of the first chapter of Genesis is only to describe the order in which the visible universe was created, and cannot, therefore, be supposed to determine the period of the spiritual creation, I rejoin that in the opening verses of St. John's Gospel the phrase, in the beginning, is evidently employed to take us back to a period anterior to the creation of angels. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made." Here, it is evident that the phrase is employed to affirm that before anything existed, extra Deum, the Word existed; for the design of the inspired writer is to prove that everything, ad extra, was brought into existence by him. If Scripture, then, is to be its own interpreter, we must infer that the phrase, in the beginning, as employed in the Book of Genesis, takes us back to the same period. And this conclusion becomes inevitable, when we remark that the Gospel, in opening with this phrase, designedly imitates the language of the Mosaic history. If the Mosaic use of the phrase, therefore, does not take us back to a period anterior to the creation of angels, it cannot be justly inferred that the Evangelic sense of the phrase does, but that the "all things made by. Him" means only all visible things; and, therefore, that angels were not made by Him; for if the Evangelist copies the phrase, the only just inference is, that he employs it in the same sense as that in which it was employed by the inspired writer from whom he derives it. And, if so, the only conclusion left us is, that the creation of matter preceded the production of mind. 66 6. The same idea appears to be included in the grand principle laid down by the Apostle, 1 Cor. xv. 46, "Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterwards that which is spiritual." It is here implied, says Theophylact, that our interests are always advancing towards what is better." This is implied, but much more than this. These words are to be referred, not to verse 45, which is parenthetical, but to verse 44, which affirms that there is a psychical, or animal body, and also a spiritual body. And it replies to the supposed inquiry, why the spiritual body had not preceded the animal body. "The answer is," remarks Bloomfield, "by a reference to the Divine decree, that the animal must precede, the spiritual follow. The reason for this procedure is suggested in the very nature of the terms themselves, psychical or animal, and spiritual, which imply that the latter is far more perfect than the former. Since it is agreeable to the usual course of God's operations, both in the physical and moral world, that the more perfect should succeed the less perfect, and not vice versa; and from the natural to proceed to the supernatural." Enlarging on this view, Barnes very justly observes, "The idea is, that there is a tendency towards perfection; and that God observes the proper order, by which that which is most glorious shall be secured. It was not His plan that all things in the beginning should be perfect; but that perfection should be the work of time, and should be secured in an appropriate order of events." The value of this great principle in relation to our present subject, consists in its universality. The Apostle is not accounting for one instance of the antecedency of the inferior to the superior, by merely adducing a parallel instance of the same kind. He affirms that the antecedency of the natural body to the spiritual body is only a harmonious part of a great whole; that it is strictly analogous with the order observed in all the Divine operations; and that the principle of that order is progress. From which it follows, that the material creation preceded the spiritual; and, therefore, that the angelic order of beings was called into existence subsequent to the origination of matter. For the reasons already assigned, I forbear repeating here the remainder of the article referred to, respecting the comparative status of the angel and the man. It may not be amiss, however, to say that the proposition on the subject amounts to this, that while the present condition of angels is, in some respects, superior to that of man during his earthly sojourn, they are inferior to him both as it respects his original constitution, and his ultimate destination. The contrary opinion is, I think, popularly or generally made out in this way (quite as much, at least, as by any of the passages of Scripture which appear to favor it) by taking it for granted that they have always been inhabitants of heaven; and, consequently, investing their entire history with its grandeur; by vaguely associating with the mention of their name all that is said in Scripture respecting the uncreated Angel of Jehovah, and the grand symbolic beings existing only in vision; by transferring to man comparisons of inferiority belonging to different members of their own order; by forgetting that while man is still a probationer, they are a stage beyond him, having entered on their future state; and by instituting comparisons, not as justice would require, between a fallen man in perdition and a fallen angel, or between "the elect angels" and "the spirits of just men made perfect," but between a holy angel and unreclaimed, depraved man; which is pretty much as if we should infer the rank of an unfallen angel from one of the "unclean spirits" in "the herd of swine," as compared with the loftiest of the redeemed in heaven. On the other hand, it does not appear to be sufficiently considered that, in their history, the process of the Divine manifestation is only carried directly to the point of holiness and justice, that here it stops; that, in the history of man, the process not only goes over the same ground, but advances beyond; that the nature taken into mysterious and indissoluble union with the Divine nature, is that of man; and that, thus ineffably exalted, it occupies the highest throne in heaven. 460 INDEX. Action, moral approbation of, prior to any Analogical, Mosaic account of creation, 14; Angels, prior to man, 3; some had sinned, Antecedents, logical and chronological, 71. Appetites, what, 86; subordination of, 235; Arguments, a priori and a posteriori, 72. Attention, what, 122; effects of, 123, 125; Barbarism, man's first condition not one of, Beauty and sublimity, emotions of, 92. Categories, different kinds of, 65. an ultimate fact, 302; man, a cause, 303. reason of, 339; time of, neither necessary Changes, physical, greater before man, 2. Character, and motive, reaction of, 111; Characteristic of the new economy, 5. Conscience, essential to responsibility, 132; 302; no other ground of knowledge con- Continuity, law of, 183; physiological, with- Creation of man, 3. 21; time of, contingent, Creations prior, 16; all possible, not desi Death, the kind of, threatened, 178. his subjective, how it agrees with free- Development, law of, 185; conditions of Difficulties, moral, in analogy with natural, Dispositions, impartative, 89. Earth, already a scene of Divine power, Eden, probable situation of, 17; man's con- Embryotic theory, unfounded, 193. Esteem, love of, 88 Evidence, degrees of, 77; man's liabilities Experience, logically presupposes primary Fall of man, change involved in, 179; not Freedom, of will, false views of, 102; the idea of, necessary, 311; dangers of, 342, Future, why more important than the God, holiness and justice of, what, 6; love 449. Goodness, Divine, man an illustration of, Habit, law of, 125; advantages of, 126; Holiness, what, 6; all-sufficiency of, illus- Idealism, the reaction of representational- Ideas of space and time, how given, 45; Identity, of men, not dependent on species, Ignorance, its relation to guilt, 261, 265, Image of God, man made in, 8, 9, 180, 432, Influence, law of, 230; man's, over him- Justice, Divine, what, 6; sentiment of, ht with subjective dependence, 292; moral, Knowledge of objects, iminediate, 39-41 |