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DEBT AND GRACE.

CHAPTER I.

THE DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE.

"What is Man, that Thou art mindful of him?"

WHAT is man in his essential nature? and what is his relation to God, to his government, and to an eternal world? What principles, of justice and honor, of goodness and grace, determine the relations of God to man? What does God owe to man, and what does man owe to God? What claim of human character entitles man, or what demand of divine law appoints him, to existence without end? Is immortality God's debt, or his gift? Or may it be either? And if a debt, is it due to man's nature, or to his conduct, good or bad? Whence does eternity become man's own?

What is man? Respecting his nature and constitution there are various questions, not essential, yet very important, to be answered. Is the human personality simple, or complex? What are the mutual relations of soul and body? Is immortality a native vigor of man's being, or a life to be sustained by adventitious aids? What is the divine image in which man was created? Is it still retained, or was it lost in the Fall? Man was made a little lower than the angels; what is now the rank and order of his being? What is the dignity of man, either in his proper nature, or in the character he may form? Does it com- . pel him to become either angel or fiend, or is it peculiar to himself as man?

These questions are all asked in one other: Is man's immortality contingent, or absolute? Was man created strictly immortal, or as a candidate for immortality? Is this his destiny, or his privilege? Is it the stamp of his very being, or is it the sign of his maturity? Is it the retribution, either of holiness or of sin, or is it the gift of divine favor? Is it of law, in the economy either of natural or moral government? or is it of grace, and never to be charged as debt, though the offered boon should be refused and come to naught? And if it be of grace, and be so regarded by men, is Eternal Life more likely to be rejected and scorned, or Redeeming Love to be abused, or are the ranks of the blessed likely to be less full, or later filled, or God's plans to be frustrated, and the harmony of the world to be deranged?

Postponing the discussion of these fears until the truth shall be determined, we propose first to show that the dignity of man is not impaired, but enhanced, when we regard him as invited, not compelled, to be immortal.

§ 1. THE RATIONALIST THEORY.

We here reckon as Rationalists not only those modern Neologists who reject an alleged revelation of immortality, but all who rest the soul's immortality upon metaphysical or logical proofs, as if they were sufficient without a revelation. The rationalist theory seeks a general law of human immortality,—a necessity or nature of things, as distinct from the free methods of divine action. It subordinates the moral argument for an after life to the ontological. It regards the former as valid only to show the condition of the individual, in the immortality which he shares with the race. It infers the after life from an essence or a nature rather than from a character.

This theory, preferring the laws of nature to the assurances of its Author, consistently seeks man's dignity in what he must be; that is, in a destiny. The adornments of virtue and holiness, and the attainment of heavenly glory, may enhance this dignity; but they do not constitute it. It may be tarnished by vice and

sin, or obscured by the darkness of an eternal doom; but it is not destroyed. If man can not altogether die, though his powers may be ever so much impaired, yet, as a moral being, he retains an imperishable dignity. If the first man was "a son of God," so are all men; and they may ever claim this honor, however remote the descent from the common Father, and how far soever removed from likeness to Him. They may be bankrupt in virtue; still they are rich in the inheritance of ages. They may be decrepid with vice; but the centuries of their being are countless. They may be hoary with guilt; but He who made them shall not outlive them. Their being may be worthless, and worse, to themselves; but they are immortal; and however mean the place they hold in the universe, they may not be dispossessed of it even by the King of kings.

The early history of the rationalist theory is evidently Platonic. Plato himself regarded the soul as not only immortal, but a divine essence; and because divine, it was preëxistent and eternal. And the Jew Philo, speaking in the manner of Plato of the idea of man, says that the breath of life was nothing less than a breath of God, and that the soul of man was produced from nothing created, but from the Father and Ruler of all.1 This view was first tolerated in the Christian church in the person of a remarkable man in the fifth century, Synesius. His personal history is interesting for the struggles he endured in exchanging some of his philosophic views for the faith of Christ. Bred in the Platonic school, but by his natural temper an eclectic, he had been attracted by the peculiar virtues of the Christians. While yet far from Christ, he sought relief from the bondage of sin, in prayer. But he looked for the cause of his bondage, in a foreign element, the gross earthly matter by which the heavenly essence was detained as in a prison, and not in any corruption of the inward nature. He prayed, not to Him who appeared in lowliness, as a Redeemer from death, but to the "purifying God," enthroned on high. His prayer was heard, and answered in wisdom not his own; by severe duties and trials

1 De Mundi Opificio. Opp. I. 32, ed. Mangey.

he was brought, at length, to hear the glowing words of Chrysostom and to the profession of Christ in baptism. For his amiable qualities and the hopes of his usefulness, he was offered the bishopric of Ptolemais, in Cyrene, which he accepted with great reluctance, avowing his dissent from several of the characteristic doctrines of the Christians. "I shall never be able to persuade myself," said he, "that my soul is younger than my body; or to say that the world, and all things in it, will perish. As to the Resurrection, of which so much is said, I regard it as a sacred doctrine, one of the secret things; I am far from approving the common opinions respecting it." 1

His views of the nature of man appear in one of his Hymns, from which the following is a translation:

"Eternal Mind, thy seedling spark

Through this thin vase of clay,
Athwart the waves of chaos dark
Emits a timorous ray!

"This mind-enfolding soul is sown,
Incarnate germ, in earth;
In pity, blessed Lord, then own

What claims in Thee its birth!

"Far forth from Thee, thou central fire,

To earth's sad bondage cast,

Let not the trembling spark expire,

Absorb thine own at last!" 2

The same sentiment appears in a well known modern poem:

"The soul, of origin divine,

God's glorious image, freed from clay,
In heaven's eternal sphere shall shine,
A star of day!

"The sun is but a spark of fire,

A transient meteor in the sky;
The soul, immortal as its Sire,.
Shall never die."

The poetry might have been as harmless as it is beautiful, if

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it had not become philosophy and theology. But such it has become, and still remains. An able writer says of Synesius: "The old aristocratic intellectualism of the heathen world reigns in him to the last; but a kind heart often gets the better of philosophic pride, and he has much more of the Christian in him than the name." 1

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But even Synesius seems to confess, for once, the paramount importance of the Redemption, and, in one of his letters, to assert this as the ground of man's dignity. "Man is a creature of high worth; and he is such because Christ was crucified for him." 2 And here we are bold to say that throughout the Scriptures the dignity of man is based on the work of Christ, and nothing else. It was lost, from the moment of the Fall. Man's glory then departed. The race became culprit, under sentence of death. The common opinion that in the absence of a Redemption the race would have utterly perished in Adam, is a concession that man's whole being and all its glory is due to Christ; and it is simply consistent to say that his immortality was from the first contingent and not absolute, and that out of Christ he still has no immortality.

The characteristic of this theory is that it finds man's dignity in what he may be. His immortal life is not a destiny, but a privilege. It may have been also a birth-right; but, once forfeited, it is due to Him by whom it is recovered. Whatever the "divine image may have signified, it claimed the attention and regard of God, no longer than it was cherished by man. Did it denote holiness? it was lost in the act of sin. Was it a capacity for holiness, a moral and responsible nature? it was

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1 Brit. Quar. Review, 1853, Art. Neo-Platonism; Hypatia. (Eclectic Mag., Nov. 1853.) Compare Neander, Memorials of Christian Life, Part II., c. 1, whence our account is mainly derived.

2 So Neander takes the words, Τίμιον ζῶον ὁ ἄνθρωπος· τίμιον γάρ, εἰ δι' abτòv ¿σTavρúon Xpitós (Ep. 57). Yet they will bear another sense, making the actual dignity of man the reason of Christ's death; which is the rationalist theory.

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