THE REVELATION
OF
LAW
IN
SCRIPTURE
Considered with respect both to
its own nature, and to its relative
place in successive dispensations.
Patrick Fairbairn, D.D.
Report
any errors to Ted Hildebrandt: ted.hildebrandt@gordon.edu
T. & T. Clark's 1869
PREFACE
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THE subject handled in the following Lectures enters
so deeply into the whole scheme and objects of
Divine Revelation, that no apology can be required for
directing public attention to it; at any period, and in
any circumstances of the church, it may fitly enough be
chosen for particular inquiry and discussion. But no
one acquainted with the recent phases of theological
sentiment in this country, and with the prevailing
tendencies of the age, can fail to perceive its special
appropriateness as a theme for discussion at the present
time. If this, however, has naturally led to a somewhat
larger proportion of the controversial element than might
otherwise have been necessary, I have endeavoured to
give the discussion as little as possible of a polemical
aspect; and have throughout been more anxious to unfold
and establish what I conceive to be the true, than to go
into minute and laboured refutations of the false. On
this account, also, personal references have been omitted
to some of the more recent advocates of the views here
controverted, where it could be done without prejudice to
the course of discussion.
viii PREFACE.
The terms of the Trust-deed, in connection with
which the Lectures appear, only require that not fewer
than six be delivered in Edinburgh, but as to publica-
tion wisely leave it to the discretion and judgment of the
Lecturer, either to limit himself to that number, or to
supplement it with others according to the nature and
demands of his subject. I have found it necessary to
avail myself of this liberty, by the addition of half as
many more Lectures as those actually delivered; and one
of these (Lecture IV.), from the variety and importance
of the topics discussed in it, has unavoidably extended to
nearly twice the length of any of the others. However
unsuitable this would have been if addressed to an
audience, as a component part of a book there will be
found in it a sufficient number of breaks to relieve the
attention of the reader.
The Supplementary Dissertations, and the exposition
of the more important passages in St Paul’s writings in
reference to the law, which follow the Lectures, have
added considerably to the size of the volume; but it
became clear as I proceeded, that the discussion of the
subject in the Lectures would have been incomplete
without them. It is possible, indeed, that in this
respect some may be disposed to note a defect rather
than a superfluity, and to point to certain other topics or
passages which appear to them equally entitled to a place.
I have only to say, that as it was necessary to make a
selection, I have endeavoured to embrace in this portion
what seemed to be, for the present time, relatively the
most important, and, as regards the passages of Scripture,
PREFACE. ix
have, I believe, included all that are of essential moment
for the ends more immediately contemplated. But
several topics, I may be allowed to add, very closely
connected with the main theme of this volume, have
been already treated in my work on the ‘Typology of
Scripture;’ and though it has been found impracticable
to avoid coming here occasionally on the ground which
had been traversed there, it was manifestly proper that
this should not be done beyond what the present subject,
in its main features, imperatively required.
GLASGOW, October 1868.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY-Prevailing Views in respect to the Ascendency of Law
(1) In the Natural; (2) In the Moral and Religious Sphere; and
the Relation in which they stand to the Revelations of Scripture on
the subject, . . . . . . . . . 1-33
LECTURE II.
The Relation of Man at Creation to Moral Law—How far or in what
respects the Law in its Principles was made known to him- The
grand Test of his Rectitude, and his Failure under it, . . . . 34-60
LECTURE III.
The Revelation of Law, strictly so called, viewed in respect to the Time
and Occasion of its Promulgation, . . . . . . 61-81
LECTURE IV.
The Law in its Form and Substance—Its more Essential Characteristics
—and the Relation of one Part of its Contents to another, . . .82-146
LECTURE V.
The Position and Calling of Israel as placed under the Covenant of Law,
what precisely involved in it—False Views on the subject Exposed
—The Moral Results of the Economy, according as the Law was
legitimately used or the reverse, . . . . . . 147-179
LECTURE VI.
The Economical Aspect of the Law—The Defects adhering to it as such
—The Relation of the Psalms and Prophets to it—Mistaken Views
of this Relation—The great Problem with which the Old Testament
closed, and the Views of different Parties respecting its Solution, . 180-213
CONTENTS.
PAGE
LECTURE VII.
The Relation of the Law to the Mission and Work of Christ—The
Symbolical and Ritual finding in Him its termination, and the Moral its
formal Appropriation and perfect Fulfilment, . . . 214-252
LECTURE VIII.
The Relation of the Law to the Constitution, the Privileges, and the
Calling of the Christian Church, . . . . . . 253-291
LECTURE IX.
The Re-introduction of Law into the Church of the New Testament, in
the sense in which Law was abolished by Christ and His Apostles, 292-323
SUPPLEMENTARY DISSERTATIONS.
I. The Double Form of the Decalogue, and the Questions to which it
has given rise, . . . . . . . 325-334
II. The Historical Element in God’s Revelations of Truth and Duty,
considered with an especial respect to their Claim on Men’s
Responsibilities and Obligations, . . . . . 335-355
III. Whether a Spirit of Revenge is countenanced in the Writings of
the Old Testament, . . . . . . . 356-364
_________________
EXPOSITION OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PASSAGES
ON THE LAW IN ST PAUL’S EPISTLES.
PAGE PAGE
2 Cor. iii. 2-18, 366 Rom. v. 12-21, 415
Gal. ii. 14-21, 385 " vi. 14-18, 421
" iii. 19-26, 391 " vii., 425
" iv. 1-7, 400 " x. 4-9, 442
" v. 13-15, 403 " xiv. 1-7 448
Rom. ii. 13-15, 405 Eph. ii. 11-17, 453
" iii.19,20, 408 Col.ii.11-17, 462
" iii. 31, 412 1 Tim. i. 8-11, 474
THE REVELATION OF LAW IN SCRIPTURE.
LECTURE I.
INTRODUCTORY.
PREVAILING VIEWS IN RESPECT TO THE ASCENDENCY OF LAW
(1) IN THE NATURAL; (2) IN THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS
SPHERE; AND THE RELATION IN WHICH THEY STAND TO
THE REVELATIONS OF SCRIPTURE ON THE SUBJECT.
AMONG the more marked tendencies of our age,
especially as represented by its scientific and literary
classes, may justly be reckoned a prevailing tone of sen-
timent regarding the place and authority of law in the
Divine administration. The sentiment is a divided one;
for the tendency in question takes a twofold direction,
according as it respects the natural, or the moral and
religious sphere—in the one exalting, we may almost say
deifying law; in the other narrowing its domain, some-
times even ignoring its existence. An indissoluble chain
of sequences, the fixed and immutable law of cause and
effect, whether always discoverable or not, is contem-
plated as binding together the order of events in the
natural world; but as regards the spiritual, it is the
inherent right or sovereignty of the individual mind that
is chiefly made account of, subject only to the claims of
social order, the temporal interests of humanity, and the
general enlightenment of the times. And as there can
be no doubt that these divergent lines of thought have
found their occasion, and to some extent also their ground,
2 INTRODUCTORY. [LECT. I.
the one in the marked advancement of natural science,
the other in the progress of the Divine dispensations, it
will form a fitting introduction to the inquiry that lies
before us to take a brief review of both, in their general
relation to the great truths and principles of Scripture.
I. We naturally look first, in such a survey, to the
physical territory, to the vast and complicated field of
nature. Here a twofold disturbance has arisen—the one
from men of science pressing, not so much ascertained
facts, as plausible inferences or speculations built on them,
to unfavourable conclusions against Scripture; the other
from theologians themselves overstepping in their inter-
pretations of Scripture, and finding in it revelations of
law, or supposed indications of order, in the natural
sphere, which it was never intended to give. As so inter-
preted by Patristic, Mediaeval, and even some compara-
tively late writers, the Bible has unquestionably had its
authority imperilled by being brought into collision with
indisputable scientific results. But the better it is under-
stood the more will it be found to have practised in this
respect a studious reserve, and to have as little invaded
the proper field of scientific inquiry and induction, as to
have assumed, in regard to it, the false position of the
nature-religions of heathenism. It is the moral and
religious sphere with which the Bible takes strictly to
do; and only in respect to the more fundamental things
belonging to the constitution of nature and its relation to
the Creator, can it be said to have committed itself to any
authoritative deliverance. Written, as every book must
be that is adapted to popular use, in the language of
common life, it describes the natural phenomena of which
it speaks according to the appearances, rather than the
realities, of things. This was inevitable and requires to
LECT. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 3
be made due account of by those who would deal justly
with its contents. But while freely and familiarly dis-
coursing about much pertaining to the creation and pro-
vidence of the world, the Bible does not, in respect to the
merely natural frame and order of things, pronounce upon
their latent powers or modes of operation, nor does it
isolate events from the proper instrumental agencies. It
undoubtedly presents the works and movements of nature
in close connection with the will and pervasive energy of
God; but then it speaks thus of them all alike—of the
little as well as the great—of the ordinary not less than
the extraordinary, or more striking and impressive.
According to the Bible, God thunders, indeed, in the
clouds; but the winds also, even the gentlest zephyrs,
blow at His command, and do His bidding. If it is He
who makes the sun to know his going forth, and pour
light and gladness over the face of nature, it is He also
who makes the rain to fall and the seeds of the earth to
spring, and clothes the lilies of the field with beauty.
Not even a sparrow falls to the ground without Him.
And as in the nearer and more familiar of these opera-
tions everything is seen to be accomplished through
means and ordinances bound up with nature’s constitu-
tion; so, it is reasonable to infer, must it be with the
grander and more remote. In short, while it is the
doctrine of the Bible that God is in all, and in a sense
does all, nothing is authoritatively defined as to the how
or by what they are done; and science is at perfect
liberty to prosecute its researches with the view of dis-
covering the individual properties of things, and how,
when brought into relation, they act and react on each
other, so as to produce the results which appear in the
daily march of providence.
Now, let this relation of the Bible, with its true
4 INTRODUCTORY. [LECT. I.
religion, to the pursuits of science, be placed alongside
that of the false religions of Greek and Roman poly-
theism which it supplanted, and let the effect be noted—
the legitimate and necessary effect—of the progress of
science in its clearest and best established conclusions on
the one as compared with the other. Resting on an
essentially pantheistic basis, those ancient religions ever
tended to associate the objects and operations of nature
with the immediate presence and direct agency of some
particular deity—to identify the one in a manner with
the other; and very specially to do this with the greater
and more remarkable phenomena of nature. Thus Helios,
or the Sun, was deified in Apollo, and was not poetically
represented merely, but religiously believed, to mount
his chariot, drawn by a team of fiery steeds, in the morn-
ing, to rise by a solid pathway to mid-heaven, and then
descend toward the western horizon, that his wearied
coursers might be refreshed before entering on the labours
of another day. Selené, or the Moon, in like manner,
though in humbler guise, was contemplated as pursuing
her nocturnal course. Sun, moon, and stars, it was
believed, bathed themselves every night in the waves of
ocean, and got their fires replenished by partaking of the
Neptunian element. Eclipses were prodigies—portentous
signs of wrath in heaven—which struck fear into men’s
bosoms, as on the eve of direful calamities, and sometimes
so paralysing them as to become itself the occasion of the
sorest disasters. Hence, the philosophy which applied
itself to explore the operation of physical properties and
laws in connection with natural events, was accounted
impious; since, as Plutarch remarks,1 it seemed ‘to
ascribe things to insensate causes, unintelligent powers,
and necessary changes, thereby jostling aside the divine.’
1 Life of Nicias.
LECT. I.] THE ASCENDENCY OF LAW. 5
On this account Anaxagoras was thrown into prison by
the Athenians, and narrowly escaped with his life.
Socrates was less fortunate; he suffered the condemna-
tion and penalty of death, although he had not carried
his physical speculations nearly so far as Anaxagoras.
At his trial, however, he was charged with impiety, on
the ground of having said that the sun was a stone, and
the moon earth; he himself, however, protesting that
such was not his, but the doctrine of Anaxagoras; that he
held both sun and moon to be divine persons, as was
done by the rest of mankind. His real view seems to
have been, that the common and ordinary events of Pro-
vidence flowed from the operation of second causes, but
that those of greater magnitude and rarer occurrence
came directly from the interposition of a divine power.
Yet this modified philosophy was held to be utterly
inconsistent with the popular religion, and condemned as
an impiety. Of necessity, therefore, as science proceeded
in its investigations and discoveries, religion fell into the
background; as the belief in second causes advanced, the
gods, as no longer needed, vanished away. Physical
science and the polytheism of Greece and Rome were in
their very nature antagonistic, and every real advance of
the one brought along with it a shock to the other.
It is otherwise with the religion of the Bible, when
this is rightly understood, and nothing from without,
nothing foreign to its teaching, is imposed on it. For it
neither merges God in the works and operations of nature,
nor associates Him with one department more peculiarly
than another; while still it presents all—the works them-
selves, the changes they undergo, and every spring and
agency employed in accomplishing them—in dependence
on His arm and subordination to His will: He is in all,
through all, and over all. So that for those who have
6 INTRODUCTORY. [LECT. I.
imbibed the spirit of the Bible, there may appear the
most perfect regularity and continued sequence of opera-
tions, while God is seen and adored in connection with
every one of them. It is true, that the sensibilities of
religious feeling, or, as we should rather say, the fresh-
ness and power of its occasional outbursts, are less likely
to be experienced, and in reality are more rarely mani-
fested, when, in accordance with the revelations of science,
God’s agency is contemplated as working through material
forces under the direction of established law, than if,
without such an intervening medium, in specific acts of
providence, and by direct interference, He should make
His presence felt. The more that anything ceases to
appear strange to our view, abnormal—the more it comes
to be associated in our minds with the orderly domain of
law—the less startling and impressive does it naturally
become as an evidence of the nearness and power of God-
head: it no longer stands alone to our view, it is part of
a system, but still a system which, if viewed aright, has
been all planned by the wisdom, and is constantly sus-
tained and directed by the providence of God.
In this, as in so many other departments of human
interest and experience, there is a compensation in things.
What science may appear to take with one hand, it gives
—gives, one might almost say, more liberally with
another. If, for example, the revelation on scientific
grounds of the amazing regularity and finely-balanced
movements which prevail in the constitution and order of
the material universe, as connected with our planetary
system,—if this, in one aspect of it, should seem to have
placed God at a certain distance from the visible world,
in another it has but rendered His presiding agency and
vigilant oversight more palpably indispensable. For
such a vast, complicated, and wondrous mechanism, how
LECT. I.] THE ASCENDENCY OF LAW. 7
could it have originated? or, having originated, how
could it be sustained in action without the infinite skill
and ceaseless activity of an all-perfect Mind? There is
here what is incalculably more and better than some
occasional proofs of interference, or fitful displays of
power, however grand and imposing. There is clear-
sighted, far-reaching thought, nicely planned design,
mutual adaptations, infinitely varied, of part to part, the
action and reaction of countless forces, working with an
energy that baffles all conception, yet working with the
most minute mathematical precision, and with the effect
of producing both the most harmonious operation, and
the most diversified, gigantic, and beneficent results.
It is, too, the more marvellous, and the more certainly
indicative of the originating and controlling agency of
mind, that while all the planetary movements obey with
perfect regularity one great principle of order, they do so
by describing widely different orbits, and, in the case of
some, pursuing courses that move in opposite directions to
others. Whence should such things be? Not, assuredly,
from any property inherent in the material orbs them-
selves, which know nothing of the laws they exemplify,
or the interests that depend on the order they keep:
no, but solely from the will and power of the infinite and
eternal Being, whose workmanship they are, and whose
purposes they unconsciously fulfil. So wrote Newton
devoutly, as well as nobly, at the close of his incompar-
able work: ‘This beautiful system of sun, planets, and
comets, could have its origin in no other way than by the
counsel and sovereignty of an intelligent and powerful
Being. He governs all things—not as the soul of the
world, but as the Lord of the universe....We know
Him only through His qualities and attributes, and
through the most wise and excellent forms and final
8 INTRODUCTORY. [LECT. 1.
causes, which belong to created things; and we admire
Him on account of His perfections; but for His sovereign
lordship, we worship and adore Him;’—thus in the
true spirit of the Psalmist, and as with a solemn halle-
lujah, winding up the mighty demonstration.l
We are informed, in a recent publication by a noble
author,2 that modern science is again returning to this
view of things; returning to it, I suppose, as becoming
conscious of the inadequacy of the maxim of an earlier
time, in respect to creation, ‘That the hypothesis of a
Deity is not needed.’ Speaking of the mystery which
hangs around the idea of force, even of the particular
force which has its seat in our own vitality, he says, ‘If,
then, we know nothing of that kind of force which is so
near to us, and with which our own intelligence is in
such close alliance, much less can we know the ultimate
nature of force in its other forms. It is important to
dwell on this, because both the aversion with which some
men regard the idea of the reign of law, and the triumph
1 On this point, Dr Whewell has some remarks in his ‘Philosophy of the
Inductive Sciences,’ which another great authority in natural science, Sir John
Herschel, has characterized admirable (‘Essays and Addresses,’ p. 239). ‘The
assertion appears to be quite unfounded, that as science advances from point to
point, final causes recede before it, and disappear one after the other. The
principle of design changes its mode of application indeed, but it loses none of
its force. We no longer consider particular facts as produced by special inter-
positions, but we consider design as exhibited in the establishment and adjust-
ment of the laws by which particular facts are produced. We do not look upon
each particular cloud as brought near us that it may drop fatness on our fields;
but the general adaptation of the laws of heat, and air, and moisture, to the
promotion of vegetation, does not become doubtful. We are rather, by the
discovery of the general laws of nature, led into a scene of wider design, of
deeper contrivance, of more comprehensive adjustments. Final causes, if they
appear driven farther from us by such an extension of our views, embrace us
only with a vaster and more majestic circuit; instead of a few threads connect-
ing some detached objects, they become a stupendous network which is wound
round and round the universal frame of things.—Vol. I. p. 635.
2 The Duke of Argyle, ‘Reign of Law,’ p. 122.
LECT. I.] THE ASCENDENCY OF LAW. 9
with which some others hail it, are founded on a notion,
that when we have traced any given phenomena to what
are called natural forces, we have traced them farther
than we really have. We know nothing of the ultimate
nature, or of the ultimate seat of force [that is, know
nothing scientifically]. Science, in the modern doctrine of
the conservation of energy and the convertibility of forces,
is already getting something like a firm hold of the idea,
that all kinds of force are but forms or manifestations of
some central force issuing from some one Fountainhead of
power. Sir John Herschel has not hesitated to say, that
it is but reasonable to regard the force of gravitation as
the direct or indirect result of a consciousness or a will
existing somewhere. And even if we cannot certainly
identify force in all its forms with the direct energies of
one omnipresent and all-pervading will, it is, at least, in
the highest degree unphilosophical to assume the con-
trary; to speak or to think as if the forces of nature were
either independent of, or even separate from, the Creator’s
power.’ In short, natural science, in its investigations
into the forces and movements of the material universe,
finds a limit which it cannot overpass, and in that limit
a felt want of satisfaction, as conscious of the necessity of
a spontaneity, a will, a power to give impulse and direc-
tion to the whole, of which nature itself can give no
information, because lying outside of its province, and
which, if discovered to us at all, must be certified through
a supernatural revelation.
But this is still not the whole of the argument for the
pervading causal connection of God with the works of
nature, and His claim in this respect to our devout recog-
nition of His will as the source of its laws, and His power
as the originator and sustainer of its movements. For,
besides the admirable method and order, the simplicity in
10 INTRODUCTORY. [LECT. I.
the midst of endless diversity, which are found to charac-
terize the system of material nature, there is also to be
taken into account the irrepressible impulse in the human
mind to search for these, and the capacity to discern and
appreciate them as marks of the highest intelligence. A
pre-established harmony here discovers itself between the
world of thought within, and the world of material order
and scientific adjustment without, bespeaking their mutual
co-ordination by the wise foresight and plastic energy of
one Supreme Mind. ‘Copernicus1 (it has been remarked),
in the dedication of his work to Pope Paul III., confesses
that he was brought to the discovery of the sun's central
position and of the diurnal motion of the earth, not by
observation or analysis, but by what he calls the feeling
of a want of symmetry in the Ptolemaic system. But
who had told him that there must be symmetry in all the
movements of the celestial bodies, or that complication
was not more sublime than simplicity? Symmetry and
simplicity, before they were discovered by the observer,
were postulated by the philosopher;’ and by him, we
may add, truly postulated, because first existing as ideas
in the Eternal Mind, whose image and reflex man’s is.
So also with Newton: the principle of gravitation, as an
all-embracing law of the planetary system, was postulated
in his mind before he ascertained it to be the law actually
in force throughout the whole, or even any considerable
part of the system—mind in man thus responding to mind
in God, and finding, in the things which appear, the evi-
dence at once of His eternal power and Godhead, and of the
similitude of its own understanding to that of Him by
whom the world has been contrived and ordained.
There is a class of minds which such considerations
cannot reach. They would take a position above them;
1 Max Müller, ‘Lectures on Language,’ p. 19.
LECT. I.] THE ASCENDENCY OF LAW. 11
and adventuring upon what tends to perplex and con-
found, rather than satisfy, the reason, they raise such
questions respecting the Absolute and Infinite, as in a
manner exclude the just and natural conclusions deduced
from the works of creation concerning the Being and
Government of the Creator. But questions of that de-
scription, pressing as they do into a region which tran-
scends all human thought and known analogy, it is pre-
sumption in man to raise, folly to entertain; for ‘man is
born,’ as Goethe well remarked, ‘not to solve the
problems of the universe, but to find out where the
problem for himself begins, and then restrain himself
within the limits of the comprehensible.’ Considered
from this point of view, the reflections which have been
submitted as to the prevalence of natural law in the
general economy of the world of matter, in its relation
to God and its bearing on the religion of the Bible, are
perfectly legitimate; and they might easily be extended
by a diversified application of the principles involved in
them to the arrangements in the natural world, which
stand more closely related to men's individual interests
and responsibilities. But to sum up briefly what relates
to this branch of our subject, there are three leading
characteristics in the teaching of the Bible respecting the
relation of God to the merely natural world, and which,
though they can only in a qualified sense be termed a
revelation of law, yet form, so to speak, the landmarks
which the Bible itself sets up, and the measure of the
liberty it accords to the cultivators of science.
(1.) The first of these is the strict and proper person-
ality of God, as distinct from, and independent of, the
whole or any part of the visible creation. This to its
utmost limits is His workmanship—the theatre which
His hands have reared, and which they still maintain, for
12 INTRODUCTORY. [LECT. I.
the outgoing of His perfections and the manifestation of
His glory. As such, therefore, the things belonging to it
are not, and cannot possibly be, a part of His proper self.
However pervaded by His essential presence and divine
energy, they are not ‘the varied God,’ in the natural
sense of the expression. They came into being without
any diminution of His infinite greatness, and so they
may be freely handled, explored, modified, made to
undergo ever so many changes and transformations,
without in the slightest degree trenching on the nature
of Him, who is ‘without variableness or shadow of turn-
ing.’ Such is the doctrine of the Bible—differing from
mere nature-worship, and from polytheism in all its forms,
which, if it does not openly avow, tacitly assumes the
identification of Deity with the world. The Scripture
doctrine of the Creator and creation, of God and the
world, as diverse though closely related factors, leaves
to science its proper field of inquiry and observation, un-
trammelled by any hindrance arising from the view there
exhibited of the Divine nature.
(2.) A second distinguishing feature in the revelations
of the Bible is, that they rather pre-suppose what belongs
to the domain of natural science, than directly interfere
with it. With the exception of the very earliest part of
the sacred records, it is the supernatural—the supernatural
with respect more immediately to moral relations and
results—which may be designated their proper field; and
while in this the supernatural throughout bases itself on
the natural, the natural itself is little more than inci-
dentally referred to, or very briefly indicated. Even in
the account given of the formation of the world and the
natural constitution of things therewith connected, it is
obviously with the design of forming a suitable introduc-
tion to the place of man in the world, his moral relation
14 INTRODUCTORY. [LECT. I.
on scientific ground, stand, as a whole, in such striking
accord even now with the established results of science—
exhibiting, by means of a few graphic lines, not merely
the evolution from dark chaos of a world of light, and
order, and beauty, but the gradual ascent also of being
upon earth, from the lowest forms of vegetable and
animal life, up to him, who holds alike of earth and heaven
—at once creation’s head, and the rational image and
vicegerent of the Creator. Here, substantially at least,
we have the progression of modern science; but this com-
bined, in a manner altogether peculiar, with the peerless
dignity and worth of man, as of more account in God’s
sight than the entire world besides of animated being,
yea, than sun, and moon, and stars of light, because
incomparably nearer than them all to the heart of God,
and more closely associated with the moral aims, to which
everything in nature was designed to be subordinate.
Better than all science, it reveals alike man's general place
in nature and his singular relation to God.l
(3.) A third characteristic of Bible teaching in this
connection is the free play it allows to general laws and
natural agencies, or to the operation of cause and effect;
and this, not merely as bearing on simply natural results,
but also as connected with spiritual relations and duties.
Those laws and agencies are of God; as briefly expressed
by Augustine, ‘God’s will constitutes the nature of things’
(Dei voluntas rerum natura est); or more fully by Hooker,2
‘That law, the performance whereof we behold in things
natural, is as it were an authentic or original draft written
in the bosom of God himself, whose Spirit being to exe-
cute the same with every particular nature, every mere
natural agent is only as an instrument created at the
beginning, and ever since the beginning used, to work His
1 See Butler, ‘Analogy,’ P. I. c. 7. 2 ‘Eccl. Polity,’ B. I. c. 3, sec. 4.
LECT. I.] THE ASCENDENCY OF LAW. 15
own will and pleasure withal. Nature, therefore, is nothing
else but God’s instrument.’ Whence the various powers
and faculties of nature, whether in things animate or inani-
mate, her regular course and modes of procedure, are not
supplanted by grace, but are recognised and acted upon
to the full extent that they can be made subservient to
higher purposes. Thus, when in respect to things above
nature, God reveals His mind to men, He does it through
men, and through men not as mere machines unconsciously
obeying a supernatural impulse, but acting in discharge
of their personal obligations and the free exercise of their
individual powers and susceptibilities. So also the
common subject of grace, the ordinary believer, obtains
no warrant as such to set at nought the settled laws and
ordinances of nature, no right to expect aught but mis-
chief if he should contravene their action, or fail to adapt
himself to their mode of operation; and at every step in
his course toward the final goal of his calling, reason,
knowledge, cultivation, wise discretion, and persevering
diligence have their parts to play in securing his safety
and progress, as well as the divine help and internal
agency of the Spirit. It is, therefore, within the boundary-
lines fixed by nature, and in accordance with the prin-
ciples of her constitution, alike in the mental and the
material world, that the work of grace proceeds, though
bringing along with it powers, and influences, and results
which are peculiarly its own. And even as regards the
things done for the believer in the outer field of provi-
dence, and in answer to humble prayer, there may be no
need (for aught we know to the contrary) for miraculous
interference, in the ordinary sense of the term, but only
for wise direction, for timely and fitting adjustment. It
may even be, as Isaac Taylor has said, ‘the great miracle
of providence, that no miracles are needed to accomplish
16 INTRODUCTORY. [LECT. I.
its purposes;’ that ‘the materials of the machinery of
providence are all of ordinary quality, while their com-
bination displays nothing less than infinite skill;’ and, at
all events, within this field alone of divine foresight and
gracious interventions through natural agencies, there is in
the hand of God ‘a hidden treasury of boons sufficient for
the incitement of prayer and the reward of humble faith.’l
The three principles or positions now laid down in
respect to God’s operations in nature and providence,
seem to comprise all that is needed for the maintenance
of friendly relations between the religion of the Bible and
the investigations of science; on the one side, ample scope
is left to these investigations, while, on the other, nothing
has been actually established by them which conflicts with
the statements of the Bible interpreted by the principles
we have stated. But undoubtedly there is in them what
cannot be reconciled with that deification of material forces,
which some would identify with strict science—as if every-
thing that took place were the result of the action only
of unconscious law—law working with such rigid, un-
broken continuity of natural order, as to admit of no
break or deviation whatever (such as is implied in miracles),
and no special adaptation to individual cases (as a parti-
cular providence would involve). Both miracles and a
particular providence, within certain limits, and as means
to the attainment of important ends, are postulated and
required in the revelations of the Bible. For if, as it
teaches, there be a personal God, an infinite and eternal
Spirit, distinct from the works of creation, and Himself
the author of the laws by which they are governed—if
also this God sustains the character of moral Governor
in regard to the intelligent part of His creation, and
subordinates everything in His administration to the
1 ‘Natural History of Enthusiasm,’ sec. vi.
LECT. I.] THE ASCENDENCY OF LAW. 17
principles and interests therewith connected—then the
possibility, at least, of miracles and a particular providence
(to say nothing at present of their evidence), can admit of
no reasonable doubt. This does not imply, as the oppo-
nents of revelation not unfrequently assume, the produc-
tion in certain cases of an effect without a cause, or the
emerging of dissimilar consequents from the same ante-
cedents. For, on the supposition in question, the ante-
cedents are no longer the same; the cause which is of
nature has superadded to it a cause which is above nature,
in the material sense—the will and the power of a personal
Deity. We reason here, as in other things, from the human
to the divine. Mind in man is capable of originating a
force, which within definite limits can suspend the laws of
material nature, and control or modify them to its desired
ends. And why, then, should it be thought incredible or
strange, that the central Mind of the universe, by whom
all subsists, should at certain special moments, when the
purposes of His moral government require a new order of
things to be originated, authoritative indications of His
will to be given, or results accomplished unattainable in
the ordinary course of nature, bring into play a force
adequate to the end in view? It is merely supposing the
great primary cause interposing to do in a higher line of
things what finite beings are ever doing in a lower; and
the right, and the power, and the purpose to do it, resolve
themselves (as we have said) into the question, whether
there really be a God, exercising a moral government over
the world, capable for its higher ends of putting forth
acts of supernatural agency—a question which natural
science has no special mission to determine, or peculiar
resources to explicate.1
1 See M'Cosh, ‘Method of Divine Government,’ B. II. cap. i. sec. 7. And
for an admirable and conclusive exposure of the views of the chief opponents
18 INTRODUCTORY. [LECT. I.
The subject of a particular providence so far differs
from that of miraculous action, that, to a large extent,
its requirements may be met through the operation of
merely instrumental causes, fitly disposed and arranged
by Divine wisdom to suit the ever-varying conditions of
individual man. To have respect to the individual in
His method of government cannot be regarded as less
in the present day of all miraculous agency, even in creation and intelligent
design as connected with the works of nature—namely, the advocates of natural
selection and progressive development—see particularly ‘The Darwinian Theory
of Development examined by a Cambridge Graduate.’ It is there stated, as a
remarkable thing, that this theory, which professes to be based on scientific
grounds, yet expresses itself in the form of a creed: the words ‘We must
believe,’ ‘I have no difficulty in believing,’ etc., are perpetually recurring, and,
in fact, form the necessary links in the chain of so-called deductions. Hence,
while setting out with the object of avoiding the miraculous, the end is not
attained. ‘In the old method, the great physiologists take it for granted that
their researches can only reach a certain point, beyond which they cannot