From Scripture. 2. From Reason. A. From the Divine Foreknowledge. B. From the Divine Wisdom. C. From the Divine Immutability. D. From the Divine Benevolence. III. Objections to the Doctrine of Decrees. 1. That they are inconsistent with the free agency of man. 2. That they take away all motive for human exertion. 3. That they make God the author of sin. IV. Concluding Remarks. 1. Practical uses of the doctrine of decrees. 2. True method of preaching the doctrine. [Cover Art] [Transcriber’s Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.] Christo Deo Salvatori. “THE EYE SEES ONLY THAT WHICH IT BRINGS WITH IT THE POWER OF SEEING.”—_Cicero._ “OPEN THOU MINE EYES, THAT I MAY BEHOLD WONDROUS THINGS OUT OF THY LAW.”—_Psalm 119:18._ “FOR WITH THEE IS THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE: IN THY LIGHT SHALL WE SEE LIGHT.”—_Psalm 36:9._ “FOR WE KNOW IN PART, AND WE PROPHESY IN PART; BUT WHEN THAT WHICH IS PERFECT IS COME, THAT WHICH IS IN PART SHALL BE DONE AWAY.”—_1 Cor. 13:9, 10._ PREFACE The present work is a revision and enlargement of my “Systematic Theology,” first published in 1886. Of the original work there have been printed seven editions, each edition embodying successive corrections and supposed improvements. During the twenty years which have intervened since its first publication I have accumulated much new material, which I now offer to the reader. My philosophical and critical point of view meantime has also somewhat changed. While I still hold to the old doctrines, I interpret them differently and expound them more clearly, because I seem to myself to have reached a fundamental truth which throws new light upon them all. This truth I have tried to set forth in my book entitled “Christ in Creation,” and to that book I refer the reader for further information. That Christ is the one and only Revealer of God, in nature, in humanity, in history, in science, in Scripture, is in my judgment the key to theology. This view implies a monistic and idealistic conception of the world, together with an evolutionary idea as to its origin and progress. But it is the very antidote to pantheism, in that it recognizes evolution as only the method of the transcendent and personal Christ, who fills all in all, and who makes the universe teleological and moral from its centre to its circumference and from its beginning until now.