Contemporary Literature [pp. 395-424]

396 CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE. [April,
and free-will are discussed together, when inability and free grace modify
each other, when the law and the gospel are compacted into one living
system, when each dogma is limited by its very place in the total organism of truth-the body of divinity is seen as a whole, and the parts as
parts. And this is the supreme advantage of a system of divinity above
all possible theological controversies on detached issues.
In saying, now, a few words about some of the special merits of this
great work, we must 6f course compress into narrow limits what might be
more fitly handled at length. Taken as a whole, this system of theology
will stand unchallenged in the front rank of English and American treatises; in some respects it is superior to almost any of them. It will take
its place with Howe and Owen, Dick and Hill, Chalmers, Cunningham
and Wardlaw, abroad; with Edwards, Hopkins, Dwight and Woods in our
own country. It is remarkable for its fulness of matter, its clear and easy
handling of abstruse subjects, its range over the whole field, and its general breadth and calmness of view. Its method, though not strictly organic, is natural and logical. The author, in the Introduction, contends
for the "Inductive Method," as the true one in theology; and he doubtless follows that as to the materials; but the ordering of his system seems
to us to be, as it should be, rather deductive than inductive. He teaches
the system of our Confessioi~, as it is widAy interpreted, but in no technical
spirit, and with constant appeM to the "only inspired rule." In his exposition of our Confession and Catechisms, we sometimes miss that com
parison and criticism which are necessary to bring out the largest sense or
possible varieties of meaning; for on several weighty points, our standards,
it seems to us, intentionally balance, rather than decide between, different
Calvinistic forms of one and the san~e doctrine.
Dr. Hodge's work is signally what it professes to be-a System of T/~eoto~g'. It is not metaphysics or ethics, or psychology in theological drapery. It does not arrange the parts, or define the doctrines, by a ~riort
constructions, or by some theory about the will, or the nature of virtue in
the abstract. Its data are found in the Scriptures, in historic symbols and
in Christian experience; and these materials are shaped (to use the old
phrase) into a Body of Divinity.
It is also a conspicuous advantage of this system, that it deals with
"the latest forms" of error and infidelity: e. g. materialism, pantheism,
rationalism in its various shades, as well as with some airy speculations,
born of conceit or the love of novelty. The chapters on "The Knowledge
of God," "Theism," "The Origin of Man and of the Soul," "The
Unity of the Race," and "The Person of Christ," are fresh as well as
cogent discussions, in view of recent controversies.
To those who regard Calv~nistic theology as fast bound in their own
ignorant perversions of it, we recommend a careful reading of what Dr.
Hodge says, e. g., of the Salvation of Infants (voL i, p. 26, 27,)-" All