A Plea to America

A.A. Hodge, Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, pp. 284-287:

And if Christ is Lord of lords and King of kings, if he is really the Ruler among the nations, then all nations are in a higher sense one nation, under one King, one law, having one interest and one end. There cannot be two laws for Christians—one to govern the relations of individuals, and the other the relations of nations. We must love our neighbor-man as ourselves, so the Master says; therefore we must love our neighbor-man as our own. The rivalries, jealousies, antagonisms and cruel wars between nations are all hideous fratricidal contests and satanic rebellions against Christ our common King. How miserably small and narrow and selfish is the form of so-called patriotism which our poor children are taught is so great a virtue, in comparison with that holy, uplifting passion which comprehends all nations as inseparable parts of the one living universal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! Suppose your enterprise in the great competitions of manufacture and trade surpasses theirs, and you grow rich and gild your palaces with the spoils of their poverty; suppose your sinews of war or your personal prowess and valor surpass theirs, and your empire grows great out of the ruins of their commonwealth,—what are you, after all, but the betrayer of your brother's peace or the destroyer of your brother's life and the disloyal render of the body of your common Lord? Alas, that we have yet to learn that the so-called code of honor among nations is just as mean and vulgar a thing as the code of honor among individuals!

And if Christ is really King, exercising original and immediate jurisdiction over the State as really as he does over the Church, it follows necessarily that the general denial or neglect of his rightful lordship, any prevalent refusal to obey that Bible which is the open lawbook of his kingdom, must be followed by political and social as well as by moral and religious ruin. If professing Christians are unfaithful to the authority of their Lord in their capacity as citizens of the State, they cannot expect to be blessed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in their capacity as members of the Church. The kingdom of Christ is one, and cannot be divided in life or in death. If the Church languishes, the State cannot be in health, and if the State rebels against its Lord and King, the Church cannot enjoy his favor. If the Holy Ghost is withdrawn from the Church, he is not present in the State; and if he, the only "Lord, the Giver of life," be absent, then all order is impossible and the elements of society lapse backward to primeval night and chaos.

Who is responsible for the unholy laws and customs of divorce which have been in late years growing rapidly, like a constitutional cancer, through all our social fabric? Who is responsible for the rapidly-increasing, almost universal, desecration of our ancestral Sabbath ? Who is responsible for the prevalent corruptions in trade which loosen the bands of faith and transform the halls of the honest trader into the gambler's den ? Who is responsible for the new doctrines of secular education which hand over the very baptized children of the Church to a monstrous propagandism of Naturalism and Atheism ? Who is responsible for the new doctrine that the State is not a creature of God and owes him no allegiance, thus making the mediatorial Headship of Christ an unsubstantial shadow and his kingdom an unreal dream?

Whence come these portentous upheavals of the ancient primitive rock upon which society has always rested? Whence comes this socialistic earthquake, arraying capital and labor in irreconcilable conflict like oxygen and fire? Whence come these mad nihilistic, anarchical ravings, the wild presages of a universal deluge, which will blot out at once the family, the school, the church, the home, all civilization and religion, in one sea of ruin ?

In the name of your own interests I plead with you; in the name of your treasure-houses and barns, of your rich farms and cities, of your accumulations in the past and your hopes in the future,—I charge you, you never will be secure if you do not faithfully maintain all the crown-rights of Jesus the King of men. In the name of your children and their inheritance of the precious Christian civilization you in turn have received from your sires; in the name of the Christian Church,—I charge you that its sacred franchise, religious liberty, cannot be retained by men who in civil matters deny their allegiance to the King. In the name of your own soul and its salvation ; in the name of the adorable Victim of that bloody and agonizing sacrifice whence you draw all your hopes of salvation; by Gethsemane and Calvary,—I charge you, citizens of the United States, afloat on your wide wild sea of politics, There Is Another King, One Jesus: The Safety Of The State Can Be Secured Only In The Way Of Humble And Whole-souled Loyalty To His Person And Of Obedience To His Law.

"I charge thee in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and of Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession, that thou keep the commandment, without spot, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in its own times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable; whom no man hath seen, nor can see; to whom be honor and power eternal. Amen" (1 Tim. 6 : 13-16).

Sublimity

J.W. Alexander, The Life of Archibald Alexander, D.D.: First Professor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey, pp. 29-31:

But in this same valley, and not very remote from the objects of which I have spoken, there is one which, I think, produces the feeling which is denominated the sublime, more definitely and sensibly than any that I have ever seen. I refer to the Natural Bridge, from which the county takes its name. It is not my object to describe this extraordinary lusus naturae, as it may be called. In fact, no representation which can be given by the pen or pencil can convey any adequate idea of the object, or one that will have the least tendency to produce the emotion excited by a view of the object itself. There are some things, then, which the traveller, however eloquent, cannot communicate to his readers. All I intend is, to mention the effect produced by a sight of the Natural Bridge on my own mind. When a boy of fourteen or fifteen, I first visited this curiosity. Having stood on the top, and looked down into the deep chasm above and below the bridge, without any new or very strong emotions, as the scene bore a resemblance to many which are common to that country, I descended by the usual circuitous path to the bottom, and came upon the stream or brook some distance below the bridge. The first view which I obtained of the beautiful and elevated blue limestone arch, springing up to the clouds, produced an emotion entirely new; the feeling was as though something within sprung up to a great height by a kind of sudden impulse. That was the animal sensation which accompanied the genuine emotion of the sublime. Many years afterwards, I again visited the bridge. I entertained the belief, that I had preserved in my mind, all along, the idea of the object; and that now I should see it without emotion. But the fact was not so. The view, at this time, produced a revival of the original emotion, with the conscious feeling that the idea of the object had faded away, adn become both obscure and diminutive, but was now restored, in an instant, to its original vividness, and magnitude. The emotion produced by an object of true sublimity, as it is very vivid, so it is very short in its continuance. It seems, then, that novelty must be added to other qualities in the object, to produce this emotion distinctly. A person living near the bridge, who should see it every day, might be pleased with the object, but would experience, after a while, nothing of the vivid emotion of the sublime. Thus, I think, it must be accounted for, that the starry heavens, or the sun shining in his strength, are viewed with little emotion of this kind, although much the sublimest objects in our view; we have been accustomed to view them daily, from our infancy. But a bright-coloured rainbow, spanning a large arch in the heavens, strikes all classes of persons with a mingled emotion of the sublime and beautiful; to which a sufficient degree of novelty is added, to render the impression vivid, as often as it occurs. I have reflected on the reason why the Natural Bridge produces the emotion of the sublime, so well defined and so vivid; but I have arrived at nothing satisfactory. It must be resolved into an ultimate law of our nature, that a novel object of that elevation and form will produce such an effect. Any attempt at analyzing objects of beauty and sublimity only tends to produce confusion in our ideas. To artists, such analysis may be useful; not to increase the emotion, but to enable them to imitate more effectually the objects of nature by which it is produced. Although I have conversed with many thousands who had seen the Natural Bridge; and although the liveliness of the emotion is very different in different persons; yet I never saw one, of any class, who did not view the object with considerable emotion. And none have ever expressed disappointment from having had their expectations raised too high, by the description previously received. Indeed, no previous description communicates any just conception of the object as it appears; and the attempts to represent it by the pencil, as far as I have seen them, are pitiful. Painters would show their wisdom by omitting to represent some of the objects of nature, such as a volcano in actual ebullition, the sea in a storm, the conflagration of a great city, or the scene of a battle-field. The imitation must be so faint and feeble, that the attempt, however skilfully executed, is apt to produce disgust, instead of admiration.

Letter from Charles Hodge to his wife Sarah, dated May 28, 1828, in A.A. Hodge, The Life of Charles Hodge D.D. LL.D. Professor in the Theological Seminary Princeton N.J., p. 197:

My Beloved Sarah: -- I have seen the Alps! If now I never see any thing great or beautiful in nature, I am content. I felt that as soon as I saw you, I could fall at your feet and beg you to forgive my beholding such a spectacle without you, my love. You were dearer to me in that moment than ever. I left Basel about one o'clock with a young English gentleman for Lucerne. We rode about fifteen miles and arrived at the foot of a mountain. As the road was steep and difficult, we commenced walking up the mountain in company with two Swiss gentlemen. We ascended leisurely for about two hours before we reached the top. I was walking slowly with my hands behind me, and my eyes on the ground, expecting nothing, when one of the Swiss gentlemen said with infinite indifference -- "Voila les Alpes." I raised my eyes -- and around me in a grand amphitheatre, high up against the heavens, were the Alps! It was some moments before the false and indefinite conceptions of my life were overcome by the glorious reality. The declining sun shed on the immense mass of mingled snow and forests the brightness of the evening clouds. This was the first moment of my life in which I felt overwhelmed. Every thing I had ever previously seen seemed absolutely nothing. The natural bridge in Virginia had surprised me -- the Rhine had delighted me -- but the first sudden view of the Alps was overwhelming. This was a moment that can never return; the Alps can never be seen again by surprise, and in ignorance of their real appearance.

A.A. Hodge on Common Grace

A.A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology (1866), pp. 337-338:

13. What is meant by "common grace," and how may it be shown that the Spirit does operate upon the minds of those who are not renewed in heart?

"Common grace" is the restraining and persuading influences of the Holy Spirit acting only through the truth revealed in the gospel, or through the natural light of reason and of conscience, heightening the natural moral effect of such truth upon the understanding, conscience, and heart. It involves no change of heart, but simply an enhancement of the natural powers of the truth, a restraint of evil passions, and an increase of the natural emotions in view of sin, duty, and self-interest.

That God does so operate upon the hearts of the unregenerate is proved, 1st, from Scripture, Gen. vi. 3; Acts vii. 51; Heb. x. 29; 2d, from universal experience and observation.

14. How does common differ from efficacious grace?

1st. As to its subjects. All men are more or less the subjects of the one; only the the elect are subjects of the other, Rom. viii. 30; xi. 7; 2 Thess. ii. 13.

2d. As to its nature. Common grace is only meditate, through the truth, and it is merely moral, heightening the moral influence natural to the truth, and exciting only the natural powers of the soul, both rational and moral. But efficacious grace is immediate and supernatural, since it is wrought directly in the soul by the immediate energy of the Holy Ghost, and since it implants a new spiritual life, and a capacity for a new mode of exercising the natural faculties.

3d. As to its effects. The effects of common grace are superficial and transient, modifying the action, but not changing the nature, and its influence is always more or less consciously resisted, as opposed to the prevailing disposition of the soul. But efficacious grace, since it acts not upon but in the will itself, changing the governing desires, and giving a new direction to the active powers of the soul, is neither resistible nor irresistible, but most free, spontaneous, and yet most certainly effectual.

Happy 200th Birthday Joseph A. Alexander!

Joseph Addison Alexander was born 200 years ago on April 24, 1809 in Philadelphia. The son of Archibald Alexander and brother of James Waddel Alexander (and William Cowper Alexander -- Cowper, the poet, was certainly appreciated in the Alexander family), J.A. Alexander went on to become one of America's premier 19th century Biblical scholars.

He wrote commentaries on Isaiah, Matthew, Mark, Acts and the Psalms. His sermons were published (and highly regarded), along with other works including a geography of the Bible (with his brother James) and essays on primitive church polity. His literary output was rich, especially considering that he died young, in his 52nd year of life. His letters and a few poems have been published as well. He died without last words, seemingly suddenly, and he was mourned by all. After his death at Princeton, where he had graduated and served the seminary in various capacities as professor for many years, in 1860, Charles Hodge addressed the next meeting of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America with a moving tribute to his dear friend as he sought for the appointment of a new professor to be assigned to Princeton.

A.A. Hodge, The Life of Charles Hodge, pp. 444-445:

In the death of Joseph Addison Alexander we have lost our great glory and defense....I regard Dr. Joseph Addison Alexander as incomparably the greatest man our church has ever produced. His intellect was majestic not only in its greatness but in its harmonious proportions. No faculty was in excess, and none was in defect. His understanding, imagination and memory were alike wonderful. Everything was equally easy to him. Nothing he ever did seemed to reveal half his power. His attainments in classical, oriental and modern languages and literature were almost unexampled. His stores of biblical, historical and antiquarian knowledge seemed inexhaustible. To all these talents and attainments were added great force of character, power over the minds of men, and a peculiar facility in imparting knowledge. His thorough orthodoxy, his fervent piety, humility, faithfulness in the discharge of his duties, and reverence for the Word of God, consecrated all his other gifts. His complete mastery of every form of modern infidelity enabled him to vindicate the Scriptures as with authority. He glorified the Word of God in the sight of his pupils beyond what any I ever saw had the power of doing. Princeton is not what it was, and can never expect to be what it has been. You cannot fill his place. The only compensation for such a loss is the presence of the Spirit of God.

He was buried in the family plot at Princeton Cemetery, but "he being dead yet speaketh" (Heb. 11.4), and his beloved memory is cherished by those who have read his rich writings. As Matthew Poole said, "Ministers are living Books, and Books are dead Ministers; and yet though dead, they speak. When you cannot heare the one, you may read the other."

And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to rightousness as the stars for ever and ever. Dan. 12.3