his acts only, but not in the least of the principles from which they flow.(4)

shall not he know? Here the knowledge of God is supposed to be of the same nature as the knowledge of man. This is the sole foundation of the argument; which would have appeared indescribably obscure, if, according to Archbishop King's hypothesis, it had stood somewhat in his nature, which, because it gives rise to actions similar to those which proceed from knowledge, we may call knowledge, but of which we have no direct or proper notion?"

If, then, there is no reason for not attributing even certain affections of the human mind to God, when connected with absolute perfection and excellence, in their nature and in their exercise, no reason certainly can be given for not considering his intellectual attributes, represented as to their nature, though not as to their degree, by terms taken from the faculties of the human mind, as corresponding with our own. But the matter is placed beyond all doubt by the appeal which is so often made in the Bible to these properties in man, not as illustrations only of something distantly and indistinctly analogous to properties in the Divine nature, but as representations of the nature and reality of these qualities in the Supreme Being, and which are, therefore, made the grounds of argument, the basis of duty, and the sources of consolation.

With respect to the nature of God, it is sufficient to refer to the passage before mentioned,-GoD is a SPIRIT; where the argument is, that he requires not a ceremonial but a spiritual worship, the worship of man's spirit; because he himself is a SPIRIT. How this argument could be brought out on Archbishop KING'S and Dr. COPLESTON's theory, it is difficult to state. It would be something of this kind :-GoD is a SPIRIT; that is, he is called a SPIRIT, because his nature is analogous to the spiritual nature of man; but this analogy implies no similarity of nature; it is a mere analogy of relation, and therefore, though we have no direct and proper notion of the nature of God, yet, because he is called a Spirit, "they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." This is, indeed, far from being an intelligible, and it is still less a practical, argument.

With respect to his intellectual attributes, it is argued in Scripture, “He that teacheth man knowledge,

(4)"It would destroy the confidence of prayer and the ardour of devotion, if we could regard the Deity as subsisting by himself, and as having no sympathies, but mere abstract relations to the whole family in heaven and earth; and I look upon it as one of the most rational and philosophical confutations of your system, that it is fitted neither for the theory nor the practice of our religion; and that, if we could adopt it, we must henceforth exchange the language of Scripture for the anthems of Epicurus:

"Omnis enim per se Divûm natura necesse 'st, Immortali ævo summâ cum pace fruatur, Semota ab nostris rebus, sejunctaque longe; Nam privata dolore omni, privata peric 'lis Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri, Nec bene promeritus capitur, nec tangitur irå. "It is in direct opposition to all such vain and skeptical speculations, that Christianity always represents and speaks of the Deity as participating, so far as infinity and perfection may participate, in those feelings and affections which belong to our rational nature."GRINFIELD'S Vindiciae Analogica.

With respect to his moral attributes, we find the same appeals. "Shall not the Judge of the whole earth do right?" Here the abstract term right is undoubtedly used in the sense commonly received among men, and is supposed to be comprehensible by them. "The righteous LORD loveth righteousness." The righteousness in man which he loveth is clearly correspondent in its kind to that which constitutes him eminently "the righteous Lord." Still more forcibly, the House of Israel is called upon "to judge between him and his vineyard:" he condescends to try his own justice by the notions of justice which prevail among men; in which there could be no meaning, if this moral quality were not in God and in man of the same kind. "Hear now, O House of Israel, is not my way equal?" But what force would there be in this challenge, designed to silence the murmurs of a people under correction, as though they had not been justly dealt with, if justice among men had no more resemblance to justice in God than a hand to power, or an eye to knowledge, or "a map of China to China itself?" The appeal is to a standard common to both, and by which one might be as explicitly determined as the other.(5) Finally, the ground of all praise and adoration of God for works of mercy and judgment-of all trust in God, on account of his faithfulness and truth-and of all imitation of God in his mercy and compassion-is laid in every part of the word of God, not surely in this, that there are unknown and unapprehended qualities of some kind in God, which lead him to perform actions similar to those which flow from justice, truth, and mercy in men; but in the consideration that he is justice itself, truth itself, and goodness itself. The hypothesis is therefore contradicted by the Scripture; and though it has been assumed in favour of a great truth, that the prescience of God does not destroy the liberty of man,

that truth needs not so cumbrous and mischievous an auxiliary. Divine forcknowledge and the freedom of human agency are compatible, not because foreknowledge in God is a figure of speech, or something different in kind to foreknowledge in man; but because knowledge, simply considered, whether present, past, or future, can have no influence upon action at all, and cannot therefore change a contingent action into a necessary one.

For, after all, where does the great theological difficulty lie, for the evasion of which so much is to be sacrificed? The prescience, counsels, and plans of God are prescience, counsels, and plans, which respect free agents, as far as men are concerned; and unless we superadd influence to necessitate, or plans to entice

(5) "How can we confess God to be just, if we understand it not? But how can we understand him so, but by the measures of justice? and how shall we know that, if there be two justices, one that we know and one that we know not, one contrary to another? If they be contrary, they are not justice; for justice can be no more opposed to justice than truth to truth. If they be not contrary, then that which we understand to be just in us is just in God; and that which is just once, is just for ever in the same case and circumstances. And indeed, how is it that we are in all things of excellence and virtue to be like God, and to be meek like Christ; to be humble as he is humble, and to be pure like God, to be just after his example; to be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful? If there is but one mercy, and one justice, and one meekness, then the measure of these, and the reason, is eternally the same. If there be two, either they are not essential to God, or else not imitable by us; and then, how can we glorify God, and speak honour of his name, and exalt his justice, and magnify his truth, and sincerity. and simplicity, if truth and simplicity, and justice and mercy in him is not that thing which we understand, and which we are to imitate ?" &c.-Bishop TAYLOR'S "Ductor Dubitantium."

It is true, that the stability of the Divine operations, and counsels, as indicated by the laws of the material universe, and the revelations of his will, only show the immutability of God through those periods within which these operations and dispensations have been in force; but in Scripture they are constantly represented as the results of an immutability which arises out of the perfection of the Divine Nature itself, and which is therefore essential to it. "I am the Lord, I change not;" he changes not, because he is "the Lord."With him there is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning;" because he is "the Father of lights," the source and fulness of all light and perfection whatever. Change in any sense which implies defect and infirmity, and therefore imperfection, is impossible to absolute perfection; and immutability is therefore essential to his Godhead. In this sense, he is never capable of any kind of change whatever, as even a heathen has so strongly expressed it, ουδέποτε, ουδαμη, ovdaμws addolwoiv, ovdeμiav evdexerat.(6) For "if we consider the nature of God, that he is a self-existent and independent being, the great Creator and wise Governor of all things; that he is a spiritual and simple being, void of all parts and all mixture, that can induce a change; that he is a sovereign and uncontrollable being, which nothing from without can affect or work an alteration in; that he is an eternal being, which always has, and always will go on in the same tenor of existence; an omniscient being, who, knowing all things, has no reason to act contrary to his first resolves; and, in all respects, a most perfect being, that can admit of no addition or diminution; we cannot but believe, that both in his essence, in his knowledge, and in his will and purposes, he must of necessity be unchangeable. To suppose him otherwise, is to suppose him an imperfect being: for if he change, it must be either to a greater perfection than he had before, or to a less; if to a greater perfection, then was there plainly a defect in him, and a privation of something better than what he had, or was; then again was he not always the best, and consequently not always God: if he change to a less perfection, then does he fall into a defect again; lose a perfection he was possessed once of, and so ceasing to be the best being, cease at the same time to be God. The sovereign perfection of the Deity therefore is an invincible bar against all mutability; for, which way soever we suppose him to change, his supreme excellency is nulled or impaired by it for since in all changes, there is something from which, and something to which, the change is made, a loss of what the thing had, or an acquisition of what it had not, it must follow, that if God change to the better, he was not perfect before, and so not God; if to be worse, he will not be perfect, and so no longer God, after the change. We esteem changeableness in men either an imperfection or a fault: their natural changes, as to their persons, are from weakness and vanity; their moral changes, as to their inclinations and purposes, are from ignorance or inconstancy, and therefore this quality is no way compatible with the glory and attributes of God."(7)

In his being and perfections, God is therefore eternally THE SAME. He cannot cease to be, he cannot be more perfect because his perfection is absolute, he cannot be less so, because he is independent of all external power, and has no internal principle of decay. We are not, however, so to interpret the immutability of God, as though his operations admitted no change, and even no contrariety; or that his mind was incapable of different regards and affections towards the same creatures under different circumstances. He creates and he destroys; he wounds and he heals; he works and ceases from his works; he loves and hates;

mutable wisdom, holiness, goodness, and justice, are the proofs not of changing but of unchanging principles, as stated in the preceding chapter. They are perfections, not imperfections. Variety of operation, the power to commence, and cease to act, show the liberty of his nature; the direction of this operation to wise and good ends, shows its excellence. Thus in Scripture language "he repents" of threatened, or commenced punishment, and shows mercy; or "is weary of forbearing" with the obstinately guilty, and so inflicts vengeance. Thus, "he hates the evil-doer," and "loveth the righteous." That love too may be lost, "if the righteous turn away from his righteousness;" and that hatred may be averted, "when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness." There is a sense in which this may be called change in God, but it is not the change of imperfection and defect. It argues precisely the contrary. If when "the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness," God's love to him were unchangeable, he could not be the unchangeably holy God, the hater of iniquity; and "when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness," and, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, becomes a new creature, if he did not become the object of God's love, God would not be the unchangeable lover of righteousness. By these Scriptural doctrines, the doctrine of the Divine immutability is not therefore contradicted, but confirmed.

Various speculations, however, on the Divine immutability occur, in the writings of divines and others, which, though often well intended, ought to be received with caution, and sometimes even rejected as bewildering or pernicious. Such are the notions, that God knows every thing by intuition; that there is no succession of ideas in the Divine mind: that he can receive no new idea; that there are no affections in God, for to suppose that would supppose that he is capable of emotion; that if there are affections in God, as love, hatred, &c., they always exist in the same degree, or else he would suffer change; for these and other similar speculations, recourse may be had to the schoolmen, and metaphysicians, by those who are curious in such subjects; but the impression of the Divine character, thus represented, will be found very different to that conveyed by those inspired writings in which God is not spoken of by men, but speaks of himself; and nothing could be more easily shown than that most of these notions are either idle, as assuming that we know more of God than is revealed; or such as tend to represent the Divine Being as rather a necessary than a free agent, and his moral perfections as resulting from a blind physical necessity of nature, more than from an essential moral excellence, or, finally, as unintelligible or absurd. As a specimen of the latter, the following passages may be taken from a work in some repute. The arguments are drawn from the schoolmen, and though broadly given by the author, will be found more or less to tinge the remarks on the immutability of God, in the most current systems of theology, and discourses on the Attributes:

"His knowledge is independent upon the objects known; therefore, whatever changes there are in them, there is none in him. Things known are considered either as past, present, or to come, and these are not known by us in the same way; for concerning things past it must be said, that we once knew them; or of things to come, that we shall know them hereafter; whereas God, with one view, comprehends all things past and future, as though they were present.

"If God's knowledge were not unchangeable, he might be said to have different thoughts or apprehensions of things, at one time, from what he has at another, which would argue a defect of wisdom. And indeed a change of sentiments implies ignorance, or weakness of understanding; for to make advances in knowledge, supposes a degree of ignorance: and to decline therein is to be reduced to a state of ignorance: now it is certain, that both these are inconsistent with the infinite perfection of the Divine mind; nor can any such defect be applied to him, who is called The only. wise God."(8)

In thus representing the knowledge of God as independent of the objects known;" in order to the establishing of such an immutability of knowledge, as is

(8) RIDGELEY'S Body of Divinity.

not only not inconsistent with the perfection of that attribute, but without which it could not be perfect; and in denying, that knowledge in God has any respect to the past, present, and future of things, a very important distinction between the knowledge of things possible and the knowledge of things actual, both of which must be attributed to God, is strangely overlooked. In respect of possible beings, the Divine knowledge has no relation to time, and there is in it no past, no future; he knows his own wisdom and omnipotence, and that is knowing every thing respecting them. But to the possible existence of things, we must now add ual existence; that commenced with time, or time with that. Here then is another branch of the Divine knowledge, the knowledge of things actually existing, a distinction with which the operations of our own minds make us familiar; and from the actual existence of things arise order and succession, past, present, and future, not only in the things themselves, but in the Divine knowledge of them also; for as there could be no knowledge of things in the Divine mind as actually existing, which did not actually exist for that would be falsehood, not truth-so if things have been brought into actual existence in succession, the knowledge of their actual existence must have been successive also; for as actual existences they could not be known as existing before they were. The actual being of things added nothing to the knowledge of the Infinite Mind as to their powers and properties. Those he knew from himself, the source of all being, for they all depended upon his will, power, and wisdom. There was no need, for instance, to set the mechanism of this universe in motion, that he might know how it would play, what properties it would exhibit, what would be its results; but the knowledge of the universe, as a congeries of beings in ideal or possible existence, was not the knowledge of it as a real existence; that, as far as we can see, was only possible when "he spake and it was done, when he commanded d it stood fast:" the knowledge of the actual existence of things with God is therefore successive, because things come into being in succession, and, as to actual existences, there is foreknowledge, present knowledge, and after-knowledge with God as well as with ourselves.

But not only is a distinction to be made between the knowledge of God as to things possibly and things actually existing; but also between his knowledge of all possible things, and of those things to which he determined before their creation to give actual existence. To deny that in the Divine mind any distinction existed between the apprehension of things which would remain possible only, and things which in their time were to come into actual being, would be a bold denial of the perfect knowledge of God.

Here, however, it is intimated, that this makes the knowledge of God to be derived from something out of himself; and if he derive his knowledge from something out of himself, then it must be dependent. And what evil follows from this? The knowledge of the nature, properties, and relations of things God has from himself; that is, from the knowledge he has of bis own wisdom and omnipotence, by which the things that are have been produced, and from which only they could be produced, and in this respect his knowledge is not dependent: but the knowledge that they actually exist is not from himself except as he makes them to exist; and when they are made to be, then is the knowledge of their actual existence derived from them, that is, from the fact itself. As long as they are, he knows that they are; when they cease to be, he knows that they are not; and before they exist, he knows that they do not yet exist. His knowledge of the crimes of men, for instance, as actually coinmitted, is dependent upon the committal of those crimes. He knows what crime is, independent of its actual existence; but the knowledge of it as committed, depends not on himself but upon the creature. And so far is this from derogating from the knowledge of God, that, according to the common reason of things, it is thus only that we can suppose the knowledge of God to be exact and perfect.

though God himself had no ideas of time, and order, and succession; as though past, and present, and to come, were so entirely and exclusively human, that even the Infinite Mind itself had not the power of apprehending them. But if there be actually a successive order of events as to us, and if this be something real and not a dream, then must there be a corresponding knowledge of it in him, and therefore, in all things which respect us, a knowledge of them as past, present, or to come, that is, as they are in the experience of mankind, and in the truth of things itself. Besides this, if there be what the Scriptures call "purposes" with God; if this expression is not to be ranked with those figures of speech which represent Divine power by a hand and an arm, then there is fore-knowledge, strictly and properly so called, with God. The knowledge of any thing actually existing is collateral with its existence; but as the intention to produce any thing, or to suffer it to be produced, must be before the actual existence of the thing, because that is finite and caused,.. so that very intention is in proof of the precognition of that which is to be produced, immediately by the act of God, or mediately through his permission. The actual occurrence of things in succession as to us, and in pursuance of his purpose or permission, is therefore a sufficient proof of the existence of a strict and proper prescience of them by Almighty God. As to the possible nature, and properties, and relations of things, his knowledge may have no succession, no order of time; but when those archetypes of things in the Eternal Mind come into actual being by his power or permission, it is in pursuance of previous intention: ideas of time are thus created, so to speak, by the very order in which he produces them, or purposes to produce them, and his knowledge of them as realities corresponds to their nature and relations, because it is perfect knowledge. He knows them before they are produced, as things which are to be produced or permitted; when they are produced, he knows them with the additional idea of their actual being; and when they cease to be, he knows them as things which have been.

Allied to the attribute of Immutability is the LIBERTY of God, which enables us to conceive of his unchangeableness in the noblest, and most worthy manner, as the result of his will, and infinite moral excellence, and not as the consequence of a blind and physical neccssity. "He doth whatever pleaseth him," and his actions are the result of will and choice. This, as Dr. S. Clarke has well stated it, follows from his intellgence; for "Intelligence without liberty is really, in respect of any power, excellence, or perfection, no intelligence at all. It is indeed a consciousness, but it is merely a passive one; a consciousness, not of acting, but purely of being acted upon. Without liberty, nothing can in any tolerable propriety of speech, be said to be an agent, or cause of any thing. For to act necessarily, is really and properly not to act at all, but only to be acted upon.

"If the Supreme Cause is not a being endued with liberty and choice, but a mere necessary agent, whose actions are all as absolutely and naturally necessary as his existence: then it will follow, that nothing which is not, could possibly have been; and that nothing which is, could possibly not have been; and that no mode or circumstance of the existence of any thing, could possibly have been in any respect otherwise, than it now actually is. All which being evidently most false and absurd, it follows, on the contrary, that the Supreme Cause is not a mere necessary agent, but a being endued with liberty and choice."

It is true, that God cannot do evil. "It is impossible for him to lie." But "this is a necessity, not of nature and fate, but of fitness and wisdom; a necessity, consistent with the greatest freedom and most perfect choice. For the only foundation of this necessity, is such an unalterable rectitude of will, and perfection of wisdom, as makes it impossible for a wise being to resolve to act foolishly; or for a nature infinitely good, to choose to do that which is evil."