"The Argument, a priori, for the Being and the Attributes of the Lord God, the Absolute One, and First Cause," by W. H. Gillespie. Sixth or Theist's Edition. Edinburgh 1906.
1907 287 This is a re-issue of what first appeared in a less extended form in the year 1833, and a lengthy survey of the work was given in the Presbyterian Review of that year by Professor P. C. Macdougal of the Edinburgh New College, afterwards reprinted with other contributions by the same writer in a demy 8vo volume of some 304 pages under the title of "Papers on Literary and Philosophical Subjects etc." Edinburgh 1852.
To those who are interested in the discussion of the a priori and a posteriori arguments on this subject, the above Review may not be without its use so far as it goes, but for our part we are bound to confess the insufficiency of all these reasonings which can never go beyond a must be, and fail to reveal to us the Being after whom the mind of man, however cultivated, does but vainly grope and confess as "God unknown," apart from a divine revelation.
Creation declares "His eternal power and divinity" (theiotes); the law, that He is Jehovah, the God of a people brought out of Egypt to be in manifest relationship and responsibility to Him above all other peoples. But it is the Son, the only Begotten, who reveals the one true God, and Himself the Sent One of the Father, the true God and eternal life. "He that cometh to God must believe that He is" (not, must be). Man needs a divine revelation, and this God has given in His word — but more, He has revealed Himself in a Man walking this earth in perfect dependence on and pleasing His Father in all things — the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
It is no longer man left to his inferences or conclusions that there must be a divine Being (he knows not who), but that there is; and what a Being — One made known in the Lord Jesus Christ, and, since redemption, declared as "light," and "love." Do you, my reader, know Him thus?
We regret to have to call attention to the falsity of the argument of this book, in that it seeks to land us in annihilationism of those who die in their sins. Now, we do know from the Saviour Himself, who says, "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen" (John 3:11), that there is a gehenna where "their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:48). This is not annihilation, but the reverse; and to those,"that tremble at His word," this testimony is conclusive.
Yet have we the veil drawn aside when time has ceased to be, and eternity now runs its solitary and never-ending course (Rev. 21:1-8). "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
For man, there is no extinction of either spirit, soul, or body. The first death, if we may so term it in distinction from the "second death," is the separation of spirit and soul from their bodily tenement, the latter finding its receptacle here, whether in earth or sea, whilst the former depart, if of believers, to be with Christ in paradise, as was the dying but believing robber (Luke 23:43); whilst the spirit and soul of the unbeliever await in hides, the place of their torment meanwhile (Luke 16:23, 1 Peter 3:19), the "resurrection of judgment" (John 5:29). Then the sinner, no longer in his disembodied condition, but again in his composite state (of spirit, soul and body), is cast into the lake of fire, where he has his everlasting association (and punishment) with the devil and his angels for whom (not, for man) this everlasting fire was prepared (Matt. 25:41).
Oh, why evade the plain testimony of scripture, and of Him who "came to seek and to save the lost," that we might be with Him for ever, and praise Him and the Father for the "great" and "eternal" salvation now "proclaimed to the whole creation which is under heaven" (Col. 1:23)?
"Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." "Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your heart."