'in him we live, and move, and have our being' (Acts 17:28), and 'that which hath been made is life in him' (John 1:3, 4)." Palmer, Theologic Definition, 39-"That which has its cause without itself is a thing, while that which has its cause within itself is a person."

Second Division.— Infinity, and attributes therein involved.

By infinity we mean, not that the divine nature has no known limits or bounds, but that it has no limits or bounds. That which has simply no known limits is the indefinite. The infinity of God implies that he is in no way limited by the universe or confined to the universe; he is transcendent as well as immanent. Transcendence, however, must not be conceived as freedom from merely spatial restrictions, but rather as unlimited resource, of which God's glory is the expression.

Ps. 145:3-"his greatness is unsearchable "; Job 11: 7-9-"high as heaven... deeper than Sheol"; Is. 66: 1— Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool"; 1 K. 8:27-"Heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee"; Rom. 11:33-"how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." There can be no

infinite number, since to any assignable number a unit can be added, which shows that this number was not infinite before. There can be no infinite universe, because an infinite universe is conceivable only as an infinite number of worlds or of minds. God himself is the only real Infinite, and the universe is but the finite expression or symbol of his greatness.

We therefore object to the statement of Lotze, Microcosm, 1:446-"The complete system, grasped in its totality, offers an expression of the whole nature of the One.

The Cause makes actual existence its complete manifestation." In a similar way Schurman, Belief in God, 26, 173-178, grants infinity, but denies transcendence: "The infinite Spirit may include the finite, as the idea of a single organism embraces within a single life a plurality of members and functions. . . . The world is the expression of an ever active and inexhaustible will. That the external manifestation is as boundless as the life it expresses, science makes exceedingly probable. In any event, we have not the slightest reason to contrast the finitude of the world with the infinity of God. .... If the natural order is eternal and infinite, as there seems no reason to doubt, it will be difficult to find a meaning for 'beyond' or 'before.' Of this illimitable, everexisting universe, God is the inner ground or substance. There is no evidence, neither does any religious need require us to believe, that the divine Being manifest in the universe has any actual or possible existence elsewhere, in some transcendent sphere. .... The divine will can express itself only as it does, because no other expression would reveal what it is. Of such a will, the universe is the eternal expression."

In explanation of the term infinity, we may notice :

(a) That infinity can belong to but one Being, and therefore cannot be shared with the universe. Infinity is not a negative but a positive idea. It does not take its rise from an impotence of thought, but is an intuitive conviction which constitutes the basis of all other knowledge.

See Porter, Human Intellect, 651, 652, and this Compendium, pages 59-62. Versus Mansel, Proleg. Logica, chap. 1—“Such negative notions. . . imply at once an attempt to think, and a failure in that attempt." On the contrary, the conception of the Infinite is perfectly distinguishable from that of the finite, and is both necessary and logically prior to that of the finite. This is not true of our idea of the universe, of which all we know is finite and dependent. We therefore regard such utterances as those of Lotze and Schurman above, and those of Chamberlin and Caird below, as pantheistic in tendency, although the belief of these writers in divine and human personality saves them from falling into other errors of pantheism.

Prof. T. C. Chamberlin, of the University of Chicago: "It is not sufficient to the modern scientific thought to think of a Ruler outside of the universe, nor of a universe with the Ruler outside. A supreme Being who does not embrace all the activities and possibilities and potencies of the universe seems something less than the supremest Being, and a universe with a Ruler outside seems something less than a universe. And therefore the thought is growing on the minds of scientific thinkers that the supreme Being is the universal Being, embracing and comprehending all things."

Caird, Evolution o. Religion, 2:62-“Religion, if it would continue to exist, must combine the monotheistic idea with that which it has often regarded as its greatest enemy, the spirit of pantheism." We grant in reply that religion must appropriate the element of truth in pantheism, namely, that God is the only substance, ground and principle of being, but we regard it as fatal to religion to side with pantheism in its denials of God's transcendence and of God's personality.

(b) That the infinity of God does not involve his identity with 'the all,' or the sum of existence, nor prevent the coëxistence of derived and finite beings to which he bears relation. Infinity implies simply that God exists in no necessary relation to finite things or beings, and that whatever limitation of the divine nature results from their existence is, on the part of God, a self-limitation.

P. 113: 5, 6-"that humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth." It is involved in God's infinity that there should be no barriers to his self-limitation in creation and redemption (see page 9, F.). Jacob Boehme said: “God is infinite, for God is all." But this is to make God all imperfection, as well as all perfection. Harris, Philos. Basis Theism: "The relation of the absolute to the finite is not the mathematical relation of a total to its parts, but it is a dynamical and rational relation." Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1: 189-191-"The infinite is not the total; the all' is a pseudo-infinite, and to assert that it is greater than the simple infinite is the same error that is committed in mathematics when it is asserted that an infinite number plus a vast finite number is greater than the simple infinite." Fullerton, Conception of the Infinite, 90— "The Infinite, though it involves unlimited possibility of quantity, is not itself a quantitative but rather a qualitative conception." Hovey, Studies of Ethics and Religion, 347-"Any number of finite beings, minds, loves, wills, cannot reveal fully an infinite Being, Mind, Love, Will. God must be transcendent as well as immanent in the universe, or he is neither infinite nor an object of supreme worship."

Clarke, Christian Theology, 117-"Great as the universe is, God is not limited to it, wholly absorbed by what he is doing in it, and capable of doing nothing more. God in the universe is not like the life of the tree in the tree, which does all that it is capable of in making the tree what it is. God in the universe is rather like the spirit of a man in his body, which is greater than his body, able to direct his body, and capable of activities in which his body has no share. God is a free spirit, personal, self-directing. unexhausted by his present activities." The Persian poet said truly: "The world is a bud from his bower of beauty; the sun is a spark from the light of his wisdom; the sky is a bubble on the sea of his power." Faber: "For greatness which is infinite makes room For all things in its lap to lie. We should be crushed by a magnificence Short of infinity. We share in what is infinite; 'tis ours, For we and it alike are Thine. What I enjoy, great God, by right of Thee, Is more than doubly mine."

(c) That the infinity of God is to be conceived of as intensive, rather than as extensive. We do not attribute to God infinite extension, but rather infinite energy of spiritual life. That which acts up to the measure of its power is simply natural and physical force. Man rises above nature by virtue of his reserves of power. But in God the reserve is infinite. There is a transcendent element in him, which no self-revelation exhausts, whether creation or redemption, whether law or promise.

Transcendence is not mere outsideness, it is rather boundless supply within. God is not infinite by virtue of existing "extra flammantia monia mundi" (Lucretius) or of filling a space outside of space, he is rather infinite by being the pure and perfect Mind that passes beyond all phenomena and constitutes the ground of them. The former conception of infinity is simply supra-cosmic, the latter alone is properly transcendent; see Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 244. "God is the living God, and has not yet spoken his last word on any subject" (G. W. Northrup). God's life" operates unspent." There is "ever more to follow." The legend stamped with the Pillars of Hercules upon the old coins of Spain was Ne plus ultra-"Nothing beyond," but when Columbus discovered America the legend was fitly changed to Plus ultra-" More beyond." So the motto of the University of Rochester is Meliora · "Better things."

Since God's infinite resources are pledged to aid us, we may, as Emerson bids us, "hitch our wagon to a star," and believe in progress. Tennyson, Locksley Hall: "Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new, That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do." Millet's L'Angelus is a witness to man's need of God's transcendence. Millet's aim was to paint, not air but prayer. We need a God who is not confined to nature. As Moses at the beginning of his ministry cried, "Show me, I pray thee, thy glory" (Ex. 33:18), so we need marked experiences at the beginning of the Christian life, in order that we may be living witnesses to the supernatural. And our Lord promises such manifestations of himself: John 14 : 21 — " I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him."

Ps. 71:15"My mouth shall tell of thy righteousness, And of thy salvation all the day; For I know not the numbers thereof " it is infinite. Ps. 89: 2-"Mercy shall be built up forever" ever growing manifestations and cycles of fulfilment - first literal, then spiritual. Ps. 113: 4-6 — "Jehovah is high above all nations, And his glory above the heavens. Who is like unto Jehovah our God, That hath his seat on high, That humbleth himself [stoopeth down] to behold The things that are in heaven and in the earth?" Mal. 2:15"did he not make one, although he had the residue of the Spirit?". he might have created many wives for Adam, though he did actually create but one. In this "residue of the Spirit," says Caldwell, Cities of our Faith, 370, "there yet lies latent as winds lie calm in the air of a summer noon, as heat immense lies cold and hidden in the mountains of coal - the blessing and the life of nations, the infinite enlargement of Zion."

Is. 52: 10 Jehovah hath made bare his holy arm nature does not exhaust or entomb God; nature is the mantle in which he commonly reveals himself; but he is not fettered by the robe he wears he can thrust it aside, and make bare his arm în providential interpositions for earthly deliverance, and in mighty movements of history for the salvation of the sinner and for the setting up of his own kingdom. See also John 1: 16—" of his fulness we all received, and grace for grace" "Each blessing appropriated became the foundation of a greater blessing. To have realized and used one measure of grace was to have gained a larger measure in exchange for it xápwv ávrì xápitos”; so Westcott, in Bib. Com., in loco. Christ can ever say to the believer, as he said to Nathanael ( John 1:50): "thou shalt see greater things than these."

Because God is infinite, he can love each believer as much as if that single soul were the only one for whom he had to care, Both in providence and in redemption the whole heart of God is busy with plans for the interest and happiness of the single Christian. Threatenings do not half reveal God, nor his promises half express the "eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4:17). Dante, Paradiso, 19:40-63-God "Could not upon the universe so write The impress of his power, but that his word Must still be left in distance infinite." To "limit the Holy One of Israel" (Ps. 78: 41-marg.) is falsehood as well as sin. This attribute of infinity, or of transcendence, qualifies all the other attributes, and so is the foundation for the representations of majesty and glory as belonging to God (see Ex. 33:18; Ps. 19:1; Is. 6:3; Mat. 6:13; Acts 7:2; Rom. 1:23; 9:23; Heb. 1:3; 1 Pet. 4:14; Rev. 21: 23). Glory is not itself a divine attribute; it is rather a result - an objective result of the exercise of the divine attributes. This glory exists irrespective of the revelation and recognition of it in the creation (John 17:5). Only God can worthily perceive and reverence his own glory. He does all for his own glory. All religion is founded on the glory of God. All worship is the result of this immanent quality of the divine nature. Kedney, Christian Doctrine, 1:360–373, 2:351, apparently conceives of the divine glory as an eternal material environment of God, from which the universe is fashioned. This seems to contradict both the spirituality and the infinity of God. God's infinity implies absolute completeness apart from anything external to himself. We proceed therefore to consider the attributes involved in infinity.

Of the attributes involved in Infinity, we mention :

1. Self-existence.

By self-existence we mean

(a) That God is "causa sui," having the ground of his existence in himself. Every being must have the ground of its existence either in or out of itself. We have the ground of our existence outside of us. God is not thus dependent. He is a se; hence we speak of the aseity of God.

God's self-existence is implied in the name “Jehovah " (Ex. 6:3) and in the declaration "I AM THAT I AM " (Ex. 3:14), both of which signify that it is God's nature to be. Selfexistence is certainly incomprehensible to us, yet a self-existent person is no greater mystery than a self-existent thing, such as Herbert Spencer supposes the universe to be; indeed it is not so great a mystery, for it is easier to derive matter from mind than to derive mind from matter. See Porter, Human Intellect, 661. Joh. Angelus Silesius: "Gott ist das was Er ist; Ich was Ich durch Ihn bin; Doch kennst du Einen wohl, So kennst du mich und Ihn." Martineau, Types, 1:302-"A cause may be eternal, but nothing that is caused can be so." He protests against the phrase "causa sui.” So Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1: 338, objects to the phrase "God is his own cause," because God is the uncaused Being. But when we speak of God as "causa sui," we do not attribute to him beginning of existence. The phrase means rather that the ground of his existence is not outside of himself, but that he himself is the living spring of all energy and of all being.

But lest this should be be misconstrued, we add

(b) That God exists by the necessity of his own being. It is his nature to be. Hence the existence of God is not a contingent but a necessary existence. It is grounded, not in his volitions, but in his nature.

Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:126, 130, 170, seems to hold that God is primarily will, so that the essence of God is his act: "God's essence does not precede his freedom"; "if the essence of God were for him something given, something already present, the question from whence it was given?' could not be evaded; God's essence must in this case have its origin in something apart from him, and thus the true conception of God would be entirely swept away." But this implies that truth, reason, love, holiness, equally with God's essence, are all products of will. If God's essence, moreover, were his act, it would be in the power of God to annihilate himself. Act presupposes essence; else there is no God to act. The will by which God exists, and in virtue of which he is causa sui, is therefore not will in the sense of volition, but will in the sense of the whole movemert of his active being. With Müller's view Thomasius and Delitzsch are agreed. For refutation of it, see Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 2:63. God's essence is not his act, not only because this would imply that he could destroy himself, but also because before willing there must be being. Those who hold God's essence to be simple activity are impelled to this view by the fear of postulating some dead thing in God which precedes all exercise of faculty. So Miller, Evolution of Love, 43" Perfect action, conscious and volitional, is the highest generalization, the ultimate unit, the unconditioned nature, of infinite Being"; i. e., God's nature is subjective action, while external nature is his objective action. A better statement, however, is that of Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 170— “While there is a necessity in the soul, it becomes controlling only through freedom; and we may say that everyone must constitute himself a rational soul. . . . This is absolutely true of God."

2. Immutability.

...

By this we mean that the nature, attributes, and will of God are exempt from all change. Reason teaches us that no change is possible in God, whether of increase or decrease, progress or deterioration, contraction or development. All change must be to better or to worse. But God is absolute perfection, and no change to better is possible. Change to worse would be equally inconsistent with perfection. No cause for such change exists, either outside of God or in God himself.

Psalm 102: 27-"thou art the same"; Mal. 3:6-"I, Jehovah, change not"; James 1: 17-"with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning." Spenser, Faerie Queen, Cantos of Mutability, 8:2"Then 'gin I think on that which nature sayde, Of that same time when no more change shall be, But steadfast rest of all things, firmly stayed Upon the pillours of eternity; For all that moveth doth in change delight, But henceforth all shall rest eternally With him that is the God of Sabaoth hight; Oh thou great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabbath's sight!" Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 146, defines immutability as "the constancy and continuity of the divine nature which exists through all the divine acts as their law and source."

The passages of Scripture which seem at first sight to ascribe change to God are to be explained in one of three ways:

(a) As illustrations of the varied methods in which God manifests his immutable truth and wisdom in creation.

Mathematical principles receive new application with each successive stage of creation. The law of cohesion gives place to chemical law, and chemistry yields to vitai forces, but through all these changes there is a divine truth and wisdom which is unchanging, and which reduces all to rational order. John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2: 140-"Immutability is not stereotyped sameness, but impossibility of deviation by one hair's breadth from the course which is best. A man of great force of character is continually finding new occasions for the manifestation and application of moral principle. In God infinite consistency is united with infinite flexibility. There is no iron-bound impassibility, but rather an infinite originality in him.”

(b) As anthropomorphic representations of the revelation of God's unchanging attributes in the changing circumstances and varying moral conditions of creatures.

Gen. 6: 6-it repented Jehovah that he had made man is to be interpreted in the light of Num. 23:19"God is not a man, that he should lie neither the son of man, that he should repent." So cf. 1 Sam. 15:11 with 15:29. God's unchanging holiness requires him to treat the wicked differently from the righteous. When the righteous become wicked, his treatment of them must change. The sun is not fickle or partial because it melts the wax but hardens the clay, -the change is not in the sun but in the objects it shines upon. The change in God's treatment of men is described anthropomorphically, as if it were a change in God himself, other passages in close conjunction with the first being given to correct any possible misapprehension. Threats not fulfilled, as in Jonah 3:4, 10, are to be explained by their conditional nature. Hence God's immutability itself renders it certain that his love will adapt itself to every varying mood and condition of his children, so as to guide their steps, sympathize with their sorrows, answer their prayers. God responds to us more quickly than the mother's face to the changing moods of her babe. Godet, in The Atonement, 338—“God is of all beings the most delicately and infinitely sensitive." God's immutability is not that of the stone, that has no internal experience, but rather that of the column of mercury, that rises and falls with every change in the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere. When a man bicycling against the wind turns about and goes with the wind instead of going against it, the wind seems to change, though it is blowing just as it was before. The sinner struggles against the wind of prevenient grace until he seems to strike against a stone wall. Regeneration is God's conquest of our wills by his power, and conversion is our beginning to turn round and to work with God rather than against God. Now we move without effort, because we have God at our back; Phil. 2: 12, 13-"work out your own salvation . . . for it is God who worketh in you." God has not changed, but we have changed; John 3:8-"The wind bloweth where it will... so is every one that is born of the Spirit." Jacob's first wrestling with the Angel was the picture of his lifelong self-will, opposing God; his subsequent wrestling in prayer was the picture of a consecrated will, working with God (Gen. 32:24-28). We seem to conquer God, but he really conquers us. He seems to change, but it is we who change after all.

(c) As describing executious, in time, of purposes eternally existing in the mind of God. Immutability must not be confounded with immobility. This would deny all those imperative volitions of God by which he enters into history, The Scriptures assure us that creation, miracles, incarnation, regeneration, are immediate acts of God. Immutability is consistent with constant activity and perfect freedom.

The abolition of the Mosaic dispensation indicates no change in God's plan; it is rather the execution of his plan. Christ's coming and work were no sudden makeshi**, to remedy unforeseen defects in the Old Testament scheme: Christ came rather in "the fulness of the time" (Gal. 4:4), to fulfill the "counsel" of God (Acts 2:23). Gen. 8:1-"God remembered Noah" interposed by special act for Noah's deliverance, showed that he remem