the discussion with any further considerations about " a power to choose," etc.? "He that KNOWETH to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”

III. CREATION.

As a general fact, they rejected the gnostic notions respecting the origin of matter and of spirits.

Clement taught that God was the sole author of creation; but whether he held to the eternal existence of matter in a chaotic state, is not clear.

Origen believed, that God created all things in heaven and earth, out of nothing, by his Son. His speculations concerning the creation of spirits, will best serve to show the nature of his philosophy, and the manner in which he was accustomed to employ it in theological discussions and the explanation of the scriptures.

In conformity with the Platonic doctrines, of which he was very fond, he adopted the belief in the existence of spirits before the visible creation. And in opposition to the gnostic heretics, he supposes these spirits to have been all made originally alike and equal. Not being eternal, but created, they were consequently mutable. What they had received from the hand of God, they might lose or forfeit. Endowed with perpetual freedom of will, some took one course, and some another. Having taken different courses, it was proper that God should deal with them according to their deeds. Hence the grand reason, in his view, for that endless variety and immense difference which are found in the works of creation and providence. It is all to afford different habitations and different circumstances, adapted to the different merits of these spirits, which were all alike at first. He confines not his view to this earth, nor to the spirits that were to become the souls of men. All worlds above, and all beneath, with all their happy or their wretched occupants, are at once embraced. Hence there is one glory of the sun, and another of the moon, and another of the stars; and hence also, one star differs from another in glory. He goes on, likewise, to speak of the diversities among nations and individuals upon earth. "Some are barbarians, and some are Greeks, some are more and others less savage; some are born under better, and others under worse laws and rulers; some are born in slavery; some with sickly bodies; and some deprived of hearing, speech, etc."

"One is born of Abraham, according to the promise, another of Isaac and Rebecca, who supplanted his brother in ventre, and was beloved of God before he was born. One is born among the Hebrews, where he finds the knowledge of the divine law; another among the wise Greeks; another among the cannibal Ethiopians; or among the Scythians, where parricide is practised as it were by law; or among the Tauri, where they immolate their guests.

In view of all this wide diversity in the conditions, not only of earthly, but also of "celestial," and "supracelestial," and "infernal beings" too, which Origen portrays with an unrivalled hand, he informs us, that many were wont to object, that a world filled with such variety, could not have been created by a just and good God; and that especially the gnostics, who came from the school of Marcion, Valentine, and Basilides, accounted for the difference, upon the supposition that either different kinds of souls are sent to inhabit different races of men, or that all takes place fortuitously.' This supposition he rejects, as destroying the belief that God made the world, and governs it by his providence, and will judge men according to their works.

Still, Origen himself was not at all more disposed than were those gnostics, with whom he had to do, to resolve this disparity of condition, as we now do, into the sovereignty of God. It was not consonant with his views of divine justice, that men should be born to such diversity of inheritance, without any previous probation. He therefore proceeds to assign them such a probation, anterior to their being doomed to assume the frailties of flesh. It must be acknowledged, however, that he does this with professions of modesty and caution; for he owns, that "none but he that searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God, can know what is the pure truth on this subject. Still," he remarks, "that we may not nourish the insolence of the heretics by our silence, we will, as men, to the best of our power, answer to the things which they pretend." He then goes on in the manner already shown, and supposes, that as there is to be a judgment at the termination of the present state of human existence, when men will be rewarded according to their deeds, so there has already been such an award upon the conduct of the same spirits, in a previous state of existence. This he considers as a possible way of replying to the gnostics, and evincing that there is no need of supposing different creators, or different VOL. IV. No. 14.

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kinds of souls, nor that calamities are fortuitous, but that all is from the hand and under the providence of a just and good God. It is rather amusing, at the present day, to see how this zealous father supported his theory from scripture. Like a bold man, he seizes what would seem the very last passage in the whole bible that could be turned to support such a system of previous merit. It was the following: "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of him. that calleth, it was said, the elder shall serve the younger; as it is written; Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid." How, we ask, can this passage prove his point, instead of refuting it? Like a staunch philosophical theologue, Origen is ready with just as good a reason as has ever been offered against the obvious sense of the passage. It is this. As the Apostle here assures us that God is not unjust, and as he certainly would have been unjust, in this discrimination, if Jacob and Esau had performed no previous acts, they must therefore have performed deeds, in a previous state of existence, by which they merited this distinction. When the Apostle inquires, is there unrighteousness with God, Origen considers him as only encouraging investigation into the causes of providential distinctions. And as here, according to him, is one instance of distinction on some other ground than that of neither good or evil done in this life; so we are warranted in the universal inference, to be applied respecting "creatures terrestrial, celestial, and infernal," viz. that all have had a probation, and their destinations have been allotted according to previous merit. The erring creatures sent down to earth, or to the stars, are subjected to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected them, in hope that they would purge themselves and become again vessels of honor prepared unto glory.'1

He has also something to say in regard to the process of defection in that previous state. From certain passages of scripture, which speak of God as a consuming fire, and his angels as a flame of fire, Origen supposes God to be of an igneous nature; and his angels and all spirits, in their original state, to have partaken of the same fervid quality. The process of defection, then, in those who relapsed, was that of becoming more or less 1 Princip. II. c. 9. 2.

cool or cold. And this he argues from what he considers as the derivative import of yvyn, the soul, which he derives from yuzós, cold. Hence man, in his lost state, is un, and no longer vous, mind. But if he shall purge himself, he will again become vous.

Though Origen does not suppose any creature perfectly pure in the sight of God, he thinks angels to be the most pure, and devils the most impure, and men and the stars to be intermediate degrees. He supposes some spirits, which had not conducted themselves very basely, are set to preside over the animated bodies of the sun, moon, and stars, to enlighten and adorn the world. Hence he speaks of "the soul of the sun." In his work against Celsus, he calls the stars "living and rational beings, Coa loyixa, and active, and enlightened with the light of knowledge by that wisdom which is the effulgence of the eternal light." And commenting on Matthew he remarks: "It is absurd to treat the system of heaven and earth and all they contain, as though the sun and moon, and chorus of the stars, and the angels of this whole universe, were ignorant of the true light, and being ignorant of it, still keep the order appointed them by God." He also proves, from Ps. CXLVIII, that the stars praise God through his Son. He of course regards these bodies as rational and accountable beings, and supposes they will be finally judged. That they are capable of sinning, he proves from Job xxv. 5, "the stars are not pure in his sight." Their souls were made before their bodies, just as in the case of man, which he proves from Rom. vIII. 19 sq. where he thinks the etherial body is the "vanity" to which the siderial soul is unwillingly subjected in hope of freedom when its service is completed, and that it groans in bondage till Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom, and all will be set free.'3

6

Origen does not suppose all worlds to have been made at the same time, but one after another; and that there will yet be future creations; indeed, that there has been and will be a series of innumerable worlds. And though he speaks of the world as not being eternal, yet he held, according to Photius, that "the universe, to nav, is coeternal with the only wise and perfect God." 4 And this he argues at length from his notions of power and of the divine immutability, as though there could be no eternal 1 Princip. II. 8. 3.

3 Guer. II. p. 190. Princip. III. 5. 3.

2 V. 10.
4 Cod. 235.

creator, without an eternal creation, nor an immutable God who should begin to create. Thus we see that the same reasoning which is at present employed about an eternal Now, was employed in the days of Origen, to support a little different point, and with at least an equal degree of obscurity.

God's motive for creation, was from within himself, his own goodness; and as this was the same, without variety, he must therefore have created all spirits, which were the first of his creatures, alike and equal. But when many of these had fallen, his object in creating the visible universe, was, to afford suitable places for the punishment and purgation of these lapsed beings, as various in condition as the endless variety of character assumed by them.1

As to the six days of creation, Origen thinks that none but a fool can understand them as days in the literal sense, as there was no sun nor stars to mark the days at first. He also adduces against the literal interpretation, the declaration, "in the day when God made the heavens and the earth."

But perhaps I have dwelt too long on the strange speculations of this great teacher, on the subject of creation. It is pleasing to remark, that he does not appear to have been implicitly followed in them by his successors, though we have not the means of deciding respecting the opinions of most of them, on these points. Didymus, his greatest admirer, has recorded his dissent respecting the animation of celestial bodies.2

IV. PROVIDENCE.

Clement considers the existence of a divine providence, too manifest from the aspect and order of all things, to require proof; and affirms, that the best philosophers have believed in such a providence. He regards the doctrine of so much importance, that if it were removed, the whole economy of salvation would appear a fable. "But the greatest thing in divine providence, is," he says, "that it does not suffer the vice arising from voluntary defection, to remain useless, and that it turns the purposes of the wicked, to some good and useful end."

He makes a broad distinction between God's permitting, and his producing an event. A brief extract will show both his

1 Princip. III. 5. 4.

2 De Trin. I. 32, 97. II. 6, 192.