withholding from the reprobate this grace without which they cannot return to God.1 The doctrines thus excluded are contradictory to reason, incompatible with free will, subversive of moral responsibility, law, and government, and of our fundamental conceptions of the wisdom and love of God and of the reasonableness of all his action. And the doctrine of reprobation is not taught in the Bible. The Greek word translated reprobate, denotes that which has been put to the test and found wanting; or, as Grimm translates it, found good for nothing (ineptus ad aliquid). Thus the Bible, in its use of this word, asserts the very contrary of an arbitrary reprobation, since the word implies rejection only after probation and failure under it.2 The man is not worthless because he has been reprobated; he is reprobated because he has been found to be worthless. The sinner's persistence in sin is not the consequence of the divine Spirit's withdrawal, but the Spirit's withdrawal is the consequence of his persistence in sin. And the evil to which he is given over is his own sinful character, his own reprobate mind. He is left to gratify his own evil desires, to persist in his own self-sufficiency, self-will, and self-seeking, the worst and only essential evil. He

1 Calvin says: "Predestination is the eternal decree of God by which he determined with himself what he would have to be done with every man. For all are not created on equal terms; but to some of them eternal life is preordained, and to others eternal damnation. Therefore, as each has been created for the one or the other of these two ends, we say he has been predestined to life or death." "Therefore if we cannot assign any reason for his bestowing mercy on his people except that such is his pleasure, neither can we have any other ground for his reprobating others but his own will.” "Those, therefore, whom God passes by he reprobates, and that for no other reason but because it is his will to exclude them from the inheritance

which he predestines to his children." "A horrible decree indeed, I confess" ("Decretum quidem horribile fateor "). (Institutes, Bk. iii. chap. 21, § 5; chap. 22, § 11; chap. 23, §§ 1 & 7.)

2 Rom. i. 28; Tit. i. 16; Heb. vi. 8; 1 Cor. ix. 27; 2 Cor. xiii. 5, 7; 2 Tim. iii. 8.