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not inquire whether all this is to be interpreted literally, or by the common figure of speech called hyperbole.

In the sixth and last case, he lays down the New Testament law of love to our enemies, with a reference to what had gone before precisely similar to those in the other cases: "Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy." Now, it would seem that these preceding cases, especially the third, in which undeniably he revokes what had been previously allowed, ought, if other evidence were wanting, to govern the interpretation of this one. For, although the latter clause of what "was said" does not occur in the Old Testament, yet it does not seem to be a strained or unfair summary of such passages as the following: "Remember what Amalek did unto thee in the way when ye came forth out of Egypt; how he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, all the feeble ones behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven: thou shalt not forget it. ..... An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to the tenth generation ..... forever: because they met you not with bread and water by the way when ye came forth out of Egypt, and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor ..... to curse thee .... Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their good all thy days forever." All this, no doubt, was indispensable to secure that rigorous sequestration of the covenant people from the influence of the heathen without which the great object for which they had been called out of the world could not be accomplished. But is it in accordance with New Testament light that they should be thus enjoined to cherish from generation to generation the memory of the injuries which they had received from these neighboring and kindred tribes? Is not the appeal here made to this motive in order to secure the result

as palpable an accommodation to their low moral condition which rendered them unsusceptible of higher and purer motives, as that freedom of divorce which Moses allowed, and which Christ abrogated? Hence he proceeds to deal with this case precisely as he had dealt with that, and with all the others: "Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth his rain on the just and on the unjust."

The practical consequences of the views which have now been presented are very numerous and far-reaching; but our prescribed limits exclude them. We can only add, in conclusion, that no objection to the method we have employed in dealing with these moral difficulties of the Old Testament can have any force or validity which does not offer a more satisfactory solution of them, and which does not invalidate the evidence here given that this was the method adopted by the Lord himself. Until this is done, we may safely rest in the conclusion that the moral light of the New Testament is superior to that of the Old, and that whatever there may be in the latter which is not in perfect harmony with the teaching of Christ is to be explained by the unripeness of the times, and is to be corrected, as he sets us the example of correcting it, by the perfect light of his own words and gospel.

ARTICLE IV.

PRESIDENT FINNEY'S SYSTEM OF THEOLOGY IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE SO-CALLED NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY.

BY REV. GEORGE F. WRIGHT, ANDOVER, MASS.

Ir any excuse is required for an extended discussion of the system of theology1 elaborated by the late President of Oberlin College, it will be found, we trust, mainly in the merits of the system itself. His scheme of theology and ethics is also worthy of the attention of thoughtful men, because it is so great a present factor in the theological thought of this country.

President Finney had under his personal instruction in systematic theology four hundred and seventy-five young men, the most of whom are now in active pastoral labor, and many of whom are instructors in the numerous colleges at the West. In addition, more than a thousand members of the advanced classes in the college have been thoroughly instructed in his system of moral philosophy; and, to say nothing of his general labors as a revivalist, his regular preaching to the undergraduates for forty years (from 1835 to 1875) was so surcharged with philosophy and doctrine that the eighteen thousand of that class who felt its power cannot fail to have been more or less moulded thereby. Furthermore, two editions of his Systematic Theology a book of a thousand pages octavo, and selling at a high price-have been ex1 "Lectures on Systematic Theology, embracing Moral Government, the Atonement, Moral and Physical Depravity, Natural, Moral, and Gracious Ability, Repentance, Faith, Justification, Sanctification, etc. By the Rev. Charles G. Finney, Professor of Theology in the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, Ohio, America. The whole work revised, enlarged, and partly re-written by the Author. Edited and revised with an Introduction by the Rev. George Redford, D.D., LL.D., of Worcester. London: William Tegg and Co. 1851. pp. xviii and 996." Our references will all be to this edition.

hausted, and are in the hands of appreciative students. If this system of thought, already so thoroughly disseminated, is fundamentally erroneous, it is worth while for religious teachers to understand its principles, that they may know how to counteract its influence. In the writer's own mind, subsidiary reasons for this paper are, to point out some minor errors in the system; to show wherein it is in special danger of being misapprehended by those accustomed to a different nomenclature from that of the author; and to illustrate the fact that great minds are likely to differ more in the words which express their ideas than in the ideas themselves.

I. On the Purposes of God.

In the outset, it should, and can easily, be made to appear that President Finney is distinctively Calvinistic. "The essential Calvinistic tenet is that of the divine purposes." "1 That is the shibboleth of Calvinism. It is in point to ask first, if our author pronounces this correctly, and without hesitation or timidity. The purposes of God have regard both to ends and means; his purposes are both ultimate and proximate. And

"If he [God] purpose to realize an end, he must, of course, purpose the necessary means for its accomplishment.”

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"There must be some sense in which God's purposes extend to all events. This is evident from reason. His plan must, in some sense, include all actual events. He must foreknow all events by a law of necessity. This is implied in his omniscience. He must have matured and adopted his plan in view of, and with reference to, all events. He must have had some purpose or design respecting all events that he foresaw. All events transpire in consequence of his own creating agency; that is, they all result in some way, directly or indirectly, either by his design or sufferance, from his own agency. He either designedly brings them to pass, or suffers them to come to pass without interposing to prevent them. He must have known that they would occur. He must have either positively designed that they should, or, knowing that they would result from the mistakes or selfishness of his creatures, negatively designed not to prevent them. ..... He cannot be indifferent to any event. He knows all events, and must have some purpose or design respecting them."3

1 Prof. H. B. Smith in American Theological Review for 1865, p. 127.
Finney, Systematic Theology, p. 812.
3 Ibid., p. 815.

It may be necessary to observe, at this point, that we are aiming in this Article to present the degree of philosophical consistency with which President Finney held the high doctrines of evangelical religion. It is appropriate for us, therefore, to limit ourselves to his metaphysical principles and arguments. In all cases he goes "to the law and to the testimonies" for his positive doctrines; and a large part of his volume consists in a compilation and elucidation of the passages of Scripture which set forth, imply, and illustrate those doctrines. Furthermore, that Mr. Finney did not regard his views upon the distinctive points of Calvinism to be of small importance is evident, both from the extent and vigor of his treatment of them (one hundred and fifty pages of his Systematic Theology, included in the "etc." of the title, being devoted to election, reprobation, divine sovereignty, purposes of God, and perseverance of saints), and from an interesting passage of his Memoirs, recently published. It seems that during the period of his second revival labors in England Mr. Finney was invited to preach in the "Evangelical Union" churches of Scotland. The Rev. J. Kirk, with whom he labored in Edinburgh, was also editor of a religious paper, and professor in a theological school of Glasgow. This gentleman entertained the belief that Mr. Finney's views were identical with his own and with those of the theological seminary in which he was a teacher, and so represented it in his paper. Mr. Finney says that by this means he found himself in a "false position," since he did not agree with them in their peculiar views. Among other things, he remarks that they explained away in a manner to him utterly unintelligible the doctrine of election. It was largely on account of this that as soon as opportunity offered he cut short his labors with them.

But for an author's views concerning the purposes of God, we must examine the manner in which he elaborates subordinate points. We turn, therefore, to his views

1 Memoirs of Rev. Charles G. Finney, written by himself (New York, 1876), p. 477. See pp. 455-458.

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