also helpeth our infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered"; 27--"and he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God."

The intercession of the Holy Spirit may be illustrated by the work of the mother, who teaches her child to pray by putting words into his mouth or by suggesting subjects for prayer. "The whole Trinity is present in the Christian's closet; the Father hears; the Son advocates his cause at the Father's right hand; the Holy Spirit intercedes in the heart of the believer." Therefore "When God inclines the heart to pray, He hath an ear to hear." The impulse to prayer, within our hearts, is evidence that Christ is urging our claims in heaven.

D. Relation of Christ's Intercession to that of saints. All true intercession is either directly or indirectly the intercession of Christ. Christians are organs of Christ's Spirit. To suppose Christ in us to offer prayer to one of his saints, instead of directly to the Father, is to blaspheme Christ, and utterly misconceive the nature of prayer.

Saints on earth, by their union with Christ, the great high priest, are themselves constituted intercessors; and as the high priest of old bore upon his bosom the breastplate engraven with the names of the tribes of Israel (Ex. 28:9-12), so the Christian is to bear upon his heart in prayer before God the interests of his family, the church, and the world (1 Tim. 2:1-"I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made for all men"). See Symington on Intercession, in Atonement and Intercession, 256-303; Milligan, Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of our Lord.

Luckock, After Death, finds evidence of belief in the intercession of the saints in heaven as early as the second century. Invocation of the saints he regards as beginning not earlier than the fourth century. He approves the doctrine that the saints pray for us, but rejects the doctrine that we are to pray to them. Prayers for the dead he strongly advocates. Bramhall, Works, 1:57-Invocation of the saints is "not necessary, for two reasons: first, no saint doth love us so well as Christ; no saint hath given us such assurance of his love, or done so much for us as Christ; no saint is so willing to help us as Christ; and secondly, we have no command from God to invocate them." A. B. Cave: "The system of human mediation falls away in the advent to our souls of the living Christ. Who wants stars, or even the moon, after the sun is up?" III. THE KINGLY OFFICE OF CHRIST.

This is to be distinguished from the sovereignty which Christ originally possessed in virtue of his divine nature. Christ's kingship is the sovereignty of the divine-human Redeemer, which belonged to him of right from the moment of his birth, but which was fully exercised only from the time of his entrance upon the state of exaltation. By virtue of this kingly office, Christ rules all things in heaven and earth, for the glory of God and the execution of God's purpose of salvation.

(a) With respect to the universe at large, Christ's kingdom is a kingdom of power; he upholds, governs, and judges the world.

Ps. 2: 6-8-"I have set my king.... Thou art my son.... uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession"; 8:6-"madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet"; cf. Heb. 2:8, 9" we see not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold. . . . Jesus. . . . crowned with glory and honor "; Mat. 25:31, 32" when the Son of man shall come in his glory then shall he sit on the throne of his glory and before him shall be gathered all the nations"; 28: 18-"All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth"; Heb. 1:3-"upholding all things by the word of his power"; Rev. 19:15, 16 — "smite the nations .... rule them with a rod of iron.... King of Kings, and Lord of Lords."

:

....

Julius Müller, Proof-texts, 34, says incorrectly, as we think, that "the regnum naturæ of the old theology is unsupported, there are only the regnum gratia and the regnum gloriæ." A. J. Gordon: "Christ is now creation's sceptre-bearer, as he was once creation's burden-bearer."

(b) With respect to his militant church, it is a kingdom of grace; he founds, legislates for, administers, defends, and augments his church on earth.

Luke 2:11-"born to you.... a Savior, who is Christ the Lord "; 19: 38-"Blessed is the King that cometh in the name of the Lord"; John 18:36, 37-"My kingdom is not of this world.... Thou sayest it, for I am a king .... Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice"; Eph. 1: 22-"he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all ''; Heb. 1:8" of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever."

Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:677 (Syst. Doct., 4 : 142, 143 )—“All great men can be said to have an after-influence (Nachwirkung) after their death, but only of Christ can it be said that he has an after-activity (Fortwirkung). The sending of the Spirit is part of Christ's work as King." P. S. Moxom, Bap. Quar. Rev., Jan. 1886: 25-36—" Preëminence of Christ, as source of the church's being; ground of the church's unity; source of the church's law; mould of the church's life." A. J. Gordon: "As the church endures hardness and humiliation as united to him who was on the cross, s80 she should exhibit something of supernatural energy as united with him who is on the throne." Luther: "We tell our Lord God, that if he will have his church, he must look after it himself. We cannot sustain it, and, if we could, we should become the proudest asses under heaven. If it had been possible for pope, priest or minister to destroy the church of Jesus Christ, it would have been destroyed iong ago." Luther, watching the proceedings of the Diet of Augsburg, made a noteworthy discovery. He saw the stars bestud the canopy of the sky, and though there were no pillars to hold them up they kept their place and the sky fell not. The business of holding up the sky and its stars has been on the minds of men in all ages. But we do not need to provide props to hold up the sky. God will look after his church and after Christian doctrine. For of Christ it has been written in 1 Cor. 15: 25-"For he must reign, till he hath put all his enemies under his feet."

...

"Thrice blessed is he to whom is given The instinct that can tell That God is in the field when he Is most invisible." Since Christ is King, it is a duty never to despair of church or of the world. Dr. E. G. Robinson declared that Christian character was never more complete than now, nor more nearly approaching the ideal man. We may add that modern education, modern commerce, modern invention, modern civilization, are to be regarded as the revelations of Christ, the Light of the world, and the Ruler of the nations. All progress of knowledge, government, society, is progress of his truth, and a prophecy of the complete establishment of his kingdom.

(c) With respect to his church triumphant, it is a kingdom of glory; he rewards his redeemed people with the full revelation of himself, upon the completion of his kingdom in the resurrection and the judgment.

John 17:24 "Father, that which thou hast given me, I desire that where I am, they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory"; 1 Pet. 3:21, 22-"Jesus Christ; who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him "; 2 Pet. 1:11 - "thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." See Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer, preface, vi - “Rev. 1:6-'made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father. Both in the king and the priest, the chief thing is power, influence, blessing. In the king, it is the power coming downward; in the priest, it is the power rising upward, prevailing with God. As in Christ, so in us, the kingly power is founded on the priestly: Heb. 7:25 able to save to the uttermost, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession'."

Watts, New Apologetic, preface, ix-"We cannot have Christ as King without having him also as Priest. It is as the Lamb that he sits upon the throne in the Apocalypse; as the Lamb that he conducts his conflict with the kings of the earth; and it is from the throne of God on which the Lamb appears that the water of life flows forth that carries refreshing throughout the Paradise of God."

Luther: "Now Christ reigns, not in visible, public manner, but through the word, just as we see the sun through a cloud. We see the light, but not the sun itself. But when the clouds are gone, then we see at the same time both light and sun." We may close our consideration of Christ's Kingship with two practical remarks: 1. We never can think too much of the cross, but we may think too little of the throne. 2. We can not have Christ as our Prophet or our Priest, unless we take him also as our King. On Christ's Kingship, see Philippi, Glaubenslehre, IV, 2:342-351; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 586 sq.; Garbett, Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, 2:243-438; J. M. Mason, Sermon on Messiah's Throne, in Works, 3:241-275.

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.

VOLUME III.

CHAPTER II.

THE RECONCILIATION OF MAN TO GOD, OR THE
APPLICATION OF REDEMPTION THROUGH

THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

SECTION I. -THE APPLICATION OF CHRIST'S REDEMPTION
IN ITS PREPARATION.

(a) In this Section we treat of Election and Calling; Section Second being devoted to the Application of Christ's Redemption in its Actual Beginning,- namely, in Union with Christ, Regeneration, Conversion, and Justification; while Section Third has for its subject the Application of Christ's Redemption in its Continuation,-- namely, in Sanctification and Perseverance.

The arrangement of topics, in the treatment of the reconciliation of man to God, is taken from Julius Müller, Proof-texts, 35. "Revelation to us aims to bring about reve

Jation in us. In any being absolutely perfect, God's intercourse with us by faculty,

and by direct teaching, would absolutely coalesce, and the former be just as much God's voice as the latter" (Hutton, Essays).

(b) In treating Election and Calling as applications of Christ's redemption, we imply that they are, in God's decree, logically subsequent to that redemption. In this we hold the Sublapsarian view, as distinguished from the Supralapsarianism of Beza and other hyper-Calvinists, which regarded the decree of individual salvation as preceding, in the order of thought, the decree to permit the Fall. In this latter scheme, the order of decrees is as follows: 1. the decree to save certain, and to reprobate others; 2. the decree to create both those who are to be saved and those who are to be reprobated; 3. the decree to permit both the former and the latter to fall; 4. the decree to provide salvation only for the former, that is, for the elect. Richards, Theology, 302-307, shows that Calvin, while in his early work, the Institutes, he avoided definite statements of his position with regard to the extent of the atonement, yet in his latter works, the Commentaries, acceded to the theory of universal atonement. Supralapsarianism is therefore hyper-Calvinistic, rather than Calvinistic. Sublapsarianism was adopted by the Synod of Dort (1618, 1619). By Supralapsarian is meant that form of doctrine which holds the decree of individual salvation as preceding the decree to permit the Fall; Sublapsarian designates that form of doctrine which holds that the decree of individual salvation is subsequent to the decree to permit the Fall.

The progress in Calvin's thought may be seen by comparing some of his earlier with his later utterances. Institutes, 2:23:5-"I say, with Augustine, that the Lord created those who, as he certainly foreknew, were to go to destruction, and he did so because he so willed." But even then in the Institutes, 3:23:8, he affirms that "the perdition of the wicked depends upon the divine predestination in such a manner that the cause and matter of it are found in themselves. Man falls by the appointment of divine providence, but he falls by his own fault." God's blinding, hardening, turning the sinner he describes as the consequence of the divine desertion, not the divine causation. The relation of God to the origin of sin is not efficient, but permissive. In later days Calvin wrote in his Commentary on 1 John 2: 2-"he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, bat also for the whole world"-as follows: "Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world, and in the goodness of God is offered unto all men without distinction, his blood being shed not for a part of the world only, but for the whole human race; for although in the world nothing is found worthy of the favor of God, yet he holds out the propitiation to the whole world, since without exception he summons all to the faith of Christ, which is nothing else than the door unto hope."

Although other passages, such as Institutes, 3:21:5, and 3: 23:1, assert the harsher view, we must give Calvin credit for modifying his doctrine with maturer reflection and advancing years. Much that is called Calvinism would have been repudiated by Calvin himself even at the beginning of his career, and is really the exaggeration of his teaching by more scholastic and less religious successors. Renan calls Calvin "the most Christian man of his generation." Dorner describes him as "equally great in intellect and character, lovely in social life, full of tender sympathy and faithfulness to his friends, yielding and forgiving toward personal offences." The device upon his seal is a flaming heart from which is stretched forth a helping hand.

Calvin's share in the burning of Servetus must be explained by his mistaken zeal for God's truth and by the universal belief of his time that this truth was to be defended by the civil power. The following is the inscription on the expiatory monument which European Calvinists raised to Servetus: "On October 27, 1553, died at the stake at Champel, Michael Servetus, of Villeneuve d'Aragon, born September 29, 1511. Reverent and grateful sons of Calvin, our great Reformer, but condemning an error which was that of his age, and steadfastly adhering to liberty of conscience according to the true principles of the Reformation and of the gospel, we have erected this expiatory monument, on the 27th of October, 1903."

John DeWitt, in Princeton Theol. Rev., Jan. 1904: 95 "Take John Calvin. That fruitful conception -- more fruitful in church and state than any other conception which has held the English speaking world-of the absolute and universal sovereignty of the holy God, as a revolt from the conception then prevailing of the sovereignty of the human head of an earthly church, was historically the mediator and instaurator of his spiritual career." On Calvin's theological position, see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1: 409, note.

(c) But the Scriptures teach that men as sinners, and not men irrespective of their sins, are the objcets of God's saving grace in Christ ( John 15: 9; Rom. 11: 5, 7; Eph. 1:4-6; 1 Pet. 1:2). Condemnation, moreover, is an act, not of sovereignty, but of justice, and is grounded in the guilt of the condemned (Rom. 2: 6-11; 2 Thess. 1: 5-10). The true order of the decrees is therefore as follows: 1. the decree to create; 2. the decree to permit the Fall; 3. the decree to provide a salvation in Christ sufficient for the needs of all; 4. the decree to secure the actual acceptance of this salvation on the part of some,—or, in other words, the decree of Election.

That saving grace presupposes the Fall, and that men as sinners are the objects of it, appears from John 15: 19"If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you"; Rom. 11: 5-7-"Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. But if it is by grace, it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. What then? That which Israel seeketh for, that he obtained not; but the election obtained i and the rest were hardened." Eph. 1: 4-6-"even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved "; 1 Pet. 1: 2-elect, "according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctifica tion of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus: Grace to you and peace be multiplied."

That condemnation is not an act of sovereignty, but of justice, appears from Rom. 2: 6-9-"who will render to every man according to his works. . . . wrath and indignation. . . . upon every soul of man that worketh evil": 2 Thess. 1:6-9-"a righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that affict you ... rendering vengeance to them that know not God and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus: who shall suffer punishment." Particular persons are elected, not to have Christ die for them, but to have special influences of the Spirit bestowed upon them.

(d) Those Sublapsarians who hold to the Anselmic view of a limited Atonement, make the decrees 3. and 4., just mentioned, exchange places,the decree of election thus preceding the decree to provide redemption. The Scriptural reasons for preferring the order here given have been already indicated in our treatment of the extent of the Atonement (pages 771-773).

When '3' and '4' thus change places, '3' should be made to read: "The decree to provide in Christ a salvation sufficient for the elect "; and ‘4' should read: “ The decree that a certain number should be saved,- or, in other words, the decree of Election." Sublapsarianism of the first sort may be found in Turretin, loc. 4, quæs. 9; Cunningham, Hist. Theol., 416-439. A. J. F. Behrends: "The divine decree is our last word in theology, not our first word. It represents the terminus ad quem, not the terminus a quo. Whatever comes about in the exercise of human freedom and of divine grace-that God has decreed." Yet we must grant that Calvinism needs to be supplemented by a more express statement of God's ove for the world. Herrick Johnson: "Across the Westminster Confession could justly be written: 'The Gospel for the elect only.' That Confession was written under the absolute dominion of one idea, the doctrine of predestination. It does not contain one of three truths: God's love for a lost world; Christ's compassion for a lost world, and the gospel universal for a lost world."

I. ELECTION.

Election is that eternal act of God, by which in his sovereign pleasure, and on account of no foreseen merit in them, he chooses certain out of the number of sinful men to be the recipients of the special grace of his Spirit, and so to be made voluntary partakers of Christ's salvation.

1. Proof of the Doctrine of Election.

A. From Scripture.

We here adopt the words of Dr. Hovey: "The Scriptures forbid us to find the reasons for election in the moral action of man before the new birth, and refer us merely to the sovereign will and mercy of God; that is, they teach the doctrine of personal election." Before advancing to the proof of the doctrine itself, we may claim Scriptural warrant for three preliminary statements (which we also quote from Dr. Hovey), namely:

First, that "God has a sovereign right to bestow more grace upon one subject than upon another, grace being unmerited favor to sinners."

Mat. 20: 12-15-"These last have spent but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us . . . . Friend, I do thee no wrong. . . . Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" Rom. 9:20, 21 "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why didst thou make me thus? Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?"

Secondly, that "God has been pleased to exercise this right in dealing with men."

Ps. 147: 20-"He hath not dealt so with any nation; And as for his ordinances, they have not known them". Rom. 1,2-"What advantage then hath the Jew? or what is the profit of circumcision? Much every way: first of all, that they were intrusted with the oracles of God"; John 15: 16-"Ye did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that should ye go and bear fruit "; Acts 9: 15-"he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel."

Thirdly, that "God has some other reason than that of saving as many as possible for the way in which he distributes his grace.”