Hillbillies, Fundamentalists, Extremists, Puritans!

"Then I said, 'Ah, Lord GOD! They say of me', ‘Does he not speak parables?’" (Ezekiel 20:49) Such was the response of the prophet Ezekiel after the Lord God had directed him to set his face toward the south, warn the forest of impending fire which will destroy all trees, green and dry and that every face from south to north would be scorched by it. 2 Chronicles 36:15ff reminds us that the Lord God sent messengers again and again to warn Judah of the consequences of their lack of faith in him but the people mocked and scoffed at God's messengers while despising God's words.

The history of God's church is dotted with occasions of the messengers of God being opposed, ridiculed, abused sidelined by those within who preferred the errant faith and practice of the day.

For an example I have chosen the time of the Puritans in England in the Seventeenth Century. Less than one hundred years after the Reformation in England the Church had descended into formality. Nominalism was rife with pews occupied by a vast number who had no relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ while believing they did. These were they who the words of our Lord Jesus Christ "Away from me I do not know you" were to become incredibly personal and destroying.

There is a wealth of books and essays informing as to the circumstances of the time of the Puritans. For this blog I have chosen extracts from Iain Murray's ",Thomas Hooker and the Doctrine of Conversion" published by Bannner of Truth Trust in 1980.

Iain Murray said; "The religion to be found in the majority of parishes in England was not therefore the product of sustained Puritan influence. Consequently, most of the early 17th Century Puritans had to give first priority to changing what they found in the congregations in which they settled. Their sermons did not come to their hearers' ears like the accustomed tones of the church bell. They were different and one fundamental reason for the difference was the Puritan conviction that the prevalence of nominal Christianity was then the foremost hindrance to real Christianity. To evangelize those without was not the need of the hour for all the people were already church-goers, all were 'believers', and all were 'gospellers'. Since the accession of Elizabeth the whole population, a few excepted, had lived under the form of the Church which Parliament had so suddenly made 'Protestant' in 1559. Thus, in theory, Christianity was universal. In reality, to use the words of Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye, it was religion learned 'through the mere efficacy of education, laws and customs'. The faith most commonly to be found in the parishes of England was only the temporary faith of the 'stony-ground' hearers of Christ's parable; it was a religion akin to that of Nicodemus before his new birth.

Such was the assessment which in the 1620's governed the Puritans' understanding of England's need. East Anglia had probably received more of the gospel than any other part of the land except London, yet at Dedham, John Rogers often thought it necessary to warn his hearers on this point. By true faith, he says,

' .... the believer particularly applies Christ to himself truly, and so lives by him a true sanctified life, which this temporary faith falls short of. Therefore let us beware, and not trust to it, the rather because most of the people of England be deceived herewith, and go no further. Yea, most of the people be of the worse temporaries, only believing the Word of God to be true, and professing it, because law enjoins them so to do; but see how they live after their own lusts, and therefore have no true faith, which purifieth the heart. And this would be seen if any alteration of religion should come, as sheep flee from before a dog, so most of these would turn from the Gospel to the Mass, as they did in Queen Mary's time'.

Quotations of similar nature could be multiplied. At Broughton, Northamptonshire, Robert Bolton, also referring to temporary faith, believed that 'This faith deceives thousands, because they think it sufficient for salvation! When Richard Baxter went to Kidderminster, Shropshire, in 1640, and tried the knowledge of his people 'to discern what they thought of the essentials of Christianity, and of the things that Christ hath made necessary to salvation', he discovered 'multitudes that come all their life-time to Church ... so ignorant that it's hard for scholars to believe it, that have not tried. And we have found that multitudes of them will be brought to learn over all the words of the Catechism that never consider or understand the sense, much less the power and practice of what their tongues recite.'

Thomas Hooker fully shared in this evaluation: 'Most of the people. who lived in the bosom of the Church and profess the faith', he believed to be 'formal gospellers', and he refers to this situation as 'notorious to all the English world'.

It is impossible to do any justice to the burden of Hooker's preaching in Essex between 1626-29 without taking this understanding of the state of the people into account. We may disagree with that understanding - as many of the anti-Puritan clergy did, believing that it caused men needless scruples and distress - but at least it should be recognised that it throws important light upon the question why Hooker and his brethren preached as they did. They meant to trouble mens' consciences; they meant to shake their empty assurance; and they persisted in it with much personal cost. Sometimes, as Hooker once reminded his congregation in New England, the result of this preaching was that the very patrons who had introduced them into their curacies turned against them:

'Many a formal wretch hath at great cost and charges laid out himself and estate to bring a faithful preacher to a place; and when the soul saving dispensation of the Word hath discovered his falseness and laid open the cursed haunts of the carnal heart, shook his hopes, and beat all the holds he had of the goodness of his estate, and battered them before his eyes . . . if he cannot cunningly undermine the man, he would rather leave the place than live under the ministry.'

Secondly, it needs to be said that there was general agreement among the Puritans on the question how the influence of nominal Christianity should be counter-acted. Ultimately they knew that it depended upon the Holy Spirit - in whose power they put their faith - yet they also understood that the Spirit used the truth and that preachers must use 'undeniable evidence of reason out of the Word."

We here at Sydney Anglican Heretics Blogspot have constantly held that holding to the straight-forward reading of the Creation account in Genesis 1 (as has been the mainstream Christian reading through the millennia) is not a salvation issue. However, this writer holds firmly that just as a brown deadness on the tip of a leaf signals a problem within the tree, a failure to trust the Word of God in the Genesis Creation account is a symptom of a deeper problem within the person who professes to be Christian. For such a person, faith in man on the subject of Origins exceeds faith in the Word of God and because "the Word of God" is Jesus Christ (Rev. 19:13) the problem becomes evident.

Just as the messengers of God have been opposed in times past, Biblical Creationists are today opposed and ridiculed as they attempt to call the people back to faith in the Word of God. Just as the Puritans encountered difficulties and censure for confronting those in the Church of England who errantly esteemed themselves as "believing the Word of God to be true, and professing it" and regarding themselves as "gospellers", so Biblical Creationists today have to confront those in the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney who, in like manner, falsely esteem themselves.

By the Holy Spirit of God we will be instruments for the delivery of some from the cancer that resides within their 'faith'.

Sam Drucker

Getting Genesis Right (Part 2)

This is the second and concluding blog of dot points made by Dr William Barrick, Professor of Old Testament and Director of Th.D. Studies at Master's Seminary, California, when he recently visited Australia and spoke at a one day conference at St John's Park Baptist Church, Sydney.

"The creation record in Genesis 1:1-2:3 represents some of the highest standards of literature.

The account is a literary masterpiece.

The creation record in Genesis 1:1-2:3 presents a literal historical account.

The creation record in Genesis 1:1-2:3 provides a theological foundation for understanding God, the world, and mankind.

1.0 The beauty and majesty of Genesis 1:1-2:3 does not arise from poetry.

1.1 The creation record lacks the parallelism that characterizes Hebrew poetry.

1.2 The grammar of the creation record is not the grammar of Hebrew poetry.

1.3 No indication of imagery or metaphor occurs in the creation record.

2.0 The historicity of Genesis 1:1-2:3 relies on key elements of Hebrew narrative.

2.1 The verbs and phrases of the creation record indicates actions in chronological sequence.

2.2 The text of the creation record displays formulaic repetitions.

2.3 The creation record comes closer to the pattern of genealogies than to Hebrew poetry.

3.0 Identifying the creation record as narrative Instead of poetry prevents misunderstanding the text of Genesis 1:1-2:3.

3.1 Misidentification leads to bias against the supernatural.

3.2 Misidentification gives the impression that the text does not correspond with reality.

3.3 Misidentification excludes the creation record as a historical witness or testimony.

3.4 Misidentification excludes chronological data.

3.5 Misidentification disrupts the pattern of biblical history.

Conclusion

As historical narrative, Genesis 1:1-2:3 presents six literal days of creation.

As historical narrative. Genesis 1:1-2:3 establishes theological precedents regarding the nature of God and His work.

As historical narrative, Genesis 1:1-2:3 fosters faith in the unity of the testimony Of Scripture."

With the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney almost bereft of theologians holding firm to the Word of God in Genesis it is a blessing from God that He should send among us, if only for a brief time, one of His own to refresh us.

Sam Drucker

Getting Genesis Right (Part 1)

Recently, Dr William Barrick, Professor of Old Testament and Director of Th.D. Studies at Master's Seminary, visited Australia and spoke at a one day conference at St John's Park Baptist Church, Sydney.

In a two part blog I will provide some points made by Dr Barrick during his address, commencing here:

The Last Things replicate the First Things in inverted order.

Or, eschatology recapitulates protology—in reverse.

Isaiah 65:17-new heavens and

Something to think about: If God can create the new heavens and the new earth instantaneously, why not the first?

Genesis 1:1 Creation
...Genesis 1:3 God's Light
......Genesis 1:26 Man's Rule
.........Genesis 2:8-17 Old Eden
............Genesis 3:17 Curse
............Revelation 21:4; 22:3 No Curse
.........Revelation 22:1-2 New Eden
......Revelation 20:4 Man's Rule
...Revelation 21:23; 22:5 God's Light
Revelation 21:1 New Creation

Genesis 1:1 Creation
...Genesis 3:1 Satan's Freedom
......Genesis 6-8 Worldwide Judgment
.........Genesis l0-11 Babel/Babylon
.........Revelation 17-18 Babylon
......Revelation 19:11-19 Worldwide Judgment
...Revelation 20:2-3 Satan's Confinement
Revelation 21:1 New Creation

The First Things and the Last Things point to Christ as the focal point of divine history.

Testimony to creation as recorded in Genesis 1:1-2:3 permeates all of Scripture.

Denial of biblical creation equals a denial of the Creator.

Denial of the Creator in any form (rejection of divine revelation in
creation or in His written Word, or idolatry) is inexcusable.

Denial of biblical creation is exchanging God's truth for man's lie.

Denial of biblical creation results in greater depravity and immorality due to the rejection of the authority of the Creator and His inerrant revelation.

Denial of the doctrines of the First Things (protology) destroys doctrines of the Last Things (eschatology).

Without historical temporal Creation, there is no hope for a historical, temporal Restoration.

The alternative, secular historical science, changes—Scripture does not change.

Modern science mocks the science by which Augustine felt threatened—what will the science be 200 years from now?

When we affirm biblical creationism,

we propose the plain sense of the rest of Scripture

we provide foundational truths for basic Christian doctrine, and

we preserve the salvific focus of the Christian faith—only the Creator can ultimately save and restore.

Part two will follow in a few days.

Sam Drucker

Leupold Genesis part 58 verse 26 Image of God III

To sum up from a slightly different angle we should like to append the thought that the spiritual and inner side of the image of God is, without a doubt, the most important one. It will hardly be safe to say that the body of man is also patterned after God, because God, being an incorporeal spirit, cannot have what we term a material body. Yet the body of man must at least be regarded as the fittest receptacle for man's spirit and so must bear at least an analogy to the image, of God, an analogy that is so close that God and His angels choose to appear in human form when they appear to men (Strack). In fact, we are justified to go even so far as to say that whatever this man is said to have is in a far more real sense a reality in God. Here lies the basis for the propriety of all anthropomorphisms. If man has a hand, an ear, an eye, a heart, not only may these also be possessions of the Almighty; in a far truer sense such potentialities lie in God. Yet, let it be well marked, in saying this we in no sense ascribe corporeality to the Eternal One.

Skinner confuses all basic concepts and departs far from revealed truth, glorifying man and his native ability in an unscriptural fashion, when he remarks: "The `image' is not something peculiar to man's original estate, and lost by the Fall." He justifies this radical departure by the further remark: "Because P, who alone uses the expression knows nothing of the Fall, and in 9:6 employs the term, without any restriction, of post-diluvian mankind." What an untenable assumption even from the standpoint of criticism! Just because what is ascribed to P does not happen to mention the Fall, we at once know what P actually knew or did not know about the Fall. The critic is coming to the point where in his mind the document P and the person P are identical. The passage 9:6 is, of course, to be taken in the light of all that precedes, namely in the light of the Fall, which intervenes between chapters 1 and 9.

When evidence fails to support pet theories in this instance the theory of the derivation of Israelirish knowledge from Babylonian sources--pure suppositions such as the following are resorted to: "The origin of the conception ('image') is probably found in the Babylonian mythology" (Skinner).

What follows is one direction in which the possession of the image of God on the part of man expresses itself dominion over the earth. "Let them have dominion" is the verb radhah signifying "to trample down" or "to master." The breadth of the domain to be ruled by man is expressed by the various spheres of man's dominion that are now enumerated. They are, first of all, the classes previously described as having been brought into being, listed with a slight modification of terminology. The "swarms" or "shoals" previously created (v. 20) are referred to by a term covering the chief members of this class, daghah, "fish" in a collective sense. "The birds of the heavens" are the second group mentioned. Though we have translated behemah "domestic animals," we cannot deny that it might here, as a broader term often so used (cf. (Ex 9:25; 12:12)), include all larger animals, wild and domestic, because man's dominion certainly covered the wild beasts as well, as appears from the remaining terms, yet the wild beasts are not separately mentioned. For the list goes on to mention "the-whole earth," which cannot, as Koenig suggests (K. C.), here be taken to mean "all beings upon the earth" (Erdlebewesen), for then the very last term in the list would duplicate this; nor can it mean "the dwellers upon earth,"-a meaning which "earth" sometimes has, for then the idle statement would result: let man rule over himself. Consequently, we take "the whole earth" in its simplest meaning, as the inanimate earth proper, which man is to master and subdue. We then list, as belonging in this department of his activity, man's mastery the powers of nature, physical, electrical, chemical, physiological and the like. Whatever true scientific endeavour has produced comes under this broad charter which the Creator has given to man. Since, however, man's dominion is to find most frequent expression in the direction of the control of living creatures, the closing statement, the broadest of all, mounts to a climax in the words "over everything that moveth about upon the earth." Every type of being is to be subservient to man. The word employed for this last class is remes, which appears here in the broadest application of its root sense "to move about" and less in the specific sense of "moving about lightly." The verb used (yirdu) is a jussive (K. S. 364h) and actually establishes as a divine word the situation it outlines. Man in reality became the controlling power. Yet there remains--even in the primeval state there remained--much to be achieved by way of a perfect mastery of his whole territory.

Taking the verse as a whole, we cannot but notice that it sets forth the picture of a being that stands on a very high level, a creature of singular nobility and endowed with phenomenal powers and attributes, not a type of being that by its brute imperfections is seen to be on the same level with the animal world, but a being that towers high above all other creatures, their king and their crown.

An Earnest Cry to Atheists.

A recent publication called Creation Extra from Creation Ministries International contained extracts of a letter from a former Atheist which I believe warrants wider circulation. I obtained permission for Creation Ministries International to reproduce it here following:

The atrocity of atheism
It’s a fate worse than death.

By Gary Bates
CEO, CMI–Worldwide

This month’s Creation Extra is rather sobering, yet encouraging. It should serve as a wakeup call to the very real need to get the truth out about biblical creation as far and as wide as we all can.

Some time ago, Justin S., a former atheist, shared his heart with us. At a time when so many Christians are failing to recognize where the rubber really hits the road when it comes to confronting a secular worldview, this young man really ‘nails it.’ Here are some excerpts of what he wrote:

Dear CMI, I cannot express my gratitude in words. I became a Christian three years ago after struggling with thoughts of suicide due to my atheistic beliefs.

Your ministry truly saved my life.

I was raised in a secular home, and surrounded by atheistic propaganda from an early age … from school or the media. Unsurprisingly, I became an atheist at the age of 12. As the years passed and I truly tried to understand the world around me, I discovered a horrifying truth that had been hidden from me, hidden from everyone.

This is the reason I am writing this letter, as even in your excellent articles on atheism [see creation.com/atheism], you do not truly reveal the extent to which the atheists deceive everyone, even themselves. Atheists often say that they can truly live a happy, fulfilling life. Yet this is a lie, a deception which damns millions of souls to darkness. … Simply put, atheism destroys the possibility of personal identity, choice, and objective and subjective meaning.

Atheism inescapably leads to naturalism, and from naturalism follows atheism’s great skeleton which its followers try to keep hidden; determinism. Determinism is inescapable if one is a naturalist, as all that exists is material and has come about by purely natural processes. This means then, that the mind of man, our greatest treasure, is reducible to material bound by physical laws; namely, our thoughts, feelings, and actions are reducible to reactions of chemicals in the brain.
Few people realize, then, that this destroys all that makes us human. Namely; if our thoughts, feelings, and actions are simply chemical reactions in the brain … This means then, that whatever we do, we do because we have to. We cannot do anything other than what we do, it simply isn’t possible. All actions are the result of prior actions in an unbreakable chain. We are no different than a cog in a watch or a falling domino.

There is no difference between the embrace of a loving husband and the violence of a vicious rapist; the actions of a doctor trying to save a life and the mass murderer who kills at whim; the actions of our greatest leaders and the inaction of a lazy sluggard. Both are totally the same in atheism.

Objective meaning is non-existent, and subjective meaning is incoherent! Would we say the action of a robot picking up a glass bottle has any meaning, value, or significance? Of course not! It’s simply doing what it has to! It can do nothing else! In what sense can an atheist say that he as a person truly exists? The material which composes our body is recycled every seven years, and our consciousness seems to cease every time we go to bed. So in what sense is the mass of matter that wakes up in the morning the same person as the one who went to bed the night before?

As you can see, atheism is utterly horrific! Sadly, most atheists are unaware of these things! I believe if they truly understood the consequences of what they believed, they would reconsider their position.

I know I did, God bless.

Many think that atheism is just a non-belief in a deity. But this well-written letter aptly describes its true meaning. As atheist Cornell biology professor William Provine confirmed, evolution means: “There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.”1 We can see its fruit every day when we read or look at the daily news and see how godless people act on their belief that there is no tomorrow because there is no Creator. Justin was brought up on a diet of evolution and without an alternative viewpoint he was left without hope.

In God’s providence, all it took was for him to be exposed to information that countered the falsehoods that he’d been taught under the guise of science. It doesn’t have to be this way. CMI can do so much more with your help. With your much-needed support, you can help to keep the information machine churning. Even a small amount per month really does help.

Thanks for considering this.

1. Origins Research 16(1/2):9, 1994. Provine also correctly observed that “…belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.” In Rossiter, M. ed., Catching up with the Vision, p. S123, 1999.

- End of article -

My heart's desire is for Atheists to come into the truth, that they experience new light and life as did the correspondent cited here.

Theistic Evolutionists would have been no help to this person receiving the truth.

Sam Drucker

The Genesis of Nothing

Robert Lewis Dabney was a 19th Century Theologian, Chief of Staff to Stonewall Jackson and author. One of Dabney's works was Sacred Rhetoric, published in 1881. In this work Dabney, in addressing the subject of Preaching, said that the state of the pulpit may always be taken as an index of that of the Church. Oh, how Dabney would lament the sorry state of the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney when so-called evangelicals can speak up a paper called The Genesis of Everything. This paper, by someone who presents himself as some sort of historian, drains the creation account in Genesis 1 of its historical content.

How can a Christian trust what the author of the paper says about New Testament history when he puts as much credibility on a contrary and pagan creation account as that contained in the Word of God and then proceeds to invoke a range of misappropriated literary devices to remove Genesis 1 of its historical narrative genre?

It is almost as if Robert Lewis Dabney had this day's underwhelming historian and theologian in mind when writing about historical sermons and said:

But, for the tyro, the chief difficulty of historical sermons is to catch correctly the precise didactic scope of the sacred narrative, and to limit himself to it. Certain schools, of even Protestant preachers, have given us deplorable examples of error here. They have used the plain histories of the Bible as though they were riddles for the exercise of an ingenious fancy. They have formed allegories where the Holy Ghost has warranted them in seeing none. They have interpreted these histories as though any analogy which a vagrant imagination could invent between a Bible fact and a supposed moral were a perfect demonstration that this was the truth which the Spirit intended to teach in that place. Your own good sense should show you that a mode of interpretation cannot be correct which enables different men to extract the most variant meanings from the same words. It is utterly condemned by what has been established concerning the preacher's mission. He has naught to do save to deliver God's message out of the Scriptures; his only concern is with the meaning intended by the Holy Ghost in the place expounded.

The author of The Genesis of Everything contravenes all principle espoused by Dabney just so he can accommodate the errant and idolatrous theistic evolutionists within his Diocese.

I'll leave the final word to Lauren S. Bottomly who wrote Concluding Thoughts on R.L. Dabney: The Sensualistic Philosophy, 2006, and made the following comment: Evolution theory is maddening to a Christian. It affronts God; it denies his work and perfect intelligence, and it cancels man’s promised destiny of glorious liberty with him.

Sam Drucker

From Your God Your Morality Flows

I certainly hope Theistic Evolutionists didn't feel outrage or discomfort at the scenes on the ABC TV Four Corners program on Monday night.

How could they? Their god made a world full of suffering, ripping and tearing and being eaten alive within the animal kingdom which far exceeded the treatment rendered by Indonesian abattoir workers on Australian cattle imports.

For Theistic Evolutionists to take umbrage at what takes place in Indonesian abattoirs is to put themselves above their god. If their god did not have a problem instituting worse suffering and cruelty as part of the creative process then how can Theistic Evolutionists elevate their morality above their god? That is idolatry!

No, just lie back Theistic Evolutionists and admire the capacity of the Indonesian abattoir workers to walk somewhat in the footsteps of your god and pray that you one day will be more cruel than the Indonesians.

Sam Drucker

Leupold Genesis part 57 verse 26 Image of God II

Koenig's interpretation deserves mention (K. S. 207 a). He claims that an individual reflecting upon a course of action to be followed may appear to himself both as giving orders and as carrying out these orders. He claims such a thing would happen "quite naturally and easily" (naturgemaess leicht). We can hardly imagine any explanation more stilted and artificial. It is a figment of the clever brain, invented to extricate its inventor out of a predicament.

We should yet especially emphasize that the trinitarian view, presented in modified form above; is not, as many charge, transferring the New Testament back into the Old. We have emphasized above that the New Testament marks an advance upon whatever the Old offers under this head. What the Old Testament offers here would never have been fully grasped if clearer and more. elaborate revelation had not thrown its light upon this passage from the New Testament.

The being to be made is called 'adham, a term whose root significance must very likely be sought in the cognate word 'adhamah (see v. 25) which refers to the soil capable of cultivation. 'Adham would, therefore, be "the cultivator of the soil."

The double modifying phrase, "in our image, after our likeness," requires closer study. It is in the last analysis nothing more than a phrase which aims to assert with emphasis the idea that man is to be closely patterned after his Maker. This feature in man's being is a second mode. of setting forth prominently the singular dignity of man: Man is not only made after the deliberate plan and purpose of God but is also very definitely patterned after Him. In making both phrases practically result in an idea which is one composite whole we are not erasing the distinction between the terms. "Image" is for the word tselem, whose root means "to carve" or "to cut off." We cannot go so far as to apply this idea to the physical similarity of man with God, as some have. But, at least, the term refers to more concrete similarity, whereas the second word demiuth, "likeness," refers more to similarity in the abstract or in the ideal. But here again we cannot venture with the Greek fathers to apply the term to man's inner or spiritual resemblance to God. Nor dare we press the change of prepositions; be "in" and ke "as." For though be describes man as being within a certain mold as it were, it yet must also be called a kind of Beth normae (K. S. 332r), for (Ex 25:40) it is used practically like ke. To this must be added the fact that v. 27 considers the use of tselem without demuth sufficient to express what God did, "image" being used twice. Again it 5:1 demuth with be and not with ke, as in our passage, is thought to be an adequate statement of the case. So we shall have to regard the second phrase, "according to our likeness," as merely supplementary to or explanatory of the first. Of course, the possessive "our" in connection with these two nouns is to be explained like the plural of "let us make" above.

But yet we have not defined what the term "the image of God" implies. Those who would rule out the clear passages of the New Testament and construe a picture only by the help. of what this chapter offers, fail to discern the true unity of scriptural revelation and are bound to arrive at a misleading conception. True, the author of the account may himself not have had a full apperception of what all was involved in this concept, but here most especially the principle must be applied. Scripture must be explained by Scripture. Especially such passages as (Eph 4:24) and (Col 3:10) must be drawn upon. The reformers clearly saw that the most important thing involved was a proper attitude of heart in faith. Luther says: "I understand this image of God to be ... that Adam not only knew God and believed in Him that He was gracious; but that he also led an entirely godly life." Cf. also Apology II, 17-22. As adequate a summary of all features involved as any is that of Koenig in TAT, p. 226 S. He lists the following items as belonging to the outward side of the divine image: (a) man's countenance which directs his gaze upwards; (b) a capacity for varying facial expressions; (c) a sense of shame expressing itself in the blush of man; (d) speech. It cannot be denied that all these are physical features which are noticeably absent in all animals. To the inner side of the divine image the same author assigns the following items: (a) on the material side of man's inner make-up stands immortality; (b) on the intellectual side is self-consciousness, reason and Vernunft;( c) on the voluntative moral side is the ability to discern good and evil, the freedom of the will, conscience, and the right use of his moral capacities--the most important of all. We understand Koenig to make this last statement in the sense of the reformer's quoted above.