Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/220

 202 Later Theology grounds, the conclusion that the Scriptures are the Word of God and therefore that their teachings are infallible. Thereon he stands unmoved. Approaching the profound subject of the decrees of God, for every Calvinist thrilling in its audacity, he says simply: It must be remembered that theology is not philosophy. It does not assume to discover truth, or to reconcile what it teaches as true with all other truths. Its province is simply to state what God has revealed in His Word and to vindicate those statements, as far as possible, from misconceptions and objections. This limited and humble office of theology it is especially necessary to bear in mind, when we come to speak of the acts and purposes of God. All that is proposed is simply to state what the Spirit has seen fit to reveal on that subject. So he looks without flinching over the vast unsunned spaces to the place of eternal punishment. On the "Duration of Future Punishment" he writes: It is obvious that this is a question which can be decided only by divine revelation. No one can reasonably presume to decide how long the wicked are to suffer for their sins upon any general princi- ples of right and wrong. The conditions of the problem are not within our grasp. What the infinitely wise and good God may see fit to do with His creatures, or what the exigencies of a government, embracing the whole universe and continuing throughout eternal ages, may demand, it is not for such worms of the dust, as we are, to determine. If we believe the Bible to be the Word of God, all we have to do is to ascertain what it teaches on this subject, and humbly submit. ... It should constrain us to humility and to silence on this subject that the most solemn and explicit declarations of the everlasting misery of the wicked recorded in the Scriptures, fell from the lips of Him, who, though equal with God, was found in fashion as a man, and humbled Himself unto death, even the death of the cross, for us men and our salvation. There is a strange sublimity and extraordinary perspicuity about the style of Charles Hodge. It is not style at all. He is writing a treatise for students. His sentences are con- stantly interrupted by i) 2) 3), A) B) C), and the like. Yet, notwithstanding the nature of the doctrine and the ponderous