tions to high moral effort with which the closing chapters of this Kpistle arc fllled,-niay justly be taken as the normal illation of his whole ethical teaching. His Epistles, in fact, are sown (as indeed is the whole NT) with particular instances ol the sJinie appeal («.o. 1 Th 2>2, 2 Th 2i3-i=. Ito 0, 2 Co 6", Col 11" I'h l5a 2'ii3, 2Ti 219). In Ph 2'i " it attains, per- haps, lis -.liarpest expression : here the saint is exhorted to work out his ovin salvation with tear and trembling, just because il 1^ <;™l who is working in him both the willing and the doing bccau.e of His • good-pleasure'— obviously but another way of saving, ' If God is for us, who can be against us?'
There is certainly presented in this a problem for those who wish to operate in this matter with an irreconcilable either, tr • and who can conceive of no freedom of man winch is under the control of God. St. Paul's theism was, however, of too pure a qualitv to tolerate in the realm o( creaf'on any force bevnnd the sway of Him who, as he says, U over all, and through all, and in all (Eph 46), working all tb.i*-> according to ihe counsel of His will (Kph 1"). And it mu»t ^ conlessc-d •hat it is more facile than satisfactory to set his th,:istic world- v.ew summarilv aside a.s a • merely religious view," which stands in conllict with a truly ethical conception of the world— per- haps even with a repelition of Fritzsche's jibe that bt. 1 ail would have reasoned better on the high themes of 'fate, free- will and providon.-e ' had he sat at the feet of Aristotle rather than at those of Gamaliel. Antiquity produced, however, no ethical genius equal to St. Paul, and even as a teacher of the foundations of ethics Aristotle himself might well be content to Bit rather at his feet ; and it does not at once appear why a so- called ' religious' conception may not have as valid a ground in human nature, and as valid a right to determine human con- viction, as a so-called 'ethical ' one. It can serve no good pur- pose even to proclaim an iusoluble antinomy here : such an antinomy St. Paul assuredly did not feel, as he urged the predestination of God not more as a ground of assurance of salvation than as the highest motive of moral effort ; and it does not seem impossible Tor even us weaker thinkers to follow him some little way at least in looking upon those twin bases of religion and morality— the ineradicable feelings ot depeiulence and responsibility- nota8antogonistiosentinicntsofaliop.:leb3ly divided heart, but as fundamentally the same profound con- viction operating in a double sphere. At all events, St. Paul 8 pure thcislic view-point, which conceived Go<i as in His provi- dential conriinnui working all thinfeii according to the counsel of His will (Kph 1") in entire consistency with the action of second causes, necc».sary and tree, the proximate producers ot events, supplied him with a very real point of departure tor his conception of the same God, in the operations of His grace, working the willing and the doing ot Christian men, without the least infringement of the integrity ot the free deUrmination bv which each grace is proximately attained. It docs not belong to our present task to expound the nature of that Divine act by which St. Paul represents God as 'callinj,' sinners ' into communion vrith his Son,' lUelf the first step in the realiz.ition In their livea ot that contonnity to His iniogc to which thi-v are predestinated in the counsels of eternily, and of which 'he first manifesUtion is that faith in the Keileemer ol Ood's elect out of which the whole Christian hie unfolds. Let It only be olwcrved in passing lli it he obviously conceives it as •nact of God's almighty power, nmovinj; old inahihlies and creating new abilities ol living, loving action. It is enough tor our present purpose to perceive that even in this act .St. I aul did not conceive Gwl as dehumanizing man, but rather m energizing man in a new direction of his powers ; while in a 1 his Bubseipient activities the analogy ol the conair^m ot Provl- denco is express. In his own view, his streiiuous assertion ot the predeU-miination in God's puq'ose ol all the aclj) of saint an<l sinner alike in the matter of salvation, by which the dis- crimination ot men into saved ami lost is carried back to the tree counsel ol Go<rs will, as little involves violence to the ethical sponuneitv ot their activities on the one side, as on the other il involves unrighteousness in Gods dealings with His oreatures He does not speculatively discuss the niethoils ot the Divine providence; hut the fact of its universality — over all beings and actions alike— forms one ot his most primary presuppositions ; and naturally he finds no dilllculty In postu-
V. The Bible Doctrine op Predestination. —A survey of the whole material thus cursorily brought before us exhibits the existence of a cou- si.stent Bible doctrine of predestination, which, because rooted in, and indeed only a logical out- coiuu of, the fundamental Biblical theism, is taught in all its essential elements from the beginning of the Biblical revelation, and is only more fully un- folded in detail as the more developed religious consciousness and the course of the history of redemption required.