THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

Assuming now the existence and personality of God, and that he has made a revelation of himself to the world in an inspired, supernatural Bible, we are prepared to consider what he has told us about His attributes.

"The attributes of God," says Hodge, "are the different modes in which God reveals Himself to His creatures (or to Himself)." "The attributes of God," says Field, "are the qualities or perfections of His nature, which belong to God, not as though they made up His nature, as though His whole being consisted only of the combination of the same, but because they are the forms and outward expressions, in which His Being is revealed and becomes manifest." Dr. Daniel Steele, defines thus: "The attributes of God are the perfections of the Divine Nature, or the different parts of His character. These are called attributes because God attributes them to Himself, and perfections, because they are the several representations of that one perfection which is Himself.

Classification of Attributes.

Here men differ widely, where agreement might be expected.

1. They have been divided into Negative and Positive attributes, that is, those in which something is denied, and those in which something is affirmed of God. To the negative are referred, simplicity, infinity, eternity, immutability. To the positive class are reckoned power, knowledge, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. These two classes are also called absolute and relative, immanent and transient, communicable and incommunicable.

Another principle of classification is derived from the constitution of our own nature. In man there is the substance or essence of the soul, the intellect and the will, hence it is said, we can naturally arrange the attributes of God into essence, intellect and will.

The most common classification is natural and moral. The natural attributes are those qualities which belong to God's existence, as an infinite spirit, without any regard to, or independent of any action of God's will, such as unity, eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, immutability, invisibility and incomprehensibility. The moral attributes are those which involve choice on the part of God, and give Him moral character. As a man does not will to have so much height or weight, but does choose to be good and true; so God does not will to be eternal or omnipotent; but He does will to be just and righteous. The moral attributes are such as Holiness, Righteousness, Justice, Goodness, Love, Mercy and Truth.

Dr. Hodge points out that in the above classification the word "natural" is ambiguous, because the moral attributes are as natural to God as the others; and on the other hand God is infinite in all His moral perfections. Then with true Calvinistic instinct, Dr. Hodge divides along the line of the definition in the catechism. "God is, I. A Spirit. II. He is infinite, eternal and immutable. III. That He is such (1) in His being, (2) in His knowledge and wisdom, (3) in all that belongs to His will; namely,-power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

Dr. Miley, thinks these classifications are artificial and unscientific. He thinks the classification should be on the ground of what is most determinate in the subject, which is Personality. "Personality is the most determinate conception of God, and is the only one which immediately gives his attributes. Personality gives all the attributes which are properly such, in distinction from what God is as their subject. A proper analysis gives us the essential powers of the human personality as intellect, sensibility and will; and the same is true of the divine personality." . . . "There is a likeness of powers in the human and divine personalities. Knowledge in God, however, is not an acquisition, but an eternal possession. This profound distinction, requires the use of another term for the expression of the whole truth in God,-the profoundest sense of intellect as a power of knowledge, but omits all implication of a process of acquisition.

"Sensibility is the term used for all forms of divine feeling. The profoundest motives of life arise with the activities of the philosophic and moral reason. Sensibility seems but a poor term for the expression of these higher motivities; yet we have no other to take its place. It seems still more inappropriate and insufficient for the expression of the forms of feeling in the mind of God. 'Affection' and 'emotion' are terms too specific and narrow for the present requirement. Even love, while the deepest truth of the divine feeling, it is still necessary to use the term sensibility, but we use it here in the sense of the higher forms of feeling, particularly the rational and moral, which render man the image of God. These feelings constitute the motives, without which God could have no reason for any action. There could be no divine providence, or personality.

"Will is the third and completing attribute of God's personality. It is the necessary power of personal agency, of rational self-determination. The will is not sufficient for personality, simply as a power of self-energizing for the attainment of the ends of one's impulses and appetences. Such a power is no higher than the self-energizing of an animal. It must be central to the personality, the working power of the rational, personal agency. It is thus the power of election with respect to rational and moral ends, and the executive power whereby one may give effect to his choices."

Dr. Miley's classification can be represented to the eye as follows:

Divine Personality

1. Intellect or Omniscience

2. Divine Sensibility

3. Will or Omnipotence

(1) Holiness

(2) Justice

(3) Love

(4) Mercy

(5) Truth

also

Divine Predicables not distinctively attributes

1. Eternity

2. Unity

3. Omnipresence

4. Immutability (See Miley's Theology, Vol. I, pp. 174-221)

This list might be greatly extended by adding, as some theologians do, Invisibility, Incomprehensibility and the like. Dr. Miley is right in his contention that the usual classifications of other authors above given are unscientific. There are divine verities asserted of God in the Bible, which it is a confusion of thought to call attributes. These are worthy of consideration, but should be treated separately. We shall in a measure follow Miley's classification as the best which has fallen under our notice, in this discussion. It would, however, make little difference in discussing most subjects, what order we followed.

I. Omniscience. ' As has been indicated, this term is used, rather than intelligence or intellect, because knowledge in God is not acquired, but is immediate and infinite. The reality of intellect is involved in God's personality, while omniscience expresses the plenitude of its perfection.

DEFINITIONS:

Fairchild: "God is omniscient-the past, present and future, are alike open to His apprehension. We must suppose that there is, to God, some direct beholding of the future, a power which we cannot explain or understand."

Miley: "Omniscience must be God's perfect conception of Himself, and of all things and events, without respect to the time of their existence or occurrence. Any limitation in any particular, must be a limitation in the divine knowledge. Omniscience must be an immediate and eternal knowing."

The knowledge which is not immediate and eternal must be an acquisition. That would require time and a mental process. Such knowledge must be limited. An acquired omniscience, therefore, is not a thinkable possibility. Hence we must either admit an immediate and eternal knowing in God, or deny His omniscience. These alternatives are complete and absolute. Such omniscience must be prescient of all futuritions, whatever their nature or causality. Future free volitions must be included with events which shall arise from necessary causes.1 l. Vol. I, p. 180

Scripture teaches such omniscience. Psalm 139: 1-6: "O Jehovah, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and my uprising. Thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou searchest out my path, and my lying down. And art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue but, lo, 0 Jehovah, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thy hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain unto it." 16: "Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; and in thy book they were all written, even the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was none of them." In other words, there is nothing in the life of man, nothing in his deeds or words, nothing in his most secret thoughts and feelings which is not perfectly known to God. This is the truth respecting all the multitudes of the race. Only an immediate and absolute knowing is equal to such knowledge.

Other passages might be given. Psalm 147: 5: "His understanding is infinite." Prov. 15: 3: "The eyes of Jehovah are in every place, keeping watch upon the evil and the good." Heb. 4: 13: "All things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do." This divine knowledge anticipates the future. Isaiah 42: 9: "New things do I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them." These texts reveal the infinite plenitude of divine knowledge, in the sense that all things, present, past and future, are manifest to the open vision of God.

ERRORS CONCERNING OMNISCIENCE.

1. There is the Calvinistic doctrine that God can only foreknow future events by causing them. Says Calvin: "Since God foresees future events only in consequence of His decree that they shall happen, it is useless to contend about foreknowledge, while it is evident that all things come to pass rather by ordination and decree." "It is a horrible decree, I confess; but no one can deny that God foreknew the future fate of men before He created; and that he did foreknow it because it was appointed by His own decree."

This is the primal error of Calvinism. Some features of it we shall consider under "Freedom of the Will." But we will observe here, (1) It is a sheer assumption, utterly unwarranted, that God cannot foreknow a future deed of a person, unless He "foreordains it," and "effects it by his providence." (2) This being granted, God would logically be responsible for all the sin of the universe, and (3) His omniscience would be impossible. If God's knowledge depended upon His decree; then before He decreed, He would have been so unfortunate as not to know anything. Moreover, if God is dependent upon any machinery of foreordination, or endless chain of causes, for His knowledge of future events, then He is reduced to the level of a finite being, who must acquire knowledge of the future by starting the necessitating forces that produce the future events to be known. In such event, there would be neither omniscience nor an infinite God. The principle of Calvinism is therefore untenable which grounds the prescience of God in His decrees, and denies the contingency of foreknown events. Omniscience is a part of God's essential and necessary nature, as eternal as Himself; it antedates all decrees. God had His nature before He used it in saying "Let there be light."

We may conclude, then, that God does know all the future contingent free choices of moral beings, and to His omniscience it is perfectly certain, what they will choose and do. But how He has such an "intuitive, direct beholding of the future, we cannot comprehend, simply because, in our finiteness we cannot comprehend omniscience, any more than we can comprehend any other infinite attribute,

2. There is a notion, which has been held by Adam Clarke and others, that God had a voluntary nescience; that is, that some future free volitions He withheld Himself from knowing. But this again would be to substitute for omniscience simply a faculty for the acquisition of knowledge. An immediate and eternal knowing would be thus precluded. "Moreover, a voluntary nescience in God must imply a knowledge of the things He chooses not to know" (Miley).

3. Some deny omniscience altogether as contradictory to human freedom. But this is unphilosophical. There must be a God; and if there is a God, then omniscience is an essential element of His being, or personality. God must foreknow His own future volitions, and they are still free; and so can he foreknow man's contingent volitions. "If future free volitions are unknowable because free, or for any other reason, then such volitions are as completely beyond the reach of His prescience as the future free volitions of men. If he cannot foreknow our free volitions neither can he foreknow His own." And it would follow that there is, and can be, no omniscience, and no infinite personality.

4. Some deny freedom as contradictory to omniscience. But the mere knowledge of God influences nothing, nor changes the nature of future human choices in anyway; for the simple reason that it is knowledge, and not influence, nor causation. It was known by God as certain a million ages ago just how A. B. would make a free choice this afternoon. He knows that he was free in making it, and might have made it otherwise. But if he had, God would have foreknown it the other way. The foreknowledge of God takes its form from man's free choice, and not the free choice from the foreknowledge. What a man freely did this afternoon, decided what his onlooking neighbors saw him do: it also decided what God foresaw him do. How God thus foreknows the future free decisions of men is a mystery, like the other infinite facts of His nature. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts, than your thoughts."

5. Another argument against the prescience of future free volitions is brought from their present nihility. We once heard a metaphysical preacher declare that God could not foreknow a nonentity. Now all future thoughts and volitions are as yet nonentities; and if this is true, the future moral universe God practically knows nothing about. Such a notion is utterly inconsistent with omniscience, as revealed in the Scripture, and all sound philosophy. The prophecies, also, so specific in facts, uttered often hundreds of years before the events, could not have come to pass so literally unless God had foreknown the future thoughts and purposes and plans and deeds of men.

6. Others think there is some difficulty in accepting the doctrine of omniscience because it is not easy to adjust it to the divine personality and personal agency. But free agency and personal agency are different terms for the same reality. "If free agency falls," says Miley, "by the logic of foreknowledge, personality must fall with it, and the divine personality no less than the human. There can be no true personality or personal agenty except in freedom. The necessary freedom is the freedom .of choice. For the freedom of choice there must be the eligibility of ends, for motives to choice. Can there be such eligibility of ends for an omniscient mind? This question concern's the consistency of omniscience and freedom, both being in God Himself.

It might be asked, if God foreknows all things would not His motive state be forever the same? It might seem so to our apprehension, and lead us to think of Him as in an "eternally fixed and changeless mental state." But we know from God's own testimony that it is not true. His divine feelings do change toward us with the change of our conduct toward Him and sin. He praises or blames. He is pleased or displeased. He frowns or smiles according as we live. Our philosophy may not be able to grasp the facts, but the facts remain. There is not in God an eternally changeless emotional state respecting the free subjects of His moral government. Futurities and actualities are not the same to the divine mind. The ministries of providence in the free agency of God, with all the emotional activities of such ministries, must somehow be consistent with foreknowledge.

7. It might throw some light on this subject to notice some distinctions that have been made by scholars about the divine knowledge, originally made by Fonseca and Molina, - Spanish Jesuits.

(1) God's knowledge of Himself is necessary and eternal. (Scientia Dei Necessaria.) Personality is unreal without consciousness, which must include self-knowledge. Infinite perfection must imply the absolute plenitude of self-knowledge, all rational and ethical truth must be to him eternal realities,

(2) God's knowledge of the created universe was conditioned on His own free-agency (Scientia Dei libera). He might have left it uncreated. As an accomplished reality, it was a knowledge wholly dependent upon His own choice to create.

(3) God's prescience of His own conduct is conditioned on the foreseen free action of men (Scientia Dei media). "Granting the reality of our free moral agency, God must adjust the ministries of His government to the manner of our conduct, in the use of freedom. To deny it is to deny free-agency. One man is bad who might have been good, and another good who might have been bad. God's dealings with each, to be wise and good, must be shaped according to our varying conduct, and would be different with a difference of conduct. So what the divine mind foresees about His own conduct is decided by what He foresees in us. The interests of both morality and religion require the ministries of God's providence, in the constant discrimination of human conduct, the reprehension of the evil, and the loving approval of the good, in the. very depths of His moral feeling."1 1. Miley, Vol. I, pp. 189, 192.

Turn this question whichever way we will, and whatever difficulties of thought may appear, two great related truths must be firmly held,-the omniscience of God and the power of man to make a free rational choice. The evidence of God's omniscience is manifold. We need not speak of the vastness of the material universe, which in all its wonderful creations, even to every atom is known to God. Nor need we dwell upon the higher angelic intelligences whose lives are replete with such vast intensities of interest, but which are all comprehended in the grasp of the infinite mind. "God knows what is in man; all that is in man; all that is in all men. This is what Scriptures declare, and what no theist can question. The knowledge is perfect. It embraces all the springs of action, all the impulses and aims of every life. The knowledge is so complete that God can perfectly adjust His ministries to the exigences of every life; so complete that He can be the perfectly righteous judge of each life. Such knowledge must be immediate and absolute in its mode. Its plenitude can admit no process of acquisition, no conditions of space or time. The future, even in its ethical volitions, must be open to the vision of such absolute knowledge" (Miley, Vol. I, p. 187). "Duration, past and future, is a framework within which all human thinking must be done. There is no such limitation to God's intelligence. There is no succession of thought or logical processes with Him. He sees all truths intuitively. Heb. 4: 13" (Steele's Compend, p. 82).

II. DIVINE SENSIBILITY.

The term sensibility is used to represent all human feelings, even the rational and moral. But there seems to be no better term to apply to the divine feelings. The Heavenly Father has an emotional nature, like His earth-born child. It must be intensely active. Feelings of joy or sorrow, pleasure or pain, approval or disapproval, hate or love must be forever thrilling His infinite personality. There must be a reality of such emotional states in the mind of God as in the mind of man.

A. Proof.

1. Such a sensibility would be a necessity to omniscience. How could the Father know the feelings of His children, if He Himself had never felt. There would be forms of knowledge impossible even to the Divine mind, if it were without sensibility. We are scarcely aware how much the sensibilities aid us in the acquisition of knowledge. In the higher spheres of truth the feelings are necessary to knowledge. What could we know of friendship, patriotism, love, compassion, sympathy, without the stirring of the emotions which they imply or involve? Without the possession of emotions and feelings we could not be made to understand a moral obligation or feel the binding force of a moral law. In short we could not be moral beings at all. There must be such a law also for God's knowledge and personality.

2. The Scriptures from beginning to end are true to this fact. Innumerable passages ascribe feelings to God,-such as abhorrence, grief, disappointment, vexation, indignation, anger, wrath, compassion, pity, affection, hatred, love. This is not merely human language applied to God. If this were so, then we might as well close our Bibles and theologies; for these terms about His holiness and justice and mercy and compassion are utterly misleading, and we know nothing at all about God. Theologians in their speculations have too long made God an unfeeling marble Jove, or "an apathetic blankness of deism or pantheism."

3. The representation of God as "pure intellect" or action, however well-meaning, is made at the awful price of taking from Him all that makes Him dear to our hearts. "Without emotion God cannot be a person; cannot be a moral being; cannot be the living God or the Heavenly Father for the religious consciousness of a needy, sinsick humanity."

4. While the sensibilities in God and man are alike; yet in some respects they are quite different. God being a Spirit, and not inhabiting a physical body, He does not have the purely physical or animal feelings which are common to man. Some of our experiences have no analogies in the divine mind. Moreover there are agitations of our moral natures and intensities of excitement, and excesses of impulsive emotion and passion which no doubt, are wholly unknown to God.

5. It might be remarked further that there is not a sameness of feeling in God toward all His moral subjects regardless of their character or desert. A famous Unitarian of Boston said something like this: "If God loves Judas Iscariot less than Jesus Christ, He is not the God I want to worship." Such an assertion is blasphemous foolishness. The sensibilities of the Infinite Being must vary with the character of the persons who excite them. The quality of His affections and their intensity must vary inevitably. There is a profound distinction between the evil and the good, which must find expression in the feelings of God. Daniel was "beloved of the Lord," while God was "angry with the wicked every day."

6. Again the divine sensibilities differ according to the nature of the objects which move them.

(1) As taking pleasure in the working of His natural laws, the instincts of animals, the march of the seasons, the succession of seed-time and harvest, the motions of the planets, the marvelous adaptations of parts to each other and the glory of the whole, he must have a rational delight, and feel that rational satisfaction over the work of His hands.

(2) Again, God has filled the universe with beauty. He has put a wonderful sheen in the breast of the dove, and gilded the smallest insect's wing, and kindled prismatic colors in the bosom of the dewdrop and the diamond, and tinted the bosom of the shells of the sea, and the scales of the fish that swim in the deep, and carpeted the earth with flowers, and painted, as no limner can paint, the morning and evening sky. Who can see all this, and not believe that God loves beauty, and has an aesthetic delight in it all, and wishes us to have it too.

(3) Again God has a moral delight. For the creation of an infinite number of angelic and human personalities with their wealth of emotional natures and their unlimited possibilities of joy, their moral apprehension of right and wrong, and their certain bliss or woe, their exalted happiness or consuming shame over their conduct, there was required the activity of moral feeling. The Scriptures freely express the reality of moral feeling in God as He reviews in judgment human conduct. His loving approval of the good, and His indignant condemnation of the bad prove that He possesses a moral sensibility.

B. The moral feelings of God take on different forms of expression.

THE DIFFERENT MODES OF MORAL SENSIBILITY.

1. Holiness. The Bible writers have much to say about the holiness of God. "Who is like unto thee, O Jehovah, among the gods," "Who is like thee, glorious in holiness."( Exodus 15:11.) "Holy and reverend is His name." (Psalm 111:9.) "Holy Father," "O righteous Father."(John 17: 11, 25.) These words were used by Jesus in prayer, expressing His deep sense of the holiness of God. "Who shall not fear, O Lord, and glorify thy name, for thou only art holy?" (Rev. 15:4) "It is written, ye shall be holy for I am holy." (1 Peter 1: 16.) "Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts." (Isa. 6:3.) "And they have no rest day and night, saying, Holy holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come." (Rev. 4: 8.)

Many other passages might be cited. The Scriptures are one voice on this subject. The critical student will notice that Dr. Steele and many others represent God's holiness as the result of His will and choice, and so is a "moral attribute"; while Dr. Miley makes it an expression or mode of His sensibility-a matter of feeling. Primarily, Dr. Steele is right; but there is a secondary sense in which holiness is also a mode of the divine feeling. Fairchild says: "Holiness in God must be essentially what it is in ourselves, or in any finite being; that is, a condition of will in harmony with righteousness, which is goodness or benevolence,-fidelity to all interests, a will to accomplish the highest good. A distinction is sometimes made between holiness in God and in man. We are told that holiness is an attribute of God's nature-that He is essentially holy, His essence is holiness; while in man it is an attribute of character. It is safe to say there is no clear thought corresponding with these words. A holiness, or virtue, or goodness, that does not lie in choice or in a voluntary attitude in accordance with righteousness, is utterly incomprehensible."1 1. Fairchild's Theology, p. 23.

Finney says: "Holiness is an attribute of benevolence. This term is used in the Bible as synonymous with moral purity. As a moral attribute of God, it is that peculiarity of His benevolence which secures it against all efforts to obtain its end by other means than those which are morally and perfectly pure. His benevolence aims to secure the happiness of the universe of moral agents, by means of moral law and moral government, and of conformity to His own idea of right. In other words, holiness in God is that quality of His love that secures its universal conformity, in all its efforts and manifestations, to the divine idea of right, as it lies' in eternal development in the infinite Reason. Holiness, or moral harmony of character is, then, an essential attribute of disinterested love. It must be so from the very nature of benevolence.

Holiness of heart or of will, produces a desire or feeling of purity in the sensibility. The feelings become exceedingly alive to the beauty of holiness, and to the hatefulness, and deformity of all spiritual and even physical impurity. This is called the love of holiness. The sensibility becomes ravished with the great love of holiness, and unutterly disgusted with sinfulness."1 1. Finney's Theology, pp. 177-179.

It will be seen from the above quotations, how holiness, being primarily a matter of the will, reports itself in a state of the sensibilities. Thus the theologians on both sides are, in a measure, justified in their contention, that God's holiness is a result of His will, and also that it is a resulting state of the divine sensibilities. "The holiness of God is not to be regarded simply as a quality of His nature, or a quiescent state, but as intensely active in His personal agency, particularly in His moral government. In this view holiness is often called righteousness. Hence the righteousness of God is expressed with the same intensity as His holiness. The precepts of moral duty, and the judgment and reward of moral conduct spring from His holiness and fulfill its requirements." There is an activity of moral feeling in holiness, human or divine. "A holy love of the ethically good, and a holy hatred of the ethically evil, are intrinsic to the divine agency in moral government. We can not think them apart. To separate them in thought would be to think of God as apathetically indifferent as between righteousness and sin. So to think of God would be to think of Him as not God, without the proper element of moral feeling. The sense of moral feeling in God is a practical necessity to the common religious consciousness."2 It is only the fear of an emotional displeasure in God that can effectively restrain the wayward tendencies of man to evil; only the hope of securing His affectionate approbation can call out our filial trust and loving obedience. 2. Miley, Vol. I, p. 201.

2. THE JUSTICE OF GOD

The justice of God is His holy purpose to deal with moral beings according to their deserts, or, as Dr. Steele defines it, "The disposition to render unto all their dues." Dr. Hodge defines it as: "That attribute of God's nature which is manifested in the punishment of sin." This is, manifestly a partial definition. For holy beings should have justice meted out to them, as well as the sinful. Finney defines it as, "A disposition to treat every moral agent according to his intrinsic desert or merit." "Justice as a feeling or phenomenon of the sensibility, is a feeling that the guilty deserves punishment. Justice is an attribute of benevolence." Miley: "The office of justice is the maintenance of moral government in the highest attainable excellence. The aim is: 1. The prevention or restraint of sin; 2. The protection of rights; 3. The defence of innocence against injury or wrong; 4. The vindication of the government; 5. The vindication of the honor of the Divine Ruler. Justice has no license of departure from the requirements of the divine holiness and righteousness. Indeed justice itself is but a mode of the divine holiness" (Miley, Vol. I, p. 202).

The Scriptures are very explicit about the justice of God. Deut. 32: 4: "His work is perfect: for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity." Psalm 89: 14: "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of thy throne." Isaiah 45: 21: "A just God and a Savior; there is none beside me."

It will be noticed from the foregoing definitions that justice is primarily an expression of God's will; and secondarily the term refers to the feeling of God in view of moral conduct.

We may further notice that there are various aspects of God's justice, or ways of expression.

1. Public justice. This is the divine regard to the public interests, and secures the due administration of law for the public good. It is simply divine justice administering government. It will in no case suffer the execution of penalty to be set aside, unless something be done to support the authority of law and the lawgiver, as well as the infliction of law would do. It also secures the due administration of rewards, and looks carefully after the public interests, always insisting that the greater interest shall prevail over the lesser; that private interest shall never set aside a public one of greater value. Public justice is modified in its exercise by the attribute of mercy.

2. Retributive justice. "This consists in a disposition to visit the offender with that punishment which he deserves, because a moral agent should be dealt with according to his deeds."1 1, Finney's Theology, pp. 160, 161.

"Justice," says Finney, "is reckoned among the sterner attributes of benevolence; but it is indispensable to the filling up of the entire circle of moral perfections. Although solemn and awful, and sometimes inexpressibly terrific in its exercise, it is nevertheless one of the glorious modifications and manifestations of benevolence. Benevolence without justice would be anything but morally 'lovely and perfect. Nay, it could not be benevolence. (It would be only weak amiability.) This attribute of benevolence appears conspicuous in the character of God as revealed in His law, in His gospel, and sometimes as indicated most impressively by His providence!

3. Distributive justice. This is divine justice in the judicial ministries of moral government, dealing with men as individual persons. It regards persons as morally good or bad, and rewards or punishes them according to their desert or personal conduct. Sin has intrinsic demerit, and deserves the penalties legislated against it. Demerit is the only ground of just punishment. The demerit must be personal to the subject of the punishment.

4. Punitive justice. This is divine justice considered only in its work of punishing sin. This is that principle of justice, which Calvinists mistakenly suppose Christ satisfied by being punished instead of the sinner. Holy beings are not punished.

5. Remunerative justice. This has respect to obedience and its reward. The law of God requires perfect obedience as the ground of the reward. According to the Calvinistic theory of satisfaction, Christ by His personal obedience, meritoriously fulfilled the law, in behalf of the elect. The Calvinistic theory will be discussed when we consider the atonement.

6. Commutative justice. This has a commercial sense, and is specially concerned with business transactions. God demands the even exchange, or exact due or equivalent of values, whether in money or other commodity. This kind of justice once figured in doctrines of the atonement. It was said that Jesus suffered the identical or equal penalty that elect sinners would have suffered in hell. This theory is now usually abandoned.

We may close this discussion by observing that this justice of God is no mere apathetic mental conception of theologians. It is the intense activity of moral feeling in God. He lovingly approves the righteousness which He rewards with eternal blessedness, and reprobates with infinite displeasure the sin which He visits with the fearful penalty of His law. To the good He says: "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love." (Heb. 6: 10.) And of the wicked He says: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness."1 There is no more awful expression than "the wrath of the Lamb."2 "Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness . . . thou hatest all workers of iniquity."3 It is a hatred that burns to the deepest hell. 1. Rom. 1: 18, 2. Rev. 6: 16, 3. Psalm 5:4, 5.

3. THE LOVE OF GOD.

One of the most remarkable truths in the whole Bible is expressed in the words: "God is Love." Love in Him is, in all that is essential to its nature, what love is.in us. Finney defines it as "Benevolence directed by infinite knowledge in the promotion of the highest good of being." "It is a phenomenon of the will. All the moral attributes of God and all holy beings, are only attributes of benevolence. Benevolence is a term which comprehensively expresses them all. 'God is love.' This term expresses comprehensively God's whole moral character."

This produces a state of the sensibility often expressed by the same term "love." Love may, and often does exist, as every one knows, in the form of a mere feeling or emotion. The term is often used to express the emotion of fondness or attachment, as distinct from a voluntary state of mind, or a choice of the will. This is purely an involuntary state of mind, a phenomenon of the sensibility."4

4. Finney's Theology, pp. 137-140.

The Scriptures have much to say about God's love. "God com-mendeth His own love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."5 "But God, being rich in mercy for the great love wherewith He loved us."6 "God our Father who loved us, and gave us eternal comfort."7 '"God is love. Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him" (1 John 4: 8-10 and John 3: 16). 5. Rom. 5: 8,

6. Eph. 2:4, 7.2 Thess. 2: 16.

The Bible is saturated with this truth, and our Christianity is an outgrowth of it. Miley well says: "Neither the apathetic God of deism, nor the unconscious God of pantheism, nor the God of agnosticism without any law of self-agency, is the God of the Scriptures. 'God is love.' Any notion of God without love is empty of the most vital content of the true idea. The very plenitude of other perfections, such as infinite knowledge and power and justice, would, in the absence of love, invest them with most fearful terrors -enough, indeed to whelm the world in despair. The holiness of God is the implication of love. Neither benevolence nor goodness is possible in any moral sense without love. In all the benefits which God may lavish upon the universe He is truly beneficent only with the motive of love. Holy love is the deepest life of all holy action."1 1. Miley, Vol. I, pp. 204, 205.

Objections: We are confronted with the intricate and constant problem of sin and suffering. Answer: While the human mind may not be capable of wholly solving it, yet it gives us no warrant to doubt God's love. It may be proper to remark, though God's love needs no vindication,

1. While some human suffering is unavoidable, most of it is largely our own, fault and might be avoided. God is a moral ruler and men are His free, responsible, sinful subjects. Justice therefore must have its part in the divine administration, and misery must in a general way attend sin. This arrangement is a demand of goodness as the preventive of sin.

2. The interaction of life upon life, inseparable from the intimate relations of humanity, is the source of evil to many. But there is a counter-balancing good to many through the same law. The law of heredity works both good and evil. So far as we can see, it would be wholly good were there no sin.

3. Calvinism throws no light upon the problem by their peculiar theories, of the solidarity of the race, realistic oneness, representative, and federal headship theories, and immediate imputation of Adam's sin to all his posterity. These theories will be considered hereafter. They give no explanation of this great problem of suffering, and darken the subject by words without wisdom. The position is, that all are sinners by participation in the sin of Adam, and that, consequently, the evils of this life, are a just retribution on the ground of that common sin. The Realistic View requires an impossible agency of each individual in the sin of Adam. We did not and could not so exist and act in Adam. The theory mocks the common sense of mankind,-The Representative View holds that Adam represented us in the transaction, and we are justly held responsible for what he did. This mocks our moral sense. Imputed guilt is a delusion.

President Fairchild suggests some lines of argument which are worth recording here. "There is an a priori argument for God's benevolence which furnishes a strong presumption in its favor-an argument from the nature of the case.

1. God being a moral being, His happiness depends on His goodness, as with all moral beings.

2. This fact is infinitely clear to Him and always clear; there can be no bewilderment; no contrary seeming, as to finite beings; no power of the sensibility to make a present good seem to His intelligence what it is not. Hence there is no probable motive or occasion to sin. Sin is possible to God, as possessing sensibility and free will. There is a possible motive to sin; but His infinite, and unchanging and perfect apprehension makes sin, in His case, utterly improbable. This argument affords an extreme presumption in favor of God's benevolence or goodness; and must be held to be conclusive in the absence of contrary evidence.

The aposteriori argument for the benevolence of God must be drawn from experience, from the world as we find it. It seems planned for the promotion of virtue and happiness; and the more thorough our study of nature and of history, the more satisfactory is the evidence of a benevolent purpose. This is seen:

1. In the provision for animal enjoyment.

2. In the creation of moral beings with provision for their virtue and happiness.

3. In the course of human history, sacred and profane,-a providence working for human wellbeing, especially in the work of redemption.

4. The general tendency to a belief in the divine goodness, is proof that there is evidence of it. It is accepted from reason, nature and revelation.

5. The only appearance of evidence against God's goodness, is in the evil of the world, its sin and misery. The atheistic dilemma is familiar to all; either God is not omnipotent and cannot prevent evil, or He is not good and will not. Either alternative is supposed to be fatal to a belief in an infinite and perfect Creator. The dilemma is not a real one; it overlooks entirely the conditions of a moral universe, and the nature of sin and holiness. In creating moral beings, God consents to the existence of beings who are not controlled in their moral action by omnipotence. As to their existence, they are subjects of His power; He can create or refuse to create. As to their moral character, they must be permitted to determine it for themselves; this character is not the work of omnipotence. The existence of finite moral beings makes sin possible; and the existence of sin leads to misery, as a result and as a necessary motive.

6. There is abundance of evidence that God is earnestly moving to remedy both sin and misery. In revelation, if at all, we find the solution of the problem of sin and misery.

7. The benevolence of God being established, all His attributes can be derived from this as the essence and ground of all His moral excellence. Benevolence expresses the entirety of His moral character, His holiness, justice, mercy, faithfulness and truth are but different aspects of benevolence, exercised in different relations. "God's goodness involves every moral excellence."1 1. Fairchfld's Theology, pp. 24-26.

4. THE MERCY OF GOD.

As a phenomenon of the will, mercy is benevolence seeking the good even of those who deserve evil, when this can be wisely done. It is "ready to forgive," to seek the good of the evil and unthankful, and to pardon, when there is repentance. It is good will toward one who deserves punishment.

Mercy, considered as a feeling or a state of the sensibility, is a desire for the pardon or good of one who deserves punishment. It is only a feeling, or a desire. But it will prompt to action, and lead to an effort to procure pardon, unless wisdom prevents. It may be unwise to show mercy,-a detriment to the public good. In such case, benevolence will forbid the exercise of mercy. It was mercy, guided by wisdom and justice, that prompted to the redemption of our guilty race.

All the attributes of God must act harmoniously, and not in opposition to one another. If mercy is shown to the guilty, it must be in a way that will honor justice, as much as the infliction of the penalty would do it,-hence the atonement.

Mercy as a mere feeling would seek its own gratification, in the pardon of all sinners without repentance or faith, or any regard to public justice or the general good. Indeed, without considering all the attributes of God working together harmoniously, we would be quite in the dark about the goodness of God and the character of His government, the importance of law and the true meaning and spirit of the Gospel.

This is where Universalists and Unitarians stumble and fall into error. They infer that if God is love, he cannot hate sin and sinners. If He is merciful He cannot punish sinners in hell. If He is merciful, He is disposed to show compassion and pardon sin; .therefore there is no need of an atonement. "But," Finney shrewdly asks, "if He can pardon without atonement because He is merciful, why may He not also pardon without waiting for repentance or anything else as a condition of showing mercy? If repentance is necessary why may not other conditions be also? Why may it not be conditioned upon some governmental expedient like the atonement, that will honor public justice, and secure as full and as deep respect for the law as the execution of the penalty would do?" Sure enough! All these fallacious arguments of Universalists and Unitarians grow out of false views of God's attributes.

The Scriptures have much to say about the mercy of God. "But thou, O Lord, art a God, merciful and gracious" (Psalm 86: 15). "Jehovah is gracious and merciful" (Ps. 111:4). "He will have mercy on him" (Isa. 55: 7). He is "the Father of mercies" (2 Cor. 1: 3). "His tender mercies are over all His works" (Ps. 145: 9). Such passages might be multiplied.

Mercy as an attribute of God inevitably directed the divine intellect to devising ways and means to render the execution of mercy consistent with the other attributes of benevolence. It employed the divine intelligence in devising means to secure the repentance of the sinner, and to remove all the obstacles out of the way of its free and full exercise. It secured the state of feeling, which is also called mercy or compassion, that is so intensely active in the conduct of God. It secured efforts to procure the pardon of sinners, and produced a great yearning of the sensibilities over them, and energetic action to accomplish its end. It moved the Father to give His well-beloved Son, and it led the Son to give Himself to die, to secure the possibility of an offer of pardon to sinners. It is this attribute that moves the Holy Spirit to such mighty and protracted efforts to secure the repentance of sinners. It prompts God to inspire men with the same desire to seek the salvation of the lost. It is a gracious attribute. All its sympathies are sweet, and tender and compassionate as heaven.1 1. Finney's Theology, pp. 157-159.

5. THE TRUTH OF GOD.

Truth in God is the conformity of His will to the reality of things. Truth in His statements is conformity of statement to the facts. Truth in divine action is conformity of conduct to the nature and reality of things. Truthfulness is a disposition to conform the conduct to the nature of things. It is willing according to the reality of things. It is willing the true end by the true means, and conforming all the speech and conduct to the reality of things. It wills the good, and truth in the end, and truth in the means.

This state of the divine will produces a corresponding state of the sensibility which is called the love of truth. It consists in the feeling of pleasure that spontaneously rises in the divine sensibility when contemplating or uttering truth.

With God and all true moral natures this veracity is felt to be a profound obligation. It is greatly revered, while falsehood, lying and hypocrisy are greatly abhorred. Thus it will be seen that divine veracity is not only a chosen truthfulness of expression, but also with a holy feeling.

The Scriptures, have much to say of God's truth or truthfulness. "God is not a man that He should lie" (Num. 23: 19). "God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth" (Ex. 34: 6). "It is impossible for God to lie" (Heb. 6: 18).

This attribute of God is exceedingly important. It is the ground of our confidence in Him as a moral governor. The moral government of the universe would topple in ruins if the veracity of God should fail. Various contingencies may arise, and unforeseen difficulties and limitations, which may prevent men from keeping their word, however good their intentions. But such can never be the case with God. With Him no unforeseen contingency can arise. "The word of the Lord endureth forever."

III. Omnipotence.

This is a much abused and misunderstood term. It does not mean, as many suppose, that God can do any conceivable thing.

Strictly speaking, omnipotence means the unlimited power of God to do whatever lies in the realm of power,-whatever is consistent with the other perfections of His own nature, and with the essential nature of things, and does not imply a contradiction, or an absurdity.

The axioms of mathematics are unchangeable. God has no power to alter them. For example, "the whole is greater than any of its parts." "Things that are equal to the same things are equal to each other." "A straight line is the shortest distance between two points." It implies a contradiction to make a thing to be, and not to be at the same time. It is not derogatory to the power of God to say that such things cannot be done by omnipotence, for they lie outside the realm of power.

There are moral axioms as well as mathematical axioms, although they are not so apparent. It is plain that two and two are four, necessarily four, eternally four, and omnipotence cannot make it otherwise. It is equally true, that right is right and wrong is wrong, and God cannot make it otherwise. It is also equally true, that a sinner cannot be compelled to be saved by omnipotence. Salvation and compulsion are contradictory terms. Salvation is the voluntary harmony of the free will to the immutable law of God. This consideration brushes aside as a cobweb the dilemma so popular with universalism. "If God cannot save everybody He is not omnipotent and infinite in goodness; therefore He can and will save everybody." This is only another instance of the shallow thinking of all unbelief. The simple answer is, God does not decide the destiny of moral beings by omnipotence. He can create or refuse to create such beings; but when created, they come by the necessity of the case, under the sway of moral law, and moral influence, instead of physical power or omnipotence. Says Fairchild: "If we regard this as a limitation of omnipotence, we must remember that the limitation is self-imposed, provided for and accepted by God Himself, in giving existence to moral beings. But the clearer thought is, omnipotence can sustain no direct relation to moral action, in the way of determining its character, to prevent sin, or to produce virtue. Such results lie out of the domain of physical power; they cannot be thought of as the result of power on God's part, but of the freewill, the personality which He has given to His creatures."1 The physical world God controls by power; but the moral world He influences by motives, which the moral being always has the power to resist. Having once created moral beings, God is under obligation to respect their moral nature. "It is possible that God might, in the exercise of His omnipotence, annihilate a moral being, or suppress His moral agency. Perhaps He could prevent His sin by an excess of restraining motive, but not wisely; and if God should act unwisely His great power to secure righteousness in the moral universe would be lost, and He Himself would fail in righteousness."2 1 and 2. Fairchild's Theology, p. 96.

The Scriptures abundantly affirm the omnipotence of God. "I am the Almighty God" (Gen. 17: 1). "He hath done whatsoever He pleased" (Ps. 115: 3). "My counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure" (Ps. 46: 10). "Ah, Lord Jehovah: behold Thou hast made the heavens and the earth by Thy great power and by thine outstretched arm; there is nothing too hard for Thee" (Jer. 32: 17). "He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand" \Dan. 4: 35). "With God all things are possible" (Matt. 19: 26).

It may be proper to remark that God's power is the spiritual power of a personal will. How spirit can control matter we do not know; but that it does we cannot doubt. We know it by our own consciousness. We exert an act of will, and move our arms and move physical matter around us. It is a mystery. No more can we explain how God, who is a spiritual being, can handle a physical universe. There must be an immediate power of the will over matter, however unexplainable.

Dr. Miley makes one more valuable observation. "As God is a personal being, He must possess the power and freedom of personal agency. And if personality and personal agency be realities in God, He must freely choose His own ends and determine His own acts. Any sense of His absoluteness preclusive of specific choices and definite acts in time, is contradictory to His personal agency, and therefore to His personality. The assumption (of Calvinism) that knowledge in God must be causally efficient, and immediately creative or executive, is utterly groundless. With omniscience as an immediate and eternal knowing in God and immediately creative or executive, there could be no personal agency. For God there , could be no rational ends, no eligibility or choice of ends, no purpose or plan. But as a personal being God must freely elect His I own ends, and determine His own acts. His personal will completes the power of such agency. Omnipotence is self-sufficient."1 Miley, Vol. I, p. 212.