The question involves so many subordinate topics, all mutually complicated, that it would be difficult, almost impossible, in few words, to furnish an analysis of any discussion which is really argumentative. It is a chain in which ring follows ring in rapid, because close, concatenation, till the whole chain is completed. To those of our readers who may have the opportunity of perusing the volume, we recommend the careful study of these three lectures; especially if they be Ministers. In connexion with a clear understanding of law, should be a clear understanding of sanction: and if to this be added a clear understanding of evangelical remedy, in its nature, and method of application, then, if the heart be right with God, will the ministry be what it ought to be, awakening and arousing, in the first instance; and then, furnishing the definite, unmistakeable reply to the inquiry," What must I do to be saved?" Instead of endeavouring to analyze and condense the entire argument of Dr. Hamilton, we think we shall contribute more directly and largely to the profit of the general reader, by a few miscellaneous extracts from the three lectures. It will be seen that they illustrate particular portions of the argument. On the question respecting punishment, as a sanction of law, and therefore an instrument of government, Dr. Hamilton thus speaks Punishments, as they stand in connexion with our argument, respect the same subjects and the same principles as rewards. They belong to one government, and their existence in the light of sanctions, though they were never called for, is indispensable and essential to it. Whatever rectitude and benevolence can be in reward must be likewise in punishment. The law cannot know, in these alternations, different dispositions. The lawgiver cannot be directed by different motives. The government designs only good punishment, equally with reward, is a precautionary measure, a provision, to secure it. (Page 297.) That is, if reward as such, in its proper sense, not as the mere gift of good, be right, so also is punishment. Taken in their true nature, they stand on the same ground, issue from the same source, seek to secure the same object. Dr. Hamilton proceeds thus : We might ask, Why does God deal with men in government? But there are anterior questions, and not more presumptuous. Why did he make them reasonable, and, consequently, free? We dare not put the ultimate demand in its supposed tone of impiety. -: are his exact capacity to be happy. They give him the power of an indefinite rise and amelioration. Nor could any other system illustrate the principles of rectitude and purity which must be of infinite account. God must be known, that he may be glorified as God. "I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth for in these things I delight, saith the Lord." Moral government is their exercise. Besides, no reason can be stronger for the arrangement, so far as our mind is concerned, than the impossibility which every objector feels of suggesting any other. If men will challenge the right of the Creator to form such a race, upon them be the profane temerity of the protest. We are content to begin Moral goour inquiries with the existence of man, and challenge, with perfect confidence, the conceivableness of any differen scheme and regimen. "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus ?" "Shall thy work say, He hath no hands?" "Shall the thing framed say of him who framed it, He had no understanding?" The wise are satisfied to abide by final, though prescriptive, limitations. They yield to the fact which they cannot oppose. They obey the system of physical and moral subordination, of which they are a created part. They, however, do not merely forbear to gainsay what they cannot subvert. vernment admits of a clear defence and easy justification. None other means could make the creature so great. The faculties which render him accountable VOL. III.-FOURTH SERIES. But moral government is prepared, by 4 P its terms, for possible defection. It is no compulsory instrument for individual happiness. The best for all, the best for each, to prove itself this, it may be necessary to punish some. Though punitive infliction is no end of this government, it is its resource and alternative. A moral system is not frustrated, so long as it can enforce its sanctions. Always conditional, it is sustained while it keeps its conditions. With this only can it be occupied and charged. It must rest with Infinite Goodness whether it resort to any other method, either of se curing obedience from defection, or of retrieving the consequences of defection when it has taken place. (Page 298.) The continuance of this government, notwithstanding the provisions of redemption, is stated with brevity and Practically, every man is now placed under the original law; and so he would have been had there been no act of mercy. The forms of that law may be varied, but our responsibility is always the same. We believe that this act of mercy has respect to all men, and regards all whom it reaches as responsible for its believing welcome, redeeming them from the curse of the law which they have broken, recovering them to the dignity of the nature which they have debased, but force. leaving them morally accountable as they were before. What was their duty cannot be less their duty now. "Not as without law, but under the law to Christ." In whatever relation we stand to a sinful parentage, whatever may be its influence, yet guilt and depravity are personal considerations; for ourselves we stand or fall. Not doubting the transmission of sinful bias or disposition, we behold it in all as choice, as the operation of moral liberty. (Page 301.) Government is seen in the effects of sin, which are not less penal inflictions for being natural results, inasmuch as this shows that nature was originally constituted so as to be in itself a portion of the moral administration. Thus, in reference to man's spiritual nature :— Consciousness, memory, foreboding, may render needless and imperceptible any external infliction. Abandonment to itself, to its "vile affections," its pride, its envy, its malice, its mortification, its satiety, its vacancy,-fulfils its doom. "Sin is ever before it,"-in its freshest shame and first remorse. What more can justice, if it meditated the misery and destruction of its subjects, demand? A soul like man's in enmity against God, filled with hatred of every other soul, at variance with itself,-this is the torture-chamber, in which all the engines of agony are contained, and which the victim can never fly! What anguish can be compared with that of the spirit, when it grovels in shame, when it rouses in fury, when it lours in disappointment, when it pines in jealousy, when it stagnates in apathy, when it crouches in fear, when it congeals in despair? What arrows could be so sharp? What poisons could be so deadly? We must so think of it, that nothing of itself is concealed from it, and nothing of its state. The past burns in light to its remembrance, and yet yields no ray. The consciousness fills up its solitude, and yet finds no rest. It is alone with its thoughts and reproaches. It is surrounded by other minds alike wretched. It has no secret. It is explored and detected. Shame covers it. It is made known to all, and debarred the sympathy of any. There is nothing that it loves. There is nothing that loves it. It is in the outer darkness, that verge and confine of being, which is cheerlessly removed from every struggling beam of light, every meaner pittance of joy. "A wounded spirit who can bear?" An outcast spirit who can imagine? (Page 305.) Dr. Hamilton has well studied Butler. The whole doctrine of " Analogy" seems ever present, not so much to his outward gaze and view as to his inward consciousness, mixing itself with all the movements of his singularly-constituted mind. He is a poetical Butler. It would not have done for him to have written first. For the statement of the doctrine, and its firm establishment, the calm, intellectual, slow-moving, but correct and massy, thought of the good Bishop of Durham was necessary. But this being done, we are glad to have a volume like this, in which, as the author rather aims at the practical application, than the prior establishment, of truth, wider excursiveness and large variety are not only allowable, but proper. The logician has done his work. Logic, metaphysics, and poetry, may now be as usefully as agreeably combined. Of course, Dr. Hamilton does not say that sin has no other punishment than its own natural results. He argues against this. With as much force as solemnity, he proves the contrary. But he thus establishes the fact, that a government implying punishment is interwoven with the very nature of things, in their original and entire texture. His language on the references to these subjects in the teaching of our Lord is affectingly strong. It cannot escape our notice, it cannot but awaken our surprise, to find more terrible description and enforcement of future punishments in the teachings of Christ and of his Apostles, than in the former dispensation, where they might seem more appropriate. We are prepared for the blasts of the trumpet which rung out from the precipices of Sinai : for its "blackness, and darkness, and tempest. We are prepared for the curses of Ebal. When we enter this dispensation, we await the meekness and gentleness of Christ. We expect an infinite tenderness, and we find it in him. He pleads to weeping: he agonizes to blood. Yet what voice ever told so much of hell? He reiterates illustration after illustration: he heaps image upon image: he adds warning to warning. In one of his discourses there is a departure, when urging a terrible retribution, from his accustomed style of address. An emphasis and collocation the most perfectly rhetorical, the true sublime, prevail. The repetitions roll along as successive and loudening thunder-peals. "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out; it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." And who is He? The Judge of the rebel-angels, the Judge of all men,the First and the Last, the Living Being, the I AM,-whose goings were of old, from everlasting, having perfect knowledge of every realm and province of the universe, the height and the depth,-the Controller of all events, the Proprietor of all worlds, the Lord of all spirits, His words must be true! And he stamps such distinctness upon these fearful revelations for two causes, -to prove the greatness of redemption, by showing that from which it delivers us; and to urge, by the solemn motive of consequences, all to take hold upon its blessings. (Page 319.) With one more extract,-and that one of a most important character,we are obliged, by having filled up our allotted space, to close our series of quotations from this valuable work. After having shown that punishment is so, in the proper sense of the term, as establishing the perfect righteousness of the Sovereign Ruler, and not disciplinary and corrective, Dr. Hamilton reminds us that the Gospel itself partakes of this administrative character, possessing similar sanctions, and enforced by similar motives. He says: We may be reminded that the sacrifice of Christ is the vindication of justice, and that this satisfies all its claims. The statement, imperfect as it is, may pass. The idea wholly approves itself to us. We regard the atonement as universal in its aspect, though rather related to the government and law of God, than to us. It is the act of God alone: "Be hold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." It is his method of clearing himself,-his sacrifice to truth and righteousness,-yet always with the design of laying a foundation for the consistent pardon of sin, and for the honourable acceptance of the sinner. We believe, but for this act, that God could have stood in no covenant with man: that probation must have ceased: that hope must have perished: that the whole system, embracing the present interests of our nature, must have come to an end. We look upon it as a great legislative measure, by which patience and long-suffering towards sinners are explained, by which the necessity of immediate punishment is arrested, by which the moral scheme is extended and secured. It is his own self-vindication. He sets himself right with the universe. He establishes the justice of his conduct. He shows the utmost displeasure against sin, in the manner, and as the groundwork, of his mercy. All this, however, has nothing to do with the title of the sinner to forgiveness. That rests on "the faithful saying," "the record which God hath given of his Son, that we may believe ;" upon "the commandment of the everlasting God for the obedience of faith." The Gospel, the only warrant of faith, proceeds in a moral way, with sanctions. "He that believeth shall be saved: he that believeth not shall be damned." Any view of the atonement which gives it an occult, unconscious influence, which assigns to it a perforce, necessary effect, is most contrary to every principle of revealed truth. Man is placed in most favourable circumstances by it. There is hope for him. Mercy addresses him. The general course of events is directed to his welfare. Wrath forbears to strike. Judgment tarries. But this is all. The Gospel can insure no saving effect, but through a moral influence and medium. It informs all men that they are perishing. This state of wretchedness it finds, and did not cause. It is equally true, whether it had addressed men or not. Its doctrine is reconciliation. The bright orb of its mercy may just touch the outer edge, the penumbra, of that dark shadow which covers man, but is never immersed in it. Nothing is to be done to reconcile the Creator; this he has done and expressed by the atonement. He has taken care -a solemnly jealous care-of his character and government, ere he did move, or could move, towards the reconcilement of man. Now man is entreated to be reconciled unto God. The appeal is to him, as reasonable and accountable; and not the less because of his guilt and de He pravity. In believing he has life. He It was to be expected that, writing not only on such subjects, but on such a variety of subjects, Dr. Hamilton should sometimes not only employ expressions, but state opinions, with which we by no means coincide. As an honest man, too, he would write according to those denominational views which, in some important respects, so widely differ from our own. But we have not thought it necessary to pause at these. Where there is so much with which we agree, and where the denominational views are so well known, and have been so often the subjects of controversy, both parties perhaps thinking that the victory was once more secured by themselves, there was no occasion for polemic observation, especially as they are never stated with unkindness, even where we think that they are erroneously explained or understood. Spots seem to belong to the sun; but we are perfectly satisfied with referring only to what we willingly acknowledge to be brightness. Dr. Hamilton is not merely a well-meaning, but also a well-executing, author; and while he will have readers of all classes, his principal readers will be those of his own. We refer, in these observations, to some remarks by Cicero, which, for their truthfulness and quiet sarcasm, have never been surpassed. They occur in the third chapter of the first book of the Tusculan Questions. He says, substantially, that many books have been inconsiderately written by very excellent, but not sufficiently well-informed, men, whose notions may be generally correct, but who know not how to express them properly. He adds, that for such persons, who can neither rightly arrange nor illustrate the subject, so as to give pleasure to their readers, to publish their cogitations, is an unreasonable abuse both of time and letters; stating it as his opinion, that they will only have readers like themselves, who, perhaps, have some intention of doing the same thing.* These lectures have nothing of this sort about them. The expression and method are as good as the subject, and all of the highest order. Dr. Hamilton has well occupied his time in composing them; and the press never was employed for a better purpose than in publishing them. The extracts we have given, even should the reader have no opportunity of perusing the entire volume, will demonstrate, that fully to enter into the argument will require no common degree of intellectual power, as fully to relish the copiousness and beauty of the style will demand no small share both of intelligence and imagination. The best informed reader will be profited; and they who are less so can scarcely go through the volume without elevation and improvement. If, by reading it, any persons of similar ability are stimulated to the composition of works of like value, our obligation to the Lecturer will be all the greater. Nor will they be less, if the well-meaning, but only moderately-gifted, are, by a sense of what such undertakings require, seeing that even Dr. Hamilton can never rise higher than his subject, prevented from attempting that in which they have no right to expect to succeed. We will only add, referring to the "Congregational Lecture" generally, that one excellence which it possesses, outweighing greater deficiencies than any we may have detected, is, that each part of the series furnishes an answer to the question, “What shall I do to be saved?" They give us a genuine, evangelical Protestantism. Would we could say the same of some other series,-of the "Bampton Lecture," for instance,noted as it may be for learning and orthodoxy! * In quo eo magis nobis est elaborandum, quod multi jam esse Latini libri dicuntur scripti inconsideratè ab optimis illis quidem viris, sed non satis eruditis. Fieri autem potest, ut rectè quis sentiat, et id, quod sentit, politè eloqui non possit. Sed mandare quemquam litteris cogitationes suas, qui eas nec disponere, nec illustrare possit, nec delectatione aliqua allicere lectorem, hominis est intemperanter abutentis et otio et litteris. Itaque suos libros ipsi legunt cum suis, nec quisquam attingit, præter eos, qui eandem licentiam scribendi sibi permitti volunt.—Quæst. Tuscul. lib. i., cap. 3. There is indeed nothing new under the sun. This was the case when there was no "press," and when books had to be copied out for publication! |