authority of conscience as itself a revelation of the Divine righteousness, but solely on the command of God, as contained in his written word. We venture to dissent from his teaching on the following grounds: 1. The affirmation that the human mind has no native, original ideas of right, but that they are all derived from revelation, is in conflict with revelation itself. ... It is setting up for Scripture a claim which it does not assert for itself. The Bible does not claim to be the original source of all our ideas of right and wrong. On the contrary, it proceeds continually on the assumption that there is an inherent, independent rightness in virtue anterior to all legislation, and which rightness is intuitively perceived by the human mind. "The statutes of the Lord are RIGHT, rejoicing the heart." "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for that is RIGHT." "Even of your own selves judge ye not what is RIGHT?" "Whatsoever things are true . . . are honest . . . are just . . . are pure... are lovely... are of good report-if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise-be such the objects of your esteem.' The rightness here is not one which is ordained, it is inherent. Children are commanded to obey their parents because it is in itself right. The command does not constitute the rightness. Here there is also supposed a natural capacity in man to perceive what is right and just and honest and true. It is taken for granted that these are the things which are of “good report" in every period and country, and that in all ages the "virtue" and the "praise" go together. Here is thus an obvious recognition of the voice of conscience in the individual, and of the voice of universal consciousness as revealed in the moral history of our race. Not only do the Scriptures accord to man the capacity of judging what is right in human conduct, but even in the Divine procedure. When Abraham ventures the solemn expostulation, "Wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked? That be far from thee to do after this manner. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" there is no disapprobation expressed as to the judgment which a creature dares to pass on what is right for the Divine administration. Nay, God appeals to the reason of his creatures as to the rectitude of his government, and permits the fundamental principles of his administration to be arraigned at the bar of the human conscience. "Are not my ways equal?" "Judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard!" But how can a mortal pronounce upon the Divine procedure, that it is "righteous altogether," if there are no native standards of right erected in his own soul? That moral law does exist subjectively in all human minds is distinctly affirmed by Paul in a passage which well deserves to be regarded as the chief corner-stone of moral science. "The Gentiles (Ovn, heathen) which have not the written law, do, by the guidance of nature, (reason or conscience,) the works enjoined by the revealed law; these, having no written law, are a law unto themselves, who show plainly the works of the law written on their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and also their reasonings one with another when they accuse, or else excuse, each other."* To deny this is to relegate the heathen from all responsibility. "For the will of a superior is not in justice binding until it is in some mode sufficiently declared."+ Now, in the righteous adjudgments of revelation the heathen are "without excuse." The will of God must therefore be "sufficiently declared" to constitute them accountable. Who will presume to affirm that the shadowy, uncertain, variable, easily and unavoidably corrupted medium of tradition, running through forty muddy centuries, is a "sufficient declaration of the will of God?" The law is "written on the heart" of every man, or all men are not accountable. 2. The affirmation that the human mind has no original native ideas of the just, the right, and the good, renders invalid the internal evidences of the divinity of the Scriptures. "The internal evidence" is defined by Mr. Watson to be "that which arises from the consideration of the doctrines taught as being consistent with the character of God, and their tendency to promote the virtue and happiness of man."-Vol. i, p. 88. But is it not at once apparent, that if we know nothing of the "character of God" save what is taught us in revelation, then the "internal evidence" is simply the agreement of the "doctrines taught " with the "doctrines taught," which is no evidence at all. It is simply the agreement of Scripture with * Romans xi, 14, 16. "Macknight's Trans." Watson, vol. i, page 9. Scripture. To say of the will of God that it is "just" and "good," if all "rightness" and "goodness" consist in conformity to the Divine will, is, in fact, no more than saying that the will of God is the will of God. And "to praise the pure morality of the Gospel, if the Gospel itself be the only source from whence we derive our ideas of morality, is merely attributing to the Gospel the praise of being conformable to rules derived from itself."* This kind of argument does not carry us one step toward a satisfying conviction that the Bible is a revelation from God. If the human mind has no intuitive perception of what is right-if the mind has within itself no original standard of right, the "internal evidences" have no argumentative value. They are an exhibition of weakness rather than of strength. Indeed, it is evident that Mr. Watson himself places little reliance upon this form of proof. His reasoning is burdened with the consciousness that, under the qualifications and conditions with which he has environed it, it is valueless. Accordingly he tells us that "the evidence of the authority of revelation is afforded by miracles ALONE." "They are the decisive and absolute evidences of a revelation from God." "The sacred writers urge the miracles as the decisive proof, without ever taking into consideration the nature of the doctrine."‡ And for us to attempt "to try a professed revelation by our own notions of what is worthy of God (consistent with the character of God,' page 88) and beneficial to mankind, is to assume that independent of revelation we know what God is, or can say what is worthy or unworthy of him." Thus to the sagacious mind of Watson it was apparent that, to a philosophy which denies the human mind any primary intuitions in regard to God, right, duty, or immortality, the "internal evidence" is of no value. Is there then no internal evidence in the Bible of its being the word of God? Surely there is. And it is most convincing. It is the self-recommending evidence which the word of God carries along with it to the conscience of every man. The Gospel is "a manifestation of truth and duty which commends itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God." "Theological Institutes," vol. i, page 91. "Theological Institutes," vol. i, page 91. § Ibid., vol. i, page 90. 2 Cor. iv, 2. *Archbishop Whately. It is found in the verisimilitude-the truth-likeness of its utterances-the tone of downright earnestness and sincerity and honesty which pervades it. It is in its "meeting, waking up, answering to the deep longings, wants, sins, fears, and hopes of man. And, above all, it draws out those intimations of the being and character of God which are written in dim outline on the human soul, and answers to all the ideas of right and justice and equity and goodness which are imbedded in the conscience of man. This is the power and grandeur of selfattestation. This is the evidence whose force is felt alike by the educated and the uneducated-the evidence on which the masses of Christian men rest with an unfaltering faith. They know little or nothing of the arguments of Leland, or Leslie, or Paley; but they feel and appreciate the internal, self-announcing, self-recommending evidence of God's word, because it has spoken to their inmost soul, and they know that God is there! The validity of this argument for the divinity of the Scriptures is grounded upon the principle that there is a perfect accordance between the fundamental truths and principles of inspiration and the ideas of fundamental truth and morality existing in the human soul. The moral law written on the heart is identical with the moral law written on the tables of stone. The revealed code answers to the "Lowvǹ čvvoia "+—the common sentiments of mankind. 3. That the human mind is so constituted as INTUITIVELY to apprehend moral distinctions and laws we argue from the character of its Divine Author. Creation must necessarily be a manifestation of God. If he put forth his energy in creative acts, that creation must necessarily bear the impress, and be a reflection of his own mind. It must express his own thoughts; it must embody and realize his own ideas, so far as the materials will permit. Just as we see the mind of man exhibited in his works-his skill, his taste, his ideal expressed in his literary or artistic creations, so we expect to see the mind of God displayed in his works. The pure, the intense, the visionary impersonation which the artist had impressed upon his own mind was wrought out in Psyche. The colossal grandeur of Michael Angelo's ideals, the etherial mildness and saintly elegance of Raphael's were realized upon * Young: "Province of Reason," page 194. + Plutarch. their canvas. So that he who is familiar with the ideal of the sculptor or the painter, can identify his creations even when the author's name is not affixed. And so the thoughts of the Eternal are expressed in the material forms around us, his ideas are symbolized in the visible universe, and his plans are revealed in history. If, then, we can learn the nature of a cause by studying its effects-if we can discover the final cause of an organ by observing its functional powers-if we can discover the ideal of an artist by studying his creations-so may we read the character of God in his works around us and within us. In the human soul, as a spiritual essence, we may not only expect to catch some lines and lineaments of the spiritual nature of God, but also some reflection of his moral character. If we see omnipotence in the mighty masses and forces of the material universe; if we see intelligence in the arrangements and special adaptations of man's physical nature; if we see goodness in the direct subserviency of the material world to the convenience and happiness of man, we can also see the moral qualities of the Creator-his justice and righteousness and truth in the constitution and laws of man's spiritual nature. The mind of man is the chef-d'œuvre of divine art. It is figured after the model which the Divine nature supplies. "Let us make man in our image after our likeness." That image consists in επίγνωσις, knowledge; δικαιοσύνη, justice ; and ὁσιότης,* beneficence. It is not merely the capacity to know, to be just, and to be beneficent; it is actual knowledge, justice, and beneficence. It supposes, 1, that the fundamental ideas of truth, justice, and goodness are native to the mind; and 2, that the full choice and determination of the will is toward the realization of these ideas in every mental state, and every form of human activity. And though he be now fallen, there is in him still "the law of the mind "the reason, the conscience, though in conflict with depraved passions and appetites-" the law in the members." There is yet a natural, constitutional sympathy of reason with the revealed law of God; "it delights in that law;" "it consents that it is good;" but it is overborne and obstructed by passion.† Whatever the depravity of man, his declared war is not with *ócios from the T-kind, merciful, benevolent. |