beings; but he has also duties to himself,

to

assert his own manhood, vindicate his own integrity, cultivate his own powers, bring his own nature to perfection, in a word, to love himself and seek his own good. This duty may be implied in the words of Christ, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" but why was it not distinctly expressed? Evidently because the Saviour was addressing himself to the actual condition of the race, a condition in which there is no want of selflove, and not setting forth the nature of right or wrong in the abstract, nor giving a scientific, exhaustive statement of what the eternal law of right demands.

We conclude, then, that Dr. Bushnell's idea of moral right, as expressed in this volume, is incorrect. Love is but a single form of righteousness; wrath against sin is another. But if his identification of love and righteousness is a mistake, his theory of the vicarious sacrifice is erroneous. The two go together; if one falls, so must the other.

III. GOD'S RELATION TO THE MORAL LAW.

The full title of Dr. Bushnell's work is this: "The Vicarious Sacrifice, grounded in Principles of Universal Obligation;" and the object of Part I.

is to show that there is "Nothing superlative in vicarious sacrifice, or above the universal principles of right and duty;" and the view which is foreshadowed by these expressions is boldly defended in the body of the work. A few sentences will verify this statement, and furnish suitable materials for criticism. "It is very obvious to any thoughtful person, that, in order of reason, whatever may be true as respects order of time, there was law before God's will, and before his instituting act, namely, that necessary, everlasting, ideal law of RIGHT, which simply to think is to be forever obliged by it." (255.) "The righteousness of God is the rightness of God, before the eternal, self-existent law of right." That righteousness "is by obedience to a law before God's will." (259.) "Such is right, and such is moral nature, as related thereto both self-existent (sic) — that

were he to cast off right the crystal must so break, without regard to justice, by its own necessary law, and so he must irrecoverably fall.” (243.) "Perhaps it is better not to say that he is under law, lest we associate some constraint or limitation, but that he is in it, has it for the spring of his character and counsel, and so of his beatitude forever." (308.) "What can we think or know of a goodness over and above all standards of good? We might as well talk of extensions

beyond space, or truths beyond the true. Goodness, holy virtue, is the same in all worlds and beings, measured by the same universal standards ; else it is nothing to us. Defect is sin; overplus is impossible. God himself is not any better than he ought to be, and the very essence and glory of his perfection is, that he is just as good as he ought to be." (57.) 'Do we then assume that Christ, in his vicarious sacrifice, was under obligation to do and to suffer just what he did? Exactly. this. Not that he was under obligations to another, but to himself." (58.) Finally, "It is the glory of our standards of goodness that they are able to fashion, or construct, all that is included in the complete beauty of God.” (Ib.)

This language is, to say the least, far too positive. Indeed, we have always supposed ourselves unable to find out the Almighty unto perfection, and have been wont to imagine that his moral excellence transcends our highest thoughts of virtue, as far as his omniscience transcends the knowledge we can compass, or his omnipotence the power we can understand. It has seemed to us impossible to think of him as merely a dilated man, as being, even in kind, altogether such an one as ourselves. But the writer whom we are reviewing thinks otherwise. He claims to be a perfect copy in minimo of the Most High. By

projecting the lines of his own moral being, he deems himself able to include within them the complete beauty of God. His words startle us by their audacity. The moral nature and government of Jehovah are in the grasp of his faculties, and he is competent to deal with them, without assistance from the Scriptures.1 But let us look at his doctrine more closely, and see if it rests on a sure foundation.

In the first place, Dr. Bushnell teaches that "right, and the moral nature of God as related thereto, are both self-existent." This, certainly, may be true, but it seems to us very doubtful. For if right and the moral nature of God are both self-existent, in any other sense than omniscience and the intelligent nature of God are both self-existent, that is, if right is in any way independent of God, then it follows that God is not supreme in the moral world; he is at best only an artificer,

1 It will be recollected by the reader that Mr. Beecher, in "The Life of Jesus the Christ," uses language no less positive in respect to God and man as being of the same nature; as if men were literally and naturally sons of God, limited, indeed, for the present by reason of the flesh, but destined to enter hereafter upon a divine mode of existence. The language of many good men in this direction is perfectly amazing, and if it is not strictly pantheistic, it must be pronounced polytheistic: the Creator and the creature of the same genus! It is not well for Protestants who thus write and speak, to say much about the self-deification of the Pope. Yet we know the Christian zeal of these men too well to imagine that they feel in their hearts all which their words signify; and we doubt not the same charity should be felt towards not a few of the pretended successors of Peter.

reason.

not an original source; and there is something apart from him which is the ultimate object of reverence for every moral being. But such a view is established neither by conscience nor by Conscience, it is true, pronounces the principles of right to be eternal and immutable ; but so are the moral nature and judgment of God. It is as absurd to suppose a change in him as it is to suppose one in them. That which his mind approves as right we are made to look upon as right, and this is all that can truly be said. For reason affirms that the moral nature of man, as an effect, must be traced back to an adequate cause; it forbids us to postulate two causes when one of them is sufficient to account for the effect; and surely an Infinite Being is a sufficient cause for the moral nature of man..

Besides, the principles of right have their existence in moral beings only. Apart from such beings they no more exist than does sound without an ear, or light without an eye. As it is the eye which makes the vibrations of a certain ether to be light, and the ear which makes the vibrations of air to be sound; so it is the moral nature or conscience which makes the acts of certain beings to be right. The cunning of the weasel, the simplicity of the lamb, the fierceness of the tiger and the gentleness of the dove, are all alike good; but they have