Remarks on the Princeton Review [pp. 306-347]

318 Prof. Park's Remarks on the Princeton Review. [APRIL
ways past finding out, as they are specially exhibited in the
doctrines of redemption, and in the dispensations of God
towards our race. The origin of sin, the fall of man, the relation of Adam to his posterity, the transmission of his corrupt
nature to all descended from him by ordinary generation, the
consistency of man's freedom with God's sovereignty, the process of regeneration, the relation of the believer to Christ, and
other doctrines of the like kind, do not admit of "philosophical
explanation." They cannot be dissected and mapped off so as
that the points of contact and mode of union with all other
known truths can be clearly understood; nor can God's dealings
with our race be all explained on the common-sense principles
of moral government. The system which Paul taught was not
a system of common sense, but of profound and awful mystery.
The second distinguishing characteristic of this system is that
its whole tendency is to exalt God and to humble man. It does
not make the latter feel that he is the great end of all things,
or that he has his destiny in his own hands. It asks, Who hath
known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?
or who hath first given to him and it shall be recompensed unto
him again? God's supremacy, the Apostle teaches us, is seen in
his permitting our race to fall in Adam, and sin thus by one
man to pass on all men, so that by the offence of one judgment
came upon all men to condemnation. It is seen in the nature
of the plan of salvation, which excludes all merit on the part of
those who are saved, and takes for granted their entire helplessness. It is still more clearly manifested in God's administration of this economy of mercy; in its gradual revelation, in its
being so long confined to one nation, in its being now made
known to one people and not to another, in its being applied
where it is known to the salvation of some, and to the greater
condemnation of others, and in the sovereignty which presides
over the selection of the vessels of mercy. It is not the wise, the
great, or the noble whom God calls, but the foolish, the base,
and those that are not, that they who glory should glory in the
Lord. Thirdly, this system represents God as himself the end
of all his works both in creation and in redemption. It is not
the universe, but God; not the happiness of creatures, but the
infinitely higher end of the divine glory, which is contemplated