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dent that the doctrine of infant salvation will never be settled until we not only explain the regeneration of the infant, but also the infant's appropriation of Christ by faith, and the order of salvation in the infant's conscious experience. Dr. Shedd teaches a doctrine of grace, in connection with his doctrine of elect heathen, which is novel among Calvinistic divines. He says:

"There is not a transgressor on earth, in Christendom or heathendom, who is not treated by his Maker better than he deserves; who does not experience some degree of the divine compassion... .....This is mercy to the souls of men universally, and ought to move them to repent of sin and forsake it...... Common Grace is great and undeserving mercy to a sinner, and would save him if he did not resist and frustrate it..... Scripture denies that God is under obligation to follow up His defeated common grace with His irresistible special Grace."

Dr. Shedd says that common grace would save men if they did not resist and frustrate it. The Westminister Confession teaches no such doctrine. There is nothing effectual in common grace. There is no saving power in it according to the older Calvinism, but only preparatory virtue leading up to saving grace. Dr. Dickinson expressly denies that "God has universally and indifferently given to all men grace sufficient for their eternal salvation."

The statement that God's common grace has been "defeated" is a strange one for a Calvinist to make. Can the sinner defeat God's purpose of redemption? If he can defeat common grace, why not also special grace?

There is in this doctrine of Dr.Shedd a tendency toward the modern doctrine that this life is a probation for all men, which is in remarkable accord with the Quaker Keith, but is far beyond the mild statement of Culverwell in his "Light of Nature." Dr. Morris, however, attains the height of this departure from the Older Calvinism in his theory that

"In some way or other, and to some extent or other, God is actually

I Presbyterian and Reformed Review, pp. 10-12.

trying and testing every human being who has reached moral consciousness as to the great alternatives of right or wrong, duty or pleasure, obedience or disloyalty to Him," and that "the multitudes whom the Great Swiss reformer anticipated seeing in the celestial life may, by the large grace of God bringing them to repentance and obedience during their earthly pilgrimage, possibly attain with us to that beatific home."1

Dr. Morris is nearer to George Keith at this point than to the great Swiss reformer.

It will be clear from this sketch of the history of opinion that the views of the Boston ministers of 1690 and of the Westminster divines of 1646, on the matters discussed in this paper, have been abandoned by the Presbyterian and Congregational churches of our day, and that the views advocated by the Quakers Penn and Keith have prevailed, and are now the common doctrines in our churches.

1Is there Salvation after death? pp. 166, 190.

ARTICLE X.

CRITICAL NOTES.

I.

SECOND TIMOTHY III. 16.

BY THE REV. PROFESSOR ISRAEL E. Dwinell, d.d.,

PACIFIC THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY,

THIS is a crucial passage. It is a Gibraltar commanding the entrance to the doctrine of inspiration of Scripture. He who holds that the Bible contains a revelation-things inspired by God-seeks to make this passage favor his idea. He who believes that the Bible as a whole is the word of God resorts to this for proof. So the battle rages about this passage.

The Received Version reads: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable;" the Revision: "All Scripture given by inspiration of God is also profitable." The commentators are divided in opinion. Ellicott, De Wette, Van Oosterzee, Bengel, and many others, including those with higher views of inspiration generally, make ɛóπVEVOTO a predicate, interpreting "all Scripture is inspired." Grotius, Rosenmüller, Heinrichs, Hofmann, Alford, and most persons with weak views of inspiration, make it attributive of road. Of the ancient versions, the Peshito and the Vulgate omit the xai, and of course consider deóлVEVOTO as attributive. Murdock's translation of the Peshito is: "All Scripture that is inspired by the Spirit, is also profitable."

In interpreting this passage, the first thing to be considered is the meaning of pay. According to the custom of that time, this word when applied to religious subjects among the Jews always referred to the writings of the Old Testament, though there is evidence that the term was beginning to be extended among the Christians to such of the New Testament writings as had then been produced and recognized as authoritative; for example, the apostle Paul, in 1 Tim. v. 18, says: "The Scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn," quoting from Deuteronomy, and then adds, quoting Christ's words recorded in Luke x. 7, "The laborer is worthy of his hire." Some of Christ's words, then, had already become Scripture. And in 2 Peter iii. VOL. XLVII. NO. 186.

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16, the writer, speaking of the Epistles of the apostle Paul, says, that there are some things in them which "they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures."

Though there are indications of a gradual enlargement of the scope of the word "Scripture" so as to include sacred writings of the New Testament, it almost always refers to the Old Testament. This is true of the word whether singular or plural. Of the fifty-one times in which it is used in the New Testament, with the exception of the two mentioned above, it refers exclusively to the Old Testament or some portion of it. This is the use which our Saviour made of the word. In fact, it almost seems as if in thought there were no other writings to be quoted. When he confronts Satan, in his temptation, in referring to the authority of what he utters, he merely says, "It is written;" "It is written."

The apostle speaks of Scripture equally absolutely-"The Scripture hath included all under sin.” There is a significant passage in Rom. xv. 4, "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope." That must include all the contents of the sacred books, This is the passage which Meyer regards as explaining the meaning of nãσa rрapy in our passage, all Scripture being equal to "whatsoever things were written aforetime."

Ilūσa rpapý means, however, not so much the whole Scripture, or all Scripture viewed in its totality, as every Scripture viewed in its individual or constituent parts.

This expression лãσa rрapý is immediately followed, without a copula, by θεόπνευστος καὶ ὠφέλιμος. The question is, Are both of these predicates? It is safe to say there is absolutely nothing in the Greek here used to hint that they are not. Further, if dεóлvεvatos were intended to be attributive to payý, it should properly have the article before it. The law of the Greek language requires this, Buttmann says: "An adjective without the article, standing either before or after a noun with the article, is predicative." 1 We have before us an adjective without the article, standing after a noun. The noun is without the article, it is true, but it has an equivalent, îãσα. Therefore the adjective should be interpreted adjectively, in the same way and for the same reason that ὠφέλιμος is.

Again, unless there is something to indicate the contrary, xać is naturally a conjunction connecting the two words. There is something strained, in the absence of such indication, in considering it an adverb, making it surrender its natural function as a connective, and lean meekly on éμos, giving it feeble support. Such an interpretation would never have been suggested to a Greek scholar by the Greek of the passage.

1 Grammar of New Test. Greek, § 124.

The first suggestion of this interpretation is supposed to have been from the absence of the conjunction xai in some of the early versions and some of the writings of the Christian Fathers. In modern times it seems to have been adopted, in some cases, for dogmatic reasons. But there is no doubt about the correctness of the text as it stands, no one questioning it.

Further, when we regard xai as an adverb, we leave the meaning still ambiguous. It may mean, "Any Scripture inspired by God is also profitable;" or "Every Scripture, being in point of fact inspired by God, is also profitable." Possibly some of the Revisers may have had this latter interpretation in mind in voting for the reading put in the text. While the majority have put "Every Scripture inspired of God is profitable" in the text, they have put in the margin “Every Scripture is inspired of God, and profitable," showing that there was no unanimity in the body. If those who believed that dɛóлvεvoto is used predicatively, had succeeded in having the phrase, "inspired of God," separated by commas from the rest of the passage, that punctuation would have indicated the fact. It would have read, in that case, "Every Scripture, inspired of God, is also profitable;" and that would mean “ Every Scripture, being in fact inspired of God, is also profitable." But it is not so punctuated; and the punctuation indicates that deóлvevσtog is used as an attributive, limiting the meaning of rpa. They may, however, some of them, have intended to interpret it in the other way, and voted for the Revision, though they failed to punctuate it in such a way as to indicate their interpretation. For this is the reading and the interpretation of Meyer. He argues in this way: "There is no reason for directing attention to the fact that the whole of Scripture is θεόπνευστος. There was no doubt on that point (viz., that the whole of Scripture and not a part of it was inspired by God), but on the point whether the Scriptures as θεόπνευστος are also (κα! serves to confirm) ὠφέλιμοι.

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But such an interpretation does not harmonize with the apostle's habit of thinking and writing. It is too subtle and nice. He wrote right on, and put two predicates side by side in the same construction without hesitation, though logically the first might be the ground or reason, and the second the consequence.

Rev. Thomas F. Potwin shows in the Independent, of October, 10, 1889, that the apostle has a habit of using adjectives in pairs as predicates. He cites twenty-seven passages. Seven of these (Rom. vii. 12; xiv. 18; 1 Cor. xii. 30; 2 Cor. x. 10; 1 Tim. i. 15; ii. 3; iv. 9) are connected by xai and without a copula, as in the case before us. Yet in no one of these seven passages has any interpreter ever suggested that the first is an attributive, and xai an adverb, though, so far as the Greek is con

1 In loco.

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