Nor may they be thought to have been indiUcrcnt to the relations of thchigli doctrine o( the Divine purpose they were teaching. There v. no scholastic determination here cither; but ceruinly thev write without embarrassment as men who have attained a linn grasp upon their fundaiiienul thought and have pursued it with clearness of thinking, no less in its relations than in itself ; nor need we go astray in apprehending the outlines of their construction. It is quite plain, for example, that they felt no confusion with respect to the relation of the Divine purpose to tiie Divine foreknowledge. The notion that the almighty and all-wise Uml, by whom all things were created, and through whose irresistible control all that occurs fulfils the »ppointnienl of His primal plan, could govern Himself according to a foreknowledge of things which— perhaps apart from His original purpose or present guidance— i/iiynt haply come to pa»s, would have been quite contradictory to their most fundamenUil conception of Uod as the ainiightyand all-sovereign Ruler of the universe, and, inclee<l, also of the whole OT idea of the Divine foreknowledge itself, » hiuli is ever thought of in its due relation of depenilence on the Divine purpose. According to the OT conception, Ood foreknows only because He has pre- delennined. and it is therefore also that He brings it to pass; His foreknowledge, in other worda, is at bottom a knowledge of His own will, and His works of proviilence are merely the execution of His all-embracing plan. This is the truth that underlies the somewhat incongruous form of statement of late becoming rather frequent, to the effect that Uod's foreknow- ledge is conceived in the OT as ' productive.' Dillmann, for example, says (AT Theologie, p. 251): ' His forekno%vledge of the future is a productive one ; of on otiose foreknowledge or of a jmrgfienria infilia . . . there is no suggestion.' In the thought of the oT writers, however, it is not Ood's foreknowledge that
Sroduces the events of the future; it is His irresistible provi- ential government of the world He has created for Himself: and His foreknowledge of what is yet to he rests on His pre- arranged plan of government. His • jircsluctive foreknowledge* la but a transcript of His will, which has already determined not onlv the general plan of the world, but every particular that enters "into the whole course of its developmenl (Am 3', .lob 2gM. 'i7), and everv detail in the life of every individual that comes into being (Jer 1', I's IS'Ji-'-li', Job 23" i^).
That the acta of free agents are included in this 'productive foreknowlo^lge,' or rather in this all-inclusive plan of the life of the universe, created for the OT writers apparently not the least embarrassment. This is not because they did not believe man to be free,- throughout the whole OT there is never the least doubt expressed of the freedom or moral responsibility of man,— hut because they did believe Ood to be free, whether in His works of creation or of providence, and could not believe Ho was hampered or limited in the attainment of His ends by the creatures of His own hands. How (iod governs ihc acts of free agents in the pursuance of His plan there is little in the OT to inform us; but that He governs them in even their most inliniate thoughts and feelings and impulses is its unvuriiiig assuinplion : He is not only the creator of the hearts of iiieii in the first instance, and knows them altogether, hut He fashions the hearts of all in all the changing circiim- alanccs of life (I's :l3i'') ; foniis the spirit of man within him in all its motions (Zee 12'): keeps the hearts of men in His hands, turning them whithersoever He will (I'r 211) ; so that it Is even aaid that man knows what is in his own mind only as the Lord reveals it to liim (Am *''■>). The tliscussion of any antinomy that may be thought to arise from such a joint assertion of the absolute rule of Cod in the sphere of tlie spirit and the freedom of the crcaturely will, falls obviously under the topic of Providential Covernn'icnt rather than under thai of the Decree (see I'roviuksck) : it requires to be diverted to here only that we may clearly note the fa<:l that the OT teachers, as they did not hesitate to allirm the absolute sway of Cod over tiie thoughts and intents of the human heart, could feel no embarra-ssment in the inclusion of the acts of free agents within the all-embracing plan ol Cod, the outworking of which IJis jirovidenlial govirnnunt supplies.
Nor docs the moral qiialitv of these acts present any apparent dilHcully to the OT constniclion. We are never penuitted to imagine, to be sure, that tJod is the author of sui, either in the wnrtrl at large or in any individual soul— that He is in any way implicate<i in the sinfulness of the acts performed by the perverse misuse of <!reatiirely freedom. In all (;o<l's working lie shows Himself pre-eminently the Holy One. and prosecutes His holy will, His righteous way. His all-wise plan : the blame for all sinful fleeds rests exclusivelv on the creatnrely actors (Kx l"'" 1U"1), who recognlie their own guilt (2 S 24"' ") and recei\ e its punishment (Kc 1 1^ compared with 11*). But neither U God's relation to the sinful acts of His creatures ever repre-