niora ista, quibus causarum nomen damns, non jure causas esse sed manus et organa, quibus aeterna mens operatur."^ Calvin did not go so far, although he uses such language as the following, when speaking of inanimate things, " Sunt nihil aliud quam instru- menta, quibus Deus assidue instillat quantum vult efficacise et pro suo arbitrio ad banc vel illam actionem flectit et convertit." ^ He
admits, however, that matter__has its^ own properties, and second causes_arear^eHrcTency. The whole tendency of the Cartesian philosophy, wTiich came into vogue in the seventeenth century, was to merge second causes into the first cause, and it^dius led the way _to_ idealisni and pantheism. Malebranche admitted, on the testi- mony of Scripture, which declares that God created the heaven and the earth, that the external world has a real existence. But he denied that it could produce any effects, or that the soul could in, any way act upon matter. We see all things in God. That is, when we perceive anything out of ourselves, the perception is not due to the impression made by the external object, but to the im- mediate agency of God. And the activity of our own minds is only a form of the activity of God. The first fruit of this system' was avowed idealism, as all evidence of the existence of an exter- nal world was destroyed ; and the second was the pantheism of Spinoza, which Leibnitz calls Cartesianism en outre. It must be admitted that. the devout desire of the Refoi'med theologians to vindicate the sovereignty and supremacy of God, in opposition to all forms of Pelagian and semi-Pelagian doctrine, led many of them to go to an extreme in depreciating the efficiency of second causes, and in unduly exalting the omnipresent efficiency of God. Schwei- zer ^ represents the great body of the Reformed theologians as teaching that the dependence of creatures on the Creator super- sedes all efficiency of second causes. " Die schlechthinige Abhan- gigkeit des Bestehens und Verlaufes der Welt gestattet keinerlei andere Ursachlichkeiten als nur die gottliche, so dass Zwischenur- sachen nur seine Instrumente und Organe sind, er die durch ihre Gesammtheit wie durch alle einzelnen Zwischenursachen allein hindurchwirkende Cansalitat. Dieses ist er vermoge der prcesentia essentialis numinis oder doch divince virtutis, welche das Sein alles Seins, die Bewegung aller Bewegungen ist." This is Schweizer's own doctrine, as it is that of the whole school of Schleiermacher, to which he belongs ; but that it is not the doctrine of the Reformed
1 Zwingle, iv. 97.
2 Institutio, 1. xvi. 2, edit. Berlin, 1834, vol. i. p. 135. 8 Glaubenslehre der Reformirten Kirche, p. 318.
694 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. XI. — Providence.
theologians is plain from their all teaching the doctrine of concursus, M'hich Schweizer admits to be inconsistent with the assumption that God is the sole cause of all things. It was this false assumption .that no- creature can act; that dependence on God is absolute ; and 'that all power however manifested is the power of God, which led to the doctrine of a continued creation, as stated when speaking of the efficiency of G jd in the preservation of the world. It led also to the doctrine of occasional causes ; that is, to the theory that what we call second causes have no real efficiency, but are only the occasions on which God manifests his power in a particular way. The world of matter and mind exists indeed, but it is per- fectly inert. It is only the instrument or means by which the manifold and everywhere present efficiency of God is manifested. " Consideremus," says Leibnitz, " eorum sententiam, qui rebus creatis veram, et propriam actionem adimunt, .... qui putant non res agere, sed Deum ad rerum praesentiam, et secundum rerum aptitudem; adeoque res occasiones esse, non causas, et recipere, non efficere aut elicere." ^ The same views of the dependence of creatures on God lies at the foundation of the whole system of Dr. Emmons. He held that if any creature were endowed with activity or power to act, it would be independent of God. " We cannot conceive," he says, " that even Omnipotence itself is able to form independent agents, because this would be to endow them with divinity. And since all men are dependent agents, all their motions, exercises, or actions mvist originate in a divine efficiency." This is not to be understood as simply asserting the necessity of a divine concursus in order to the operation of second causes, for Emmons expressly teaches that God creates all the volitions of the soul, and effects by his almighty power all changes in the material world.
Objections to this Doctrine of Dependence. To this whole doctrine, which thus denies the existence of second causes, and refers all action both in the material and spiritual world to God, it is to be objected, (1.) That it is founded on an arbi- trary assumption. It starts with the d priori idea of an abso- lute and infinite being, and rejects everything inconsistent with that idea. It cannot be proved that it is inconsistent with the nature of God that He should call into existence creatures capa- ble of originating action. It is enough that such creatures should derive all their powers from God, and be subject to his control in all their exei'cises. (2.) This doctrine contradicts the
1 Be ipsa Natura, 10 ; Works, edit. Berlin, 1840, p. 157.