Opening Statements.

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has done incalculable service to the cause of truth; while, in declining all skirmish for mere outposts in detail, he has forced the tide of battle straight to the adverse citadel, and pulled out, we believe, irreplaceably, its twofold foundation. We gratefully recognise the first half of this service as accomplished by his "Examination of Maurice's Theological Essays." The achievement of the second we as gladly hail in the volume now before us.

We would not, however, be understood as welcoming this inaugural course of the Cunningham Lectureship mainly in the light of a contribution to controversial or polemical theology. It is chiefly as a contribution in the discussion of positive Christian doctrine that we think it eminently valuable; and it is in this light that Dr Candlish himself desires it to be regarded.

"The subject which I have chosen, with concurrence of the council, is the Fatherhood of God. It is a subject which might be handled in a great variety of ways, according to the different points of view, and the different aims of those handling it. My object is chiefly a practical one. It is to bring out the import and bearing of the Scriptural doctrine respecting the Fatherhood of God, as an influential element in Christian experience."-(Pp. 4, 5.)

Nor does he consider himself-and in this also we concur with him as introducing any novelty into Christian Theology. "The doctrines which I advocate are not, in my opinion, novel doctrines; I would be sorry to think that they were. I may have put some points more sharply, and pushed a certain line of thought more boldly, than some may be quite prepared to approve. I am persuaded that I have really advanced nothing which may not be found, if not categorically asserted, at least fairly implied, in the writings of orthodox and evangelical divines, both of earlier and of later times."-(P. vi.)

Moreover, while admitting that our author has pushed his line of thought somewhat boldly, it is a boldness which we are not prepared to reprehend; recognising at once the vigour and the modesty of true Christian genius in the estimate which the author announces of his self-imposed task on its completion:"I now bring these lectures to a close. I do so with the feeling that, however inadequately I have handled my great theme, I have at least thrown out some suggestive thoughts. I do not pretend to have established any peculiar views of my own. Very possibly not a few of the opinions I have advanced, and the criticisms by which I have supported them, may be shewn to be crude conjectures and unwarrantable interpretations. Be it so. I shall still cherish the hope that more competent workmen may enter into my demolished labour, and may rear a better structure.--(P. 282.)

"I have endeavoured to lend some help in the way of, as it were,

breaking ground. Some of the thoughts I have ventured to throw out may seem to some critics to be nothing better than speculations. But I hope it will be admitted that none of them touch the foundations of the sacred temple of truth, or displace any of its stones. What I have advanced may, perhaps, in the long run and in other hands, add some features of symmetry and beauty to the structure, and even strengthen some of its buttresses. But all the old glory remains untarnished; all the old refuges for the weary and the lost are as open and as secure as ever.

"I thoroughly believe that the line of inquiry which I have been tracing is as safe as I think it will prove to be interesting for any one who will prosecute it with due reverence, docility, and humility of spirit. I commend the subject to the study of younger and fresher minds."-(P. 287.)

But if Dr Candlish regards himself as having somewhat boldly presented truths fairly implied, though it may be not categorically asserted, in the writings of orthodox and evangelical divines, he adds, as justifying both the choice of his subject and his way of handling it :

'But I am also persuaded that in the interest of a sound faith, and in the view of presently prevailing error, it is of some consequence that the aspects of theology which I have endeavoured to present should be more unequivocally and prominently elevated into a conspicuous place of their own, than they have been in some of our systems."-(P. vi.)

And again, more fully, at the close of the lectures :—

"For I cannot divest myself of the impression that, whether I am right or wrong in my notions of the Divine Fatherhood, the subject has not hitherto been adequately treated in the church.

"In particular, I venture on a critical observation touching the theology of the Reformation. The subject of adoption, or the sonship of Christ's disciples, did not, in that theology, as it seems to me, occupy the place and receive the prominency to which it is, on scriptural grounds and warrants, entitled. It may be thought at first sight presumptuous to hazard this remark; but let the explanation which I am disposed to give of the fact be duly considered. The Reformers* had enough to do to vindicate the article of a standing or falling church,'-justification by faith alone; to recover it out of the chaos

"Why has the subject of Adoption-so rich and fertile in fine thought and feeling, so susceptible also of beautiful theological treatment-been so little investigated and illustrated? It belongs to the category of relative grace, and forms the sweet complement and sparkling crown of Justification by faith. On justification by faith we have abundant and most precious authorship: for around that doctrine and privilege the great battle of controversy as to relative grace has raged. But the conquerors seem to have paused, exhausted, or contented with the victory. Ought it not rather to commend the subject of adoption, that it may be treated apart from controversy? Certain it is, however, that a good treatise on Adoption-such as should at once do justice to the fine theology of the question, and to the precious import of the privilege—is a desideratum."-Christ's Presence in the Gospel History, p. 80.

The Subject hitherto inadequately discussed.

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of popish error and superstition; and to reassert it in its right connection with the doctrine of the absolute Divine Sovereignty which Augustine had so well established. Their hands were full. It need not be matter of surprise that in their case, as well as in that of their predecessors, the early fathers, their should have been lines of theological inquiry on which they scarcely at all entered.

"One might almost say that it has fared somewhat ill with the truth, as regards God's fatherhood and his people's sonship, at both eras-both in the primitive church and in the church of the Reformation. It may, perhaps, in some respects, have had more justice done to it at the former era than at the latter; although the patristic literature shews too plainly how the controversies about the supreme divinity of the Son tended to draw men's minds away from the sonship of his disciples. The divines of the Protestant Reformation and their successors gave their main strength to the questions at issue between them and Rome; of which questions this could scarcely be said to be one. The creeds and confessions of the Protestant and Reformed Churches, as well as the theological systems of their colleges, are for the most part extremely meagre and defective in what they say on the subject. In some it is not even noticed; in others, it is made a part of justification, or a mere appendix to it; in none, I believe, does it receive sufficiently full and distinct treatment. Hence perhaps it is that the doctrine of the fatherhood has been so little understood and so much abused in recent days.

"I have long had the impression, that in the region of that great truth their lies a rich field of precious ore, yet to be surveyed and explored; and that somewhere in that direction, theology has fresh work to do, and fresh treasures to bring out of the storehouse of the divine word. For I am not one of those who would lay an arrest on progress in the science of divinity, and compel it to be stationary. I would not, indeed, be disposed to reopen discussions which, after ample investigation, under the useful and, perhaps, necessary pressure of controversy, have been satisfactorily closed; or to unsettle the conclusions to which the churches have harmoniously come on the vital and cardinal articles of the faith. I do not call for any revision of our creeds, confessions, and catechisms. By all means let them stand untouched; as monuments of the vast erudition and mental power of other days, and as safeguards of truth and bulwarks against error for ages yet to come. But it is no disparagement to these symbols to say of them that they do not exhaust the whole volume of revelation; for that is simply saying that the compilers were uninspired men, and that the riches of Christ are unsearchable.'

"Take our own books, for instance, our Confession and Catechisms. I never have had any scruple to affirm that their statements on the subject of adoption are by no means satisfactory. No doubt all that they say is true; but it amounts to very little. The answer in the Shorter Catechism is really, in substance, scarcely anything more than that adoption is adoption. In the other documents, the matter is handled more fully, and some of the privileges of the children of God are enumerated. Still even in them the whole matter is left in the last degree vague and indefinite. And no information whatever is

given, nor is any opinion expressed, as to how the relation of sonship is constituted, or as to what its precise nature is.

"The contrast is very remarkable in this respect, between their treatment of the subject of adoption, and their treatment of all the other topics connected with the purchase and application of redemp tion, plainly shewing, as I cannot but conclude, that while they had fully matured their views and made up their minds upon these last,— and were, in fact, quite at home in them,-they were very much at sea as to the former.

"I hold them, therefore, to have virtually left the whole of that department of theology which bears on God's paternal relation to his people, and their filial relation to him, an entirely open question,-a perfect tabula rasa,-so far as any verdict or deliverance of theirs is concerned. I consider that we have the fullest liberty to sink new shafts in this mine, which they evidently had not explored, if only we take care that our diggings shall do no damage to any of the far more important mines which they did explore,-and. explored so thoroughly and so well."-(Pp. 282-287.)

Now, we may not be able to go so far as Dr Candlish does in affirming that the whole of this department of theology has been left, by the divines of the Reformation and their successors, an entirely open question-a perfect tabula rasa. The Westminster Standards, for instance, do face the question of Adoption, in the Confession and in both the Catechisms. They set forth the privilege of adoption as an inseparable constituent among the benefits which those that are effectually called partake of in this life and throughout eternity; they trace it to its source in the sovereignty and grace of God; they enter somewhat fully and minutely into the details of what it infers or carries with it; and they connect it in some way with the person and work of Christ. But as to any scientifically theological treatment of the doctrine, such as they have so conclusively and exhaustively bestowed on the question of Justification by faith, we entirely agree with Dr Candlish in thinking that there is here a very remarkable contrast. Of the ground or grounds of this privilege and relation we find in them absolutely nothing, save the vaguest and most general reference, as we have said, to the person of Christ-a reference which Christian theology could not fail in some form to make, and could not make in a form more unsatisfactory. Of God's procedure in constituting the relation, they leave us in complete ignorance. On the believer's action in apprehending it, they are equally silent. Of the connection between adoption and regeneration, they tell us nothing. And as to what relation or connection subsists between the Sonship of Christ and the sonship of his people, they do not even raise the topic. But assuredly these are just the aspects of the question which it behoves Theology, as a science, to face, discuss, settle,

Calvin, Luther, Chalmers.

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and formulate. And hence we do not wonder at the somewhat vigorous language in which Dr Candlish asserts that this has not been done. It is precisely those aspects and elements of the question which render it attractive to the specifically theological mind, as distinguished from the simply Christian consciousness, which have been neglected. And as scientific theology finds its highest function in ministering to Christian life, it has come to pass that in general Christian literature, as well as in treatises on theology proper, this subject has been very sparingly and unsatisfactorily dealt with. It is a topic belonging to the category of relative grace—that is, grace of relational position towards God; and theology proper did not break ground, in the discharge of its calling, in this department, before the Reformation. The theology of the Nicene and ante-Nicene fathers was occupied with the questions of the Trinity and of the person of Christ. The theology of Augustine exhausted itself in dealing with the question of real as contrasted with relative grace; or to state it otherwise, with subjective grace as distinguished from grace of relation. And when the great question of man's relation to God through grace, in the redemption that is in Christ, came to be so intensely discussed, and with such invaluable results, between the great theologians of the Reformation and the Church of Rome, every one knows that the platform of the contest was the Articula stantis vel cadent's ecclesiæ, justification by faith alone. And hence, historically, it has happened that the theologians of the Reformation, to whose hands for the first time this topic, as one of grace relational, did so naturally lie, were, through great and urgent pre-occupation, as naturally indisposed towards fully and categorically dealing with it. That they have not so dealt with it is known to all who are familiar with their writings. CALVIN, in his Institutes, devotes neither chapter nor section to its discussion, though we have little doubt that, as we shall shew, he held the positive doctrine of Dr Candlish's lectures, and would have formulated the same views had the subject been formally placed before him. We may remark, in passing, that, in CHALMERS'S Institutes, the subject of Adoption is still more completely ignored. LUTHER-not a great authority as a systematic theologian-had nevertheless a fine opportunity, in his Commentary on Galatians, of bringing out his views on Adoption, if they had been at all matured. There is not a richer passage in holy Scripture on the sonship of believers than the continuous paragraph, chap. iii. 26-iv. 7 inclusive. It is almost a complete theological deliverance on the subject. And how does Luther deal with it? Let any one read his thirty-six pages of comment, and say whether it be not over