THEOLOGY. 



585 



evil consequences of sins ceasing to afflict a man 

 because he is penitent ? Is he delivered from these 

 consequences even when he refrains from re- 

 peating the transgressions by which they have been 

 entailed upon him? If then we have, in the 

 present life, no certain indication that pardon is 

 granted, have we any testimony from reason about 

 the world to come, to assure us that the blessed 

 effects of forgiveness will be enjoyed there? That 

 world is beyond the sphere of man's unaided 

 speculations. Besides, the adequacy of any theolo- 

 gical system must be tested chiefly by the morality 

 which may be evolved from its doctrines, and the 

 righteousness of life to which it effectually guides 

 and excites. Now we must here again make our 

 appeal to experience. It will not do to put us off 

 with vague generalities about what the theology of 

 nature must be capable of effecting. The proper 

 question is a simple one : what has it done ? In 

 the moral systems of the philosophers, some duties 

 of great importance are omitted, and some things 

 which they call virtues turn out to be vices. Ac- 

 cording to Cicero, virtue proposes glory as its end, 

 and looks for no other reward. Zeno maintained 

 that all crimes are equal, and that a person, who 

 has offended or injured us, should never be for- 

 given. It was his opinion, as well as that of other 

 philosophers, that the crime against nature is a mat- 

 ter of indifference. The Cynics held that there 

 was nothing shameful in committing acts of lewd- 

 ness in public. Aristippus affirmed, that as plea- 

 sure was the summum bonum, a man might practise 

 theft, sacrilege, or adultery, as he had opportunity. 

 Besides their morality, imperfect as it was, wanted 

 authority; it had little or no power over the con- 

 science ; and the motives by which it was enforced, 

 were not of sufficient efficacy to counteract the in- 

 nate propensity to evil, and to overcome the strong 

 temptations to which men are daily exposed. Hence 

 a general depravity of manners prevailed, of which, 

 corrupt as Christian countries are, we can hardly 

 form a conception : a depravity which extended 

 not only to the lower and uneducated classes, but 

 to the higher and better informed, and even to the 

 very men who professed to be teachers of wisdom. 

 We are apt to impose upon ourselves, or id be im- 

 posed on by others, when we are thinking of the 

 heathen philosophers. We look upon them as 

 sages, who spent their days in the study and prac- 

 tice of virtue. But the particulars of their history 

 which have come down to us, and the testimony of 

 some of their own order, will correct this mistake, 

 and show us that they were unprincipled declaimers, 

 whose infamous conduct daily gave the lie to their 

 eloquent harangues. Suspicion rests upon the most 

 celebrated names ; and with respect even to Soc- 

 rates, the visit which he paid to an Athenian cour- 

 tezan, to see her beauty, and to teach her more per- 

 fectly the arts of seduction, and the profane oaths 

 with which his conversation was interlarded, with 

 some other particulars in his history, place him at 

 an immense distance from the lowest member of a 

 Christian church. Were this wisest of men accord- 

 ing to the oracle, this pattern of every excellence 

 according to the nonsensical panegyrics of pedants 

 and fools, now to appear among us, no man with 

 correct ideas of piety and morality, would choose 

 to be seen in his company. (Dick's Lectures, vol. 

 i. pp. 22, 23.) 



SUPERNATURAL THEOLOGY is altogether founded 

 on divine revelation, or information supernaturally 

 communicated to us ; not merely information con- 



cerning truths which lie beyond the range of reason, 

 but also the publication, with new evidence and 

 lustre, of such truths as are within its reach, but 

 of which, in its present corrupt state, it had not 

 been able to form distinct conceptions. The extent 

 of this theology must therefore have been, at all 

 times, exactly commensurate with the extent of re- 

 velation vouchsafed by God. It never could go 

 beyond this without ceasing to be supernatural. 

 Nor does this show it to have been necessarily very 

 limited in the number of its doctrines even in the 

 earliest periods of its history. Of that history we 

 have but an imperfect sketch. For example, from 

 the few particulars respecting the Antediluvians 

 which Moses has transmitted, we could not have 

 inferred that the doctrine of a general judgment 

 formed part of their religious knowledge ; yet it is 

 as certain as any part of the Mosaic history, that 

 the second coming of Christ, the judgment of the 

 world by him, and something of the terrible subli- 

 mity with which this is to be attended, were articles 

 of the faith of the people of God among them. 

 " Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied, say- 

 ing, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand 

 of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to 

 convince all that are ungodly among them, of all 

 their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly com- 

 mitted, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly 

 sinners have spoken against him." (Jude 14, 15.) 

 Substantially the same system of doctrine which 

 we at present profess, was made known to our first 

 parents after the fall, and has been received and 

 acted upon by the people of God in every subsequent 

 age. Yet there has been a gradual developement 

 of what is implied in this system. The full evolu- 

 tion of the human body, from the seminal principle 

 in the womb of the parent, is the work of years, 

 and so is the growth of plants and trees. Light 

 increases slowly, from the faint dawn in the east to 

 the full splendour of noon-day. Religious know- 

 ledge has advanced to its present state by a similar 

 process. At first it was like the seed which the 

 husbandman throws into the soil, which although 

 containing the germ of the future plant, gave no 

 promise to the eye of what it would become ; but 

 under the care, and by the renewed influences of 

 Heaven, it has waxed greater and greater, and now 

 it is presented to us in all its luxuriance and beauty. 

 It is a body of doctrine which it is necessary for us 

 to know. Natural religion is not suited to our 

 circumstances, for it holds out no hope to the guilty, 

 and in the present enfeebled and corrupt state of 

 our moral powers, its duties are absolutely imprac- 

 ticable. 



Supernatural theology, as a science, may be 

 viewed in various aspects. He that is ignorant 

 of the endless and subtle disputes which have arisen 

 concerning almost every article of faith, takes up 

 his bible as the word of God, and by a short and 

 easy process, acquires that measure of knowledge, 

 which, through the teaching of the divine Spirit, 

 makes him wise unto salvation. Man may in various 

 ways unfit himself for discovering what the scrip- 

 tures really teach, and may delude himself into the 

 belief that he finds in them those doctrines which 

 he wishes to be true, but the fault is in himself; 

 the word of God remains the same as ever it was, 

 a revelation made to the most simple, as well as 

 to the most learned, and to honest and humble in- 

 quirers quite and easily intelligible on every subject 

 which it is absolutely necessary and most import- 

 ant for us to know. But the deep things of <!od 



