IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 1.25 IM IM 11= LA. IIIIII.6 !f:lM If 1^ <? ^^ eS //, 7 '/ -«;^ Photographic Sdences Corporation ?3 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 :%' , -mr CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut canadien de microreproductions historiques Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibiiographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibiiographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-etre uniques du point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la mdthode normale de f!lmage sont indic^uds ci-dessous. □ Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur □ Covers damaged/ Couverture endommagee □ Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaurde et/ou pelliculde □ Cover title missing/ Le titre (*3 couverture manque D D D D D D n Coloured maps/ Cartes gdographiques en couleur Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material/ Relid avec d'autres documents Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La reliure serree peut causei de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge int^rieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutdes lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela dtait possible, ces pages n'ont pas 6t6 filmdes. Additional comments:/ Commentaires suppl6mentaires; I I Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur Pages damaged/ Pages endommag^es I I Pages restored and/or laminated/ ^ Pages restaurdes et/ou pelliculdes Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ Pages d6color6es, tachet^es ou piquees I I Pages detached/ Pages d^tachees Showthrough/ Transparence I I Quality of print varies/ D D Qualite inegale de I'impression Includes supplementary material/ Comprend du materiel supplementaire Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponible Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont 6t6 filmdes d nouveau de facon d obtenir la meilleure image possible. This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est filmd au taux de reduction indiqud ci-dessous. IPX 14X 18X ^X ~] I I I I \ \ \ T/i n 26X 30X 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X itails i du lOdifier ' une mage The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: Ralph Pickard Bell Library Mount Allison University The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. L'exemplaiia filmd fut reproduit grfice d la g6n6rosit6 oe: Ralph Pickard Bell Library Mount Allison University Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition at de la nettetd de I'exemplaire film6, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or iHustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when iH>propriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the !ast page with a printed or illustrated impression. Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprimis sont filmds en commenpant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film^s en commengant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol ^^- (meaning "CON- TINUED "), or the symbol ▼ (meaning "END "), whichever applies. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — ► siynifie "A SUIVRE ', le symbole V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand comer, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film6s d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 d partir de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n6cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. errata to ! pelure, 3n k D 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 BY THE SAME AUTHOR: Fasting Communion HISTORICALLY INVESTIGATED FROM THE CAN- ONS AND FATHERS, AND SHOWN TO BE NO r I'.INDING IN ENGLAND. Sccomi Edition. 3vo, cloth, $5.00. THOMAS VVHITTAKER, NEW YORK. : i*!SPl';#;'^w"' w^"'^*-"' •' '•■'■ I -i • k M THE BISHOP PADDOCK LECTURES, 1890. GOD INCARNATE. riY THE RIGHT REV. HOLLINGWORTH TULLY KINGDON, D.D., BISHOP COADJUTOR OF FREUKRICTO.V, NKW BRU.VSUICK, CANADA. NEW YORK : THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 AM) 3 Rnii.ic Horsi.;. 1S90. Bf5A(jj«ori«*lt3( COPYRIGHT, 1890, Hv THOMAS WHITTAKER. BURR PRINTING HOUSE, FRANKFORT AND JACOB STREETS, NEW YORK, t ^Bfm THE BISHOP PADDOCK LECTURES. In the summer of the year 1880, Gkorge A. Jar. VIS, of Brooklyn, N. Y., moved by his sense of the i^reiit i^ood wliich mii^ht thereby accrue to the cause of CllKisr, and to the Churcli of wliich he was an ever-grateful member, j^ave to the Gener^d Theo- loi^ical Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Churcli certain securities, exceedin«^ in value eleven thousand dollars, for the foundation and maintenance of a Lec- tureship in said seminary. Out of love for a former pastor and enduring friend, the Right Rev. Benjamin Henry Paddock. D.D., Bishop of Massachusetts, he named the founda- tion " The Bishop Paddock Lectureship. " The deed ot trust declares that,— The subjects of the lectures shall be such as appertain to the defence of the religion of Jesus Christ, as revealed in the Holy Bible, and illustrated in the Book of Common Prayer, against the varying errors of the day, whether materialistic, rationalistic, or professedly religious, and also to its defence and confirmation in respect of such central truths as the Trinity, the Atonement, Justification, and the Inspiration of the Word of God ; and of such central facts as the Church's Divine Order and Sacraments, her historical /Reformation, and her rights and vi THE BISHOP PADDOCK LECTURES. powers as a pure and national Church. And other subjects may be chosen if unanimously approved by the Board of Appointment as being both timely and also within the true intent of this Lectureship." Under the appointment of the board created by the Trust, the Right Rev. Hollingvvorth Tiilly King- don, D.D., Bishop Coadjutor of Fredericton, New Brunswick, delivered the Lectures for the year 1890, which are contained in this volume. ■-.i<«««B*'-)l«**J»' f.>ti. PREFACE. The conditions ol the Trust under which the fol- lowing Lectures were delivered, require that they should be printed. In no way is there any claim of originality for them. Indeed, the only merit they may have is that they endeavor to express old truths sometimes in modern words, rarely in new language It Will be objected that the subject is too vast for treatment in so small a space. But the object has been to stimulate inquiry within the limits prescribed by the Trust. It is of the utmost importance that the attention of candidates for Holy Orders should be concentrated upon the fundamental doctrine of the Incarnation. At no time has this been of greater importance than at the present moment. ■I P. .# ^m- CONTENTS. Lecture I.— "The Creator." Text.— i'. ^o/m i., 1.5. Lectuke II.— "The Creature." . Text. — S. John /., 1-5. Lecture III.— "The Incarnation." Text. — .S'. Jo/in t., 14. Lecture IV.—" Perfection of Sympathy." Text.—/. S. John i., i. Lecture V.—" The Atonement." . Text.— 6". fohn i., 29. Lecture VI.—" The Sacraments." Text.— 5. John i., 12, 13. Appendix. PAGE I 20 43 66 93 126 Lecture VII.-" The Gift of the Holy Ghost." 172 Text. — S.John vii., 39. 207 GOD INCARNATE. LECTURE I. s 'i TIIK CkE.lOR. " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same • -^ , in the beginning wiih Gud. ' All things were made oy Him ; and without Hia. was not anything made that was made. In Ilim was life ; and .',. life was the light of men. And the light shineih ir darkness : and ihe darkness comprehended it not. '-St. John i : 1-5. We read that Simpliciunus, Bishop of Milan, told St. Augustine the saying of a heathe.i phil.^sopher that the exordium of St. John's Gospel ought to be written up in letters of gold in the most conspicuous place of Christian churches. It would be well if we would even now follow out the suggestion of the Platonist philosopher. Still better would it be if each Christian would bear the words written on his heart and mind ; not only to be retained in the memory, but pondered over and devoutly meditated upon. Without doubt the words have been found very dear to many. Of old many had them en- grossed and illuminated as beautifully as possible upon parchment, and then wore them, as the Jews THE CREATOR. of old wore the words of Deuteronomy in their phylacteries. But as true and real devotion waned, this hiibit degenerated into a superstition, so that we read it was condemned more than once. Still, the inimitable grandeur of the words com- pelled attention, and in one way or another special reverence was paid to them. In so)ne churches the passage was said at the end of the Service for the Baptism of Infants, and again after Communicating the dying, and after Extreme Unction. We are told that in the comparative scarcity of manuscripts, and it may be in the equal scarcity of power to read them, the laity would sometimes stop the priest in his passage to the vestry, after the celebration of the Holy Communion, and ask him to recite to them this Gospel. This, it is said, led to the custom of reciting it after the service, whether it were specially asked for or not. Then, as the piety which had de- manded the recitation declined, it was said by the priest for himself ; voluntarily at first, and then in some parts by special direction of ordinary author- ity. It is therefore often found in manuscripts, written at the end of the service.* It would be well if we could habituate ourselves to repeat the words continually and meditate upon them. For the}' are as much needed now as in St. John's days. The errors that he combated are con- tinually reappearing. Well-meaning persons, from a mistaken sentimental piety, in popular story books, present an erroneous view of our blessed Lord's life and character, which is as much to be guarded * See Appendix A. THE CREATOR. Lheir Liied, that com- 3ecial 2S the ^r the :ating e told :ripts, read iest in of the them ,tom ot lecially lad de- by the hen in luthor- scripts. e elves to upon s in St. ire con- is, from books, rd's life uarded against as open heresy. Indeed, more so, for it is more insidious, and therefore more dangerous. More and more the responsibility is thrown ui)()n parents to guard their children from error. More and more, therefore, should they preoccupy their minds with the truth about our Lord ; and perhaps no more certain method could be adopted than to build up the child's mind on a firm hold of the truth as pre- sented in St. John's writings. Of these it has been said, with truth, that therein " agnus ambulat, elephas natat. " The simple child can walk at large, the man of ponderous learning is soon out of his depth. It is, no doubt, one of the reasons that so many attacks have been concentrated on St. John's Gospel, that it contains the antidote to most modern errors. Indeed, we might almost say that all error in the Christian religion might be corrected from his writ- ings. For no writings so forcibly and so plainly m- sist upon the truth of the Incarnation ; and almost all, if, indeed, not all, error in Christian doctrine is nearly connected with erroneous or faulty views of the fundamental doctrine of the Incarnation. Hence, if such views are to thrive, men must first of all get rid of St. John's writings as being the great prophy- lactic against error. But this is no easy task, and the attacks have but revealed the strength of the position assailed. We begin, then, as St. John did, from God Him- self. This was ever the plan of the English Church. When her Canons were codified commencement was made from the doctrine about God.* When, in the E.g., Lyndewode's " Provinciale." THE CREATOR. sixteenth century, she put out articles about matrers of controversy at the time, she took care to place in the very forefront the Articles of the Catholic Faith.* Herein at once is seen her difference from other re- forming bodies, Scotch or Continental ; for all these, with scarce an exception, begin their ** Confessions of faith" with some articles of controversial matter.f The English folk, too, were in the habit of com- mencing their letters with the sacred name ; as we read in Shakespeare, " Emmanuel is what they write at the top of letters ;" X and in the pious letters be- tween Dr. Basire and his wife, some eighty years later, each begins with the sacred monogram or name. We begin, then, as St. John began, with a declara- tion of the Eternal Deity of Him Who in time became Incarnate and was made man. Our blessed Lord set forth, in His great High- Priestly prayer at the mysterious Last Supper, the two fundamental doctrines of our Faith : " This is life eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent."§ Here are the two great cardinal doctrines of Christianity, which are recapitulated in the quaint language of our poet-theologian George Herbert : " Thou hast but two rare cabinets full of treasure. The Trinity and Incarnation ; Thou hast unlocked them both, And made them jewels to betroth The work of Thy Creation Unto Thyself in everlasting pleasure. ♦ The XXXIX Articles of 1562. X Second Part of Henry VI., act. iv. sc. 2. f See Appendix B. § St. John 17:3- THE CREATOR. itters Lce in lith.* er re- these, ons of er.f com- as we write 2rs be- years am or eclara- n time High- )er, the This is )d, and ere are ianity, age of '% " The statelier cabinet is the Trinity, Whose sparkling light access denies ; Therefore Thou dost not shgw This fully to us, till death blow The dust into our eyes ; For by that powder Thou dost luake us see. " Bat all Thy sweets are packed up in the other ; Thy mercies thither flock and flow, That as the first affrights, This may allure us with delights. Because this box we know, For we have all of us just such another." Let US, then, to begin with, feel well assured of this, that there is no theory which satisfies all de- mands of human reason as does the Christian teach- ing : for I regard it more than theory. It may be true, nay, it is true, that reason cannot reveal God to man ; man " cannot by searching find out God ;" he remains groping about like one in the dark or like a blind man in unfamiliar surroundings until the true Light comes to him. Men " seek the Lord, it haply they may feel after Him and find Him, though He is not far from every one of us." * For, indeed, " the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." f Rea- son leads us to the door of belief ; reason welcomes us again after we have entered ; but reason does not open the d(K>r or force us to enter. That is left for faith. F'aith is, as it were, the electric spark which will enable us to combine and account for all phe jpendix B. in 17 • 3- Act! 17 : 27. f Romans i : 20. ■ -T.—I ^ THE CREATOR. nomena around us, and also to distinguish each color in its separate truth when the wliirl of thouj^ht has blended them all into one. This is what St. John says : " We know that the Son ol God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that wn may know Him that is true." * The word here rendered " un- derstanding" is the power of reasoning aright, the process by which reason arrives at a conclusion. " That with which the Son of God Incarnate has en- dowed believers is a power of understanding, of in- terpreting, of following out to their right issues the complex facts of life, and the end of the gift is that they may know, not by one decisive act, but by a continuous and progressive apprehension. Him that is true. Thus the object of knowledge is not ab- stract but personal ; not the truth, but Him of Whom all that is true is a partial revelation. It is evident that the fact of the Incarnation vitally wel- comed carries with it the power of believing in and seeing, little by little, the Divine purposes of life under the perplexing riddles of phenomena." f This is well illustrated in the utterances of those who, outside the pale of Christianity, have been led up to the very door by their powers of reasoning. So much so that Christians marvel that they do not enter the door that is open before them. No doubt there are difficulties in the way of belief. There must be for the sake of the faithful. There would be no room for faith if there were no room for doubt. But the difficulties which unbelief pro- * 1 St. John 5 : 20, with Dr. Westcott's commentary upon the passage, f Dr. Westcott in loc. THE CREATOR. h color :^ht has t. John nc, and y know d"un- r\\t, the :hision, has en- ^, of in- ;ues the t is that it by a !im that not ab- Mim of n. It is lly wel- ^ in and ; of life 't )f those 3een led isoning. Y do not )f belief. There no room lief pro- upon the duces are by far the greater, and there is no door of reverent thought which true Christianity cannot un- h)ck, while unbelief often helps to double lock them and bar them up effectually. Instinct and reason, as well as revelation, testify to the Unity of God. The early Christians in their arguments with tiie heathen make tiiis claim very {)owerfully. They claim that whenever a man is deeply stirred, and is therefore less likely to be un- real and on his guard, he appeals to God. Tertul- Han, Minucius FeHx, and St. Cyprian all use the same argument. "In the midst of the statues and images oi the false gods (cries Tertullian-), when you are deeply moved, you appeal not to them, but to God. Wonderful testimony to the truth ! (he ex- claims) the soul is by nature Christian"— that is, so far as the Unity of God is concerned. " f hear the common people, when they lift up their hands to Heaven, say nothing else than, O God, and God is great, and God is true, and if God permit. Is this the natural utterance of the vulgar, or is it the prayer of a confessing Christian? Those who speak of Jupiter as the chief are mistaken in the name, but they are in agreement about the Oneness of the power, "t And' St. Cyprian argues: "We fre- quently hear it said, O God, and God sees, and I commend to God, and God give you, and if God will ; it is, then, the height of sinfulness to refuse to acknowledge Him, Whom you cannot but know," ^ 2 ; Apolog., ^ 17. * Tertullian, " De Testimonio Anima;, f Minucius Felix, " Octavius," § i3. t St. Cyprian, De Idol. Van. Opera. Paris, 1726. p. 227. See al su ' n^^ 8 THE CREATOR. They argued from the natural instinct ot man ; the argument from reason has also been urged from the first. It was this which made St. Paul tell the Ro- mans that the heathen were without excuse, since there is an objective Epiphany of God to man, and a subjective, receptive capacity on man's i)art to un- derstand the Epiphany. " For the invisible things of God, Mis eternal power and divinity, from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- stood by the things that are made." This, too, is practically acknowledged by modern philosophers who are outside the Christian flock. One such (Mr. Herbert Spencer) has said that " the objects and actions surrounding us, not less than the phenomena of our consciousness, compel us to ask a cause. In our search we discover no resting-place until we arrive at the hypothesis of a First Cause. We have no alternative but to regard this as infinite and abso- lute. " * Here, however, we must introduce a warn- ing, for to some minds " the idea of absolute, infinite being seems to preclude relations, to be incompati- ble with creation in space and time. This difficulty will, I think, so far as it is not inherent in our nature, be found to disappear if we remember that the Divine Being is not Infinite in the sense of being unlimited, unconditioned, but in the sense of not being limited or conditioned by anything other than Professor Rawlinson's " Early Pievalence of Monotheistic Belief," R. T. S. , and Mr. Renouf, Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of Egypi. * Quoted by Canon McColl, " Christianity in Relation to Science and Morals," p. lo. an ; the rom the the Ro- ^e, since lan, and -t to un- e things rom the • under- ;, too, is )sophers ich (Mr. 3Cts and ;nomena use. In mtil we A'^e have nd abso- a warn- , infinite :ompati- lifficulty :■ nature, :hat the ji being- ; of not lier than ic Belief," Religion of to Science THE CREATOR. 9 Himself. God is not unconditioned, but self-condi- tioned, self-limited."* Each man is certain that he exists ; he knows that he does not exist of himself, but of some other being, who again, it may be, exists of some other, until we come to a first Being, Who is of Himself. In such an argument there can be no infinity, for a posterior cause cannot be granted unless a prior, and ulti- mately, a first be granted also.f Moreover, we cannot conceive of there being more than one, for then there would be antagonism, which must issue in the sole pre-eminence of one. Or if not, neither could be God, for neither would be perfect ; the perfection of one being by so much the defect of the other. Then, again, man considered as a reasoning being has two great tendencies. One is dependence upoH the unseen. In the lower animals we find proof that instinct warns them against real dangers external to themselves, and not against such as are imaginary and within themselves. Is man alone of animals to be said to depend upon an unreal phantom ? The other tendency of man is to aim at an ideal excellence which is not in himself, which he is con- stantly pursuing but never attaining. This is not merely an intellectual excellence, but a moral excel- lence. This universal longing would imply the ex- istence of something perfect in beauty, in knowledge, in power, in holiness, without which the yearning cannot be satisfied. Reason, then, would lead us to » •« p. 4. The Christian Doctrine of the Godhead," by Rev. J. W. Hicks, f Bishop Forbes on the Articles, vol. i., p. 2. 10 TIIK Ckl'ATOR. believe that there is One Supreme iJein^^ absolutely perfeet in all respects. But without (juestion this greiit truth which com- mends itself t(j instinct and reason takes a much lirnier hold on the mind ol man when explicitly de- clared by Revelation. The philoso[)her John Stuart Mill (who was broui^ht up as an Atiieist from his earliest childhood) has acknowledi^'ed that there seemed to him no antecedent imj)rol)al)ility in a revelation from a Supreme Beiui^-. ll'c- may indeed believe that there is a very <^reat pnjbabilitv in such a messas^e beinj;' sent. If instinct and reason lead us to believe in a First Cause, it would be hard to con- ceive of Him as havini^: so little reijard for that which He had called into beini; as not t(; send a messaire to it. In the Revelation which we claim to have, which we have from God," there is nothing so much insisted on as the unity of God. This is the one great strain of the Old Testament. The text that all faithful Jews \\'ere bound to recite twice a day at least, began, " Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord." Ft was the continual refrain of the argument against the idols and polytheism of the Assyrian heathen, as given by Isaiah, " Is there any God beside Me ? Yea, there is no God, 1 know not any." He is one and inichangeable, " with Whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." The same philosopher before quoted (Mr. Herbert Spencer) says again : "It is absolutely certain ihat we are in the presence of an infinite, eternal energy, from which all things proceed ;" and yet there was w^anting to him the spark of faith (it may be) to en- able him to go one step further. For energy with- THE CREATOR. I I out mind and will to guide it must be destructive and not orderly. This we are taui^ht each day of our lives. It is a daily lesson which we shmild do well to con and ai)|)ly. Ener«(y is a i;ood servant, but a bad master. What are the <4reatest forces in nature known to us ? May we not say steam, gas, electricity ? The mind and will of man imprison them and make them his useful slaves. If tliey are undirected they are destructive. Steam uncon- trolled or misdirected will destroy life and rend iron. When tamed and guided, it is a galley-slave of the greatest service. I have seen a huge traction engine winding its way through the tortuous and narrow streets of Old London, guided by one man at a small wheel. Gas in sudden formation or ex- plosion is most destructive ; but it is enchased to give us light and to strike down our venison. Elec- tricity left to itself acts blindly and destructively ; but the mind and will of man lay hold of it, imprison it, store it up, and light his house and streets with it, make it his beast of burden, and compel it to carry his messages to the ends of the earth. All this teaches us, if we have eyes to see, and ears to hear, and hearts to understand, that the presence of law and ordci- in connection with energy implies the presence ot mind and will to maintain the same. The presence of law and order in creation around us necessitates the presence of mind and will acting with that energy, the presence of which Mr. Her- bert Spencer says is absolutely certain. Now mind and will imply personality.* Then * See Appendix C, where another argument in favor of personality of the First Cause is given. 'M! 12 THE CREATOR. advancing^ one step further, we would say, as has been maintained, that personality implies social capacities ;* for we naturally associate capacity for social intercourse with our idea of person. " The word would be robbed of much that it now connotes if we were to apply it to a bein^ incapable of receiv- ing or imparting either thought or feeling." This will lead us one step further to be assured that in a Perfect Being social capacities imply the means of gratifying them. The crowning revelation, there- fore, is that " God is Love." Now we cannot conceive of love without an ob- ject. Love would not then be love, it would only be the capacity for love. Love would not be love without exercise. We therefore could not conceive that God is love if He were a solitary Unit, to speak with deepest reverence. " In an age which is be- coming metaphysical in spite of itself and its ante- cedents, men are driven to the conviction that God cannot be what religion requires Him to be — a self- conscious Being — and, at the same time, what the Unitarian makes Him — an undifferentiated Unit, an absolute One." f Hence, we may say once more that reason is Chris- tian in demanding that God be eternally a Father, eternally produced toward Himself, with a Son Who is " the Brightness of His glory and the ex- press Image of His Person." The heathen Greeks, two thousand years ago, had arrived at what some regard now as a new discovery, that " an absolute unit is unthinkable ;" but Chris- * See McColl, " Christianity in Relation to Science," p. 13, f Aubrey Moore, " Science and the Faith," p. 160. I I IH ! THE CREATOR. 13 tianity was the first to solve the problem.* It was not that they set out to solve it, but starting; with the historic fact of the Resurrection, with the doc- trinal truth of the Deity of Him Who rose again, they found to hand an answer to the difficulties which had been felt by unilluminated reason. " The F'athers do not treat the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity merely as a revealed mystery, still less as somethini^ which complicates the simple teaching of Monotheism, but as the condition of rationally hold- ing the Unity of God." " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. " The Word was with God. The original expression denotes activity toward — " The Word was toward God." It implies distinction of person. Hence we may not suppose that God is a Father only in name, in so far as He is tiie Prime Origin of all ; that tlie titles " Father, Son, Spirit" imply no more than various attitudes or relations of one and the same Person toward the creation He called into existence. So false an idea as this (invented by Sabellius to explain away the truth) would imply that God was not a Father until the world or universe was called into being ; that therefore there was no Word or Son previous to creation. But, saith the apostle, not only was the Word in the beginning, before the creature was, but " in the beginning with, or toward, God ;" the Sabellian notion being thus excluded. The Word is not only, as it were, outward, but (to speak with deepest awe and reverence) eternally in- See Appendix D. •4 THE CREATOR. ward toward (lod. llis Face ever toward the Face of His ]^>.crnal I'atlier. And lest man should con- ceive of Iliinas of one outside the Divine I^ifc, ol lower nature than that of Ilim Who is the I'atlier. the apostle adds at once, " and the Word was Ood." Here for one moment we would leave the text, to remind ourselves that the doctrine of the I'^ternal Spirit as a Bond between the two Persons of the Father and tiie Son is fully in accordance with Reason, whicli rerpiires that lie should be at once a Person, and er[ual with both Father and Son, else He would not perfectly interpret the One to the Other. Therefore another apostle, St. i^iul, saith, " The S[)irit searcheth all thinj^s, even the deej^ things of God. For who knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him ? So the things of God none hath known, save the Spirit of God." The Holy Spirit of God (the apostle seems to say under inspiration) is the ultimate conscious- ness of God, whereby He knows Himself. None but God could search the depths of God. His search alone would not be baffled. As St. Augus- tine points out. He is, as it were, the Love whereby the Father and the Son are united ; hence, some have spoken of Him w'ith deepest reverence, be it said, as " Osculum Patris et Filii." Thus in the Oneness of God there exists a Trinity of Persons. In the Old Testament, though the One- ness was more insisted upon, yet there are words and passages which we can see now contained the teaching of Plurality of Persons. The utterance, " Let us make man in Our image," is at once fol- lowed bv the words, " so God made man in His lii^^ TIIK CUl'ATOU. ic Face Id con- r>ifc, f>t I'\itlicr. (iod.' text, to I'^tcrnal of the ;c with ; once a on, else to the I, saith, e deeji iifs of a So the spirit of e seems iscious- None ti. His Augus- hereby ne have it said, Trinity le One- words ned the ;erance, nee fol- in His own inuiL,^'." Then, again, " Man is become as one of us," " let IS go down ;"* all imply plurality of eciiial Persons. Wliile, again, the blessing which is " putting (lod's Name ui)on" the |)eople is so clear a teaching of the Christian doctriue of the Trinity, tliat it is ready at once to pass into what is called the Apostolic blessing. I''or in the set form of bene- diction given by God to Moses, the great incom- numicable Name of God is uttered three times, as the small capitals in the IJibleof the Ivnglish Church will remind us, "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee ; the LoRh make His l\ice to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." f If we take the form and order in which the Christian blessing occurs in the Liturgy of St. James (so called), we shall at once see that it is the Christian version of the ancient Hebrew benediction recited to Moses, " The love of the Lord and h'ather, the grace of the Lord and Son, the fellosvshii) and gift of the Holy Ghost be with us all " It is the Love of God the Father that blesses and keeps ; the glory of (iod seen in the I'\ice of His Son Jesus Christ is gracious (for £^rac'c and truth came by Jesus Christ) ; the fellow- ship of the Holy Ghost brings the communion of peace, the third fruit of the Spirit. The Trinity of Persons was not so clearly revealed in the Old Testament ; partly, it may be, because there was ever present the error of polytheism and idolatry, which was very seductive ; but mainly because it was not necessary nor indeed easy of Genesis i ; 26, 27 ; 3 : 22 ; ii : 7. + Numbers 6 : 23, 24, 25. !1 i6 THE CREATOR. I II I comprehension until the Incarnation of God the Son. Now it is different. St. John, as we have seen, tells us, " VVe know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding ; that we may know Him that is true ; and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and Eternal life." When we have once accepted the great funda- mental doctrine of the Trinity we are prepared to receive the doctrine of Creation. For the mystery of Creation is only excelled by the mystery of the Nature of God. For even the deep mystery of the Incarnation seems somewhat less (if possible) than the myster}' of Creation. For (with reverence be it said) the mystery of the Union of the Creatur with the existing creature would seem less than the mystery of calling the creature into existence. St. John then goes on, " All things were made by Him, and apart from Him was not anything made that was made." God is no sterile and motionless unit. The Eternal Son is " the beginning of the Creation of God ;" not as being Himself the first created, but as being the principle on which creation depend. * Here, however, early errors would lead us to dis- tinguish between the creative word spoken and the Creator Word speaking. St. Clement, of Alexan- dria, is very earnest in warning against any suppo- sition that the Word by Whom all things were made was that of the Psalmist, " He spake the Word, and they were made ;" since He is the Word that speaks the creative utterance. * See Appendix F. '■^^ THE CREATOR. 17 iod the v'c have is come, we may n that is the true t funda- ^jared to mystery •y of the y of the 3le) than rence be itur with than the nee. St. by Him, ade that ess unit. Creation ited, but epend. * IS to dis- and the Alexan- y suppo- ere made Vord, and at speaks God the Son, God the Word, is the Mediator whereby God creates. This was depicted of old in the beautiful laui^uagc of the eighth chapter of the Hook of Proverbs, " The Lord possessed Me in the bcirinninir of His way. . . I was set up from everlast- inir. from the beirinninc:, or ever the earth was. W'lien there were no depths, I was brought forth ; when there were n(^ fountains abounding with water. Before tiie mountains were settled, before the hills was I l)r()ught forth ; while as yet He had not made the earth, nor the helds, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. " Thus far before the hat of crea- tion had gone forth, while as yet it only existed in the eternal purpose of God. But the record goes on : " When He prepared the Heavens, I was there ; when He set a circle on the face of the deep ; when He established the clouds above ; when He strength- ened the fountains of the deep ; when He gave the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment ; wlien He appointed the founda- tions of the earth ; then I was by Him, as One brought up with Him ; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him ; rejoicing in the habi- table i)arts of His earth ; and My delights were with the sons of men." That which here is adumbrated in poetic beauty is asserted continually in the New Testament. The Father indeed is the Prime Source and Origin of all created being, as He is of the Godhead ; but the Son is the Mediatorial Agent of creation. " By Him (or rather, through Him) all things, regarded severally (as the Greek intimates), were made." " In Him were all things (regarded collectively, the 2 1 1 18 THE CREATOR. t J universe) created." These two statements of two Apostles supplement each the other. It was (as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews again says) " by the wSon that God made the worlds." " There is One Lord, Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things, and we through Him." Then with these statements we can understand the inspired sayings of the i)salms. " By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made." " He by His excellent Wis- dom made the Heavens." But God the Son is not only the Mediator in crea- tion, He is also the Revealer in illumination. " That which hath been made in Him is Life ; and the life was the light of men," as a class, not only as of indi- viduals. St. Clement, of Alexandria, pointed out seventeen hundred years ago that in all philosophy, in all wisdom of men, there is seen some truth, even in the wildest flights of fancy among the heathen ; but every si)arkle of truth is a reflection from the One true Light that lighteth every man coming into the world. As Archbishop Theophylact said many years after, " He saith not the light of the Jews only, but of all men ; for all of us in so far as we have received intellect and reason from that Word which created us are said to be illuminated by Hitn."" When, therefore, the heathen acknowl- edged, " We are His offspring," it was a sparkle of truth which could be claimed as a witness to Him Who is the Truth. But He Who had revealed truth in parts, as men were able to bear it, " Who in many portions and in many methods had spoken of old," He in these * Theophylact in loc. Opera Veneliis, 1754, p. 510. THE CREATOR. 19 of twr> 5 (as the in says) "There I are all th these sayings )rd were Dnt VVis- r in crea- "That d the life is of indi- intcd out ilosophy, uth, even heathen ; from the ming into ,aid many the Jews far as we lat Word nated by acknowl- sparkle of s to Him s, as men -tions and e in these 510. last days, li.c latter times, the last dispensation, has come Himself, the Perfect Revealcr, to mankind ar.d the creation at large. For "the Word was made Flesh, anfl dwelt among us, tabernacled in our na- ture," and is now the intimate means of union, the one comj>lctc Mcfliator between God and His creation. Here. then. 1 would humbly make my own the words of a very great man. " Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the d(;ings of the Most Migh, W^hom althougli to know be life and joy to make mention of His Name, yet • jur soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him not as indeed He is, neither can know Him ; and our safest eloquence concerning Him is our silence, ^vhen we confess without confession that His glory is inexplicable, his greatness above our caj^acity and reach. He is above and we upon earth ; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few."'-^ Ah, brethren, our subject is vast and un- fathomable I Let us. His unworth}- creatures, on whom He has lavished the fulness of His boundless love, not be of those who receive Him not. Let us welcome Him with our whole nature, body, soul, and spirit. He is now drawing us with the cords of a man, for He is man as we are. " Draw us (cry the clect», we will run after Thee !*'t The nearer the iron is to the magnet the more it hastens to meet and join it. The nearer we approach (however un- worthily* to Ood, the greater the attraction. Let us yield ourselves to Him, the Incarnate Saviour, and He will in no wise cast us out. * Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," Book I., chap, ii., J^ 2. f Canticles i : 4. 1 w LECTURE II. THE CREATURE. " In the beginning was the Word, and ihe Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him ; and without Him was not anything madi. that was made. In Him was life ; and the life was the lig'. if men. And the light shineth in darkness ; and the darkness comprehended it not."— St. John i : 1-5. Next to the mystery of the Godhead is the mys- tery of Creation. Here, again, reason, given to us by God, may help us somewhat on the way, though not very far. Scientific investigators have argued from what they call " degradation of energy," that the universe will come to an end ; and from this they have argued that that which has an end must have had a beginning ; that therefore the universe must have had a beginning. The argument may be profit- able to some, but it does not help a believer very much. It may be a step in the right direction, and as such we would welcome it. But science cannot tell us about the act of creation, for still the question would be asked, " Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ?" But, as a rule, scientific men are content to ac- knowledge that of the beginning of the universe they know nothing at all. It is the same with the ques- tion of life. Some years ago a friend of mine in Old THE CREATURE. 21 h God, and God. AD ihing madv. ;'. if men. iiprehended the mys- en to VIS , though argued ^•y," that this they ust have rse must je profit- ver very ion, and e cannot question laid the 11 to ac- 2rse they he ques- ■le in Old London asked a learned scientific lecturer- a ques- tion which baftlcd him. Lectures had been given to workingmen, and the lecturer kindly invited ques- tions from his audience, professing himself willing to answer them as well as he could. Now my friend, a coach painter, had been attending the lectures with irreat interest. He had read himself into unbelief, and by God's grace had recovered faith, but still he loved all scientific inquiry, as a Christian may and should. In answer, then, to the invitation of the lecturer my friend wrote the following : " Vou have most learnedly told us about matter apart from life, and matter in connection with life ; w-ill you kindly tell us what life is apart from matter?" It was a pertinent and a logical question, but no answer could lie given by science. The lecturer commenced his next lecture by saying that one of his audience had tisked him a question which he must have known could not be answered, and that was all. When one of the great teachers of science. President of the British Association, proposed the theory that the first germ of life was brought to this planet by a fragment of an exploded worid, he made a sugges- tion which would have been laughed to scorn if made by a less eminent man ; for it would not help us at all to find out how life commenced on the exploded globe. But where science must fail, here revelation steps in. There seems good reason to think that the words in the text should run thus, *' That which hath been made was life in Him. " A difficult phrase, * If my memory is right, the lecturer was Professor Huxley. 22 THE CREATURE. but full of beautiful meaning'. The thought seems to be carried back far beyond the time when creation became a fact, and was only a purpose or idea pres- ent to the mind of the Creator. There is the double aspect— one in relation to man, the other in relation to God. In relation to man, there are the j)resent phenomena, " that which hath been made ;" in rela- tion to God, " they were." There is a similar con- trast in the Book of Revelation where the hymn of the four and twenty elders ex|jresses the same double as{)ect : " Thou art worthy, () Lord, to receive glor}', and honor, and powder ; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they were, and were created." We may sa}', therefore, that while it is true that the creature is not eternal (it would not be a creature if it were), yet we cannot separate it from the eternal purpose of the Divine mind. While it is true that at the first beat of time the creature sprang into existence, and so was made or created, yet we believe that its existence was eternally present to the mind of God " That which hath been made was life in Him." God the Son was the Creative Agent of God. " That which [in time] hath been made was [in eter- nity] life in Him." It was failure to see this great truth, which was one of the difficulties in the way of the Arians, or which they alleged as a reason for thinking that the Divine Son was Himself a Crea- ture. They argued that creatures as such were too feeble to endure the force of the Father's creating- power. Therefore a Mediator was necessary to break the impact. But St. Athanasius" rightly * Orat. II., c. Aiianos, § 26 ; Opera Patavii, 1777, Tom. i., p. 390. 1 : : u. THE CRKATURE. -.■» seems to I creation dea pres- le double 1 relation L3 ])resent " in lela- nilar con- ! hymn ol ne double ) receive ^t created and were diile it is lid not be te it from Vhile it is re sprang d, yet we resent to een made of God. IS fin eter- this great I the way reason for If a Crea- were too 5 creating essary to ;"" rightly m. i., p. 39°- ridiculed this, arguing that if the force were indeed so great that no creature could endure it, then if the Son were a creature, He could not be created bv the Father Himself, and another Mediator would be necessary, and so on ad infinituui. Their argument was, indeed, as great a folly as the suggestion of life travelling hitherward on an aerolite speeding from an explosion. The Son Himself is the One Mediator between God and the Creature, which from all eter- nity " was life in Him." To the Christian there can be no antagonism between Christianity and Science. When Science has established a fact, the Christian can see in it the act of God ; in the meantime the Christian may, indeed, be on the mountain-top of faith, lifting up hands and eyes to Heaven, in sure and certain hope that the Israel of God will, nav, must ultimately prevail while Amalek fights below. If the Book of Science be true, or rather be inter- preted aright, it will be found to agree with other books of God, when interpreted aright. Professor Owen spoke well when, after having lectured on the lesson to be learned from a striking geoloirical specimen which he held in his hand, he could say solemnly, " The Word of God written by the finger of God on tables of stone." Where for a time there seems to be antagonism, the error is really in the interpreter, whether of the facts of nature, on the one hand, or the Bible, on the other. For we must not take for granted that the popular or commonly received interpretation is always and necessarily the true, or only true meaning of the fact or the pas- sage. There are unquestionably large tracts of Truth still to be discovered, Natural and Revealed ; 1 24 THE CREATURE. M and the truth discovered in Nature by Science will shed much light on so)ne difficult passaj^e of wScrip- ture. When the law of gravitation was discovered it was seen to throw marvellous light on the saying of holy Job, " He hangeth the earth upon nothing." The creature, then, was in the eternal purpose of God, and yet it was not developed fully all at once. We seem to read that before the visible universe was created there was called into being a veritable host of creatures, whom man caimot sec until his spiritual perception has been cleared and trained for the purpose. Holy ^Scripture implies that these glorious beings were called into existence before the visible, tangible, material creation. While, perhaps, we may not ascribe to poetry the solid character of historic narration, yet poetry would be meaningless without some phenomenal groundwork. It is im- possible to paint a cloud, and if it be illuminated by reflected light, the colors of that light must have had an uncpicstionable existence. There is much, then, to be learned from the passage in Job where we are told that the angels hymned the creative act of call- ing the material universe into existence. " Where- upon are the foundations of the earth fastened ? or W^ho hath laid the corner-stone thereof, when the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy ?' ' - It is quite true that many have thought that the angels were created within the six days of creation in Genesis, and the rabbis have gone a step further, and asserted that they were created on the fifth day. Job 38 : 7. A '•'s*? m THE CRFATURE. 25 nee will { Scrip- covered e saying )tbing." rpose of at once, universe ^^eri table until his I trained lat these cfore the perhaps, racter of aningless It is im- natcd by have had ch, then, e we are t of call- ' Where- ned ? or vhen the s of God that the creation further, ifth day. They came to this conclusion from observinjj: that a certain Hebrew form occurs twice only in the Old Testament, once in Genesis i : 20, " fowl that maj' J/f," and once in Isaiah 6: 2, "with twain he did fiy.'' This, they say, shows that the anj^elic beinijjs seen by Isaiah were created at the same time as the winged fowl. But Scripture rather points to their having preceded the creation of the world of matter, but by what interval we know not. We may, per- haps, see a record of their creation in the first words of Genesis, " In the beginning God created the heavens ;" for Heaven is their " local habitation." Here, too, curiously enough, some scientific men have come to the same conclusion. It has been argued that the present maintenance of the seen uni- verse could not abide without the continual activity and interference of an unseen universe to keep order, if we may say so. If there is any foundation for this, it would argue that the existence of the unseen agency would precede the seen universe. Attention must be drawn to a distinction between the living agents of the invisible world and those of the material creation. Of the angels, we know that " they neither marry nor are given in marriage." There seems to have been uttered over them no benediction of multiplying. It has been tliought, therefore, that their creation involved a certain definite number of individuals, in full adult com- pleteness and perfection, each individual angel being called into existence by a separate creative act of Almighty God. No one angel receives from another any portion of his being ; each was created separate, distinct, and perfect in himself. So that 26 THE CREATURE. 1 ; M . I 81 :!!! !: ^ il from the moment of his creation each had a beinjj^ distinct and independent of all save his Creator. Each liad eternal youth. Therefore, when one is de- scribed in {Scripture as appearing to man, in order to meet our comprehension, the an_<;el is sj)oken of as a younj^ man. Hence, too, angels are called sons of God, as Adam is by St. Luke, because each one owes his existence to God alone. There is, then, no common angelic nature. The nature of each is peculiar to himself, and is derived neither from any save God Himself, nor to any other afterward. Nor need we be deterred from this thought by the text in the Epistle to the Hebrews, " He took not on Him the nature of angels." "••' For there in our Bibles, if they are properly printed, we shall see at once tliat the word nature is not in the original, because of the variation in printing. It is " Of angels He took not hold." Indeed, from this might be argued that the passage is in favor of the opinion here expressed, for the word " angels" is in the plural. The Epistle to the Hebrews was written in a style of Greek which had much afifinity to Hebrew idiom. One Hebrew peculiarity was that when the writer did not care to particularize any one of several similar things, the word was put in the plural. Thus when Jephthah died, the historian did not care to mention specially the exact spot of his entombment, and he said " he was buried in the cities of Gilead," f whereas the burial could not have been in more than one. This ma}' account for the expression here, " He took not angels." There * Hebrews 2 : i6. f Judges 12 : 7, THE CUKATUUi:. 27 was no comnir)!! ans^clic nature ; there vv[is no an<j^clic reproduction, therefore had lie " taken anj^els," lie would have taken this or that paiticuhir angel, and not angehc nature. Tliis will also account for the peculiarity of the expression which speaks of the Incarnation, "lie took the Sird o[ Abraham;" He took the particii)ation of man's nature from its very conmiencement. Of each anjj^el, then, we may believe there is a separate nature, similar to, but not the same as that of his fellows. Inasmuch as they are subject to the laws of time and space we must think that they have some material form, however rare or subtle the quality. They are called spirits, yet we need not think that this excludes all idea of materialism. God alone is Spirit alone. Therefore the saving of our blessed Lord should probably be translated " God is Spirit,"" and not a Spirit, as if one of a class. He alone does not admit of circumscription. He is immcn- SNS, " incomprehensible" — that is, cannot be included in space. But the angels are circumscribed. They are subject to limitations of time and space. This is seen in the account of Gabriel bringing the answer to Daniel's prayer. " The man Gabriel, being caused to fly swiftly." " At the beginning of thy supplication the commandment came forth, and I am come."f They ascend and descend.:}; Hence to their personal existence there must be some dis- tinguishing limit, some boundary, envelop, integu- ment, or covering, of however infinitesimal rarity, * St. John 4 : 24. X Genesis 28 : 12 ; St. John i : 51. f Daniel, 9 : 21, 23 28 THE CUKATUKK however transcendent the tenuity. In tlie Book of tlie Revelation we read of their apjjearini; clothed in various ways, wiiich of itself would ijuply this. Some have made merry with the Revised X'ersion, which re[)resents seven an<(els clothed in stone."* Yet if this be the true readini^ of the passa<j^e (which we are not athrming-), there need be no reason for doubtinj^ the })Ossibility any more than we can doubt that — which each one of us })robably can vouch for — that each blade of tender grass is clothed in flint, in silex. This clothing of itself would imply a super- ficial limit to the body of the angel. Of their number we know nothing, save that " more than twelve legions of angels" were attend- ant on the will of the Incarnate Lord.f There are also hosts, and camps, and orders oi them ; not iso- lated, but marshalled and orderly comi)anies, as is implied by St. Paul and St. Peter. It is true that St. Paul adopts the names in common parlance among his opponents at Cfjlossae, in order to exalt the Lord far above all ; but at least we know of Angels and Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim. Of these blessed si)irits we learn there is a double ministry, one toward God, one on God's behalf toward man. " Are they not all ministering spir- its ?" asks the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews — that is, ministering in the service of God, in the sanctuary of Heaven? Therefore we say in the Eucharistic service, ** With angels, and archangels and all the company of Heaven we laud and magnify Thy glorious Name." But not only so, they are * Revelation 15 : 6. f St. Matthew 26 : 53. '^ Tin: CUKATURE. ^9 Ji)()k of :U)tlic(l y tliis. crsion, stone* (which son for 1 doubt h for— Hint, in . supcr- vc that attcncl- icrc are not iso- 's, as is uc that arlance to exalt vnow of him. double behalf 't^ spir- e brews in the in the langels nagnify ley are also " scut forth to do service to thcni that are heirs of salvation." * I leuce we hud that llicv have special offices in connection with man. It lias been thou<;ht that each man has a guardian angel, and our blessed Lord's saving about the angels of tiie little children certainly bears out this impression. Indeed, nations are said to have their angels ; we read of the " Princes" of Greece and Persia, f while the special guardian of the chosen people of (rod is Michael, " who is like unto God," while Gabriel is the special messenger of mercy and love. We are, therefore, prepared to learn that around and about the Last Adam, the Incarnate I>ord, the second head and recapitulation of the human race, the angels were continually ministering. With the angels, then, there can l)e no question of evolution, no selection, if there be in the ranks of the blessed a survival of the fittest. But for the next stage in Creation there seems to have been introduced a different order. And here, as we deal with visible and tangible matter, human reason, given to us by God, will help us, it may be, to read the history, though in this case we have to read the history backward. But we must always remember that our knowledge is still in a state of transition, is far from complete, far from perfect ; and sometimes what is confidently asserted one day by a man of science is as confidently exploded the next by some further discovery. It may, therefore, very well happen that while there is complete har- mony between Scripture and the facts which have 26 : 53. * Hebrews i : 14. f Daniel 10 : 13, 20, 2i. ■i I'll m I ': !l I * 30 tup: creatuke. been observed, yet (bscord may be feared or siis- pecteci, beeause tlie lanj^uajj^e is misconstrued or the tacts misinterjireted. No one now sii) poses that Revehitioii is affected by tlie l^nowled^e tliat tliC earth revolves a!)out tlie sun and is not the hxed centre of the universe. WHien the verse " He hath made the round w(n-ld so fast that it cannot be moved" was examined, it was found that the He- brew for " moved " really meant " totter," and was used of s/ippiiii^ footste[)S (I'salms 17:5; 94 : 18, etc.). The word, tiierefore, accuratelv describes the ecjuable and smooth movement of the world for man}' thousand 3ears. Fourteen hundred years ago and more St. Augus- tine i^whom Dr. Tusey called " the greatest mind in Christendom") saw that there was more latent under the bare letter ol the account of the creation in Gen- esis than was generally acknowledged ; and, indeed, lie has been thought to give utteranc j to "a view which, without anv violence to language, we may call a theory of evolution." •'■ After him the great- est mind in medi;eval times, St. Thomas of .\ciuinuni, " if he did not adopt St. Augustine's view, at all events recognized it as tenable." It cannot, there- fore, be said that such views are inconsistent with Christianity. We are in no w-av committed by the Faith to the theory of what is called " special crea- tion," which seems to have been adopted in the seventeenth century and to have been maintained since. That is, men have thought for two centuries and a half that plants and animals have continued as Aubrey L. Moore, "Science and the Failh," p. 176. TIIK CRKATUKE. 31 Gcn- \tlecd, view c may ;rcat- liiuini, at all thcM-e- : with l)y the 1 crea- m the itainctl nturics uiecl as \vc sec them from tlie moment of the creative fiat ; tliat no variation luis since i)een j)()ssii)]e. Wliercas so close an approximation is seen in one loiin of animal life to another ; such a unity of design is re- vealed by comparative anatomy ; there is such j)o\ver in man to improve plants and animals by selection of stock, that modern science has adopttd a theory which is directly o[)posed to that of " special creation." It is sui;"f^ested that the only way to account for the various phenomena, which cannot here be more than hinted at, is to maintain that all animal life has been sclf-devel()i)ed from a very small be<^innini; ; that just as now a full-grown man is _sj^radually developed by growth |)roperly nourished from a very small germ, so the whole race of animids have been grad- ually developed from a similar nucleus. Ihis is called " Evolution." There are uiKjuestionably difficulties in the way, which may be cleared up or not. It is true that man by careful selection may im{)r()ve plants and animals and introduce such new varieties that man has been called in a subordinate sense a creator, liut tiierc is this peculiarity to be observed, that these })lants and animals left to themselves, without man's select»')n and is()lati(jn and care, in a short time n er. i.) their original form and character. I licre i a reversion to type. For example, botanists say tha'. the rose is not indigenous to New Bruns- wick, a Ki where found growing „ nd it has escaped Irom c dtivation. In these cases the rose is no longer the beauty that would take a prize, it is a single flower, or what we she uld call a dogrosc. rigeon fanciers have b) selection and isolation pro- i Jl I i I 4 J m\ n * ■ I 'i ■ ' 32 THE CREATURE. ■|i|i '!,' i :ii!J.! ir: I duced very many varieties of their favorite birds, but it is found that if all the varieties are left to their own " natural selection" in a short time their off- spring all revert to the one common blue rock type. Other instances of a similar character are well known, but these must suffice. At the same time, though there are at present difficulties, yet the general tendency is to accn^t the theory of Evolution as the best solvent of all the phenomena which present themselves. Then arises the question, If this theory of Evolu- tion be generally taken to be true in the main, is it contrary to the Truth of Revelation ? To thl? ^ an- swer at once, it cannot be ; and then, secoiifily, li is not. For where Evolution fails to account lor c ;r- tain phenomena, there Revelation steps ir to help out the record. Evolution does not profes.s or pre- tend to tell us about the prime origin of thi.^gs. I^ all known forms of animal and vegetable life couUi l)e traced back to a protoplasmic germ or speck, or to primeval" fire mist," Evolution can go no further ; it cannot tell where the protoplasm came from or whence the tire mist was developed. Evolution can- not account for the self-consciousness of man or for that, which cannot be denied, that man alone of ani- mals is found to be deliberately choosing what he- knows to be for his hurt. In all this Revelation steps in and tells us what science, with its dissectxng knife or microscope or balance, cannot discover. *' All things were made by Him, and apart Trom Him was made not one thing." " In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth." The Heavens were peopled with the subtle beings, the I THE CREATURE. 33 I! I volu- . is it ^ ap- -, i\ is r c ;v- help r pre- -s. If coulfi or her ; )m or can- or for f ani- at he ation ctwij; ;r. Ironi nning The ^s, the anj^els, and the material earth was also to be peopled. When the earth was prepared for life, lite was com- municated by the intervention of the Creator, as it would seem — that is, it would seem as if the com- munication of life were direct from God, a new step or staj^^e in creii'tion. It is true th?.t some men of science (like Sir W. Thomson, who would bring life to the world from an exploded planet) would say,* " I am ready to adopt as an article ot scientific faith, true through all space and through all time, that life proceeds from Hfc, and nothing but life." But we must pro- test against scientific dogmatism and decline to allow this as an ultimate proclamation of Science. If Science ever can bridge over the present gulf be- tween inorganic and organic matter, between the living and the not living, we must decline to hear that there is a fresh contradiction divscovercd be- tween Revelation and Science. The contradiction may be to a previous dogma of Science, to the dog- matic utterance of a Drummond or a Thomson, and not to the simple grandeur, the glorious simplicity of the record of Moses. Holy .Scripture then tells us that the world of nutter was created by God. This Science can neither deny nor affirm ; it is beyond her sphere altogether. Next, Scripture tells us that life on the earth, the organic kingdom, the world of plants and animals, began by what we may reverently call the co-opera- tion of the created matter with the creative energy yuoicd io McColl, " Christianity in Relation to Science," p. 15. 'i t' 1'l 1' P! ' il;i' i ': ' ^U I'M' . m m I 1 f ! t : 1 1 34 THE CREATURE. of God the Creator. Science tells of the commence- ment of organic life, and at present fails to tell us anything of its origin. Scripture and Science point to the gradual advance toward the formation of man. There is an ascending scale of organism, advancing from general to the special, ever making more close approximations to man, until at length man was called into being, the end, the object, the climax of all. There is no contradiction thus far between the two records. Science demands extension of time, she points to the • idpncc of vast growth of vegetation, as seen in the ^ ,: measures; she points to the tool marks of the giUv^icJ period, to many other signs of length- ened periods, and we grant it. The word " day" in Scripture is not confined to what we call twenty- four hours. If we acknowledge that " one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day," we gladly extend this to a million years (as we count years) or as much longer as Science can wish. The chief matter concerned is not the periad, but the WORK. Both records would teach orderly process, orderly progress ; Scripture teaches the ever-present care of the Crea- tor. As far as this is concerned, it is not important whether the work be instantaneous or gradual. The survey of God's work, as seen in the world around us now and in history, would lead us to believe that all God's work is gradual and, if you will, slow. " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Im- patient man, whose whole life is but a moment, is ever in a hurry ; he " slanders the footsteps of the Messiah ;" he says, " Where is the promise of His THE CREATURE. 35 coming?" But God's dealings are from eternity ; there is no evidence of suddenness about any of His works. Paticns quia (utcrnus. He works when the fuhiess of the time has come. It was then by the co-operation of the powers given to Nature, with the active energy of the Giver of these powers, that the organic kingdom was pro- duced. God said, " Let the eartli bring forth," " Let the waters bring forth abundantly," " I^et the waters be gathered together," and thus God created. It is no doubt a grander v'ew of the power of the Creator, that a license ot self develoi)nicnt should be communicated to the living creatures. Of all it might be said, " Whose seed is in itself." Herein was the great distinction between this creation and that of the angels. They had (so we seem to be told) a perfect nature each one from the first ; they had no growth, no development, no increase. But over this new creation it was said, " Be fruitful and multipl}'." And over an extension of time, in a gradually' ascending series, organic life developed until the time of the Creation of Man was readied. Indeed, we see transacted daily among us in the in- dividual in an abbreviated form, that which was (as seems probable) enacted in the history of the organic kingdom. Young are born into the world, and by a daily and hourly blessing, which would be recognized as creative were it not so common among us, the im- mature being grows. The seeds of vegetables, the dormant powers of vegetable life, torpid in the winter, put forth their living power when the spring or a suitable time comes, and the young rootlets assimilate to themselves from earth, air, and water the matter ii' V n 1:^ i liliil liiil'M i.l 1 kv-\ il,! :: 1^ ■'yl ,1 i 1 i ! 1 : i 1 ii ; ■ i 1 1 ! : 1 36 THE CREATURE. which the plant requires, and it groivs. Day by day, by a miraculous act of creative power, which we call digestion and then think little of it, we as- similate such portions as we require of the dead matter from animal and vegetable substances which we take in, and we grozv or repair the waste of life. But when " the fulness of the time" had come and the earth was prepared for man, then man was made. Here, then, at once we perceive a vast difference in the mode of creation. Science has to recognize the difference, and can tell us nothing about the oris^^in of it. But Scripture lays great stress on the n.atter from more points than one. First, there seems to be a consultation about the Ci \ati 1 of man between the Persons of the God- head. This is but to reveal to us the transcendent importance of this step. " Let us make man in Our Image, after Our Likeness." This is the secret of the difference between man and the ani- mals. The whole process is given in an abbreviated form in Genesis 2:7, '* The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed intt) his nostrils the breath of lives ; and man became a living soul." This seems to sum up the double process of Evolution, so called, and the Divine Inter- vention. When man was formed of the dust of the ground from which he was taken, then God inter- vened as at a fresh epoch in creation and gave him a special and peculiar glory. " He breathed into His nostrils the breath of lives ;" and man had herein conveyed to him the intellectual capacity of self consciousness, whereby he became like unto his y by ^hich re as- dead vhich f life, e and I was ;rencc )gnizc it the on the »ut the God- ndent lian in is the le ani- jviated ormecl d into came a double ; Inter- t of the :1 inter- ve him ed inti> an had acity of mto his THE CREATURE. 37 Creator. " So God created man in His own image, in the image ot God created He him." There is also another remarkable passage, which seems to teach us again the immense gulf raised by this intervention between man and his compeers, the animals that went before him. ' Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field : but for Adam there ivas not found a help meet for him.'" * That is to say, there was a great gulf fixed lietween the man and all his congeners who had l)repared the way for him and had culminated in liim as the cHmax of their development. They were all paraded before him, to point out to him and to his descendants the immense difference between man and the other animals, caused by the transcen- dent love and mercy of God in " breathing into his nostrils the breath of lives." Here has been seen the double gift not only of the soul and of the intel- lectual spirit, aye, but also, as the Christian Fathers have believed, the adventitious gift of the indwelling of the Spirit of God. Shame upon man who uses the excellent endowment granted him by God to endeavor to dishonor Him who gave it ! Man, therefore, by the constitution of his nature is a microcosm, a little world, partaking of the char- acter of the whole universe of created things. He * Genesis 2 : 19, 20. f ■ ■ i 1 1 ^. fill '• li « i; 1= III .* 38 THE CREATURE. li " nil I i is the apex, the culmination of all that went before, and the commencement of a nesv epoch. In his body he has affinity with the lower subjects of the organic kingdom, the animal and the vegetable world, and also, together with them, with the inor- ganic kingdom through the dust of the earth from which he \vas taken. On the left hand, then, he holds on to the visible material creation ; but on the right he has participation in the spiiitual nature of the angels — " the spirit of man goeth upward. ' ■• He is a recapitulation of both great branches of crea- tion, the angelic or spiritual and the material. It is very important that we should recognize this, and the extreme importance must be seen in the* next lecture, succeeding the })resent. But there is one startling phenomenon which Sci- ence must recognize, though it cannot account for it from its own tests and measures. It has been well described thus : " The history alike of moral science and religions bears testimony to the existence of a struggle, an antagonism, a disorder in human nature, and to a belief that this disorder is not natural to man, and could not have been meant by God. Side by side with all that Science teaches us of the evolu- tion of man at the first from lower forms of life, and all that history tells us of the progress of man since, in civilization and knowledge, we see the fact of sin casting its shadow upon human history and holding man back from his full development. This is the fact which lies at the basis of all religions, and which moral systems universally recognize, though they ■^ '$ ^11' I THE CREATURE. 39 can neither explain nor remove it. And Science has taught us that we must be true to facts."* Here, again, then, we have to look to Revelation to help us to the cause of this blight and hindrance. It pleased Almighty God that among His crea- tures those that were intelligent agents should for a while be placed upon their probation. We may understand this by the gift of Reason, with which God has endowed us. We may say tliat such a state of probation is inseparable from freedom of will. It has been said that either virtue or moral goodness is impossible, or that evil or deviation from virtue is possible. Moral goodness implies freedom of choice, which again would ordinarily imply the possibility of making a wrong choice. The creature, who by the gift of his Creator is an intelligent agent, must, then, have the opportunity of showing that his will is attuned to and in accord with God's will. We may say with deepest rever- ence that as it pleased the Creator to call into exist- ence beings that could give Him willing and free service, could reflect, however unworthily, some rays of that unstinted flow of love which He poured upon them, it was congruous with His design, nay, almost necessary (certainly necessary because He willed it should be so), that there should be a possi- bility of declining such service, and so of espousing evil, the deviation from, and opposition to God's will. It was so in the case of the angels. We know that many of these, of several orders or ranks, turned I ;i t ■ ! ■ .'!■ ( ■' '* h « ^'' f^i * Aubrey Moore. f iti;^ i • Li:;! , :!i 40 THE CREATURE. iiway their wills from God and became evil. One there was of excellent beauty and intellect, who seems to have headed the revolt, who is thencefor- ward named Satan, the enemy. St. Paul seems to tell us that pride was the immediate cause of his de- fection ; but the Lord tells us in general terms that " he stood not in the Truth." It is clear from this that he was once "in the Truth" and fell there- from. St. Jude tells us that " they kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation," and the prophets tell us of his fall ; " How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morn- ing !" The prophet Ezekiel, in his denunciation of Tyre, seems to speak of the great origmator of pride. " Thou sealest up the sum,* full of wisdom and per- fect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God. . . . Thou art the anointed cherub that cov- ereth. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day thou wast created until iniquity was found in thee, therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the moun- tain of God." The Lord also, in words of compre- hensive reach, speaks of the actual and moral fall of the rebel, " I beheld Satan as lightning fall from Heaven," or rather, " I was all along beholding him fall." In the other passage in which the Lord refers * Ezekiel 28 : 12. There are two renderings here, that of the Author- ized Version and that of the Septuagint, " the impression, or seal, of the likeness." St. Cyril, of Alexandria, citing the passage, says: " We read the words addressed to the prince of Tyre, which also we must be persuaded to apply to the person of the devil, Thou art the impression of the likeness. But he to whom this was said is found to have fallen from the likeness." On St. John 6 : 27, Opera, Paris, 1638, Tom. iv., p. 304 A. I i THE CREATURE. 41 to the chief of rebels, He says, "lie is a liar, and the father of it ;" as if all deviation from the upright- ness of Truth may be traced to hinv^is the first orig- inator of evil. When man was made he was endowed with many excellences and with a possibility of not dying, not so much in a state of absolute assured perfection, as in one of conditional potential perfection. The con- dition was obedience to God's will ; the penalty of disobedience was seen in the death of the animals about man. " In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die :" as if it were, You have the possi- bility of (it may be) progressive development ; if, however, you reject this you have the possibility of progressive decay and degradation ; you will be- come as " one of the beasts that perish." For death was then known as Science teaches, and if it were not known the threat would have been meaningless, the penalty unknown. But Satan, the enem}', who had learned to say, " Evil, be thou my good," was at hand to tempt and seduce man ; and while man was still lapped in the bosom of the love of his Creator the foul originator and instigator of sin approached, and man listened and fell. Sin progresses by three stages — sugges- tion, delight, consent. With man in Paradise sug- gestion came from without, wholly ; delight was aroused and consent followed. In mankind since then (with One only exception) sugg?«^tion comes more often from within, it may be, tL ': from with- out. From the moment of man's sin all was changed for him. The sluices were opened and the flood W ' I if II ill M f 42 THE CREATURE. INiii "ill ' '111 si: :l'l I'ii '.n I I I iiii'irjil came, as is well represented in the collocation of lessons for Sexajj^esima Sunday : " Foe of mankind I too bold thy race. Thou runn'st at such a reckless pace, Thine own dire work thou surely wilt confound. 'Twas but one little drop of sin We saw this morning ■ nter in, And lo ! at eventide the world is drowned." In d\vellin«i^ on the Bible account of the Fall of Man we must remember that the historical part of it is absolutely true, whether, with some of the faithful, we resj^ard the form in which the history is told as an allei^ory or a parable. Man underwent a definite historical probation ; he exercised his free- dom of will to enslave his will to evil. But we must take care to pierce the letter to reach the spirit of Revelation, break through the outward coverini^of outward circumstances, and observe t* " moral transaction within. We must learn to ap ciate the true moral si^^nificance of the whole mattei . Man listened to God's enemy ; misconceived God's love ; suspected His intentions ; finally disbelieved His word. Man's fall was fatal to the whole race, for it was the deed of their head, in whom the whole race was represented. From that moment sin en- tered the world of men, and that which science can- not deny, though it strives hard to ignore, has all along existed, a blight and hindrance, keeping man back from his full development. Thus " by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." M \-i-^ LECTURE III. THE INCARNATION'. The Word was mide flesh, and dwelt among us. — Sr. John i : 14. Glorious must have been the pr()S[)cct to Abra- ham when God broiii^lit him fortli abroad by nii^ht and bade him " Look now toward Heaven, and tell the stars, it thou be able to number them." - In the Eastern sky there are visible more stars than we see here. The more a man ^azes the nK)re they seem, and more and more become visible, until it seems impossible to put a pin's point at any part of the Heavens between two spots of lii^ht. " () Lord, how manifold are Thy works ; in wisdom hast Thou made them all !" The more we contemplate the works the more we marvel at the Maker thereof. " There is a book, who runs may read, Which heavenly truth imparts ; And all the lore its scholars need, Pure eyes and Christian hearts. " The works of God above, below, Within us and around, Are pages in that book to show How God Himself is found." But if the Book of God in nature is so glorious, we may almost say that His Book of Revelation is :.i Genesis 15 : 5. ■ ll I i 44 THE INCARNATION. lii' i |i ^31 1 still more glorious — and, indeed, as we might think, it is of the same character in one respect. The more we regard it the more its wonders come out — won- ders which at first we could not conceive of— won- ders that grow thicker and thicker as we read and meditate. If we really pray, " Open, TIkju, mine eyes, O Lord, that I may see the wondrous things of Thy law," we shall see them more and more. If we pray with the wisest of men, " Come, thou south wind, and blow upon my garden, and the spices thereof shall flow out," we shall more and more find the sweetness of God's Word, more and more realize the wondrous depths of that matchless Book. Nor need we wonder that there are others wh») cannot read as we do. The Apostle told us cen- turies ago why it was. " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto him ; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." "^^^ The same truth is seen in the manner in whicii the Voice was understood which came from Heaven to our blessed Lord in the Temple in the presence of the Gentile proselytes. f To the most carnally-minded or hard-hearted the Voic'3 appeared mere inarticu- late sounds, a brutiim fuluicn ; "they said that it thundered." To others there sounded, indeed, a speech, an articulate sound, but they perceived not the meaning; they said "an angel spake to Him." Those who could hear, whose hearts were prepared, heard and understood, and one recorded the words. It is as the Lord said, " Why do ye not understand I Corinthians 2 : 14. t St. John 12 : 2S. Qssa mam Tin-: INCARNATION. 45 My speech ? even because ye cannot hear My Word." * That is, because tliere was in His hearers such moral and spiritual deficiency that tiiey could not accept the truth of His teach ini;, His Word — that is, the utterance of Reason, the outcome ot Wis- dom ; therciore, they could not understand the lan- guage in which it was uttered. On the other hand, when once God's voice has been made known, then every Ciod-fearing and believing man hears Him speak in his own language. May God grant that we may more and more realize the great and glorious teaching in His Word, " comparing spiritual things with spiritual," that we may be more and more en- abled to yield to Him the loving adoration of faithful hearts and tlie willing devotion of loyal affections. " Lord, what love have 1 unto Thy law, all the day long is my studv in it." In similar manner, when we study liistory, which is and must be the record of the manner in which all things are " working together for good for them that love God," the same marv Uous purpose of Divine power and love is seen, so that unbelievers have been converted by the consideration. " What is more intricate, multiform, and anomalous than the history of the different nations of the earth ! At the first glance it is an inextricable coil of men and ac- tions. At the next it appears a continual repetition, a rising and falling of nations, a flourishing and de- caying of States, a constant recurrence of the same events under different forms. Hut on closer obser- vation history is found to be a wondrous tissue of all '" i i ij . lit '■*i ill ife: |l;:.i m m St. John 8 : 43. M \\W M i 1 1 • ' i ! 1 46 THE INCARNATION. these varici^ated threads, a tissue ever lenj^thening and continually advancing according to fixed moral laws."* As ever, " some said it thundered, others, an angel si)ake," others " understand the Word." All and everything in God's Book, all point to the central fact of history, the focus of all God's work — the union of the Creator with Mis creature in the Incarnation of the Son of God, the One Mediator between the Creator and the creature. This enables us to understand the account of the creation of man. As we have seen, the Heavens, called into being by the will of God, were peopled with spiritual beings, each perfect in himself, each with his own particular nature, which he does not share with another. Then at the other extreme (if we may say so) of creation the material universe was summoned into existence, and one little corner of it, the earth on which we live, was gradually prepared for the reception of the gift of life. VVith the other millions of globes and systems we have no communication except by rays of light, and of these by revelation we only know that they are fellow-creatures with us. It tlie mark- ings on the planet Mars really show the presence of a vast system of canals, it may, perchance, be peopled by intelligent agents, who have worked out the problem of locomotion as our own engineers might have done ; but this does not affect our position. The m;»ii.K.nt the earth on which we live was ready to support life, the Divine gift of life was communi- * Luthardt, " Fundamental Truths of Cbiistianity," Lecture III., sec Appendix F. ii^Si THE INCARNATION. 47 cated to it, and by almost insensible j^radations and variations, which seem almost infinite, the forms of life advance and become more sensitive, until the form of man is reached. Then once more there is an intervention of the Creator with a new i^ift, which makes man the head and king of the orjj^anic kinj^- doin. He is made in/o^ the imaj^e of God : he has (granted to him an intellectual spirit whereby he has affinity to the spiritual intellijjjences in the world of angels. I le recapitulates all creation, and has thus the character of the representative of all created things. In his spiritual nature he is like, and may hereafter become, " eciual to the angels." In his lower nature he has affinity with all below liim in the lower forms of life ; ay, even with inorganic matter, for " dust he is, and unto dust he will return." There is also one other point on which Revelation insists, and that is the unique character of the first man. In the one individual, Adam, was contained all mankind. |\Vith respect to what Science may have to say about this, we need say no more than that though the question has been freely discussed, and some years ago several scientific, faitiiful men were of opinion that there were many Adams, yet now the tendency is to believe that the unit}-, which is beiitig acknowledged, arises from unity of origin. This seems to be insisted on with earnestness in the Old Testament. It is emphasized by the parade of the animals before Adam, when their difference trom him is shown to be so vast that not one was a lielp meet for him. Surely this would teach that • See Appendix G. fct • ii! %vi 'i I \l:i, i II ^rf ■! r 1 k It • ! i 'in Ml !! Ill '■'I i 1 v M 48 THE INCARNATION. man was not ivholly the result of Evolution. For if he were, something outside of himself would have been sufificiently near to him to be a help meet for him. The last step or stage in Evolution would have been so nearly akin as to have been little less than woman, except that the great gulf had been fixed by the Divine intervention, and the bestowal of the great and glorious gift of spiritual intelligence and self-consciousness had been granted to man. Then there was built up out of the side of Adam» who lay meanwhile in deep ecstasy or sleep, the help meet for him, Eve, the mother of all living. If we had only the Old Testament we should not know why such stress was laid on all this, but when we learn that the Creator has been pleased in His Infinite love and mercy to unite the creature to Himself, then " our understandings are opened, and we can understand in all the Scriptures the things concerning" that Incarnation. We can see how that, when Adam was made in the Image of God, he was also made in that Image which the Creator would assume "in the fulness of time." We can see why Adam was the unique and sole representa- tive of mankind ; and that all mankind without ex- ception was developed and derived out of him, because the last Adam, the Lord Incarnate, would be the new head into Whom anew all mankind should be recapitulated * and summed up in the new crea- tion. We can understand why man was of so com- plex a nature as to comprehend in himself an affinity to each part of creation, that when the loving Crea- Ephesians i : 10. ^1 I OS THE INCARNATION. 49 tor vouchsafed to enter into Personal conjunction with the common nature of man, He might be at once in touch with all His creation. Here, then, the question faces us, whether the Personal Union of the Creator with man's nature was due to man's sin, that He Who alone was able, might become " the Repairer of the Breach" * between man and his God created by man's sin ; or, to speak humanly, was the Incarnation dependent upon the sin of man ? If so, indeed, we may cry out, " O Felix culpa," O blessed sin ! But this seems strange and abhorrent to our sense of what is right. Here we might be content to lay our hands on our mouth and listen to the outburst of the Apostle, " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out ! For who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been His coun- sellor ? Or whr hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto Him again ? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things : to Whom be glory forever. Amen." Still we may remember that intellect and reason- ing powers have been given to us of God, and there- fore if, with devout submission to Him, and with dependence upon His guidance and His Word, we endeavor to understand what we believe, it cannot be wrong. St. Paul himself in dealing with the heathen argued with them on such grounds as he found in common with them ; and, again, in dealing with the Christians at Rome, and at Corinth, he > :i, < 1. i ' 1 # )■■! ■';:r 1 I '' m iti ! |i, ill! ■■>V I It * Isaiah 58 ■ la. 50 THE INCARNATION. argued as men might argue. Indeed, the key to all the mysteries of God is in the hands of a devout and faithful Christian. " We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is True ; and we are in Him that is True, even in His Son Jesus Christ."* As the Incarnate Lord "opened the understanding" of His earliest disciples *' that they might understand the Scriptures," so the Apostle St. John here tells us that the gift is a continuous gift to all the faithful, opening out their understandings in a progressive apprehensionf of " Him that is True." Let us pray more and more earnestly " Open Thou mine eyes, O Lord, that I may see the wondrous things of Thy law ;" and in deep humility let us approach this awful subject. A very excellent and comprehensive history of Ciiristian opinion on the particular question as to whether the Incarnation would have taken place if there had been no fall of man, has been given by Professor Westcott, to whose essay I would refer inquirers. :{: It may be said that there is nothing in Scripture •which would lead us to assert that the Incarnation was dependent upon the fall of man, and that it was to repair the wrong then done that the Incarnation was decreed. On the other hand, there is much to persuade us that the Personal Union of God with His creature was part of the "eternal purpose which God appointed in Christ Jesus our Lord." * I St. John 5 : 20. f Professor Westcott in loc. X Essay on " the Gospel of Creation" at the end of commentary on '* The Epistles of St. John." See Appendix H. THE INCARNATION. 51 tii' ^as At first sijjht there is one text, common in popular (piotation, which would seem to be aj^ainst this state- ment. It is in the Book of Revelation, " The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Tiiis is one of those interpretations which have arisen from the inadequacy of the Latin lanj^uaj^e to rci)rcsent the delicate accuracy of the Greek. The Greek Fathers, for the most part, constrained by the true nieaninj^ of the preposition, connect the words " from the foundation of the world" with " the 13ook of Life," and not as commonly quoted. The preposition rather implying an act than a desiijn. Where design is intended it would rather be expressed as St. Peter writes, " The precious Blood of Clirist, as of a Lamb without spot or blemish. Who verily was fore- ordained before the foundation of the world." Here, however, it is rather the act than the design that is represented, as farther on in the same Book of the Revelation the same expression is attached to the words " Book of Life ;" " the names written in the ]3ook of Life from the foundation of the world." When, however, the Greek was translated into Latin, the other view obtained, and in the Western Church, from the revised translation of St. Jerome, in later times, the words " from the foundation of the world" have been attached to the word " slain," as if to express design. This text, then, rightly under- stood, teaches the same as St. Paul, " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ : Ac- cording as He hath chosen us in Him before the founda- tion of the ivorldS' There is no statement of a design t 52 THE INCARNATION. that He should be slain from the foundation of the world.* On the other hand, do we not read that " all things were ereated by Ilim [i\u\ /or ////;//" Is not this j^reat and nlori;)us mystery spoken of by wSt. Paul ? " To make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery whieh from the be^j^innini; of the world hath been hid in Cioi), Who created all things by jesus Ciirist : to the intent that now unto the prin- cipalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal i)urpose which lie j^urposed in Christ jesus our Lord." f Indeed, the same may find some support in the careful language of the Nicene Creed, as Osiander (whose niece was married to Archbishop Cranmcr) pointed out. The language is, " Wiio for us men, and for our salvation, was made man." " For us men" first was He incarnate— a wider benefit than the narrower one " for our salvation." Some speculators have given as a reason for the fall of the rebel angels that, when the purpose of the Creator was revealed to them, that creation was to be joined to the Creator by means of the Incarna- tion, the feeling of jealousy and pride was aroused which led to their fall. Of this we can know noth- ing more than that St. Peter tells us that the Incar- nation and the whole of its attendant mysteries were such "as the angels desired to look into.":}: No argument can be based upon such speculation. * See Revelation 13:8; 17:8; i St. Peter i : ig ; Ephesians i : 4. f Ephesians 3:11. t ^ St. Peter i : 12. I i THK INCARNATION. 53 From earliest titnes the buildinj^ up of Ivve from Adam's side has l)een re^^arded as typical of tlie Churcli of Christ, as intimated l)y St. rani. Jii the document wliicii dates from the earliest years of the second century, and is called the Second Ivpistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians, but is j^enerally re- j^arded as an ancient homily, we hnd the foliowinjj^ ■* " I do not suppose ye are ignorant that the livinj^ Church is the IJody of Christ ; for the Scripture saith God made man male and female. The male is Christ, the female is the Church." 'I'his would imply that the j)urpose of the incarnation |)receded, and was not contins^ent, upon the fall of man. Oh the marvellous love and mercy of the Creator ! Nothing can thwart His purpose, not even the tittcrly unj^rateful affront of His favored creature! Mow must we marvel with adorinjj^ love at that which has been called with reverence f "that im- perturbable mercy which held on its course in sj)ite of man's rebellion !" " Oh that men would praise the Lord for His j^^oodness, and for His wonderful works for the children of men ! Let them also exalt Him in the congre<(ation of the people and praise Him in the assembly of the elders !" God hath indeed " made known unto us the mys- tery of His w'ill, according to His j^ood i)leasure, which He hath purposed in Himself, that in the dis- pensation of the fulness of times He mi*;ht <(ather together in one all thinj^s in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which arc on earth, even in Him, in * § 14, ed. LiKhtfoot, p. 326. f Mason's " Failh of the Gospel," p. 148. i yi M c I- '■ i i' i ; ill 54 THE INCARNATION. Whom also \vc have obtained an inheritance, beinjj^ predestinated according to the purpose of Him Who worketli all things after the counsel of ilis own Will."* When man had sinned, then the Divine [)lan was not, could not, be frustrated ; but that which the love of the Creator had determined His mercy car- ried out, taking- the wise Serpent in his own crafti- ness and triumphing- over him in the defeat which he thoui^ht he had achieved, the death on the Cross. When man sinned then came to man the Gospel of Hedem[>tion in addition to the Gos})el of Creation. Thenceforward all thinj^s worked toi^ether toward the final intervention of Divine Power. Just as there had been a <^radual advance from the moment of the commencement of life upon the earth, until Divine intervention was necessary in the formation of man into the Imag-c of God, so from the utterance of the (xospel of Redemption there was a continual and gradual preparation for ** the fulness of time," when the final intervention took place. AH along this period " God left not Himself with- out witness" in Scripture and out of Scripture. In Scripture we read of prophecies, types, and appear- ances vouchsafed to keep alive the memorial of the promised Gospel, and to bear witness to its truth, that " wdien it is come to pass we may believe." Not only do the prophecies become more frequent and more luminous as their fulfilment drew near, but the subject-matter of the moral teaching of the prophets became more and more what we may call * Ephesians i : g-ii. THE INCARNATION. S5 evanf^cllcal as the " fulness of time" approached. But suddenly, some three hundred years before the l^reat central event of history took place, proi)hecy ceased, and there was an awful hush, like " the silence of half an hour" in the vision of the Apocalypse* before the sacerdotal act of the angel in offerin<j^ in- cense, or the still more awful hush of S})y Wednes- day spent by the Lord in retirement at Bethany, from which He issued to speak and act as God on Maundy Thursday, and to offer the " full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world" on Good Friday. But during the silence " God left not Himself without witness ;" for in His Providence the Old Testament was translated into the most sensitive language in the world, that the Word might " have in every city them that preach Him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day." Here, too, was a marvel whereby as ever the Truth might be testified to from of old, that " when it is come to pass we may believe." If, in the course of time, error creeps into certain passages, lo, we have the Greek translation, the Authorized V^ersion of the Jewish Church in the Apostles' times to help us to correct the error ! In what has been called the Protevangeliiivi of Re- demption, in Genesis 3 : 15, a curious error, arising from a slip of the style or pencil, came into vogue in the fourth century, productive of much important consequence even in the nineteenth century. We read in the Douay Version : " I will put enmities ']'■ «j I' i 1 i:::i ■!-*i| ilf * Revelation 8 : i. 1 11 ! I' ill. 56 THE INCARNATION. hctvvccii thcc and the woman, and thy seed and her seed : SHE shall crush thy head, and thou siuilt lie in wait ior /it'r heel." This has arisen from the little mistake of writing an a for an e, Ipsa for 1|)S<'. If we turn to the Greek we find the unmistakable mas- culine (iti>T(>?, He, and the modern edifice built on the feminine collapses,* Then there is the glorious prophecy of Isaiah, " Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel."t Here some would endeavor to say this simply means " this young woman ;" and it is no miracle that a young woman should bear a son. But, thank God, the answer is at hand. The Greek translators in the third century belore Christ interpreted it " The Virgin," and the prophecy of Jeremiah is of similar import. " The Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man." :{: But passing from prophecy to type, which is a prophecy in act, the whole of the Old Testament bristles with types, as we should expect, and the moment the " eyes are opened to understand the wondrous things," the heart must find utterance in words of adoring praise. From the time of Abra- ham's child of promise, from Samson and others to John, the son of the priest Zachariiili, each child born, to a certain extent, out of the course of nature, was a type so far of the Virgin Birth. Every passage in the sacred life of Sacrifice >t the Lord Jesus has some representative c. All sacrifices were in a degree types of Hi: uid there- * See Appendix I. f Isaiah 7 : 14. {: Jeremiah 31 : 22. TIIK INCAKNAi'ION. 57 fore could the Forerunner cry, " Hehokl the Lamb (A (iod, tluit taketh away the sins of the woild." For " Christ our Passover Lamb is sacrificed for us" — the Lamb witliout s|)()t or blemish. Isaac carry- in*^ the wood up the hill, and bound upon tiie wootl to die ; the serpent raised on hij^h on tiie pole, that those who looked unto it mijj^ht live, what strikin^^ tyj)es of the crucifixion ! Joseph let down into the empty cistern and unjustly connnitted to j)rison; Jeremiah let down into the dreary dunj^eon for his faithfulness, are but foreshadows of Ilim Wiio for no fault of His own went down for a while to the spirits in prison — went down to Hades. Isaac alive from sacrifice ; Joseph raised from prison to the ri<;ht iiand of power and feedinj; his brethren with bread ; Israel rescued from Kj^yi)t ; Samson at midnij^ht bursting from Gaza and curryinj^ away the ^ates ; Jonah restored to li<^ht and life from the j^reat fish, what are they all but types of the Resurrection of the Lord about midnij^ht, bein^r advanced to the Right Hand of God, and feeding His brethren with the Bread of Heaven ? Then there is the third group of witness, which God gave to man before the Incarnation was com- plete, the Theophanies, or mysterious appearances at certain epochs in history. The early writers of the Church ever delighted to see in the Old Testament certain hints or statements that God had spoken to and had been seen by men. They claimed these appearances as proleptic mani- festations of the Incarnate Lord. We may not for one moment suppose that God the Son in His Divine Nature is less invisible, less infinite than either of ^1 1 .1 1. !■; I ':)' 11 % m I if I' \ III 1 H' tit 58 THE INCARNATION. the other Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity. The statement of St, John is absolutely true : " None hath seen God at any time," that is as God, in His Divine Nature. But when we know that the Person Who in " fulness of time" became Incarnate was Ciod the Son, we can underst-^.nd that these appearances were, as it were, preludes of the Incar- nation, certain proleptic reflections, manifested an- ticipations of what was about to come to pass, which was to Him (beff)re VVMiom there is no past or future, but all is an eternal present) as real as though it had already taken place. So that in merciful condescen- sion the Creator accustomed His creatures to the thought of beholding Him in human form. In the account of the Garden of Eden we read that the sinful pair " heard the Voice of the Lord God walking in the garden," the very phrase imply- ing an appearance as man. But here and elsewhere before the separation of Abraham, as God's chosen friend, the Revelation is said to be by a \^>icc of one speaking. But to Abraham we read " The Lord appeared,'' as of a revelation to the eye, and not to the ear alone. In the deeply mysterious covenant-making vision recorded in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis it is said : " The \\^)Kn of the Lord came unto Abram," but at this time (the vision was by night) the Presence of the Word of the Lord was not revealed in human form, but by "a smoking furnace and a lamp of fire that passed between those pieces." Some have doubted whether this was a waking vision, but as it said that "He brought Abram forth abroad" to sec the multitude of the stars, and later on that "a deep sleep fell upon fl (ijii_ ni THE INCARNATION'. 59 Abram," it is most probable tliat at first, at all events, it was a \vakin<^ vision. This j)arlicular vision is also remarkable for another |>hrase, the ex- pression " Lord God" oceurs twice in the account of this vision, and nowhere else in the Hook of Genesis, i'he lorm of the Hel)rew word for Lord belons^s (as has been shown by others) in an especial manner to the Second Person of the Kver Blessed Trinity. When, therefore, we read in Malachi, the last of the prophets, " The Lord, Whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His Temple, even the Anjj^el of the Covenant, Whom ye delight in ;" it is as we should ex|)ect, and all Christian interpreters are a<:^recd that the Lord Who is the Anjj^el of the Cove- nant is the same as the Word of the I>oRl) Who aj)- peared to Abraham and made the covenant with Him ; the same as the Ani^el of the Lord that ap|)eared to the i^atriarchs, even God the W^)rd. How exipiisitelv tender is the account of the first appearance of the Beini^ of uni(|ue i^randeur, the A <^f:l of the I^oRD. Hajj^ar, the slave of Sarah, wrons^ed by her mistress and of a hiiL^h spirit, is fuj^i- tive and like to perish. What can we imai^ine as more descrvinj^ of tender comi)assion than a fuii^itive slave, about to become a mother, wanderinjj^ without food or u^uidance in the trackless desert? ".And the An<i^el of the LoKO found her," found her as if in His comj>assion He had been seekin<^ her. And again, a second time to Hay;ar, a second time an out- cast, it is the .\n<^el of the Lord that came with words of sympathy and encouraj^ement. But time fails to speak of all the appearances at the various periods of crises of distress or necessity 'rl f I; '! ! 111.'" r •^ f 6o THE INCARNATION. 1 ; ; ■' t *,' I 1 1 n ■■ ' '1; h jS'i ! 4l| of the chosen of God. Me it is that forbids the death of Isaac on Mount Moriah ; that watches over and aj)pcars to Jacob ; that led tlie people in the wilderness ; Who appeared to Gideon ; was seen of Zachariali. To Moses tliere was the prom- ise,* " My Presence (or rather as the Hebrew has it, My Face) shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest," and Moses said, " If Thy Face go not up with me, carry us not up hence." This the Greek trans- lators naturally render " Except Thou go not up Thyself with us." I dare not go on to speak of more Theophanies or preludes of the Incarnation ; how God the Word was seen of Isaiah (as testified by St. Johnf), by Rzekiel and Daniel, and other holy men of old ; attention must be drawn to the fact that the appear- ances granted for keeping up the witness of the promised Gospel gradually ceased, as did prophecy, and to a certain extent (with the exception oi the sacrifices) types, as the awful hush of the three hun- dred years' silence preceded the realization of " the desire of all nations." Nor did " God leave Himself without witness" outside Scripture. There are to be found in many heathen nati<jns traces of a belief in the Incar- nation of God, often, alas ! defiled and obscured by the grotesqueness and impurity of the minds of sin- ful men, but still testifying to primeval or patri- archal tradition. Nay, more than this, there is the marvellous fact of the whole course of history converging upon this * Exodus 33 : 14, 15. f St. John 12 : 41 quoting Isaiah 6. THE INCARNATION. 6i one central fact ; history, not only of the Jews, hut of the various nations of the world, proving that " the Most Ilij^h riileth in the kin<^doni of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." The conviction arisinj^ iroxn the observation of this has been the means f*i convertinjj^ many to the truth. A i^reat historical scholar of^the last century, who had been sceptical, suddenly saw the clew to his historical difficulties,* " The whole world seemed t(^ be ordered for the sole purpose of furthering^ the re- ligion of the Redeemer, and if this religion is not divine, I understand nothing at all." No fortuitous concourse <A atoms of history could have produced the development of events making the whole order of the wr»rld fit for the Birth of the Lord. But at length there came " the dispensation of the fulness of time," and God "gathered together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which arc on earth," and God the Son was born into the world a man : "The Word was made Flesh." "O Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou visitest him ! Thr>u madest him lower than the angels to crown him with glory and worship ! " "The fulness of time had come," the heiress of the throne of David was a maiden of low estate in a poor village of a despised district of a conquered country. What could seem weaker in the eyes of men ? As an heiress she was espoused to her nearest male relatirm, whose genealogy would be the same ii i: H '11 ' m • i k i: 1 ! /- ■ ■ -1 r ' i t ■ ' n ■ V i 1 • See Appendix F. ||;< H \ ' II ip K^H 1 ( HH ' ' ' ■I^H I il' 1 11 II fl i i:i:l I 62 THE INCARNATION. as hers one or two steps back. She must liave been of tender }'ears, for though espoused she was not married. As beseemed an holy maiden she was with- in, perchance at her devotions, when the vVngel Gabriel came with his message of stupendous im- port. As the first word in Latin of the angel's mes- sage was the name of our first mother in Latin re- versed, so the Latin Fathers have delighted to say that Mary's humble, faithful, obedience, reversed Eve's proud, distrustful, disobedience. The Ai'e of the angel was the commencement of the reversal of the fall of Era. If when the devil spake to Kve, our death hung on her reply, may we not say that when the angel spake to Mary, our life hung on her reply. Truly the faith of the Blessed Maiden must have been stupendous I " When the fulness of time had come God sent forth Mis Son, made of a woman." " Behold I" cried Isaiah, in rapt prophecy ; " Be- hold ! a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son." One hundred vears of human life later Jeremiah pro- claimed, " The Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man." Seven hundred years after Isaiah " the fulness of time" came, and " the VV^ORU was made Flesh ;" " made of a woman" only ; made of the Virgin Mary, His mother. Reason, logic, experience of man are here stulti- fied, and yet we cannot but see the fitness from all points of our limited view. There are four ways in which we can conceive of man being produced. First, without man or wonian, as was Adam, by God's will alone ; secondly, of man alone, as was Eve by God's operation ; thirdly, of man and woman, THE IN'CARNATIOX. 63 as the generality of mankind by God's blessing ; last- ly, of woman alone by the operation of God, as was Christ. Had not this last possibility been realized the universe would not have been perfect. So reasoned the holy man of old.* Reason and experience must stand aside, but faith is quickened, hope bounds to the front, and love blazes forth like the fire on the altar which was never to die out. Faith, hope, and love cling around the Son of man, Who is also the Son of Ciod. With- out the Incarnation this were impossible, for God is of Majesty Unapproachable. The message was received at Nazareth in Galilee, but the Scripture said that Christ should be born at Bethlehem, and the exigencies of the Kmpire ot Rome were to be allowed to bring this about. A census was to be made previous to taxation, and the Heiress of David with her espoused guardian went to Bethlehem, where the family records of David were then, that the two might be registered and en- rolled for civil purposes. But not for purposes of worldly empire alone. When shall we learn the lesson that Nebuchadnezzar had to learn at such cost to himself, " that the Most Iligii ruleth in the king- dom of men." Augustus at Rome was but caring that Christ should be born at Bethlehem when he bade his scribes issue his maiulate. " And so it was that, while they were at Bethle- hem, the days were accomplisiietl (the fulness of time had comk) that she should be delivered. Ami * St. Ronaventura quoted by Westcolt in " The Gospel of Creation." St. John's Epistles, p. 2SS. II' i I r if : It 'II i 64 THE INCARNATION. she brouj^ht forth her Son, the Firstborn, and wrapped Ilim in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a man<^er ; because there was no room for them in the inn." God's "strength is made perfect in weakness." " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty." The glorious and marvellous news was first related to simple shepherds doing their duty to their sheep ; " Keeping watch over their flock by night." To them the message came by a solitary angel, " Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." And when the mes- sage was delivered, while the shepherds were amazed, the heavens could not contain themselves for joy. The dark violet curtains of night were rolled back, the stars disappeared, a. id the whole welkin was alive with multitudes, multitudes of the Heavenly host praising God and saying, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men." Ay, and who can contain themselves when they think of this exhibition of the love and mercy of the Creator ? The angels received an access of blessed- ness and benefit from the conjunction of their Creator with His creature ; the various divisions and de- partments of the Created Universe were " partakers of the benefit," but how much more the whole race of man ! Words are utterly inefficient to express the feelings of joy and gratitude that we feel at Christmas. Till-: INCARNATION. 65 Glory be to God in the hif^hcst ! Glory be to the Father Who sent His Son, glory be to tiie Son, the VVord made Flesh for us, glory be to the Holy (iliost by Whose operation the Word was made Flesh. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. i'! J ;'!' ill! I ^ i LECTURE IV. l'KRFp:CTrON OF SYMPATHY. " That which was from ihe beginninjf, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life."— i Sr. John i : i. i ** l| 'i 1 1 m. k Tin: l)Ci;iiininjT- of tiu; First I*!pist.lc of St. Joliii lias a «;rc'at similarity to the l)C<;imiiiii; of his Ciospcl : this has been remarked by all commentators from tlie first. There is, however, this difference w hih tlie commencement of tlie Gospel leads up to the Incarnation, the Ki)istle bej^ins from the Incarnation and s|)eaks of the resultinj^ effects or responsibilities. As the later Greek Fathers })oint out, St. John be- gins his l^^pistle by claiming; for the Christian faith that it is " from the be*^innin«^ ;" it cannot be s|)oken of as new by the side of Jew or Gentile creed ; it ranks far before either, and they arc inferior in a«^e, and the Gentile corrupt in addition. He claims that this perfection of the Incarnation is the i^roundwork of all Christian teachinij^ ; it is the basis of Christian creeds and Christian morality. He claims here the perfection of the IJody of the Incarnate Lord, as he claims the evidence of the three senses which bear on the (luestion — hearin*;', seeing-, touching, indeed, upon the second of these — see- ing — he dwells somewhat remarkably, perhaps as '^r rKKKKCTION OK SVMrATIIV. ^'7 rclcrrin^ to tiiat sense to wliicli crcck'iicc is most commonly u^ivcn, but not only so, for tlic woril and the tense are both ehan.i;ecl and there is meaninj; in the ehani^e. Tiie lirst statement " we luive seen uitli our eyes," is of a sure personal experience, while the second, " we f^azed upon," implies careful investijj^ation, steady contemplation, and is grouped with "our hands handled," which speaks of no sui)ert'icial or hasty impression, but the deliberate and matured assent of the satisfied senses. Still the mystery thus assured was no modern or recent de- velopment, it was " from the bei;innini;," as St. Cyril of Alexandria'- said : " The mystery of Christ was no recent thin<^, but rather it was foreordained befjjre the foundation of the world as God foreknew what would be." Hut when the " fulness of time" had come, and the course of events was ripe for the fresh intervention of Divine i'ower, then " the Word was made Mesh," by the oi)eration of the Holy (ihost. The <^reat stress laid by St. John on the Human nature of our Lord shows that the mind of Christians in his day had so fully accepted the super- natural and superhuman character and nature of the Lord that, as the Docet.e did m his own day and as Eut3ches did afterward, they were apt to ii^nore, or explain away, or to minimize the reality ol His IJody, and the intej^rity of His Humanity. ILjoker*- has beautifully rei)resented one reason i^iven by the leathers, why God the Word became Incarnate rather than the lloly Ghost ; but this im- IP, * Oil Isaiah, Uiok HI.. Tom. V. (Isaiati 41 : 4). t" licclesiastical Polity," B )3k V., li ; g 3. Ml 68 PKRI-KCTION OF SYMrATIIV. ])lics that the main reason of the Incarnation was the Redemption of mankind. " It beeame Him by Whom all tliinjjjs are, to be the wav of salvation to all, that the institution and restitution of the world miL;ht both be wrouj^ht by one lland." St. Athana- sius'^' lias the same iilea, which he expresses thus : " The Word alone could repair and restore the Im- aj^e of Cfod in man, because He is the Divine Proto- type. Hv means of men this were impossible, for they were made after an Imajj^e ; nor could it be by anf^els, for not even tiiey are God's Ima^e. . . . None other was sufhcient for this need, save tiie Ima<jc of the leather. The Word was Redeemer because He was the Creator." vSo St. Auij^ustine : "In your mind is the Imajj^e of God, the mind of man takes the Imai^c. It received it and by turninj^ aside to sin discolored it. He that had previously been its Former, Himself comes to it as the Reformer, be- cause bv the Word were all thinj^s made, and by the Word was the Imaj^e impressed on the mind." f The Word was made Flesh. Here, then, comes in a startling- thought, which arises out of this stupendous mystery. The Hcsh thus assumed by God the Son must thus become Divine. St. Feter, therefore, is not afraid to say of those who by Baptism have become members of Christ, as it were married to Him, " members of His Body, of His Flesh, and of His Bones," that they are " partakers of the Divine Nature." St. Athanasius,:}; therefore, relying upon this, boldly *'* De Incarnatione,"xiii., Opera Patavii, 1777, Tom. I., Pt. I., p. 47. f See also St. Leo, Serrn. De Pass. Dom., xii. \ Oral. c. Arianos, II., § 70, Opera I., p. 425. 1' rKRFKCTlON ()!■ SV.MI'A III V. 6( says : " Therefore ilid He assume the ')rlj4;inatecl and human Body that,, Ijavini; rrneuid it as its I'^ramer, lie mii;ht in Himself make it I)iviiie, and thus lead all of us into the Kin<;(lom of Ileasen after His Likeness." And ai^^ain, " I'or He was made Man that I le mii;-ht make usdodsin Himself." And a<.^ain, " He was Incarnate as .Man, that we miij^ht be made (iods." This is in and by intimate union with Him. I'Or the Council of Constantinople"' in tiie seventh century was not afraid to say tliat " ilis I'lesh had become Deified ;" and the ]»seu(lo-Cliry- sostom draws the natural conclusion that in conse- (luence ol this Ilis Body was "to be worshipped with God the Word, since by oneness with llim lie had Deified it." Therefore is it that we worship llim as Man; "() Son of David have mercy on us!" This, however, must not lead us to the ermr of suj)posin<;' that our Blessed Lord did either adopt a phantom Body, or havinii^ a(lo|)ted a real body, so absorbed it into His Divinity as to have piactically but one Nature and that Divine. St. John is stronj^ in his protest ai;"ainst this, Xot only does he say that " the Word was made b'lesh," not only " Lvery spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ come in Mesh ;" but also " they that confess not Jesus Christ still comin*^ in Flesh, he is a deceiver and an antichrist." The Lord Jesus Christ was born into the world a human bein^- " made of a woman ;" He retained the intci^rity of His human nature al! His life. lie died and rose ai^ain with the same Body, He c(juld say, 'lIHl * "Labb6 Concilia," Tom. VI , col. 1026. Ill ■ll 70 PKkKKCTION OK SVMI'ATIIY Behold My llaiiflsaiul My lY-ct, that it is I Myscll ■llaiullc Mt' and see, for a spirit hath not I'lesh ami )oiu's as \e s.'e Ml Have II e IS stil eomiiif^ 111 Mesii ;" lie ther(>fore is Perfect Man still. Oh {glori- ous thouL^ht ! There is even now at the Ri^jht I land of the Majesty on Ilij^li, A MAN', wearinj^ our nature in connnon with us. Therefore niav we say with St. Paul that " (lod hath made us sit toj;ether in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." But here ai;ain we have to avoid another erroi", which would lead us to think that, as there are two Natures, intimately conjoined, hut perfectly distinct, in Christ, so, likewise, there must he two Persons. This error would cut at the root of Christianity. Wc saw that as anii^els cannot he said to have a common nature, so that if " lie had taken hold of angels," the benefit would have been mainly, if not wdiolly, confined to the i)articular anjj^cl assumed. Similarlv, had the Lord taken to Himself the Person •f Oi ll 01 a man, inasmucli as no one i)erson can share his personalitv with another, that human Person would have been inhnitely advanced and would have re- ceived benefits far beyond any other creature ; tliouL^h even then some benefit mii^lit have (to speak with deepest reverence) leaked out to other crea- tures ; even as the family of a Prince receive some distinction from the exaltation of their relative. But the Person of Ciod the Son took to Himself the Nature of man and not the person of a man. So that when " the Holy ThiuL^," born of the \'ir<;in Marv, had attained the j)eriod of i;rowtli when it achieved ])ersonalitv, the Personality was that of God the VV^ord. the Son of the Father. " The Mesh and the w PKRI-KCTION OK SYMPATHY. 71 conjunction of the I'Mcsh with (iod bci^an both at one instant ; His niaUiiii:^ and takinLJ to Ilinisill our I'Icsh was hut one act, so tliat in Christ iIhtc is n» personal subsistence hut one, and that from ever- histin^. I5y taking only tiie nature of man lie still continueth one IV'rson, and chani,^eth l)ut the man- ner of His suhsistinj^, which was before in the mer(^ »^h)rv of tiie Son of Ciod, and is now in tlie hal)it of our Mesli. . . . Ciirist is a Person botii divine and liuman, howbeit not tlierefore two Persons in one. neither l)()tii these in one sense ; but a I'erson (bx ine, because He is l\rso}ially the Son of God; Iiuman, because lie hath reallv the nature of the chihhen of men. In Christ, therefore, God and man, ' there is (saith I'aschasius) a twofohl substance not a twofold i'erson, because one lY'rson extinij;uishetii another, wiiereas one nature cannot in anotlier become ex- tinct.* V(n' the j)ersonal beiui;^ whicli tiie Son of God abeady iiad suffered not the substiince to be personal whicii He took, altliou<;ii toj^ether with the nature wiiich He had, the nntiiri' also which He took continueth. Whereupon it followeth aL;ainst Xes- torius that no Person was born of the Virgin but the Son of Ciod, no Pers(jn but the Son of God bap- tized, the vSon of God condemned, the Son ol God and no other Person crucified, which one only point of Christian belief, the infinite i^'orth of the Son of God, is the very j^round of all things believed con- cerning!^ life and salvaiion by that which Christ either did or suffered as Man on our behalf." " i'lierefore saith our Article " two whole and perfect natures — i l-t i, ji ;? * Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," Book V., ch. iii., ,^ 3. '■ Kl' 1 ||f ' ¥ ! :> I '■*■- 1 72 PERFECTION OF SYiMPATHY. that is to say, the Godhead and the Manliood, were joined toi^ethcr in one Person, ufvir to he divided, whereof is one Christ, very Ciod and very man." So that we can say He snffered, He was bnried, lie descended into Hades. For even wlien in death His Body was separated from HisSonl, so tluit His Body was hiid in tlie sepnlciire, and His Sonl and Spirit went to the place of departed spirits, and " preached to the si>irits in prison," yet His Deity was separated from neither Body, Soul, nor Spirit. " The Body and Soui still subsisted as they did before by the sub- sistencx'of tiic Second Person of the Trinity." It was a failure to perceive tliis that j^ave rise to the heresy ol the Nestorians. For if the Person ol the Son of (rod was born of the Blessed Virj^in, she was the mother of Him Who is (fod, and therefore the Mother of (iod. F'rom this title they shrank with a somewhat natural awe and dread, and wished to express it by the phrase Mother of Ciuist, but the Person of Clirist was Clod the Son ; and when they were ))resscd by this trutli, they soui^ht refuse in the ij^raver heresy of assertin<; a double personality, which is alike contrary to Scripture and Reason. " Tlie wSon of G.^d by His Incarnation chan<;ed the manner of that Personal subsistence, which l)e- tore was solitary, and is now in the association of Flesh, no alteration thereby accruiiii;" to the nature of Clod." I would here aj^ain take refuLi^e ip. the accurate laiiL:^ua«;e of Hooker, 'Of both natu:\s there is a cooperation often, an association always, but never any mutual i)articipation whereby the proper- ties of the one are infused into the other. A kind of mutual ct)mmutation there is whereby those concrete i TERKKCTION f)F SVMl'ATllV. 73 names CloD and Man, wlicn \vc speak of Clirist, do take intercliani^eably one anotlicr's room, so that, for truth of speecli it skilleth not whether we say tliat the Son ol (lod hath ereated the workl, and the Son of Man l)y His deatli hatii savetl it, or else that the Son of Man did ereate and tiie Son ol (lod die to save tiie world. . , . When the Ajiostle saith of the Jews that they crneilied the Lord of i^lory, and when the Son o( Man heim; on earth allirmeth that tiie Son <»l Man was in Heaven at the same instant, there is in tiiese tvvo speeehes that mutual eireuiation htlore mentioned. In tlie one there is attributed to(»od, or the Lord of (llorv, death whereof Divine Nature is not eapable ; in the other ubicputy unto man whii:h iiumaii nature adm;tteth not. riierelore by the Lord of Cilory we must needs undc;rstand the whole Per- son of C'iirist. and in like maimer by the Son of Man the whole Person of Christ must neeessariU be meant, \V!io beinj^* man upon earth filled Heaven with His ij^lorious presenee, but not aecordini; to that nature for which the title of ^Lln is given Him." Therefore is He the Son of Man, aufl not the Son of n man. This will account for the title " Son of l.iui. mity" <^iven Him in the Liturj^y of Malabar. He is the Representative man, the last Alam, in VVh(;m once more mankind is recapitulated, '■' aiui drawn up to :;. head, as they had all issued from one iiead, the lust Adam. He t:)ok our nature in the fulness of its inteirrity. He had a perfect IJody, and lie has it now. In • ■ 1 ■' 1 ' , 1 j Ik 1 . ' J 1' Ephesians i : lo. ill I m I i * 74 I'ERFKCTION OF SYMPATHY. ordiT 1.) have pcM-fcct syinj)atliy with us lie took our uatuic froMi its very tlireshold. Man was, as our Article corrcctlv exj)resses it, " very far j^one from original rii^hteousuess ;" not as some inaccurate tlie- ol()i;ians speak, utterlv depraved and incajjable of ij^race. Had tiiis l)een true, tlie Incarnation would ha\(' been impossible as a partakini^ of our nature. There m;^-lit have been a fresh Creation from the dust of the jj^round, but He would not then have "tabernacled in us ;" it would not have been true, " forasmuih then as the cliildrcn are partakers of llesh and blood, He also Ilimself likewise took pait of the same." This was seen froiu tiie hrst, as said St. Irenaiis :* "If the hrst Adam was taken from the earth, and (iod was his Maker, it was necessary that He also that was summed uj) into him shovdd be made man bv (iod and have the same likeness of orii^in ris the former. Why, then, did not God ai^ain take (lust, but rather (jrdained that the foimation should take i>lace Irom Mary? It was that there mij;ht not be one thiui; formed and another thinj^ saved, but that one and the same mii^ht be leca- l)itulated (or summed upi, the likeness beinj^ i>re. serve( There was, then, in man somewhat on which (iod could take hold and build up a sinless Bodv. Here, then, must we avoid two errors, one on either hand. The one would tliink it necessarv that the "glorious and uui(pie Hlessedness of the \'ir«^in Mary should be extended to her mother, and that Mary alsf) should be conceived without spot of sin. St. Ir«n;ius, III., 21 iJ fn.. Opera, Paris, 1710, p. 21S. ■iji i I'KkFKCTlON OK SYMPATHY 75 Hut herfr the iir^imicnt of St. Atliaiiasius, with re- s[>c<;t to the Ariaii iiiiscoiiccptiDii ol tlic Mediator, will holrj :((K)(1. Tliey said that the ereatiires of themselves were far too weaiv to endure the force of the Father^ crcatinjjf power, therelore tlie Sou was a created Mediator. But, said St. Alhauasius, this does linf drive tiie ditruidtv a Httle laither back, and to *»atisfv this ol)iectioii there must he au iulmity of Me'liators. Theu lie exclaims, " What extraor- dinary nonsense all this is I" It. tlieu. lor the honor of our Lord it is necessarY that His HKsscd Mother should have been conceived and born without s})ot of sill, this does but diive the ditficult\ a little farther hack. lint we tiud that almost as a warnini;- St. Matthew in the /'<;i,''r// iLi^enealoi^v ol our Ulrssed Lord, most unusually Inserts the names ol loui- women, each of whom has some blot or stain (»l character : incestuous Thamar, the harlot Kahab, the Moabitess Ruth, the adulterous Bathsheba. The purity ah initio of the last link is no more necessarv than that of previous links. Kemaik, too. that though the main stock or trunk ol the tree ol jesst' was cut down and onlv the stump remained, though the line of Solomon alter the llesh was cut dowu and his idolatrous seed were exterminated, as would seem probable, vet as St. Luke shows in his //^////rr?/ L(en- caIo«;y of our Lord, tlie descent l)\- natural birth was from Nathan the v'»uni;-er son ol |)a\id bv the same arlulteress Bathshel)a, so that this arL^ument cannot be put on one side bv assumiu:^' St. Luke's {.^enealoi^v to be more cornet. Tliei,, ai^ain, the I^ord jesus would be isolated Irom us, and I h' woidd not be in perfect touch ajxl sympathy with us if the ('I rrr '!' ifa; U R^'t' I'll - 1 76 rKKMX TION OK SYMPATIIV Opinion of t.lic Iinniaciilatc Conception of tlic Blessed X'irij^in Mary were a trntli of Ciod and tl)c;iefore a necessary ( loct rme Ontlie oilier liand, a far more terrible irroi- lias apjieared lirsl in this century ; it is so lioriihle that lew have ever spoken o )f it. Tl le very •ilteil l)iit straiiiie i-:d wan 1 I rvin<r !->» fr oin whose eoiiLi"re<iation the so-called " irvinj^'ites" took their rise, invented the notion that our Lord took to Ilinisell a hody of sinfnl flesh, ol fallen luimanity. 'I'his has only to be mentioned to be rejected with abhorrence. The Incarnate Lord, then, had a j)erlect Body, sub- ject to inlinnities but not delects. It was sha|)ed atid born ; it i-rew in si/e and stieiii'th ; it ate and drank move( woi ked, aiH walked himireref thirsted ; became faint and weary ; slept, suffered, died. But we do not believe that He assumed an\ personal defect such as disease. lie had also a Human Soul, the seat ol the affec- tions. One ancient heresy (that of Ajxiirmaris) Irom an endeavor to explain the Incarnation, attempted to ari^ue that one part of the invisible nature <>t man. the reasonal)le sou w as lackinii- in the Saviour, an (1 that the Person ol (iod the Woid took its )lace. But this vie w w as condeinn(;d, for then there would not be perfect sympathy with mankind, and such a view would leave one j)art of man's nature unredeemetl. I'he soul is that part ol man which sides with t!ie llesh or spirit, whiche\er is the stroiiij^er, and therefon^ often in the stru_ni;le the soul is troubled. Therefore, when there was for a time a strun\i;le between the Divine and ilunian will in the Saviour, lie could say, " My soul is exccedinj;^ ■ I 1 T'KUKKCTION OK SVMI'AIUV. 17 sorrowful, tvcii imto dtiitli," as I Ic had hclorc, " M v soul is (roiil)lc(l :ni(l what shall I sav ?" He liaci also a lluman Sj»irit. J'hcrc do'^'s not. a|)- pcar suHicicMitly i^ood reason foi- doiihliii^ that St. Luke wrote ol the I loly Child jesusasoi lliseousin John, " The Child <^rew and waxed stmnL; in Sj)irit, tilled with wisdom." The i)assai;i' is a remarkable one, showini;- tiie <;ra(lnal ^lowthot the llidv Child, shtjwiiii;- the reality ol His manhood. "The Child was continually ^rowiiiL;', and beini;" strengthened in Spirit, heinjj^ tilled with Wisdom." It was a L;ia(lual |)r()ccss, as in the human inlant. Then, as in the Ma!L;iulieat, the iJlesscd Virgin said, "Mv spirit hath lejoiic'd ;" so we read of lu-r Son, " Jesus i"e- joiced in Spirit." So of deep sadness at sin ukJ sor- row around Him, we read one w!iile"lle sighed deeply in Mis Sjiirit," another while " lie groaned in the Spirit and was troubled." .\t his death He said, " lather, into I'hy Hands I commend .My Spirit ;" and then the separation from the tiammels ol the body conununicated new enerj^y to His Spirit. He was theieh)re " (|uiekened in the Spiiil, in which also He went and preached unto the sjjirits in j)rison." He was perfect man. He <^rew in body, He was i^radually stri'nL;thened in Spirit, He wa^ bi'ini; tilled with wisdom. He learned. He asked (juestions, He niaryelled. Hut we do not re.ul that He ey(;r fori^ot. When we are told that lie asked what should be done, we are specially told 'that this wa< to proyc His Al)()stlc, for He Himself knew what lit; would do." Hence it would appiarthat He ne\er took counsel for Himself ; He may have done so as an example to m W I 7S I'KKIKCI ION or SVMI'ATIIV '4' US. but not for Ilimsell, "for lie Himself kiie w what I Ic would do," Here, tlien, tliere must be a warninjj^ aj^aiiist an error whicli is now comiiii; more and more to the front. I'iie ])lirase of St. I'aul, vviiieli is, indeed, liard to l)e understood, "lie made Himself of no reputation." is beinj^ submitted to a strain u hieh the eomparison with other Scripture would hardlv allow the words to bear. The Cireek is " emptied Him- self" — that is (as Bishop Li^iitfoot exjdains it), "stripped Himself ol the insii;niii ot Majesty. " St. Iren;eus seenis to have had this in his mind in writ m*: !• or a> Hi \\' as man that He miirht be temjjted, so also was He the Word, that He niiglit be <^loritie(l ; the W'oril rruiniiiiiig (ji(iisi\'iil, while He was beiuL;- tempted, dishonored, crueihed, and dying )? ' but being associated with His manhood when it over- came, and was patient, and was doing good, and rose agam and was received u\). Tl us IS a iiooo com- mentary on St, I'aul, We must always bear in mind wluit has been beautifulU' ex])ressed as follows :+ It is vain to try to express in words that ol which nothing but the (ios[)els oi)en before us can ade- )n (piately cony(;y the extent, the impression left ( our minds of One Who all the while He was on eaith was in heart and soul and thougiit undivided for a moment from Heaven. He does wiiat is most human, but He lives absolutely in the Divine. Ui t->» However we see Him- tempted, teaching, heali comforting ho[)eless sorrow, sitting at meat at the •Adv. IliiT., III., K). Opera, Pans, 1710, p, 212, f " Gifis of Civilizalion," Seimons by R. W. Church, Dean of St. Paul's, pp. 91, 100. • P' PKRri:( TION OF SVMPATHV. 79 wcddiiii^ or tlic feast, rcl)ukin5^ tlic hypocrites, in the wilderness, in the temple, in the pussover cluirn- ber, on the cross — He of Wlioni we are readinj^ is all the while that which Mis own words can alone cx- })ress, 'ever the Son of Man Which is in Heaven.' The Divine Presence, the Union with the Father, is about Him always, like the li^ht and air, ambient, in- visible, yet incapable ever in thoui^ht of beinj^ awa}'." " The Cios[)els show us One with the j^reatest of works to do, a Work so i^reat that it sounds unbe- comiui; to qualify it with (jur ordinary words for greatness ; One never diverted from His work, never losini^ its clew, never impatient, never out of heart, Who cries not, nor strives, nor makes haste ; One Whose eye falls with sure truth and clear decision on everythin<^ in the many-colored scenes of lile ; One around Whom, as He })a3ses throui^h the world, all thin<^s that stir man's desire and ami)iti()n take their real shape, and relative place, and fmal value ; One to whom nothinj^ of what we call loss or «;ain is so much as worth taking account of in competition with that for which He lived." This is what the Cros[)els reveal to us ; we must then be careful to avoid the error which would sug- gest in some way that our Blessed Lord somehow laid aside I lis attributes or essential character as God, which He resumed at t!ic Resurrection and Ascension, having praved for this in His High l*riestly Prayer at the Mvsterious Last Supper. He is perfect ^fan : " He knoweth whereof we are made," by personal experience. He has perfect sym- {)athy with mankind in everything : not in individual eccentricities, but in that which is common to all. I" 1^ it It I* ) i I 80 I'KKIF.CTION OK SYMPATHY. Therefore was it that. He entered the line of " trans- mitted liiiinanity" ratlier tlian assumed a new crea- tion outsi<le that wiiieh already existed. Some few [)oints of this perfect sjinpathy must here be spoken of, that hv these we may learn all ; it were impossible in a short lecture to treat of all. In- deed, it may be said that it is im[)ossiblc for any one man to deal with all. The Lord was in perfect s^ni- [)athy with all men, of all places, of all times. An Eastern will find points of sympathy which would not be observed by a Western ; a modern man will rejoice oyer contmually discovered poi ;red in ts of sy m- pathy which were passed over by the ancients. It vvouUl then be im[)ossil)le for one UKin to ^rasj) that which is infinite in its i)ossil)ilities. As it is, the re- proach of the Oriental seeker after Christ is too well lese rved Christ we know is neither of the luist nor of (he West, but men have localized what Ciod meant to be universal." First, then, we will speak of one [)()int which has 'u modern times been objected to the perfection of our Lord's I luman character. It has been said that per- fection cannot be ascribed to I lis Humanity "from the absence of mirth and of lauj^hter as its natural and genial manifestation." The objection is worthy of remark and of consideration if well founded. It is remarkable that when He was on earth the Lord suffered the reproach of sympathizing too much with men in their times of mirth and joy, as well as in th eir sorrows aiu Man (He says of Himself) is in w g. an( y c s: Behold ! a g I pains. " The Son of come eating and drink- ttonous man and a ine bibber." It was John the Baptist that was 1^' PKkMU HON Ol' SYMPATHY. 8i represented us tlie morose man, standiii;^ alool from tlie ordinarv joys of mankind ; of liiin llu- same critit.s said : " 1 Ic liatli a devil." It has passed into a proverb that it is recorded tliat the Lord Jesns wept,* l)ut never recor«ied that lie smiled, and no doubt tiiis is true. Hut ih) thor- ou^li student of historv would maintain that because a thin^^is not recorded therefore it never iiai>pened ; and in our IJiessed Lord's case more has been deniid that is recorded than allirmed to have taken place which has not l)een recorded. Uncjuestionably we must remember that ihi* Last- ern mind in adult aj^e, aye and even in childluiod, is essentially i^rave and serious. I'he I'^asteiii babes that 1 have seen seemed tome preternaturall)' serious and ai)athetic. in I'^LCypt they would not even brush away the manv Hies that settled about the eyes to drink the moisture of the tear. iJut this is no an- swer to the objection ; because this is, it may be, a local peculiarity, an eccentricity, and not a coniinon characteristic of humanity. It is (piite true that the sober moralist of the I'^ast said, " 1 said of laughter, it is mad ; and of mirth, What doeth it ?' f l>>'f -'t the same time Scripture y^ives many instances of j^reat humor, which is akin to mirth. How deeply hunu)rous is the reail\ .mswer of [oash in delenceof his son (iideon ! When the peo- ple, anu^ry at the profanation of the idol altar, de- manded the death of Ciideon, joash at on':e answered them with ironical humor, which was accepleil as iM' !{:; is: * See St. Bernard, De Adv. Don., Serin. W ., jiixf^i jhi. \ Ectlesiasies 2 : 2, c(. 3 : 4. 6 82 I'KKM'.CTION OF SYMI'ATIIV. n ii iinanswoni 1)1( What I (he seemed to sav^l arc there any wlm iiic so |)r(;sumi)tii()iis as to siijjposc Baal caiHiot |)l(';i(l for liiinscll I IJaal powerless ! liriiif^ tlie iiKin w ho (hires to say this foivvard and let him be put to ileath rij^ht away wiiile the (hiy is yet yoimu one ,. I' Ih le only ari/utnent here is a humorous Tl le same sense oi iiumor seems f li to 1 lave Deen hereditai\, for it reapi)ears in tlie lierec mood of (lideon. When in stress of excitement he threateneil tlie men of Sueeotli, lie ivieant what he said in answer. IJut when hr returned in triumph as eontpieror, his an;:;er is tinned with ^rim humor; and his father's sayin.^" inakt s us feel that the rcadinii^ of the liihle of the I'!nL;lish Churcli is |)rol)al)ly correct, (iideon " took tliorns of the wilderness and briers, and with them he caused to know the men of Succoth." ri lose w hn I lave had personal experience o f " tl le thorns of the wildeiness" will realize the humor of the phiase. The f i«:i o IS n what humor there is in the irony ijah :'• " Cry aloud : for he is a ^od ; either he talking, oi" he is ])ursuin<j;', or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked." Nor, indeed, does the moralist refuse lau,i;hter alto- j^ether ; he says : " There is a time to weep, and a ticne to launh," but he agrees for man here on earth, " Sorrow is better than lauL(hter," and the " house of mourniii'L:; better than the house of feastin*^," be- cause, as he says, wine makcth merry a feast is made for lauiihter. and 11 lere need be nothintr wronsf in mirth, then, because the Eastern apathetic mind despises him " Whose lungs are tickle o' the sere." I Kings i8 ; 27. ''1!" lii rKRKia TION OK SVMI'ATIIY. 83 ir Let us aj^rcc, then, that the css(;ntial emotion of which mirth and hm^hter are th(.' outward exjires- sion is a part of our moral nature.* John Kehle, tl»e {generally reputed saint of our times in our C'om- immion, was full of fim and mirth. The moral ele- ment is nothiu};^ hut joy and gladness, which are only evil when in synipathy with sin or somethinij sin- ful. Of this mirth and lau;;hter arc the outward ex- j)ression, and therefore accidental accompaniinents. The infant will lauj^h from sheer joy of life, a^ the younj;- of all animals hound and nanihol, while others around the infant will laui;h and smile fron> sym- pathetic joy, for mirth is infectious. To this joy and ^dadm^ss (the "gladness of life, ' as Scripture hath it) a stimulus is j^iven by the exhilaration atising from food and wine. There is nothinj^ wroni;- here when there is no excess. The grace after food com- mended hy St. Chrysostomf is a remarkable proof that tliat ascetic saint regarded physical exhilaration from food as a blessing from (iotl. " I'hou, Lonl, /idsf tnadc ine glad \\\X(n\\[^\ Thy works." Here there seems a distinct reference, rightly or wrongly, to the " wine that makcth glad the heart of man ;' which, as St. I'aul would tell us, is one of the good creatures or works of (iod. This joy and gladness is stimulated at times by physical enjoyment, and often hnds outward expression in mirth and laugh- ter, riie essence of the emotion would seem to be sympathetic gladness. The " many twinkling smiles of Ocean" betoken the depths beneath ; mirth and i I k * See St. Clement, Alex., Pad. II. v., Potter, Tom. I., p. k/j. f III Psalm 41, Opera, Tom. V., p. 1331. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I l^|2^ 12.5 ia,M 2.0 18 1.25 1.4 III ,.6 .4 6" ► V] <^ /i / '> y ^ PhotDgmphii Sciences Corporatioii c 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 ,^ i H PKRFFXTION OF SYMPATHY. lauj^htcr are but the surface ripples which tell of joy and j^ladness within, and when there is no sin and wronfj^ connected with that inner gladness there is none to be found in the outward manifestation. Now our Lord took our nature from its very in- ception, and the only glimpses we have of I lis life before His ministry go to prove that I le was very man, among human beings of Mis own age. As an infant " the Child was continually growing, and being strengthened in spirit, being [gradually] filled with wisdom." He was as other infants ; the same words are used of His cousin John. The next glimpse we have when He was twelve years old. But how natural it all is ! When the caravan was on its return to Galilee, even the Blessed Virgin took for granted that the Holy Child was somewhere in the company. He was so like an ordinary lad that she thought He was with some of His mates. She thought lie was wandering, as any restless boy might, seeking for amusement, seeking for interest. It is all very won- derful, but it shows how human He was. It is ut- terly different from the noxious romances called " Apocryphal Gospels." We cannot, then, srppose that He was so unlike other human infants that He did not sanctify childhood by particii)ating in its natural character of healthful joy. It seems impos- sible to su})pose that He did not answer with sym- pathetic smile to the holy joy of His V^irgin Mother, If He ever manifested this joy of life as a child, the emotion must have been in Mis nature. But poetry says otherwise :* * Mrs. drowning. ■ I PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY 85 " No small Babe smiles my watching heart has seen To float like speech the speechless lips between." " This aspect of a Child, Who never sinned or smiled." This may be poetry ; it is not scriptural or liistori- cal. It is, indeed, a rather morbid view, and cannot be accepted as api)roachino; verisimilitude. John Keble, in his Prelections as professor ol poetry, ex- tolled the poetry of the painter who excpiisitely rendered the Holy Child in His mother's arms lar<;er and more intellectual than nature would warrant. Such may be poetry, it is not history ; there we may not draw upon our imagination for our facts. The morbid fancy of a poet is no proof that the Holy Babe did not smile.* It would seem doul)tful whether any mother could say that the Babe did not smile. The whole account of His Infancy is so human that the burden of proof lies with tlie i^ain- sayer. But j)assing by this accident of the essential emo- tion — that is, the outward ex[)ressi()n of mirth, wc do find sure symptoms of sympathetic gladness in our Lord's character. But before speaking of these we must bear in mind the terrible physical strain of continiu)us weariness on our Lord's Human Body. From the time of His * On the other hand may be cited the Christmas hymn " For He is our chiklhood's Pattern, Day by d.>y like us He grew : He was little, we;ik, and helpless, Tears and smiles, like us. He knew ; And He feeieth for our sadness. And He sharcth in our gladness." 1^i 21. f I H i ' '■''lyr ' i i; I ! i t a * 3'' 86 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. Ba[)tisin and Confirmation, and His subsequent forty days' fast, throughout the years of His ministry till His sinking to rest upon the Cross, was a period of unl)r()ken weariness, and of such mental strain, in daily contact with sinful men around Him, as we can have no distant conception of ; and this alone would have been physiologically antagonistic to outward ex[)ression of mirth. Still we have constant reference to gladness in the Lord's i)arables ; in the lost sheep and the lost piece of money, when the recovery of the lost is celebrated by calling the neighbors together to re- joice over the success, and sympathetic joy is spoken of as existing among the angels of God ; and in many other i)arables. His Presence at a marriaire feast showed this sympathy. He must have gone straight from His forty days' fast and two or three days' so- journ near the seen? of His forerunner's ministry to the marriage feast with his newly-acquired disciples. He would not have gone thither to be a damper on their joy on so mirthful an occasion. Nay, He showed His full sympathy in their joy and gladness by His first miracle, whereby He prevented the poor bridegroom from being put to shame in his seven days' feast by lack of that which helped to make up their little satisfaction. He performed His first miracle to show His sympathetic gladness with the joy of the feast, and gave His host one hundred and forty gallons of that " which maketh glad the heart of man." Then, again, there is His reference to childhood's light-heartedness : *' We have piped unto you, and you have not danced ; we have mourned unto you, and you have not lamented." This could 'rr If! PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. 87 not have been said liad He not synipathv witli inno- cent gladness and mirth. Nor can we exchide from this ar^^nment tlie Lord's jj^reat h)ve for little chil- dren, Whose characteristic in health and lox in<;- en- vironment is merry mirthfulness." Thus, while the self-control and staidncss of our Lortl's character was in perfect sympatliY with the Eastern mind, there is sut'hcient intimation that He was also in sym- pathy with the innocent lij^ht-heartedness of mirth. However, let us feel well assured that our IJlessed Lord's Humanity is a perfect humanity, and if we in our feebleness do not at the moment see the exact answer to an objection, we may feel that without doubt it is suscejitible of a complete refutation. In this case, indeed, wc may feel that objectors must be hard up indeed for an argument, wdien lack of mirth- fulness and laughter is cast up against the jjcrfection of the character of Jesus Christ, \Vc feel that we may have spent too much time over the objection, but the reason is that it has not commonly been noticec'. Another point of perfect sympathy which j)resents a difficulty is the Lord's gradual growth out of ignorance, and indeed the fact of His ignorance alto- gether. How could it be possible that the Person of God the Son could in any wav be ignorant when He was the Wisdom of God ? Still here, again, we see the perfection of His Manhood. He made acxjuaintance with the weakness of our understandimr, while, at the same tune, as St. I ren.-eus says lys The Word was quiescent." This growth could not have affected the infinite knowled<re of God the Son anv more than M^ 1 * See Appendix K. [\'.\ 88 PERFKCTIOX OF SYMPATHY. •growth of Body could have affected the infinity of Mis Inc()ini)reheiisible Majesty. The Fathers dis- cussed tlie (juestioii continually, and came to the con- clusion that lie was i<;norant only as man, and so far forth as knowledge came to Him throu<;h His man- hood. Thus ** thouj^h lie were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the thini^s which \\(i suffered ;" i.e., He learned as Man, for as Man alone could He suffer, and Icarniiii^ implies advance in knowledg^e, and therefore implies comparative ignorance at least.* It has been said that the Lord's Hodv was not subject to disease, because it was a }>crfect Body. We do not any u here read tliat He was subject to sickness of Body, and indeed there urc two a priori reasons why we should expect that He would ex- perience immunity from sickness. The one would be drawn from the perfect sinlessness of His Body, the other from His j^erfect svmpathy with man. For first of all, <;enerally speakinj^, sickness arises from some effort of nature to extrude some defect of body, w hether originally existiuL^ or imj)arted from udthout. But the Lord's Body was perfectly free from orij^inal defect ; and so far was it from being receptive of infection or poison from without, that it derived such vitality from its union with God, that its touch was the source of health to others. f So, again, the Lord had perfect sympathy with man — not with this or that man, but with mankind at large. Now, humanly speaking, it were ini})ossible that the * See Appendix L. f For the case of the leper healed by the Lord, it is noteworthy that each of the Synoptic Gospels records that He touc/ied the leper (St. Matthew 8 : 3 ; St. Mark i : 41 , St. Luke 5 : 13). i MMMi PKKFI'CIION OF SYMl'A'mv. «9 Lord could have liad exi)criciicc of cvcrv kind ot sickness to which fallen llesh is heir, so that if we had read that the I^ord had voluntarily under^-one this or that sickness, it would have been possible for one man to say, " Mv f^ord has more svmpathy with me than with many others, for I now suffer from the same sickness that He underwent." i^ut Ilis per- fect sympathy caused Him to accept what was com- mon to man without condescending- to the various forms t)f eccentricity developed in individuals. He voluntarily laid down His life, not because fie was subject to death, but because mankind is subject to death. Here, then, may we see the interpretation of the prophecy of Isaiah as (juoted bv St. Matthew : Himself took our infirmities and bare our sick- nesses." The New Head of the human race, the last Adam, sustained all the collective burden of human sickness in underi^oing the common end of all sickness, even death ; and in the extremity of woe of that death He summed up all the pains of all varieties of sickness and disease. In His case, too, the suffering was the greater, since the more refined the nature the more sensitive it is to pain. The Lord, therefore, suffered as none other man suffered or can suffer. Thus He had perfect svmpathy with us in our sicknesses. Then, again, just as Adam at the first summed up in himself all mankind, and therefore had the moral characteristics of both sexes,* so in the last Adam we see the same. There are seen the gentleness, the sympathy, the self-sacrifice of the female, and the '■9' ' ill <t 'f. ! i * See Appendix M. ■II,' I 90 PKRFKCTION OF SVMl'ATII Y. strcnj^th of will, the hatred of hypocrisy and cant, the severe ui)rit;htiiess of the male. Thus, a^^aiii. He has perfect syiiijjathy with all, and each sex may look to Iliin as their Kxenii)lar and approach Him with holy confidence. A^^ain, there has been implanted in mankind the principle of resentment, which is directed ai^ainst mora! evil and injury done in the world. That anger, which is one form oi this, is not wrong we can learn from St. Paul, who cites the Crreek trans- lation of the Hebrew, and thus gives the Greek an authority which otherwise it would seem to lack : " Be ye angry, and sin not." Anger, then, may be without sin. Let us not allow this anger to degener- ate into sin by brooding over it or allowing a just indignation to settle on its lees into malice or re- venge. We need scarce ask whether in this prin- ciple, common to all, the Lord Jesus had any share ; none can read the Gospels w ithout recognizing His indignation against sin. His withering scorn of hypoc- risy or false casuistry. One while in His indigna- tion He drove out by His single arm (once with a scourge made of ropes, once with the mere force of His wrath) the crowd of hucksters and traders from the Temple ; another while He scathed w ith bitter irony the wicked casuistry of the schools, " Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition ;" another wdiile He turned upon the hypocrites with the severe denunci- ation of the eight Woes.* Herein, then, again, we see the same. See Appendix N. :.;i FERKECTIDN OF SYMPATHY. 91 Another difficulty which exercised men of old was the existence of a human will in the Man Christ Jesus. We are sometimes admitted to see the exist- ence of this. In the deeply mysterious sayinj^ oi our Lord in the Court of tlie Gentiles on the Tuesday in II(jly Week we sec this, " My soul is troubled, and what shall I say ? [Shall I say] Father, save Me from this hour ? [Nay] but for this cause came 1 unto this hour. Father, j^lorify Thy Name." Here is distinct evidence of the voluntary submission of the human will to the Divine. It was, indeed, the sacri- fice of the will that was so well pleasiui^ to (jod, " the will (as saith St. Bernard) by which He chose to die, more than the death itself." We see, then, in the Lord two wills, the human will in perfect free- dom subjecting itself to the Divine Will. There is, then, no age of either sex with which the Lord cannot sympathize in all the sorrows and per- plexities of our complex life. In Body, Soul, and Spirit His sympathy is perfect. For the Lord was })erfect man in every respect in which we can " gaze upon Him," and as such was perfect in sympathy with all of us who have bodies. As a result, St. Mark, in the concise picturesciueness which is his distinguishing characteristic, tells us that the primeval control over the brute creation granted to the First Adam was renewed in the Second Adam. In His temptation " He was with the wild beasts." May we learn by His exam nion pie, may we use the power granted to us by union with Him to tame and subdue the wild beasts of evil passions and evil within ourselves that we may be found worthy to sing the I ^ If I ■lll illllU' MI' ' lllll!''! .1 I 92 PERFECTION OF SYMPATHY. son^r of Moses, the servant of God, and of the I.an.b. and worship Mini that sitteth on the Throne, sayin«;, " Tliou [irt worthy, () Lord, to receive «rl,)ry ami honor and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they were and were created.'' LECTURE V. THE ATONKMKNT. " Behold, the Lamb of God that takclh away the sin of the world." — Sr. John i : 2(>. What wc have been C()nsi(lcruig thus fur is in- deed enough to fill us with deepest wonder and gratitude. " What is man that Tliou iiast been thus mindful of him, and the son of man that Tiuni liast thus regarded him I" Surely it is enough to warm the coldest heart, to fill the most apathetic with love. That the All Holy, self-contained God should in His overflowing love determine to call a creature into existence is indeed marvelhnis. That the Crea- tor should determine that, when the fulness of the time had come, He would admit the creature to inti- mate and even personal union with Himself, is again a thought that is far exceeding our powers to grasp fully. We believe that the Exemplar of humanity is and always was present to the mind of God as humanity as it is in Christ Jesus. Man was formed in the image and likeness of God, and also after the Ideal existing in the Design of the Creator ; so that the Creator might become Incarnate in the form predetermined from all eternity. When, therefore, it pleased God the Son to reveal Himself to the Patriarchs, we may believe without impiety that 1' '•: ' - Ml 1,-. 94 I IIM AIONKMKNT. »r lie assinncd nn ai)pcanmcc similar to that. Hodv vvliicli lie would assiHDc when the fidness of time had indeed come. vSo that thouijjh the Son of (lod is in I lis Divine Nature e(iu;»"\ invisible with Crori the Father, yet as a prelude or proleplie j)remoni- tion, Me assumed tlie aj)pearance of a Body, such as lie liad determined to adopt really and j)erma- nently at I lis Incarnation. All this is indeed wonder- ful, and \vc cannot be sur[)rised in the least that the minds of the members of the early Church were so full of the glorious thoui^ht that (rod had really come down to earth, that many souj^ht to explain tliis by a denial of the reality of I lis Manhood. We see how full their minds were of the stui)endous thought that their Ix)rd Jesus Christ was (lod. The first martyr dies invoking his Lord as God, and the members of the Church become thenceforward spoken of as a class of " them that call ui)on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord ;" * the word is the same as when St. Peter says, " If ye call on the Father." f It is used of invoking a higher author- ity, and when calling for spiritual hclj) distinctly im- plies that the Person so invoked is God. The word had been used to translate the passage in Joel, where, speaking of Gospel times, as St. Peter tells us, the prophet says, " It shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." X This title alone, then, would prove this great truth, that the early Church clung with the greatest firmness to the belief in th*" Divinity of " Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours." * I Corinthians i : 2. f I St. Peter i : 17. X Acts 2 : 21. TUn AIONKMKNT, 95 It is a j^rcat j^ricf to many of us that the Unitarian [XM'vcrsion (for it is no less) of the; text in the l^^pistlc to the Koniaiis has l)een a(hnitteil to the inarj^in of what lias been called the I'vevised Version.* \o (h)nl)t it is true, as one of the faithful Revisers has stated, that it shows that such j)erversion was de- liberately rejected after serious consideration ; but there is some cause h)r sorrow in the tone in which Unitarians have welcomed the intrusion into the marj^in, with the scarcely veiled hope that at tin- next revision it will be thrust into the text it- self. But cancel all the vai lous texts, in which we re- joice, which tell dirctly of the F ord's Divinity, and yet you rannot e!im..iate the i^)od of proofs in almost every litie that the writers of the New Testament, and so those for whom tliey wrote, believed full}- in our Lord's Divinitv. He is enshrined In their in- most thoui^hts ; He is the absolute SoN'creij^n of their life, temporal, moral, s[)iritual. In Him they live and move and have their beinj^. The one ij^reat mo- tive power of all their action was this, " (iOl) was manifest in the flesh, justihed in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." When, however, some began to bring philosophy into Christianity they commenced their endeavor to explain away the Incarnation. They acknowledgcf! the Divinity, but ho'iv could this be reconciled wiih true humanity ? When errors came in by way of explanation, then St. John proclaimed with persist- * See Appendix O. I iiti • 't 96 TIM-, ATONKMKNT cnt reiteration the necessity ol absolute belief in the fact " that Jesus Christ is come in tiie I'lesii." This beiiii;' the case, we sIkjuU! expect soiue care- ful description ol our Lord's Birtii and Infancy, but let us see how it is, let us examine tiie contents of the four accounts of the Gospel —that is, of the history of Jesus Christ. Of these four accounts only two mention the fact of His Birth, only two i;ive us any account ol the tirst thirty years of liis life, from His Birth till llis Ba])tism. Ol these St. Matthew deyotes lather less than one twentieth ol llis book, and St. Luke lather more than one tenth of llis book to the first thirty years of the Lord's lile. Then of the next period until the Tassoyer, mentioned in St. John 6:1, all lour eyani;clists say much. II we put the whole four books together, rather less than one third of the en- tire record is de\'oted to this })eri()d ; St. Matthew is the fullest, St. John the least full. Of the next six months the record is slight ; St. Mark is lather the longest here and St. Luke the shortest, h.s account beiuir one third the leuirth of that of St. Mark in this section. hOr the next six months the record is about twice the length of the preyious section. St. Luke here is lar the longest, his record is ten times that of St. Mark, whose account is the shortest, and nearly doubh; that of St. John, vyho comes next to St. Lid-ce in length. From I'alm Sunday until Maundy Thursday, the first four days of Holy Week, the record is nearly as long as that of the preyious six months, St. Matthew giyin*^ the discourses on the Tuesday in the Temple and on the Mount of Olives. The account of Maundy Thursday Kven- 'JiiSaSk 1 THE ATONKMKNT. 97 ing and (iood Friday equals tlic previous section in Icnj^th. Here tlie three Synoptic (iosi)els are nearly of the same Icnsj^th, while St. John is lon<;er, because he ij;^ives the discourses of the Lord at the Mysterious Supper, if these were left out of the rcckonini;-, the Story of the Cross would be about the same len<;th in each Gospel.* These may be thouij^ht dry details, but thev seem to teach us somethiuir. They teach that thouj^h the writers differed about the inijiortance they at- tached to certain [)ortions of the Lord's LiJ\\ they did not in the least differ about the ini[)ortance ol His Death, Turn, then, to the later writinj^s of the Xew Testa- ment. The Book of the Acts contains five discourses of St. Peter. liach is framed on a similar skeleton. On the liirthday of the Church, the day of I'ente- cost, he sj)aket of " jesus ol Nazareth, a mati ap- proved of God amoiii^ you by miracles and wonders and si<>ns, which Ciod did bv llim in the mitlst ol vou, as ve vourselves also kn(nv." In his si)eech to the friends of Cornelius, the centurion, he spoke of the Lord \ " Who went about doin<^ i^ood and heal- in<^ all that were op[)resse(l of the Devil, for (iod was with llim." Hut the scheme ol all his addresses may be j^iven in the condensed report ot his s{)eech before "the Council. The CioD of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and handed on a tree. Him hath GoD exalted with His RiL;ht lland to be a I'rince and a Saviour, for to i^ive re|)entance unto Israel and f()ri;iveness of sins ; and we are His * See Appendix P. 7 t Acts { Acts 10 : 38. ■■¥■'1 *i i HI II all' 98 THE ATONEMENT. witnesses of these things ; and so also is the Holy Ohost, Whom GoD hath given to them that obey llim."'- They were to be witnesses of Mis death and resurrection, as the same .St. Peter had said before the election of vSt. Matthias, "Of these men must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His r<esun"ection ;" f a witness not of His holy life, not of His miraculous works, but of His I^esurrection, which necessarily imj)lies His Death. St. Paul, therefore, declared that at Corinth, at all events, he would know nothing in his preaching " save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.'' X From this time the Cross became the very symbol f)f Christianity. Christians delighted to see so ne symptom of the power of the Cross everywhere in nature, in art, in mythology. In Kgyj)t, in Scandi- navia, in India, even in Kamschatka the Cross has been found as a symbol. In Egypt in one form it is the symbol of life, in another the symbol of steadi- ness and strength. In Scandinavia it is the symbol of life and strength. Thus throughout the Old Testament they recognized everywhere foreshadow- ing of the Cross ; no hint, however sligiit, to the minds of moderns seemed too small to awaken de- lighted acceptance with the earh' Christians in the first vigor of their eager faith. Not only in the brazen serpent on the pole, and the arms stretched out of Moses in prayer, when Israel fought with Amalek, but also in the outstretched arm of Joshua with the spear in it, in the cruciform spit of the Paschal Lamb, in the two sticks gathered by the * Acts 5 : 30. f Acls I : 22. X I Corinthians 2 : 2. l.lll THE ATONEMENT. 99 widow to prepare her meal, in the rod of Moses, in the tree thrown into the bitter waters to make them sweet, in tlie Tau marked on the foreheads of the saved in Ezekiel, and many more. Not only so, but the Christians employed the sign of the Cross as a " seal " or external sign of blessing and protection. The Christian world was absolutely full of the Cross. Why, then, was this ? It has arisen doubtless from the deep conviction that all hope of pardon for sin, all hope of reconcili- ation with God, all hope of eternal life, all hope for the future depends upon the one fact,* that " when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." " Christ once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God." f " Christ was delivered for our offences, and rose again for our justification." :{: Therefore, well did the Apostle cry out, " God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." § No wonder the first Apostles at tached themselves once and forever to the Lord when they heard the witness of the forerunner : " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world !" This was the one persuasion that filled the hearts of all, that God the Son had become Incarnate and died on the Cross lor them. Therefore was the Cross the one emblem of their faith ; therefore was the Cross regarded as " the sign of the Son of * Romans 5 : 6. \, Romans 4 : 25. f 1 St. Peter 3 : 18. § Galatians 6 : 14. l\ % ;lfl lOO THK ATONEMENT Man, " ^' Therefore is it that the enterprisin<i^ mari- ners hailed the Southern Cross of Stars with awe and joyful liope. Therefore do Western travellers recoi^ni/e with hopeful awe the Cross marked on the mountain. Therefore have the legends arisen about the Cross marked on the back of the ass, and the red breast of the robin, and others such. Christians delight to see in everything some token of their Redemption. Here, then, brethren, bear with me for one mo- ment, if, as in private duty bound, I glory in the fact that my nation has made the Cross the sign of freedom to the slave througliout the world. Our ships, our navy, our soldiers glory, in the fiag of the triple Cross — the Cross of St. George, the Cross of St. Andrew, the Cross of St. Patrick. The Cross pro- tects them when alive and covers them as a pall when they die. It is not for nothing that we gather ourselves together under the banner of the Cross. But while the early Christians rejoiced even more in the /(Iff of their having been " redeemed with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot," f they raised no question as to the method, as to hozv the Redemption took place. They were too overcome with gratitude to ask for or to reason about the process of the Atone- ment made for their sins. When fervor of love be- gan somewhat to cool and questioning began, then man began " to darken counsel with words without knowledge." % In the providence of God the great truths about ♦ See Appendix Q. f I St. Peter i : 19. X Job 38 : 2. THE ATONEMENT. lOI the Person of our Blessed Ix)rd and the i^reat facts of our Redemption have been settled, hut there is still much mystery about the mode and method of the Atonement. Certainly if there were no mystery connected therewith, we would be apt to think that it could not l)e of God, Who Himself is to us sinful men the deepest mystery of all. True it is that those do well who m simple, humble faith accept the glorious y^^rr/ without ari^uiui^ ; still it is also true that those who seek reverently to use their reason, which is the great gift ofGod, in the endeavor to understand some fringe of the mysterv, cannot be doing ill. True is that the question " Ifoiv can /" is often the question of doubt or halting faith, as when Nicodemus * said of Reii:eneration in Ha:)- tism, " Ho-M can these things be ?" and as when the Jews! said of the other Gospel Sacrament, " How can this man give us Mis Flesh to eat?" Rut we must remember that we should " be readv always to give an answer to ever}- man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.":|: We cannot do this without some careful thought. If this is requisite for all, how much more for the clergy, that they ma}' " rightly divide; the word of Truth." Here, indeed, Ave may say that one reason why the doctrine about the Atonement has caused so much difficulty in some minds is, that the word of truth has been not rightl}" divided. The Christian Religion comprehends one consistent scheme of doc- trine, and no one part can be distorted or exagger- fin ■i'if'i St. John 3 : 4, 9. f St. John 6 : 52. % \ St. Peter 3 : 15. 102 THE ATONEMENT. atcd without marrinc: the whole. When the Atone- niert has been represented as the aet of a loving- Creator, the Son of God, to appease the wrath of His angered Father, this at once introduces very grave error of fundamental importance. First we read " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Next we believe that there neither is nor can be any divergence of will between Father and the Son. If God the Father be regarded as angered by sin. we must remember that there is such a terrible thing as " the wrath of the Lamb."* If " God is Love," " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, "f The Atonement began and ended in the Love of God. But we must re- member that true, real, deeply earnest love may be much sterner than the more superficial, shallow, and even selfish benevolence. Tlien side issues have been raised about the mean- ing of the English word Atonement and its use in the English Bible. But these are all beside the mat- ter. True, the word is an c>ld English word. In the West of England, to this day, when any persons have quarrelled they are said to be " at two ;" when the quarrel is made up they are " at one" again. In the New Testament the word is used for a Greek word which means " reconciliation," but a some- what different meaning has been since attached to the word, and it is with the meaning that we have to do. But brushing all these aside, let us humbly and faithfully endeavor to see if we may in some little degree pick up some few pebbles on the shore * Revelation 6 : 16. f 2 Corinthians 5 : 19. >''i-„ Ij^^^' W"" am t t^t p m THE ATONEMENT 103 of the great ocean of mystery before us. Let us humbly submit ourselves wliere we cannot lathom " the dei)ths of the riches both of the \vis(h)m and knowledge of God. For unsearchal)le are 1 lis judg- ments, and His ways past finding out." * In such matters we must wait until " we know, even as we are known," for if a man must confess that he does not know himself (and who does know himself thor- oughly ?), he cannot ex[)ect here on earth com- pletely " to know the mind of the Lord." We have already seen that all history bears wit- ness to a disorder in man, which science can only explain by explaining it away. This disorder is sin ; it is not, it cannot be natural t(j man ; it must be some deviation from his natural condition. There is evidence of a sense of this in heathen men apart from Scripture. St. Paul could say, " Tiie good that I would, I do not ; but the evil which I would not, that I do ;" f and the heathen could say, " I see the better and approve of it, but I follow the worse." :{: We believe that man was made b}' God and for God, therefore man's only happiness is in union with God. But when man's will chose that which was contrary to God's will, that union with God could no longer continue. This union being severed, man by himself alone could do nothing whatever to re- pair the breach. His life was cut off from the true Life. This is re[)resented by his being cut off fr(;m the Tree of Life in the midst of the garden. lie 1 i k\l i * Romans ir : 33. t Ovid, Metamorphoses, VII. 20. f Romans 7 : ig. 104 THE ATONEMENT. I I ini*;ht yearn alter reunion, he ini<;lit be conscious of some loss, tlK)u_i;li he knew not what lie had lost, but he could do nothinjj^ whatever to restore the loss. He was like a frozen man, utterly unable to approach the source of heat and light, that he niii^ht live and move. A sinful state is alienation from God ; and each act of sin, while it testifies to such alienation, can but increase, if possible, the alienation which already exists. But still more. VVe read that the first act of man after his first i^reat sin was to hide himself, or to endeavor to hide himself from God, anion*^ the trees of the f^arden. This was from a sense of shame, which is a sense of guilt. This sense of guilt is to be met with among the better livinir anion"; the heathen. The Apostles and early preachers of Chris- tianity among the Gentile nations made this very sense of guilt the groundwork of their aj)peal to the conscience. This it was whicli gave such meaning and force to the earnest addresses of St. Paul, " Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." '^ This it was that made Felix tremble when Paul " reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come." The Emperor Cxsar was a long wav off, and Felix could easily deal with accusa- tions to be preferred against his maladministration in that court ; but when the judgment to come was pleaded, then his consciousness of guilt compelled him to feel that he would not so easily escape in this tribunal ; and hence it was that he trembled and tried to put the thought away from him, by dismiss- * 2 Corinthians 5:11. ■"'"^"-'"''■' ""'i'-^J^':,..-^,^:.,....:^.^^^^ ,...■. TIIK ATONEMExNT. 105 i in<^ from his sii^lit the prcaclicr of tlic comiii;^ ji'tl^;- incnt. If tlicrc IkuI not been tliis sense of L;iiilt, (h»r- inant, perchance, but still alive in man, the task of the Apostles and their successors would have been much harder. The sneer of the unbeliever, that the preachers of Christianity traded on the fears of their hearers, proves that there was this sense of ^iiilt that could be awakened. Next, this would imply that there was some ex- ternal standard of ri<^ht and wi'onj^ bv which " ac- tions are weii^hed." I'or indeed the heathen " who know not God" still " show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bear- m^ witness, and their thou«^hts the meanwhile accus- ing or else excusing' one another." "■• Xor docs this depend only on the word of wSt. Paul, though that would be enough for us. For, as has been most excellently pointed out, the same view is held by Aristotle .'uid Cicero, testifying on behalf of the Greeks and Romans. Aristotle f had said of the upright, " Against them there is no law ; for thev themselves are law." Cicero said ::{; " True law is right reason, agreeable to nature, common to all, uniform, everlasting, which calls to duty by com- man ling, by forbidding deters from wrong. . . . Nor vi ill there be one law at I^ome and another at Athens ; one now and a different one by and by ; but one law, both everlasting and unchangeable, will bind both all nations and at all time, and there will be in * Romans 2 : 15. f Polit. in., xiii. 14, quoted by Archdeacon Gifford in " Speaker's Commentary." I See Appendix R. m *i(. 'M 1 06 THE ATONEMENT. common one, as it were, Master and Rmperor of all, God Himself." Cicero thus traces the law back to a personal power, Who is at once the exj)oiinder and interpreter of the law, God Himself. Indeed we cannot conceive of a law actin<^ automatically without a i)ersonal Agent who will care for its en- forcement and punish every breach — at least, it seems to me impossible. The same feeling, common to all, which implies the existence of an external standard and a ()ower to bring all to the test of this standard, implies also the absolute, unswerving upriglitness of such power ; this, then, acknowledges the absolute justice of the punishment inflicted for the breach of the law. Coextensive with this feeling there is a j)ractice of sacrifice, the origin of which cannot be traced. The rite is met with in the very commencement of the history of the Bible, and in secular and i)r()fanc history as well. Greek jjhilosopher, Roman magis- trate, Fiebrew prophet, all (jffered sacrifice. With the Hebrews the fire of sacrifice was " ever burning on the altar, it never went out." With the heathen, sacrifice was connected with all important events of public and private life. That man should eat his meat " roast with fire," and not raw, has its origin most probably in the universal law of sacrifice. If this be so, it also implies that the sacrifice was re- garded as a token of the renewal or continuance of the covenant or union with God. For it would show that man learned to eat his flesh " roast with fire," by " eating of the sacrifice ;" the being " partakers with the altar" would betoken reconciliation with Him whose Altar it was, as the sharing of a meal ' TIIK ATONKMI-NT. 107 witli a mail betokened the commencerneiit, continu- ance, or renewal of a c(n'enant. 'J'luis Laban and Jacob " did eat there upDn the heap," perhaps ot a common sacrihce,* certainly in token of peace and amity. So it was, therefore, when tiie covenant was made at ^^ount Sinai, f Moses, Aaron, Xadab, y\bilui, and seventy of the elders of Israel, as the rei)resent- ativcs of the nation of the Hebrews, ate and drank, probably of their sacrifices, in the immediate; Presence of God, specially manifested at the time for the pur- pose of the Covenant, The clothinjj^ our first parents in coats of skins :{; has been regarded by some as an intimation that animal sacrifice had been offered in the innocence of Paradise. But when innocence was lost, and sin with its attendant guilt had come in, then there was a change, not in the rite itself, but in the aspect in which it was viewed. The sense of guilt called into existence intense yearning for some propitiation, some mitigation in some way of the penalty attaching to sin, and sacrifice was regarded in some sort as a means of propitiation. There was a distinct feeling that something should be done to propitiate Divine wrath, and as between man and man " a gift in secret pacifieth anger," so a similar feeling arose between man and God. At the same time there was the full persuasion, on every ground, that the gift to be offered must be of the utmost value to the offerer. If it were of anything that came to hand, it would not be of sufficient impor- tance ; the loss to the offerer would not be in any de- ■^J |i M * So says the Targum of Palestine. X Genesis 3 : 21. f Exodus 24 ; 11 mi 1 08 Till: ATONEMKNT. I '^^H 1:'* 1 ■H ill- 1 K < 1 1 ] K^} , -J {j^rcc sufficient to warnint the liopc that tiic offence would be forj^iven. This feeliuij^ naturally arose from the sense of the dignity of the One offended by the sin which had been committed. The very best of a man's |)()ssessions was far inferior to the man himself ; how, therefore, could a sacrifice of less value than the !iian avail before God ? The (juestion of IJalak was the j^reat (lucstion of man, ** Where- with shall 1 come before the LoKD, and bow myself before the hlj^h God? Shall I come before Ilim with burnt offerini^s, with calves of a year old ? Will the r.ORl) be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall 1 give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ?" '^^ There seemed to be a demand for a human sacrifice, the least that could be offered, the least that could be accepted. Such feeling probably existed before the time of Abraham, so that the terrible test of his faith was probabl}' not absolutely new to his experience. The offering of a firstborn son would be in the eyes of many a greater sacrifice than the immolation of self. Certainly human sacrifice was practised very widely if not universally. Among the Greeks and Romans, with the Druids of Gaul, if not of Britain ; with the Mexicans, when invaded by Cortes, human sacrifice was common and customary. This must bear testi- mony to a feeling that some valuable life is necessary as the least inadequate sacrifice to be offered to the offended Deity. Vet all along there was a sense that all was inadequate, all was really impotent and * Micah 6 : 6, 7. THE ATONKNfKNT. ICX; valueless to effect wluit was sorely Ionised for, jtar. clou and reunion with (iod. It has been said that careful examination of Reve- lation warrants the belief that the Creator desij^ned a Personal Union between Himself and I lis creation from the first, imd that man was the creature formed with sympathies with the rest of creation with this spcci; d ii view that in the fulness of time" God won Id l)ecome 1 ncarnate in man s nature. Tl le ir merciful purpose held on its course notwithstandin the ()utra<;e of man's sin and dejection ; but now, i addition to the mercv and love of takiiiir tlie creature n in to U nion, there wiis superadded the i^reater ex- hibition of mercy and love in the redemption and restoration of man. Of this there were many tvj)es, and amonu^ others the whole system of Levitical sacrihces. While we cannot tell (because Revelation is silent on the mat- ter) whether the ori<;in of sacrifice was the command of God, yet we do know that God took that which was in existence and surrounded it with a cere- monial and ritual <^ivin<^ it a typical sij^nilicance. This is what has ever been done. When the Lord was upon earth He took various clauses from pravers in use amoni^ the Jews and framed a prayer for I lis disciples. He took a rite, which was at all events then in use, and made it instinct with life as the initial impartiui^ of the new life. He took bread and wine and made them the means of impartini^ spiritual food to His faithful members. So sacrifice in ordi- nary use in the world was taken and surrounded with typical solemnity in the ceremonial law of Moses. Here no doubt arises a question which has caused '4 (v.^ )': 1:1 ■ « J. ,'•■ t . I lO THE ATONEMENT. much debate and many lon<^ treatises ; all this can- not here be entered ui)()n. We can only deal with some broad points which may help us, and passin<j^ by the offerinj^s of incense and show bread, we will speak only of the sacrifices which entailed the shed- din<^ of the blood of a victim. The offerer first laid his hands on the head of the victim. riiis symbolical act always implied that some effect was to result from this, some virtue or f^race, or, as it would seem, guilt v/as understood to pass from the one who laid on hands to the other. Thus M(3ses was commanded to lay hands on Joshua, and we read,"'^ " Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the s})iritof wisdom ; FOR Moses had laid his hands on him." So in connection with the sacrificial cere- mony it is clear that the guilt of the offerer was in some sense regarded as passing from the man to the victim. This is clearly stated in the case of the scapegoat on the day of Atonement. In this case we read :t " Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their trans- gressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness ; and the goat shall bear u})on him all their iniquities into a land not Inhabited." So in the case of the offerer we read ::{; " He shall put his hand on the head of the burnt olTering ; and it shall be accepted for him to make an atonement for him." * Deuteronomy 34 : 9. X Leviticus 1:4:4:4, etc. f Leviticus 16 : 21. WTffi^SniY»iii«Sia>aaMMM«yiBiaiiMii^«Mifc THE ATONEMENT. I I I Next the offerer was to slay the vietini ; this would beeome an acknowledi^nieiit that death was the just punishment of sin, that it was wiiat the offe?x*r had righteously deserved. After this the blood was sprinkled on the altar ; the blood being regarded as the principle of life, this action would typify the offering to God the life of the victim. Then foUowed the consumption of the whole or part bv hre. Here many explanations have been offered of the tvpical significance of this. It may be regarded as showing that the victim is given to God, and that nothing short of our best may be given to llim with acceptance. Then, as has been pointed out, since the word for burning is not the ordinary word, but one that is used for the smoke of the incense, tliis im{>lies that the smoke of the sacrifice rising to Heaven represents the yearning of the heart toward God. The fire itself, having originallv come from Heaven (/' the fire shall ever be burning on My altar, it shall never go out"), would represent the fervor of love in the worshipper, originally imjdanted by God. " We love Him because He first loved us." Then followed in various sacrifices the eating of some part by the priest, and again in some the eat- ing by the offerer and his friends. As the priest is at once tiie representative of God and man, his eat- ing may be a token of reconciliation and renewal of the covenant between God and man, while the eat- ing of the sacrifice by the offerer would be the token of renewed oneness with God. To this St. Paul would seem to point, perchance, when he says : 'i,: m lip ■it m I 12 THE ATONKMENT. " For \vc being many arc one bread, and one body ; FOR wc arc all partakers of that one Bread," ''• Here, then, v\x' trace an acknowdedgnient of guilt, a recognition of the righteousness of the [)unishment for sin — viz., death, as well as an oifcring of the life to God in ])ouring forth the blood, the principle of life, and the renewal of the covenant and union with God. But these sacrifices also testified to the necessity of some offering which would at once be perfect and afford perfect restoration to union with God. [•"or thev testified to their own feebleness by the ex- cessive fre([uency of their being offered, I'Or, as the writer to the Hebrews argues, if anv one had real efificacy, then all would have been accomplished, and they would all have ceased to be offered. t But now, as we look around in the world, we see tiiat they have ceased to be offered. When the Epis- tle to the Hebrews was written thev were still beinc: offered at the Temple in Jerusalem. Soon afterward the Temple was destroyed, and the sacrifices at once ceased, and forever. Hebrews exist all over the world, a separate people, with a separate rudimen- tary faith, truncated, dwarfed, stunted, with no means whatever of offering the sacrifices which they '.Hiist offer if they adhere to their faith in its integrity, so far as it goes. Here, then, is a marvel ! How can we account for it ? I, for my part, believe that on that day of Prepara- tion, when Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ was hang- * i Corinthians lo : 17. t Hebrews 10 : 2. SBS '1 .1- i THE ATONEMENT. 113 ing on the Cross, the supernatural darkness from noon till three o'clock prevented the offeriui^ of the daily evening lamb, as well as the annual Paschal Lamb.'^ I, for my part, believe that the name Preparation (still used for Good Friday, and so for all Fridays in the year) is a continual testimony that St. John and the early Christian writers are correct! in stating that the eating of the Paschal Lamb by the Jews was on the evening a/Ur our Lord's death. What a wonderful fulfilment of prophecy ! "In the midst of the week (the three years and a half of His ministry) He shall cause the sacrifice and obla- tion to cease." ^ In the presence of that " one per- fect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfac- tion," the daily and annual type were "caused to cease." But whether this be so or not, we may rest assured that just as the dumbness of the priest Zachariah betokened the passing away of the power of sacer- dotal benediction from the Levitical priesthood, so the cry of the son of Zachariah betokened the pass- ing away of the Levitical priesthood altogether, " Behold the Lamb of God, Which taketh away the sins of the world !" The Baptist here must have had reference to the Lamb of Sacrifice, the Lamb Who was to redeem us with His Blood. In this cry indeed is the whole Gospel of salvation. Here indeed is the One only perfect sacrifice, and when this was offered, after the probationary period of forty years, the Jewish sacri- * See Appendix S. X Daniel 9 : 27. See Appendix V. 8 f See Appendix T. li W 114 THE ATONEMENT. ficcs ceased at once and forever. Nay more, the heathen sacrifices began at the same time to fail, and though the Apostate Julian strove to revive them, and in some form they lingered on here and there, yet they were moribund, and have now practically ceased. But when we come to ask the question either "How can these things be?" or "How was this done ?" then we have to be very careful lest we in- cur the reproach that " we darken counsel with words without knowledge." We durst go no fa* her than Scripture doth lead us by the hand, " The death of Christ, which is so thankfully insisted (m, is represented by three images in the New Testa- ment ; no one could in any wa}' exhaust the teach- ing ; and doubtless these three fail to cover all the meaning. The first figure employed is a propitia- tion or sin-offering, next a redemption, and thirdly, a reconciliation or atonement. It is a propitiation. Herein is satisfied that yearn- ing which seems inherent in man, for an expiation for his guilt. Man of himself alone could not offer an acceptable sacrifice ; Christ has done this on his behalf as his representative. Here, then, we may see that the wrath of God is the necessary (if we may say so with deepest reverence) hostility of the Divine nature to sin. In this there is not, there can- not be any, even the smallest divergence or differ- ence between the Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity. We might almost call it blasphemy to say that the love of the Son sought to propitiate the * See Appendix W. THE ATONEMENT. 115 anger of the Father ; as if both had not equal love and equal anger against sin. Sin is an outrage against God the Son as much as against the Father or the Holy Spirit. The wrath of God is the ex- pression of justice, which hates and punishes sin, as well as the hostility of an offended Peison. We may believe, then, that as He is immutable, so the hostility to sin cannot be put away until the de- mands of His justice have been satisfied. Pain and suffering are the signs of God's hatred to sin. These were borne by Christ, though He did no sin. Death had been declared to be the penalty of sin. This Christ underwent for us, though He deserved it not. In Christ, the Second Adam, the represent- ative of man, there was a full and complete admis- sion of the righteousness of the sentence of God. The Cross of Christ was, on the one hand, a procfe- mation of the judgment of God against sin, and also, on the other hand, on man's behalf, as has been very excellently said, "a perfect Amen in humanity to the judgment of God on the sin of man." If one feature of sacrifice was the offering of our best, was not Christ our very best, "chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely?" He is, in- deed, as St. Peter said, "a Lamb without blemish and without spot." Therefore is He indeed "the Lamb of God." Hence was it that when " Christ gave Himself for us, He was indeed an offering and a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savor," with such God was well pleased. The night before He suffered He Himself said : " This is My Blood of the New Covenant, which is being shed for many unto remission of sins." Thus 1: ^1 pp m 't 1 ■' ]l 'ml ' H i< H 1 H ' 1 1 \ H i ■ i r .ftit- .";■ :i -f p J Ii6 THE ATONEMENT. He proclaimed Himself a sin-offcrins^, and that His Blood was shed for fori^iveness of sins. " He bare the sins of many," not as an arbitrary substitution of a sinless One lor the sins of a whole race, but as their Representative, as bearing' their nature (He took not the person ot a man, but the nature ot man). He " bare our sins in His Body on the tree" of the Cross. One while therefore He was repre- sented by the scapci^oat bearing the sins and in- iquities of the people away from them, another while He was represented by the sin-offering put to death by those lor whom He was a propitiation. There was a deep mystery in His death ; it was a voluntary submission, to which He had looked for- ward with increasing horror. But as the root of all sin is disobedience, so to this death the perfect obe- dience of the Sufferer gave value, which became infinite, from the infinite worth of the Subject. Here, too, we may perchance learn somewhat of the outskirts of the deep mystery of His death. "He learned obedience by the things which He suffered," and therein " He became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross." We may un- derstand somewhat of the terrible strain or effort of this obedience from the increasing horror of death which oppressed His innocent soul, part of which we are admitted to know. During the last year of His life and of His ministry, the thought of His death was ever present to His mind, and it wrung His soul more and more. When He had drawn the confession from St. Peter, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," St. Matthew tells us at once " from that time forth began Jesus to show unto His 'WMS^ SBCSS THE ATONEMENT. 117 disciples, how that He must ^o unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised ai^aiii the third day," Thenceforward He endeavored to pre- pare Mis disciples for His death, and may we not reverently say, prepare Himself for it? Is He transfif^ured before them that they mii^ht see His glory ? jNIoses and Elijah speak with Him of His exodus or dcatJi, and the Lord Himself speaks of His own suffering. Again and again He speaks of this, until the time approached. After His discourse on the Mount of Olives, about the destruction of Jeru- salem and the judgment of the world. He said, " Ve know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified." But in the afternoon of that same day, ere He left the Temple for the last time, some Gentiles, Greeks, not Grecians, desire to see Him. Then He saw in them the firstfruits of the millions of the Gentile world He came to bring into the one fold, and He rejoiced. " The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified." But thereupon the horror of great darkness came upon Him, and He said, " Now is My soul troubled ; and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour : yet for this cause came I unto this hour." * It was the willing offering of Himself in the Temple, as of the Lamb without spot or blem- ish, and the offering was accepted. Then, again, two days after, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the agony became intense, such as we cannot conceive. Yet it was voluntarily undergone. Do we not hear i! I: ■! ! \ ■f «; I ■ I I * St. John 12 : 23 sq. ii.i» \ i$- I . 'li] ii8 THE ATONEMENT. Him say,* " Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels ? But how, then, shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" Others have faced death calmly, why then was this ? Not only from intense knowledge of the physical pain and suffering, which to His perfect organization must have been far keener than to any other creature, but it was a horror of soul, which may be in some little degree conceived in the awful cry, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" God had proclaimed over man, " It is not good that man should be alone." This was not said of any other of His creatures. Again was it said, *' Woe unto him that is alone." This must be to teach man that he cannot find happiness apart from God — he cannot really live apart from God. But in the moment of death the Lord Jesus as man was withdrawn from the consolations of Deity, we might almost think from the consciousness of the F'resence of God. To man, hardened in sin, this dereliction must be awful indeed ; how far more intense in its bitterness must it have been to the Saviour. De- serted by His friends, alone, so far as human sym- pathy is concerned, He is also deserted of His Father ; the agony now is more than He can bear. The thought of its approach was so full of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, that supernatural strength had to be infused by means of an angel, lest He should sink under it. But now on the Cross no * St. Matthew 26 : 53. THE ATONEMENT. 119 I strenji^th is .nfused. It is more than He can bear. His heart is broken, and He dies from horror and f^rief of mind, vohintarily accepted, rather than from pain and exhaustion of body. Thus in some deeply mysterious way, which we cannot fully understand, God " made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin," and "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many," as it had been prophesied of old that " the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all." " He is the propitiation for our sins." Thenceforward we hear in the Book of the Reve- lation the loving and thankful adoration of the repre- sentatives of creation, uttering a new s(3ng of i)raise to the Lamb, and to the Lamb slain — the Lamb as it had been slain. The continual hymn is ever going up, " Thou art worthy, for Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy Blood." But, again, He is also the Priest who offers the sin- offering. This was foreshown when He is called the Firstborn. Mary " brought forth her Son, the Firstborn." The firstborn son was ever the priest of the family, until the whole tribe of Levi was taken instead of the firstborn. It was foretold when the Psalmist said, ** Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec. " The Epistle to the He- brews shows that for a perfect priest there was necessary not only perfect S3'mpathy with his brethren, but that he should be " holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, higher than the Heavens." To be such he must be divine. There- fore in His double character He could do for man what man alone could not do : He could ofTcr with .. -i 120 THE ATONEMENT. m .1 ':U certainty of acceptance a i)crfcct o(Tcrin«^ which could not be refused. '• Himself the Victim and Himself the Priest." Into the Holy of Holies in Heaven has our Hi^h Priest entered, not with the blood of others, but with His own Blood, pleading;- the merits of that which cannot be refused, and He ever liveth to make intercession for us. True is it from a human point of view that " no man may deliver his brother, nor make aj^reement unto God for him ; for it cost more to redeem their souls, so that he must let that alone forever." At the same time the law had laid down, " One of his brethren may redeem him," and our Firstborn Brother has redeemed us. This, then, is the second fii^^ure of the savini^ char- acter of our Lord's Death ; it is spoken of as a Ran- som, a redemption, a purchasing the freedom of a slave who is held in bondage. The Lord Himself said that " the Son of man came to give His Life a ransom for many," and St. Paul said that the Saviour " gave Himself a ransom lor all." This is difficult for us now fully to understand, and we may not press the idea in all its points any more than we can always press all points of analogy in our Lord's parables. In our Lord's day the idea of a ransom was perfectly familiar. Not only was money at times paid as the price of redemption, but sometimes one life was given to save another from death. We need not stay here to ask to whom the ransom was to be paid, lest we should be led into that strange opinion which was held for many centuries, that the ^11; ■:s~s;s~ssss? 1 I lich THE ATONEMENT. 121 ransom was i)aid to tlic devil. There is no need to ask to whom the ransom was to be paid for tlie hfe of an animal. " Every firstliniif of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb ; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck." The ransom was to be i)aid to God by the hands of His priest. " The waj^es of sin is death," *' death had passed on all men, for that all have sinned." But the death of Christ was " a ransom for many," that they need not be put to death. No man could ransom himself, still less his brother. But " God so loved tiie w )rld that He gave His only I3egotten Son," Who gave His life a ransom for many. The third figure employed in Scripture is that of Atonement, or Reconciliation. We read that " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." Here, then, has arisen a somewhat hasty attack on the language of our second article which has been borrowed from the Augsburg Confession. It says that Christ " truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried to reconcile the Father to us." This lan- guage is said to be unscriptural ; that Scri})ture speaks of reconciling man to God, but not God to man. I need hardly remind you how Bishop Fear- son deals with this question in his treatise on the Creed, in expounding the Tenth Article.^* It seems obvious that if sin alienates at all, it must alienate both parties ; and so far as we are sinners, God must be alienated from us ; since He cannot deny Himself, He cannot be other than He is ; He must " hate iniquity." Certainly the phrase of the Article can * See Appendix X. 122 TlIK A TO N KM EN T. ■[ I: 1 he traced to earliest times. In the Liturgy of Ht. Clement, so called, we have the expression more than once, " The Priest was i>leased to be Himself the Sacrifice, the wShepherd a sheep, to appease Thee, His God and Father, to reconcile Thee to the world, and deliver all men from impendinj^ wrath ;" and aj^ain, " That all partakers may receive remission of their sins, thou, O Lord Almighty, being recon- ciled to them." Earlier than this St. Clement of Rome urged the Corinthians to implore God's par- don, " that He may show Himself propitious and be reconciled unto us." Indeed, the whole passage in the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians speaks as of two offended parties, God and man. God is represented as giving up His wrath and being reconciled in Christ, and then calling on man to give up his enmity and be reconciled to God. Hav- ing been a Sin-offering for us, and also a Ransom, Christ has become our Peace. Another word has been used in the endeavor to reach a fuller understanding of the Atonement, but it has no phrase to represent it in the Scriptures. It is that the Cross and F^ission of Christ made a " full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the]sins of the whole world. ' ' The life of perfect obedience even unto death and the death are regarded as having fully satisfied the debt which man owed to God, which, like the ten thousand tal- ents of the parable-, could not be paid by man. Hitherto we have spoken of the objective side of this deep mystery, and may God pardon the feeble imperfection of the words. But we must remember that there is a subjective side. True, Christ is our i! THE ATONEMENT. 123 Representative, our Head. True, most true (tliank God for it), ** He hath made us accepted in the Ik^- loved." But we must not think tliat there is noth- ing recjuired on our part. Mcditatinjjj on the death of Christ, we must realize wiiata terrible thiiiLj sin is ill God's sij^ht, and we must endeavor more and more to hate sin as God hates it. This should lead us to consider Christ as obeyinji^ God's law as it affected sinful man, and as triumi)hinjj^ over tem|)ta- tion and sin on his behalf and under his condition ; and then faith in His Blood becomes the power in which we can learn so to suffer and so to overcome. Then, indeed, will the imitation of Christ be our object and aim. We will more and more learn to live in the world as not of it, as He was in the world, yet not for one moment divided from Heaven. Our aim should be that we be "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body."* The Apostle adds, "For we wliich live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." We should strive to be able to say with truth with the Apostle : " I am crucified with Christ ; nevertheless I live ; yet not 1, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me." f We should learn to say with Ignatius, " jNIy lust hath been crucified, and there is no fire of material longing in me, but only water living and speaking in me, say- ■''4- * 2 Corinthians 4 : 10, li. f Galatians 2 : 20. ;l:ii II 1 1 m^'i ^% 124 THE ATONEMENT. ini>; within nic. Come to the Father. I have no dc- lifj^ht in the food of corruption, or in the delii^hts of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Christ, Who was of the seed of David ; and for a drau.i2:ht I desire His Blood, which is love incor- ruptible." * If devout consideration of the Passion of Christ effect in us a due apprehension of the character of sin, then shall we recos^nize the necessity of becom- ing and beiui^ dead unto sin and alive to rii^hteous- ness, and then for us Christ will not have died in vain. This helps us to understand the language of the greatest saints of God. At times they use language in deprcciati(Mi of self which seems strained and un- real. It is because they have entered more deeply into the mind of Christ and have learned to begin to hate sin as God hates sin. When one begins to realize what sin is in God's sight, then he feels that none can have so offended against light and know- ledge as he has himself, and in the ray ol the sparkle of God's infinite holiness he is compelled to acknow- ledge himself the chief of sinners. The power of the Cross of Christ is ever fresh, it exhibits the righteousness and the love of God. It shows what a condemnation our sins have deserved, it reveals an extent of mercy we could not conceive. " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." The cry of the Baptist in the text first drew dis- ciples after the Lord. He cried, " Behold the Lamb of God, \Vniich taketh away the sin of the world, * Epistle to the Romans 7. THE ATONEMENT. 125 and the two disciples heard him speak and tlicy followed Him." God i^rant that we may follow llim I If we do we shall be privik\<^ed to sin<^ Mis praises in His Temple in Heaven, and this will be the burden of our soni^, " Thou art worthy, for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God hv Thy IJlood out of every kindred, and tonijjue, and people, and nation." " Wor- thy is the Lamb that was slain to receive i)ower, and riches, and wisdom, and streni^th, and honor, and priory, and blessiuir." " Blessinj;, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the Throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." ^^' * Revelation 5 : 9, 12, 13. I\ i n ill' I n ; 'If ii'ii 1 ■ 'i i; f I IMI^ ! . LECTURE VI. THE SACRAMENTS. "As many as received Him, to them gave He pov ^t to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name ; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."— St. Joh.n i : 12, 13. Christianity is the only religion v/hic'^ may be called a religion of the body. There ^v.t.i in other religions a persuasion that the soul \v: .-, imn ortal, but Christianity alone taught the Resurr .ctiou of the rtesh. In popular parlance Christianity is spoken of as a spiritual religion, and doubtless fb\s is true, but it is the great exception in being the icllgiofi ot the do(/jy. The starting-point for this is, as in all other things, the Incarnation. That is the key to all our mysteries, that is the solvent of all pcrj)lexities ; '* hold fast that thou hast" in this great doctrine, and all else falls into its place. Man was created with a complex nature so as to embrace somewhat of all creation, spiritual ar. i material. He was created so as to form the focus, as it were, in which all the rays of creation centicd. He was created as one being, and from that one being all mankind has been developed. The Tncar- nation explains the reason of this. God the Son, God the Creator had prepared a creature who should be a microcosm, a summary of creation, that by taking;* h fl THE SACRAMENTS. 12: to Himself the nature of this creature, He might join to Himself all creation. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among- us." The Incarnation, then, must have communicated blessing to every part of creation, since Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is in living union with all creation through man's nature. At His birth, therefore, though " He took not angels, but the seed of Abra- ham He took ;" when the Gospel was announced and the angel had proclaimed His birth, the innu- merable companies of angels at once were revealed praising God for His meicy ; for they, too, shared in the benefit of the union of God with His creature. Their spiritual perception had never been dimmed ; they became at once conscious of the commence- ment of the benefit, infinite in its possibilities of development. As has been pointed out, there is reason to believe that each angel is complete in him- self, each has his own peculiar nature, and it is also believed that the creation of angels has ceased — their number is complete. If this be so, we may under- stand that the communication of the benefit derived to the whole of creation at the Incarnation was made at once to the angels with unlimited possibilities of enlarofement. But with mankind this was not so. Multitudes had passed away since the fall of Adam. Multitudes were yet unborn. How were they to participate in the blessedness of the Incarnation ? Man, as we have seen, was made by God, and man was made for God ; his only hope of real happi- ness is being in union Avith God. But the sin of Adam broke this union beyond the power of man to repair. Not only so, but the guilt of the sin by itself I: iM i.:J: 128 THE SACRAMENTS. ■ !i it /0 prevented union, without some sacrifice or atone- ment being made. This, as we liave seen, is mys- terious, but for:^iveness is in itself mysterious. We may ask, How can the breach of a law be forg'iven ? but we cannot readil}' receive an answer. Sufficient for us must the fact be that God has promised for- giveness, and that " the Son of man hath power on earth to forjjfive sins." The Atonement has been made, the Sacrifice has been offered. Redemption is complete. Satisfaction is perfect. The great barrier to union has been removed. But that which has been won for all must be applied individually. The M'^'on with God must be restored individually. ' the first Adam the union with God was granted, bui m such a manner as made it possible that the union might be broken if man did not keep the com- mandment. In the last Adam the union of God with man was so intimate, arising from the Personal union of God the Son with man's nature, that it was impossible that it should ever cease. We do not know, v.'C need not ask, whether it would have been possible for Adam to have handed on this union to his children if he had not sinned. He did sin, and did not transmit the union he had himself lost, for he had it not ; therefore, at all events, he could not hand it on. But there is no question that " the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit," quickening, life-giving ; He could therefore extend His life of union to others. " I am come (He said) that they may have life, and have it more abundantly." * We must, therefore, ask how this blessing may be ex- * St. John 10 : lo. THE SACRAMENTS. 129 tended to us ; we must ask, as did the first converts, "What must we do to be saved?" The answer will be the same as ever. The Creator requires in the first instance the subjection, the willini^^, free subjection of the will of the intellii^rent acrent to His Will. This cannot be without a struji^gle, as indeed is seen in the Incarnate Saviour. His Human will was bowed to the Divine, and His Human soul was wrunj^ in the conflict. We believe that " all the benefits of His Passion" and Mis Incarnnlion extend backward in time (as man understands time) to Adam, and forward till time shall be no more. There is not so much diffi- culty about understanding that livinf^ men can have the opportunity of choice granted to them, as about understanding how the preceding generations could have had this oi)portunity. Human reason (to speak reverently) forbids us to believe, nay revolts from. the arbitrary decree which Calvinism and Moham- medanism pretend. The two arc certainly similar. " When God, so runs the Moslem tradition— I had better said the blasphemy— resolved to create the human race He took into His Hands a mass of earth, the same whence all mankind were to be formed, and in which they after a manner pre- existed ; and having then divided the clod into two equal portions. He threw the one half into hell, say- ing, 'these to eternal fire, and I care not ;' and pro- jected the other half into Heaven, adding, ' and these to Paradise, and I care not.'" Human mo- rality revolts against such blasphemy, and we turn with unutterable relief and adoring gratitude to the words of our Creator, " God so loved the w^orld that 9 !f 1 wy J'. I ' if ;! ■ ( 1 II i; f5 |i ii ^pl 1 nSli |; ll 130 THE SACRAMENTS. He gave His only Begotten wSon, that all that believe in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." But how can the dead " believe in Him of Whom they have not heard ?" First, then, we may say that they had the oppor- tunity, when alive, of believing by faith on Him Who was to come. By faith " Abraham rejoiced to see the Lord's day, and saw it, and was glad." In manifold ways, of which we know nothing, there must have been opportunities granted for faith in " Him that is coming." Thus Noah was a preacher of righteousness, and the long and careful preparation of the ark, spreading over one hundred and twenty years, was in itself a practical sermon of great value, "iid must have produced an effect to which, as we shall see, St. Peter refers. But more than this. Doubtless all will be struck u'iti> the great stress laid upon our Lord's death in the Apostles' Creed, The absolute reality of that death is emphasized remarkably. "He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried, He descended into hell." The infinite importance of His Resurrection as well as of His Death gives a reason for this. To exhibit the reality of the separa- tion of His soul from His body (in which death natural consists), it is said that as to His body He was buried in the sepulchre ; as to His invisible soul and spirit He descended to the place of de- parted spirits. This latter truth is regarded by our Church of such importance that it is made the sub- ject of a separate Article ; and though, when the Articles were finally issued, a clause of the Article was omitted to suit some minds, yet the English THE SACRAMENTS. 131 Church in 1549 altered the Epistle for Easter Eve, and in 1552 altered the first lesson for Matins of that day in a way which showed her own mind. Before 1549 the Epistle was the same as we now have for Easter Day, but since that day the great declaration of St. Peter about the preachino;- to the spirits in prison has been the Epistle, and since 1552 the Old Testament lesson for Matins has been the ninth chapter of Zechariah, where we read, " As for thee also, by the blood ot thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope." Here, as appropriate to the day when the Sacred body of the Lord kept Sabbath in the tomb, and His spirit was active foi the good of souk- in the place of departed spirits, the prophecy is read speak- ing of His rescue of the prisoners of hope, the 'spirits in prison, as St. Peter says. There can be little doubt about the meaning of the passage in St. Peter. The more the accuracy of Greek grammar is acknowledged the more clearly is it seen that St. Peter says that the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, set free by death from His sacred body, at once became more active (" quickened in the sphere of His spirit"), and went and heralded forth His Gospel " to the spirits in prison ; which were sometime disobedient, when once the long- suffering ot God w^aited in the days of Noah."* This distinctly implies that some, at least, of those who were disobedient in the days of Noah, and were visited by the temporal punishment of the flood, had m I St. Peter 3 : 18-20. If t^ 'Ts: I 132 THE SACRAMENTS. an C)pi)()rtunit3' of listening to, and therefore, we should think, of profitir.g' by the })reaching of the Gospel. St. Irenrcus, therefore, could say," " For this reason also the Lord descended into the lower parts of the earth, preaching the Gospel of His coming to them also, since remission of sins was manifested for those that believe on Ilim." Tertullian also could say, with that excellent terseness which is his char- acteristic, " He did not ascend to Heaven ' 'jfore He descended to the lower parts of the earth, that He might there make the })atriarchs and prophets /^yr- takcrs of Himself.'' f As has been said elsewhere, " The Lord having been born the tirst begotten of the dead, and receiving into His bosom the an- cient fathers, regenerated them into the life of God." The two statements may well be taken to explain one the other. He regenerated them by making them partakers of Himself, and this in some mysteri- ous way in connection with His descent into Hades. Thus, then, we may believe that He made the dis- embodied spirits partakers of the salvation procured for them as for us. But for those still in the body there was a different scheme whereby the Incarna- tion was to be extended to the individual. Here, then, we should naturally expect that as Christianity is a religion of the body as well as of the soul and spirit, affecting and consecrating the whole of man's nature, " ourselves, our souls and bodies," so there should be some external means of grace affecting the body, and through it the soul and * Adv. Hacf., IV., xxvii. 2. f " De Anima," Iv. THE SACRAMENTS. 133 we spirit which inhabit tlic bod}', and at present derive their knowlcdi^e throuirii the body. Here on earth if one spirit of a man desires to communicate with another it is by means of the body. If a man wishes to learn God's Word and Mis Will, it is ordinarily by means of the body ; he either reads it as printed or written, or hears it read in his ears. It is ordinarily a law of God (so far as we can recognize law) to work in the visible world by visible means, and to teach man about spiritual and invisible thin«^s by means of bodily and visible things with which he is cognizant. It is an erroneous and false view which endeavors to minimize the importance of tiie body and to depreciate it. The fact that God the Son took to Himself a body and shrouded Mis glory behind a veil of matter should teach us the impor- tance of matter. The Incarnation was termed a sac- rament by the ancient Fathers, and similarly those sacred and special means whereby the Incarnation is extended and applied to the individual man were also called sacraments. The Incarnation was not merely for man's sake, it was not an accommodation to man's comprehension, that man might appreciate and understand what God was doing for him.^ It was also to elevate and con- secrate the nature He had assumed ; as St. Athana- sius loved to say, " God became man that men might become gods." By the Incarnation were united God and man. Heaven and earth. In pursuance of this glorious design, the Lord Jesus instituted the sacred means of grace which we call sacraments, which have by His appointment a Heavenly and spiritual part, and also an earthly and visible part ; 'Vi t ■ ii m \m rt'ii./ ..^'' 134 THE SACRAMENTS. J ■ t; , I t i'f'' I the invisible and spiritual part beini^ attached to and conveyed by the visible and material part in some mysterious manner, in consequence of Mis appoint- ment. Here, too, we may observe that in a remarkable manner similar errors show themselves with respect to the sacraments as had been displayed with re- spect to the Incarnation. Eutyches had said that the human nature had been so absorbed and assimi- lated into the Divine, that it had become lost as a drop of vincii^ar would be in the ocean. So that the Eutychian heresy denied practically the separate existence of the two natures. Similarly, in respect, at least, of one of the sacraments, the outward part was said by some erroneous teaching to have been completely annihilated by the inward and spiritual part. Theodoret adduces the analogy of the sacra- ment of the Holy Eucharist to make plain the teach- ing about the truth of the Incarnation. It has been also thought that the heresy of Nestorius has its counterpart in the error of those who " say that the sacramental action typifies in the external order a spiritual process taking place pari passu in the un- seen." The sacraments, then, derive their force solely from the institution of the Saviour Himself, or of His Apostles under His direction and the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. No man can invent a sacrament for himself ; none has the least authority to say this or that ceremony shall be the means of bestovving grace, unless there be scriptural authority for the same. Otherwise we may have the same mistake that was made by Micah when he engaged the de- THE SACRAMENTS. 135 scendant of Moses as his chaplain, " Now know I that the Lord will do me ^ood, seeinjj^ 1 have a Levite to my priest." wSome seem to say, " Now all is ri<;ht, for I have a priest, or deacon, for my bishop." With respect to the number of the sacraments there need not be much serious controversy. Tiie number often depends upon the meanin<( iittaclied to the word, which was defined with more and more accuracy as the centuries of Christian thou<;ht passed away. The Greeks called the sacred instru- ment or institution a "mystery," which the Latins translated " sacrament." The Latin word was orii^- inally a legal term for the security or caution money paid into court by the parties to a suit. Thence it be- came a military term, first for the preliminary en- gagement for service and then for the oath wiiich bound the soldier to his standard. From this the word was pressed into the service of Christianity as meaning any matter of deep teaching, and then as we commonly understand it in the present day. If, then, we understand the word in the first Christian sense of mystery, the number of sacraments is practically unlimited. Thus when St. Jerome says of the Book of Revelation that " the very order in which the words occur is itself a sacrament, '' and when St. Augustine says that the deluge in the time of Noah was a sacrament, they use the term in its widest sense. The question of the meaning of the word is so carefully explai::Lfi in the second Book of Homilies of the Church of England, that the whole passage is here given. " Now you shall hear how many sacraments there M mmak [:•■ 136 TIIK SACRAMKNTS. be, tliut were instituted by our Saviour Clirisl, and are to l)C continued, and received of ever) Christian in due time and order, and for such purpose as our Saviour Christ willed them to be received. And as for the number of them, if tiie}' sliould be considered accordin<^ to the exact sij^nification of a sacrament — namely, for the visible sii^ns, expressly commanded in the New Testaiiu nt, whereunto is ai cd the promise of free forij^iveness of our sin, and of our holiness and joining- in Ciirist, there be but two — namely, Baptism and the vSupper of the Lord. For althou^jjii Absolution hath the promise of for<;ivcness of sin, yet by the express word of the New Testa- ment it hath not this promise annexed and tied to the visible sign, which is imposition of hands. For this visible sign (I mean laying on of hands) is not expressly commanded in the New Testament to be used in Absolution, as the visible signs in Baptism and the Lord's Su[iperare ; and therefore A' "ution is no such sacrament as Baptism and the Co luion are. And though the ordering of ministers hath his visible sign and promise, yet it lacks the promise of remission of sin, as all ot/ier sacraments beside the tw^o above-named do. Therefore neither it nor any other sacrament else be such sacraments as Bap- tism and the Communion are. But in a general ac- ception, the name of a sacrament may be attributed to anything' whereby a holy thing is signified. Li which understanding of the word the ancient writers have given this name not only to the other five, commonly of late years taken and used for the sup- plying the number of the seven sacraments, but also to divers and sundry other ceremonies, as to oil, N THE SACKAMKNTS. 137 I wasliiiiLj' oi fcc't, and siicli like, not nicaniiiij^ tlicrcby to repute them as sacraments in the same si^"nifi- cation tiiat tlie two forenamed sacraments are." A sacrament, then, j^enerally speakinjj;^, is an out- ward and sensible token ol some inward and deeper meaninyf or ufrace to he conveyed thereby, lint in the case of the two " sacraments of the (lospel," as they are called, in the narrowest and strictest sense as defined by the FMii^lish Church, they are "out- ward and visible sii^ns of an inward and sj)iritual grace, ordained by Christ I limself as a means whereby we receive the same inward grace, and a pledge to assure us that we do receive it and also as generally, I.e., universally, necessary to salvation." Bishop Jeremy Taylor* rightly, therefore, calls one of them the " extension ot the Incarnation," and as the glorious Pivine nature of the Incarnate Lord was shrouded and veiled in the llesh, and yet " the light of the knowledge of the glory of (lod was in the face of Jesus Christ," in so marvellously mys- terious a manner that He could say, " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," so in the sacraments the inward part or thing signified is (as says the homily) " annexed and tied to the visible sign" in such a manner that when the visible sign is ap[)lied to the body, the soul is in touch with the inward grace. Well indeed then must we believe that Christianity is a religion of the body ; and well did Tertullian draw special attention to this in his treatise on the Resurrection of the flesh. * " The Fathers by an elegant expression called the blessed sacra- ment the extension of the Incarnation" (Works, ed. Eden, vol. viii., p. 23). j; ' i if ' lis 'I ■' i ' ' I I. i! • i ' 138 THE SACRAMENTS. ,^'- *>■ i I 1 * ' ■ ■ t ; " " Let us now consider (he writes*), in respect of the peculiar character of Christianity, how great a privilege in God's sight is given to this paltry and squalid substance, though it might be enough to say that no soul could achieve salvation unless it believed while it was in the flesh — to such an extent does sal- vation hinge on the flesh — of which salvation, when the soul is elected to God's Church, the flesh it is which enables the soul to be elected. Undoubtedly the flesh is washed that the soul may be cleansed ; the flesh is anointed that the soul may be conse- crated ; the flesh is sealed that the soul may be forti- fied ; the flesh is shadowed by the imposition of hand that the soul may be illuminated by the Spirit ; the flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ that the soul may be well nourished on God." But, as has been said, the whole virtue of the sac- raments is derived from God, because of the institu- tion by Christ Himself. He instituted them and commanded them to be continued, and ordained that they should be ministered by the hands of men. Hence we must be well assured that the validity of the sacraments does not depend upon the piety of the minister. The unvvorthiness of the minister can- not in any way hinder the effect of the sacrament in itself ; for they are " effectual because of Christ's in- stitution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men." If this were not so, St. Augustine argues, man's trust in God alone would be weakened, and trust in the worthiness of man as the minister * " De Resurrectione Carnis," viii., ed. Oehler, Tom. II., p. 478 ; ed. Rigalt, Paris, 1675, p. 330. , 1 ^ T^,* «"''-'»4.< a d y 1 f f THE SACRAMENTS. 139 would take its place. Nor, again, does the inward and spiritual grace in the sacrament depend upon the faith or spiritual understanding of the receiver. The grace offered is ever the same ; this does not de- pend upon the intellectual or spiritual effort of the receiver. But the benefit received need not neces- sarily be the same to all, for in some there may be interposed an obstacle from unrepented sin, which may prevent or retard the spiritual assimilation of the grace offered. The first requisite for the salvation of the indi- vidual man is union witli God. This can only be through the Incarnate Lord. The initial sacrament whereby this union is effected is Baptism. All the promises of the New Testament are to those who are "in Christ," "in the Lord." Baptism is the sacrament whereby we are " made members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of Heaven ;" in and by this sacrament we become incorporated into Christ, even married to Him, " members of His body, of His flesh, and His bones."* Hence we find that great importance is attached to this in the teaching of the Lord and His Apostles. f It was the command given during the Great Forty Days of the sojourn upon earth of the Risen Lord, " Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name ot the Father, and of the Son, and of tiie Holy Ghost." Therefore when the three thousand who had been converted on the day of l^entecost by St. Peter's sermon cried out, " What shall we do?" the answer came at once to them — and we must take it to * Ephesians 5 : 30. f See Appendix Y. n Hi THE SACRAMENTS. ourselves—" Repent and be baptized, every one of you," and they were then and there baptized, all of them. This was what Ananias said to Saul, who had been converted, " Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins." So said St. Paul, " As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.""^ Looking back into the history of God's dealings with His creatures, we see intimations of this. At the first regeneration of the world the Holy wSi)irit " sat brooding" like a dove over the waters, and the first evidence of life that scie -e has found is sub- marine, f St. Peter points out that the deluge in the time of Noah is a type of Baptism ; so, too, the passage of the Red Sea, when the Israel of God was saved and their enemies were drowned ; so, too, the passage of the Jordan and the cleansing of Naaman. All were typical of Baptism, as was also the great brazen lavcr in the Tabernacle, where the priests washed before approaching their ministry. If we seek for prophecies, they abound every- where. Isaiah :|: speaks of "drawing water with joy from the wells of salvation." Jeremiah § cries, " O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou may est be saved." Ezekiel || tells of the water flowing from the house of God, " And every- thing shall live whither the river cometh." Ioel,^[ tr>o, had said, "A fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shit«'ii." Zechariah ** again said, "In that day * Galatians 3 : 27. % Jeremiah 4 : 14. ♦* Zechariah 13 : i. f See Appendix Z. II Ezekiel 47 : i, 9. X Isaiah 12 : 3. •[ Joel 3 : 18. i I THE SACRAMENTS. 141 there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. " But thoui^h there were types and j^rophccies, there was no actual rite of baptism until the fore- runner, John, introduced it, and therefore became known, by the special peculiarity of his ministry, as "the Baptist." It is true that after his time the Jews introduced a baptism in addition to circum- cision for their converted proselytes, but there is 710 evidence that such a ceremony existed before his time. When in the Book of Judith we read of Achior being joined to the house of Israel there is no word of baptism. " When Achior had seen all that the God of Israel had done, he believed in God greatly, and circumcised the flesh of his foreskin, and was joined unto the house of Israel unto this day."* The whole tone of the Apocryphal history makes it most probable that if the ceremony of bai)tism were in use then as part of the reception of a proselyte, it would have been mentioned. Again, Josephus makes no mention of it in this connection, and the first reference we find is considerably posterior to John the Baptizer. Our Blessed Lord condescended, as our Represent- ative, to submit to this external rite ot repentance ; though He had nothing to repent of, yet " it be- came" Him to do all that one of I lis time and race should have done. And by Mis Ba})tism He insti- tuted once and forever the sacrament of Bai)tism, making it instinct with grace and vivifying power. ':! Judith 14 : 10. See Appendix AA. m \\-\ 142 THE SACRAMENTS. , \ i *"!• Rightly, therefore, do we acknowledge that Al- mighty God, " by the Baptism of His Well beloved Son in the River Jordan, did sanctify the element of water to the mystical washing away of sin." In modern times a question has been raised about the ifiodf of baptism, and on this continent a large number have separated from the Church, under the impression that no baptism is valid that does not cause the total submersion of the subject in water. The two things absolutely necessary to valid bap- tism are the use of water and the use of the words of institution. The mode of the application of water has not been prescribed. In the lately discovered tract,* dating from the beginning of the second cen- tury (if not from the end of the first), this is clearly seen. The passage is as follows : " Concerning baptism ; baptize thus : having said all this before- hand, baptize in running water. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. But if you have not running water, baptize in other water ; if you cannot in cold water, then in warm. But if you have not either, pour water thrice upon the head." This is much like the rubric of our Church, "it shall suffice to pour water;" for the Church does not sanction sprinkling. For the minister of this all- important sacrament, while it is better to have a priest of the Church, yet " Baptism by any man in case of necessity was the voice of the whole world heretofore. "f This is clearly seen in the controversy in Africa, where St. * " The Teaching of ihe Apostles," ch. vii. \ Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," V., Ixi., g 3. THE SACRAMENTS. 143 Cyprian for a time prevailed on the African bishops to follow him in a deviation from the tradition of the Church in ignorinj^ heretical baptism ; but as St. Augustine pointed out, the deviation was wrong and was set straight by reverting to the ancient custom of the Church without the intervention of a council. It was held that in this necessary sacrament it was Christ Himself that really gave the inward grace, whoever was the ministerial agent to pour water and say the words. In and by Baptism two great and glorious gifts are bestowed, regeneration and remission of sins. These are mentioned in the Confirmation prayer, " Thou hast vouchsafed to regenerate these Thy servants by water and the Holy Ghost, and hast given unto them forgiveness of all their sins." * Baptism is not only a laver, or washing, it is the " washing of regeneration." The Church always understood for fifteen hundred years that our Lord's words to Nicodemus were of Holy Baptism : " Ex- cept a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Our service is speaking the truth of God when it says that we are " by Baptism regenerate," and that we are by Baptism " made children of God." This, too, " not of blood, nor of the will of the Hesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Our first genera- tion or birth was not dependent upon our own will or our own consciousness ; our regeneration or sec- ond birth, the Apostle points out, is equally indepen- dent of our own will, but in this case it is the will i .-'.: I H- 1 t * See Appendix BB. i}; ,^ l(ii I , n 144 THE SACRAMENTS. and act of God alone. Therefore, as the angels are called sons of God because each owes his being and existence to God alone, without the intervention ot any other, so the Apostle calls us sons of God, be- cause it is by God's will and act alone \^!;hough not ordinarily independent of Baptism) that we are re- generate and born ancu\ Thus, though it is perfectly true that, as St. Irc- na,>us has said,* " What we lost in Adam is restored in Christ," yet we have much more privilege than Adam had. We are s(jns of God, not onlv in the same sense that all created beings may be so called, but in the far higher sense of special "adoption," whereby our Blessed Saviour has become " the first- born among many brethren." We hereby become, as St. Peter says, " partakers of the Divine nature," so that, as St. Athanasius loved to say, " God be- came man, that we men might be deified." " Be- loved (said the x\postle), 710:^' are we the sons of God ;" now, that is in this present world, " What manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God." f The second glorious gift is " forgiveness of sins." The precious, inestimable blessing of forgiveness, won for all by the atoning blood of Christ, is applied to each primarily in and by Baptism. " Be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins," said St. Peter.:}: " Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins," said Ananias. § It is intimately connected with regeneration, as we say in prayer, " Grant that i ' * Adv. Hitr. III., xviii., § i, Paris, 1710, p. 209. f I St. John 3 : i, 2. , J Acts 2 : 38, ^ Acts 22 : 16. THE SACRAMENTS. U5 this child coming to Thy Moly Baptism may receive remission of sins by spiritual regeneration. ' ' Regener- ation were impossible (to speak humanly) unless for- giveness were either simultaneous or antecedent. If Baptism conveys the glorious privilege of regener- ation, if at that time by the will of God we are made the sons of God, there must be at the same time for- giveness. We say, therefore, in our Creed, " I ac- knowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins." Hence the continual reference to the washinir and so cleansing power of Baptism. Here, then, though we may not tell beforehand what will be the outward means of grace, and though this depends wholly upon the will and insti- tution of God, yet after the institution we may sec how appropriate the outward means are to the in- ward grace. Thus as water is the natural means of cleansing the body, so it is taken as the symbol of the cleansing the soul ; and we have the phrases " wash avvay thy sins," " that your sins may be blotted out,"* by anointing, which have reference to the water of Baptism. Hence, too, we may see that the error which would restrict Baptism to adult age has no founda- tion in wScripture or the meaning of the sacrament. Life spiritual is an absolutely free gift, as free as life natural. As life natural does not depend u[)on the will of the recipient, so life spiritual does not depend upon the will of the recipient. A confused opinion does not distinguish between conversion, which is a conscious act of the will, and regenera- m * Acts 3 : 19. 10 I ll r I ' / 11 i\n 146 THE SACRAMENTS. tion, which ordinarily is not accompanied by con- sciousness, and is wliolly independent of the will of man. " They are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Whether we regard the gilt of s[)iritual life or the gift of cleansing, it is surely imi)ossible to say that infants are not tit subjects for Baptism. Had not infants been perfectly capable of grace, the Lord would not have blessed them ; the rebuke of those who brought the infants came from the disciples whose understandings had not been opened, and caused the Lord's disi)leasure. We can well in- deed enter into the feelings of those modern con- verts from heathenism who repudiated the so-called Baptist community (tlu)ugh by their means they had been brought to the knowledge of Christ) because their children were denied admission to the same covenant with God as themselves. They repudiated teaching which excluded their families from the Church of God. From the account of the conversion and Baptism of the Samaritans by the Deacon Philip,'^ we learn that Baptism itself was incomplete in its full privilege without the laying on of Apostolic hands. Before the Apostles came down we read " they were only baptized," or more exactly, as the Greek is more particular, " they were only in the state of having been baptized ;"'the very phrase implies that this alone did not admit them to the full privilege of membership in the Church. They had been ad- vanced one stage, there was another glorious privi- * Acts 8 : 12-17. I ). THE SACRAMENTS. M7 lc<:fc in store for them, " the jj^iftof the Holy Ohost." The communication of this <;ift followed upon rc- ij^cncration, but was a separate act. As the Apostle said, '* Because ye arc sons God hatli sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts." * The l)estowal of this gift was subseciuent to the gift of a(h)i)tion. This, too, was seen in the Baptism of the Lcjrd, as the early Christian writers rejoiced to trace. Thus the African Bishop Optatus, about 370 A.D., wrote : " The Lord descended into the water, not that there was anything in God that re(iuired cleansing, but that water must precede the oil that was to come on Him, that He might initiate, and ordain, and com- plete the mysteries of Bai)tism. When He had been bathed in the hands of John, the order of the mys- tery followed, and the Father completed wdiat the Son had prayed for and the Spirit had announced. The Heaven was opened, the Father anointed ; im- mediately the oil of the Spirit descended in the shape of a Dove and settled on His Head, and anointed Him with oil, and from that time He began to be called Christ or the Anointed One, because He was then anointed by God the Father. And lest He should seem to lack the laying on of hands, the Voice of God was heard from the cloud, ' This is My be- loved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.' "f Simi- larly St. Hilary of Poitiers, scjme twenty years * Galatians 4 : 6. f Optali, Opera, Paris, 1700 A.n., p. 75. St. Athanasius writes, " He, as man, was anointed with the Holy Ghost that He might make us an habitation of the Spirit, as well as partakers of His resur- rection and exaltation." (Orat. I , c. Arianos, 5^ 46. Opera Patavii, 1777, Tom. I., p. 355 D.) fH i' * 1 148 THE SACRAMENTS. t . ! i r U . '■ :i ■>« ."5 before, wrote : "In Ilini, too, the order of the Heavenly mystery is expressed. For when He had been baptized the doors of Heaven were opened, the Holy Spirit is sent out, and recognized in the shape of a visible Dove, and He is si)rHikled with the unc- tion of His Father's affection. Then the Voice from Heaven says thus, ' Thou art My Son, this day have I beg-otten Thee.' The Son of God is pointed out oy hearing and seeing ; and to a peoi)le unbelieving and disobedient to the prophets there is sent a testi- mony from their Lord both of sight and voice. And at the same time from these things which were com- pleted in Christ we may acknowledge that, after the washing of water the Holy Spirit flies down upon us from the gates of Heaven, and we are anointed with the unction of Heavenly glory and are made children of God by the adoption of the Father's Voice, since by the very effects of the things the Truth has prefigured the likeness of the sacrament so arranged for us."* The laying on of hands, therefore, was ever spoken of as the " perfection" or completion of Baptism, and should be regarded as part and parcel of that sacrament. Bishop Jeremy Taylor in consequence calls it " The sacramental consummation of our regeneration in Christ." f The name by which this complementary rite is known in the West rather implies that it completes the sacrament of Baptism. The word " Confirma- tion" has gradually superseded all others, and though the origin of the word seems uncertain, yet ■liT'i * On St. Matthew, ch. ii., Opera Verona, 1730, Tom. I., col. 676. f " Of Confirmation," i. 2, ed. Eden, vo), v., 626. H i 1 THE SACRAMENTS. 149 4 it probably has reference to the connection with Baptism. Tertullian uses the word in tliis sense, though not as a name for this rite, which was l<nown in his day ratlier as *' the lavinj^ on of liands," O'- unction. " How great is the grace of water (he says*), in the sight of God and His Christ, for tlu' conHrmation of IJaptism." The word as a name for the rite is found in the fiftli century at the first Coun- cil of Orange, "If one from any accident has not been anointed in his Baptism, the bishop must be informed of this at his Confirmation,'' though St. Am- brose seemingly uses the verb to confirm in a like sense. There is no doubt that in the eighth and ninth centuries the word confirm is used of the completion of a sacrament. Thus in the Ordo Romanus there is continual reference to the confirmation of those who have received the species of Bread with the Chalice. The most striking passage is perhaps the following, " Taking the chalice, the archdeacon confirms with the Blood of the Lord all those whom the bishop shall have communicated with the Body of the Lord." t In a similar meaning Rhabanus >Lnurus, a century later, speaking of the admission of a cate- chumen into the Church by Baptism, laying on ot hands, and Communion, :{: says : " Next every pre- ceding sacrament is confirmed in him by the Bodv and Blood of the Lord." This is the more striking since St. Isidore of Seville, in the seventh century, seems to have re- garded Confirmation as having the same relation to * De Baptismo, ix. f Hitiorpius, Rom.-e, 1591, p. 14. + Hittorpiu'*, Roma*, iSQt, p. 274 (Rabanus de Inst. Clericoium cap. 29). 150 THE SACRAMENTS. ' ■■ ■■:tn I Ba|)tism as the clialicc had to the paten ; there were eitlier two or four sacraments, in his estimation. He says:* "The sacraments are Baptism and Chrism, the Body and Blood of Christ, whicli are called sacraments because, under the veil of corporal thin<rs, the divine virtue secretly works the saviuij^ influence of the same sacraments." He couples the former two to<^ether and the latter two, as if they had a similar relation one to other, and neither of each couple was complete without its *' Confirmation." f In the Eastern Church the rite is known as " Chrism," or sometimes as " The Seal." It would seem likely that the word " seal" was originally used of the outward and visible sign of an inward grace or blessing. Thus St. Paul uses the word of the out- ward sign of the inward faith of Abraham, " He re- ceived the sign of circumcision, a sea/ of the right- eousness of the faith which he had yet being uncir- cumcised." In the earliest Christian writings — i\^., Hennas, we find the phrase " the seal is the water," and though sometimes the word is used in such a manner that Baptism is meant, it is nowhere said " the seal is Baptism." Soon the word " seal " be- came appropriated to the sign of the cross, which the faithful Christian made on everv occasion, as an outward token of an inward blessing. As in the rite of Confirmation or the laying on of hands, the chrism was applied in the form of a cross with the words, " The sea/ of the gift of the Holy Thosi -he whole * Originum, Lib. VI , cap. 19 Opt onix, 1617, ' 52 A. f Compare the saying of Tertullian How great is in blessedness of that marriage which the Church cen.'*nts ./le ol>la(ion confirms'" t" Ad Uxorem," II. viii.) \ I THE SACUAMENTS. 151 rite ijradiially l)ccanic known l)y tlic name of the sciil. It is rather remarkable that in tlie l'ji,i;Ush and American Churcli the sii^n of the en)ss should l)e retained in Ba])tism (when j)rol)abIy it is a rehc of Conhrmation) and be omitted in the service for Con- tirtnation itself. This is a survivinjj^ symittom prob- ably of the time when Confirmation was administered immediately after Baptism. 'I'he slu)rtness of the service is another siirvivinij^ token that it. is only part of a lon^-er service, which also may !)e seen fiom the fact that until the last review in 1661 the I^ord's Prayer was not included in the service. This could not have been left out had it been intended to be a separate service for a separate rite. Other proofs there are that Confirmation is only a part of the complete sacrament of Baptism. For nine centuries Baptism was not allowed (except in dan<4^er of death) to be administered at other times than at Easter and Pentecost.* Then catechumens were baptized at the cathedral church in the pres- ence of the Bishop, who at once confirmed them. At present the rubric of the Ruij^lish Church directs that no adult Baptism should take place without the Bishop beinj^ informed. One object is that the Baptism do not take place hurriedly without suffi- cient [)reparation ; but another doubtless is that the Bishop may appoint a time for the Baptism, that he may be present and confirm at once. In the Eastern Church Confirmation is ministered by priests with chrism or unction specially conse- crated by Bishops. * See Appendix BB*. 152 THE SACRAMENTS. '- t 1 ?v, I t i I ■■Hi I Hi rif, Neither Baptism nor Confirmation may be re- peated. Invalid baptism, that is, ministered without water or without the proper form of words, is not Baptism ; and if it be found that one have been so baptized^ valid Baptism must be administered. Con- firmation cannot be ministered outside the Catholic Church. " I acknowledj^c one Baptism for the remission of sins," this conveys the promise of pardon for post- baptismal sin ; for as our Prayer Book says, it is an " everlasting^ benediction of Heavenly washing." On repentance pardon is assured, and it is ai)plied to the penitent by the absolution of the priest, " wh(^ hath received power and commandment to declare and pronounce to God's people, bein^^ penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins." No new gift is conferred thereby, but the pardon guaranteed is an extension of the forgiveness promised at Bap- tism, It is remarkable to observe that when in the second Prayer Book of Edward \ I. a Confession and Absolution were introduced at the beginning of Matins and Evensong, they are " constructed in that form which would most completely adapt them for superseding in all ordinary cases })rivate confession and absolution." Canon Cooke well says : " An ex- amination of the Confession will show that it is framed with the closest regard to the old definitions of mortal sin, and that it differs in this resj)ect from the ancient Confession at Prime and Compline, which were considered to refer to venial sins alone." The Absolution is rather framed on the model of that in use in the Greek Church. Both assert the s li THE SACRAMENTS. 153 & ^ I i i i absolving power to be God's, conveyed through the priest ; both insist on the necessity of true rei)entancc in the sinner ; both have petitions that repentance may be produced in the sinner and absolution granted by God. With respect to the form of absolution, the nv)st ancient forms of sacerdotal absolution were precatory, prayer to God for })ardon to be granted to the penitent. It has been said of the forms of ordination, and the remark is true of uU similar utter- ances of ministerial power : " The Fathers used pre- . catory forms, lest the gift should appear to proceed from any but G(xl ; the later practice of the West added imperative forms, lest it siiould appear that the j)rayer of a/ij' person would suffice for obtaining the gift."* There are, then, in the Liturgy of the Church of England three forms of Absolution gradually nar- rowing in personal application, and gradually becom- ing more imperative and authoritative. Though one has been omitted in the American Chuich, those that remain are ecpially valid. As absolution is not be- stowed witliout confession, so before each Absolu- tion there is a Confession, in general terms indeed, but in such carefully worded phrases that each indi- vidual may include his own sin and his own burtlen. In the case of {)rivate and particular confession the Absolution becomes more direct and imperative. But. as the homilies say, " though Absolution hath promise of forgiveness of sin, yet by the express word of the New Testament it hath not this j)romise annexed and tied to the visible sign, which is impo- i ♦ See Appendix CC. 154 THE SACRAMENTS. V rA f.,: ■ W' ';■! ' i: iTi: ,•1' Mil' i '! sition of hands." Nor has tlierc ever been any ex- press form of words wherein the j^race is conveyed or conferred. But Absohition is only j^ranted after Confession. " I said I will confess my sins unto the Lord ; and so Thou foriij-avest the wickedness of my sin." Deeply mysterious doubtless all fori^iveness is, but there is no grace more surely promised than this ; there is no i'-race more yearned after by the repentant sinner ; there is none, it may be, for which the penitent requires ij^rcater assurance. The pre- cious declaration of our Lord is remarkable in its fulness : " That ye may know that the Son of ^L\N hath power on earth to for«;^ive sins (then saith He to the sick of the palsy), Arise, take up thy bed and go unto thine house." Here in the Greek ori<^inaI each ivord is the same in each of the three Synoptic Gospels, and each word is of deepest import, as we should expect. The Lord does not deny that God alone has absolute and paramount power and right to forgive sins. In the case in question He does not absolve as God, but as Man ; therefore he uses a word for delegated power, not absolute, inherent power, but delegated power, as it were, license : " The Son of Man hath power delegated to Him on earth to for- give sins." * Then after His Resurrection He said again, " All delegated power is given unto Me in Heaven and upon earth," and lest it should be thought that the power was removed from earth at the Ascension, He said further, " Lo ! I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the world." He is with His properly authenticated ministers until the * See Appendix DD. THE SACRAMENTS. 155 ill end of time. As St. John records the Lord's words, ** As Mv Father hath sent Me, even so am I sendin<^ you, the xMission of Christ is here reirarded in the permanence of its effects. The Apostles were commissioned to carry on Christ's work ; tlieir office was to apply His ot^ce according; to the needs of the faithful to whom they ministered. This i)ower of Absolution was therefore handed on and dcle^-ated to them : " Then He breathed on them and saith unto them. Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whosoever sins ye remit, they arc remitted unto them ; and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained. ' ' Words that are even now repeated when the commission is handed on in the ordination of a priest, for to no minister under the degree of priest is the power of Absolution delegated. In the lately discovered " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" special prominence is given to two sacra- ments, and to two only. To Baptism, as we have seen, Confirmation and Absolution would seem to be attached ; Absolution being, as St. Jerome said, a plank from the shipwreck of entire forgiveness. The other *' Gospel Sacrament" is the Holy Kucha- rist. Even in this early treatise (dating about lai A.D.) the title Eucharist seems to iiave been given to this sacrament. Under the old Dispensation there was the feast upon the sacrifice, which applied the blessing of the sacrifice to the offerer. It was a token of union with God and of renewed favor. This was especially the case in the feast of the Passover. Each faithful Jew was to eat of the I^aschal Lamb under pain of being cut off from his people. When the Baptist Iplft r < i ! ^ nil / 1 ) !,» ( i :;"! 156 THE SACRAMENTS. cried aloud, " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world !" it is a very compre- hensive title, embracing many points of teaching. Probably the reference was primarily to the fifty- third chapter of Isaiah, " He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter." But it could not end there. Morn- ing and evening was a lamb offered in the Temple ; it would be therefore the most familiar tyj)eof sacri- fice. But the most important was the Paschal Lamb, to which the Incarnate Lord was afterward likened by Apostles. In his Gospel St. John * claims that the command with respect to the Paschal Lamb, " a bone of it shall not be broken," was fulfilled in the omission to break any bone of the crucified Saviour. St. Paul t says boldly, " Christ our Passover is sac- rificed for us ;" and St. Peter,:}: referring probably to the same image, says we were redeemed with the " precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot." How, it may be asked, can we partake of the sacrifice offered for us ? How can we partake of the Paschal Lamb ? How are we to be " partakers of Christ?" Now before giving the answer to this we must be reminded of one universal peculiarity of sacrifice, which was in existence throughout the whole known world, Gentile as well as Jewish. This cannot be given better than in the carefully weighed words of a very talented and learned writer. Archdeacon Freeman :§ * St. John 19 : 36, cf. Exodus 12 : 46. f I Corinthians 5:7. J i St. Peter i : 19. § " Principles of Divine Service," Part II., ch. i., ^ 4, p. 75. 11 i i THE SACRAMENTS. 157 / 1 n %\ " It is much to be observed, as an unfailini2^ feature of Gentile sacrifice, when properly performed, that animals were never offered alone, but always with an accompaniment of flour and wine. Nor only so. The victim, though itself the efficacious element of the sacrifice, was offered ^j means of tlic bread and ivinc. The bread was broken and sprinkled on the head of the animal while alive ; and again, wine, with frankincense, was poured between its horns. This done, the sacrifice was conceived to have been duly offered, so far as concerned the gift and dedi- cati(^n of it on man's part, and the acceptance of it by the Deity. This is proved by the fact that ////- niolare, to sprinkle with the bn^ken viola, or cake, was used, as is well known, to express the entire aetion of sacrifice^ the slaying and burning included . So again, mactare, to enrich or crown with the addition of wine, was likewise used for the whole action. This is an absolute pn)of of the immense virtue and im- plicit power attributed to the bread and wine in these sacrifices. They were held to carry within them, in a manner, the whole action. The present- ing of them was the presenting of the slain sacrifice ; the acceptance of them was its acceptance. And that, moreover, they were identified respectively, the broken bread with the body to be slain, the poured out wine with the blood to be shed, is botii probable from the obvious parallel and is counte- nanced by other parts of the system. Thus the poor, who could not afford slain victims, were allowed to do their part by providing cakes of bread ; and these were sometimes made in the shape of the ox to be sacrificed, and might be offered alone. And the H' : v\\ '^■. *-■ '1 :^l li ill id \; P ! ''ins H4 >. « iliii 158 THE SACRAMENTS. drinking of blood was, though rarely, substituted for that of wine. " Now all this coincides marvellously with the Mosaic provisions, bv which the animal sacrifice was held to be completed when the bread offering had been laid and the wine poured out on the victim ; and again, with the law allowing the poor to bring a bread offering instead of victims." Merc, then, we have one imiversal peculiarity, which some might ascribe to a common origin, which must be allowed by all to evince a sense of appropri- ateness, which may not so easily be apprehended now that we are no longer familiar with the ritual of slain sacrifices. If we say that there was a com- mon origin, it will be difificult not to admit that such origin was divine ; if we think otherwise,' then, at least, we must see that for many thousand years God had been training the whole human race for the awful moment " in the upper room furnished and prepared." The Jews had been prepared by the prophecy of Malachi, which Christians have from the very first acknowledged as pro})hetical oi the Holy Eucharist. In the early written document just cited we read, " On the Lord's Day of the Lord come together and break Bread, and give thanks, confessing your tres- passes, that your sacrifice may be pure. For this is that sacrifice spoken of by the Lord, ' In every place and time offer Me a pure sacrifice, for I am a great King, saith the Lord, and My Name is wonderful among the Gentiles.' " A few years later St. Justin Martyr claims the same prophecy for a similar refer- ence, and a few years later again St. Irenecus quotes it THE SACRAMENTS. J 59 to the same purpose. We must see that the applica- tion of the i)rophecy to the Holy Eucharist dates from a time coeval with the latest of the Apostles at least. More than this, the Lord prepared His (liscii)les twelve months before in the discourse He delivered at Capernaum. In this sermon the Lord's teaching becomes more emphatic the more His hearers carped at His sayini^s. St. John, who does not record the institution either of Baptism or the Eucharist (be- cause the institution had been sufficiently recorded previously), records the deep teachinjj^ (^f our Lord about both sacraments. At Capernaum the Lord said, " The Bread which I will f^ive is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." When His hearers carped at His saying, " Hozu can this man give us His Flesh to eat?" He answered in the em[)hatic statement, wit- nessed to by an asseveration, " Verily, verily I say unto you, Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you" — words that could not have been understood - at the time. But how must the words have rushed upon the minds of the Apostles when they saw the ac- tion and heard the words of their Master at that mysterious Last Supper. " He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto tliem, say- ing, This is My Body which is given for you ; this do in remembrance of Me. Likewise also the cup after Supper, saying. This cup is the New Testa- ment in My Blood ; this do ye as oft as ye drink it n in remembrance ol Me. Here, as Archdcaco * See Apppendix EE. i :i I If ill. -A .n Hi •;f--U If < 111 I i6o THE SACRAMENTS. Freeman says,* "the broken Bread and the Wine poured out is, with a tremendous ])recision of lan- j^uaj^e which leaves no escape, identified with the Body yet to be slain, and the Blood yet to be shed in sacrifice. . . . Simple breakinj^ of bread with sacrificial intent and *(esture was a sufficient * immo- lation,' simple pourino- out of wine with that intent was effective ' mactation ' of the yet livini^ Victim." Herein and hereby may Christians partake of the one only true and efficacious sacrifice of the Cross. Herein we feed upon " the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world," in the glorious sacra- ment of the Lord's Body and Blood. Each word, each act, was sacrificial ; the Sacra- ment of the Eucharist, therefore, has ever been re- garded as the Christian sacrifice or offering from the very first. Even from the words " Do this" it is im- possible to exclude the meaning of sacrifice or offer- ing. For the word was ever used in the Greek Septuagint for sacrifice, or lri/>i/ijf ihc Passover, or other feast, t and even absolutely without any ac- cusative in the sense of offering to a false God, and so of worship. It is the memorial of the one Sacri- fice on the Cross. By it the virtue of that Sacrifice is extended to us. It is a syml)f)l which actually conveys " verily and indeed " to the faithful That of Which it is a symbol. As we have seen animal sacrifice and the offering of blood was universal, we have also seen that the essential accompaniment of such sacrifice in Gentile * " Principles of Divine Service," P-irt II., p. 80. f See Appendix FF. i? :i>' I THE SACRAMENTS. l6l ■mg :iii(l Lcvitical ceremony was an {)rferlii<j^ of l)rc'afl and wine. Wc have also seen that animal sacrifice in the Greek and Roman civilized world, as well as in the Jewish community, has ceased. In tiie Jewish Church it ceased at once and forever at the end of the probationary fortv years after the olferin;^ of the " One perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world" on the Cross. lUit if sacrifice from the first has been uni- versal, it must be one of the fundamental principles of worship. It cannot be and it is not absent from Christian worship. With us the universal offerin<^ of Bread and Wine is now the one Sacrihcc we offer here on the Holy Table (which thereupon becomes an Altar), and Christ pleads His Sacrifice and the merits of His Blood in the Holy of Holies in Heaven. Then our Brother (like the true Joseph) feeds us from His Altar (which thereupon becomes a Table) with the Bread of Heaven and the Wine of Heaven, the Body and Blood of the Lord. The Christian Sacrifice has entirely sui)erseded the other sacrifices as the Sacrifice of the Cross has caused the ante- cedent and typical sacritices to cease. The Holv Eucharist, therefore, is a continual evidence of the truth of the one Sacrifice of which it is the me- morial, the full and C()mj)lete efficacy of which has caused all bleedin<^ sacrifices to be done away. To us, then, as to the Jews of old, when we offer to God, that whereon we offer is rij^htly called an Altar ; and when we feed on our offerin<( it is rij^htly called a Table.* * Compare Malachi 1:7: "Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine altar : and ye say, Wherein have we polluted Thee ? In that ye say, 1 1 ^^ 'i 162 THE SACRAMKNTS. l\U^ There can be no question that from the first times Christians have beheved tlie truth of tlie Great Mys- tery, that in the Holy luicharist we " spiritually eat the I'lesh of Christ and drink flis iJlf)od." J'his is testified to in every way, in many different words and phrases, in every part of the world. In the second century we have two very remarkable in- scriptions testifyinj^ to the faith then held, which must suffice for our ])urp()sc hero. One is in Gaul, the other in Asia Minor. In Gaul we read at the end of a short j^oem addressed to the Christian,* " Receive the honey sweet food of the holy things of the Saviour. Kat, drink, having Jesus Christ the Son of (iod the Saviour in thy hands." About the same time or a little earlier, about icSo-cp A.i)., a monumental inscription on the tomb of Bishop Abeicius, discovered in Asia Minor in iScSj, has a testimony to the same belief. The Bishop Abercius wrote his epitaph and had it cut during his lifetime. He describes his travels, and toward the end he has :t " Evcrv where Faith led the wav, and set before me irtr food F"lsH from the fountain, mighty and pure (Whom a chaste virgin grasped), and gave This to friends to eat always, having the best wine and giv- ing the mixed cup with bread." The word Fi's/t representing the anagram of " Jesus Christ the Son of (jod the Saviour." In the last quotation the two parts of the sacra- ment are referred to, the bread and the mixed cup — Ihe Table of the Lord is contemplible " See also verse 12, Ezekiel 41 : 22 ; 44 : [6 : i Corinthians 10 : 21 ; Hebrews 13 ; 10. * See " Doctrine of Real Presence," by Dr. Pusey, p. 337. f See Bishop Lightfsoi's " Ignatius," vol. i., p. 480. THK SACRAMKNTS. 163 sacra- cup — Ezekiel i.e., wine mixed with water; and the inward part, lesus Christ the Son of God tiie Saviour. IJoth are ^ivcn for food to the faithful Christian, and as our Article saith, to deny either part " overthroweth the nature of a sacrament." l<emarkai)ly enoufj^ii, the teaciiini; which is called " Transuhstantiation"— that is, that the whole substance of bread and wine after consecration is chanjj^ed into the whole substance of the IJody and Hlood of Christ, was i)y antici|)ation condemned in the controversies of the fifth century. Theodoret in his second dialo«^ue introduces a her- etic, whom he calls Eranistcs or Guildsman, dis- putin<^ witii Orthodoxus, the holder of the truth, and the dispute in the part referred to is as follows : " Guildsman. What do you call the gift that is offered before the invocation of the priest ? " Orthodox. No plain answer should be given to this, since there may be some present who are not Christians. " G. Well, let thf answer be enigmatical. " 0. It is food nidde of such seeds. " G. And how call you the other symbol ? " O. This, too, has a common name signifying a common drink. " G. But after consecration how do you call them ? " O. The Body of Christ and the Blood of Christ. " G. Do you believe that you partake of the Body of Christ and His Blood ? " O. That is my belief. " G. Well, then, just as the symbols of the Lord's Body and Blood are one thing before the invocation of the priest, but are changed after the invocation and become something else, so the Lord's Body after His Ascension was changed into the substance that is Divine. " O. You are caught in your own net. For the mystic symbols do not abandon their own proper nature, even after consecration. For they remain in the same substance, shape, and form, ami are visible and tangible, as they were before. But they arc understood to be those things which they have become, and they are believed to be such, and ate reverenced as actually being What they are believed ff f ) t li.j. m I" ! I, r- I i I 1 /iii 1 1 'Si ^' m '*' '! '^ ■ : '!! ■■ ■!j| \ I'l ; 1 1 m 164 TirE SACRAMKNTS. to be. Compare, ihen, the image with the archetype, and you will see the likeness. For the type should be like ihe verity. For the body hath its former appearance and circumference, and, In a word, the substance of the body. Rut after the Resurrection it became Im- mortal and incorruptible, and has been found worthy of the seat at the Right Hand, and is adored by all creation because it is called the Body of the Lord of cteation. " G. And yet the mystical symbol changes its former designation ; for It is no longer called by its former name, but is spoken of as ' Body ' ; so then the Truth must be called God and not ' Body.' " O. You seem to me to be ignorant. For It is not only called Body, but also Bread of Life. For so the Lord Himself designated Ii. And we call the Body Divine and life giving, and the Master's and the Lord's ; teaching that It is not a common Body of any man, but of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is God and man. For Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to day, and forever." * The same passaj.^e also condemns the opinion of tliosc who regard the Bread and Wine as mere tokens of something Which is absent. For the same are called Bread and Wine, and at tiie same time the Body and Blood of Christ. One other passage will here be given, from the book " De Sacramentis," which has been ascribed to St. Ambrose. It is remarkable for its clear state- ment and also for the very clever but most unscrupu- lous manner in which it has been altered to suit modern Roman doctrine. The passage runs thus : " You see, then, how powerful in working is the Word of Christ. If, then, there is suca force in the Word of our Lord Jesus Christ (m creation) that those things which had no existence began to exist, how much more powerful is it in commanding that they should remain what they were and yet be changed to something else ?" 67 si/it qmc erant, et * Theodoreti, Opera, Paris, 1642, Tom. IV., p, 85. THE SACRAMKNTS. 165 /// aliud commutcHtur. So was it in a iiiaiuiscrii)t Komaii Breviary of 1473 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, for the fourth lesson rif the Saturday in the Octave of Corpus Christi. So was it in the printed Roman Breviary of 1522, for the hrst lesson for the Sunday within the Octave of Corpus Christi. But a change has now passed over the passage in the Konian Breviary. With wonderful inj^cnuity six letters have bcejj omitted, with the result that the passaj^e is made to say precisely what it did not say orifrinally, as seen in the excellent Benedictine edition * and in the earlier editions of the Breviary. The words sint and it are omitted. The result is the passajj^e reads, " How much more powerful the word which com- mands that thin^^s which had an existence should be chanj^ed into somethings else," Ut qu(C crant in aliud commutentur. The original passage teaches the doctrine held by all early writers and by the Kng- lish Church ; the altered phrase agrees better with the modern views of Rome. The alteration is very instructive. " The benefits whereof we are partakers in the Holy Eucharist are the strengthening and refresh- ing our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are nourished by the Bread and VV^ine." As our natural bodies arc sustained by j)artaking ot natural food, so are our souls and spirits sustained by spiritual food. It is not enough for us that we have received life natural, we must maintain it by the means provided by our merciful Creator. It is * Ambrosii, Opera, Paris, 1690, Tom. II., col. 369 A. » I' n I ; .^i i 166 THE SACRAMENTS. not cnougii for us to have received spiritual life, we must ])ray, " Give us this day our daily Bread ;" we nnist feed our souls on the Bread of Life. The im- portance and necessity of this dependence on our Incarnate Lord is broujj^ht home to us by the imaj^e of eatinjj^ and drinkinjj^. When we think of it, the daily assimilation of food is so mysterious, that were it not so very common, we should call it a miracle. We take dead matter into us, and at some rotitnent there is a separation, and some part of the <lcad matter is chosen for life, and is absorbed into tiie living bodv, and becomes living tissue. This must depend upon the blessing of the Creator, Who has also said, '* Except ye eat the Flesh of the S(m of man and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you. For My F^lesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed." But when the body of a man is not liealthy the food he may take does him no good : either he has no aj>potite and cannot eat or he may have a large appetite but no power to assimilate food, and it is possible that a man may eat much and die of inan- ition. The food he takes may be the same in every particular ; ., is taken by another who is well nour- ished bv it, but having no power to draw sustenance from the food, he gains no benefit therefrom. So with the Blessed Sacrament. The same is offered to all, but all do not alike benefit. Som^*, alas ! have not the subjective power of assimilaticm, arising fi'om some sickness of soul, some lack of faith, or some presence of unrepented and wilful sin. Others eat and drink to their soul's health and go on from strength to strength. . t it THE SACKAMKNTS. 167 From some fccliiijj^, wliethcr from dread of irrever- ence or otlierwise, a practice arose of witlidrawiii^j^ the Clip from tlie laity. Hut as Gelasiiis in the hfth centurv said, " We have learned that certain persons after havinj^ received the portion of the Sacred iJody abstain from the chalice of the Sacred Blood. Which persons without doubt should either partake <»f the sacraments in their entirety or be excluded from the entire sacrament, because the division of one antl the same; mvsterv cannot take ])lace without <rreat sacnU^iTC, " What God hath joined tojj^ether in this sacrament we have no ritj^ht to put asunder. Rather mav we think with some that if man had never fallen there would have been no need (to si)eak with deep- est humility) of our i)artakini( of the Saviour's Blood ; but the cup is specially connected with " tlie remis- sion o I sinj as St. Matthew records. It would seem, therefore, bitter cruelty to the conununicant, as well as sacrilejj^c in the sijj^ht of God, to maini the sacrament and deprive the layman of the chalice. U was not done without deep and well-deserved tlis- satisfaction, and in Hni^land and in many parts of the ontinen t of 1^ urope an unconsecr :ite( 1 cup was nnn- istered to the people to content them, if possible, under the plea of a desire to assist dej.jlutition. The consideration of this jj^reat sacrament would lead us to cor^sider the j^race of llolv ( )r(lers con- veved by the layinjj^onof hands, settinj^ ajjart a con- secrated ministry to represent the Hii^h Priest on eaith, and to consecrate the Holy luicharist in His * Pieserved in Gralian Decrrtum, Pars. III. ; De Consecrat. Dis. H., cap. 12, Lu.{liini, 1606. col. i(ji8. It is doubtless genuine. See Herardi, Tom. II., p. y)2, .Madrid, 1783. Hf (' i68 THK SACKAMKNTS. i:i Name. lie is Captain or Chief Guide,* Ilis minis- ters under Ilim are ^.''uides or rulers. f He is Chief Shepherd ; :}: thev are shepherds under Ilim. He is the Hifj^h Priest, J^ tliey arc priests under Ilim. lie is Bishop, so are some of them as His ambassadors. ; Ordiniition, then, is not only an outward call or recojjfnition of one set apart or admitted to minis terial position ; it is a means of conve) in;^ j^^race, and is of a sacramental character. Mere as elsewhere in the dealinj^ of God with man the inward i^race, is conveyed by outward lueans. None can claim the ri^ht of ministeriufj^ with the authority of (iod's minister without some credentials. In the case of a new order of ministers, such as Moses and Aaron, or the Apostles of Christ, their credentials were miraculous ^ifts, to which they could aj)peal as evi- dence of their dele<;^ation. But it has been the or- (litKiry workinj^ of God's Providence that, aft. '• s- me such intervention, as by a new creation, the ijjrace or j)owcr be transmitted in some appointed manner. In the case of the Levitical priesthood it was trans- mitted from father to son by natural jj^eneration. In the Christian priesthood it is transmitted from Bishop to Bishop by spiritual succession, the <;race bein*.;^ conveyed by layinii^ on of hands. It is therefore dis- tinctly sacramental. Nor may we deny this in a certain sense to Holy Matrimony. Archbishop Cramner said that there is only one sacrament directly reco<^nized in the Bible, and that is Matrimony. St. Paul is speakin<j^ of * Hebrews 2 ■ lo, tic. \ Hebrews 13 : 7, 20, etc. X I St. PfUT 5:4. >^ Hebrews 8:1, li I St. Peter 2 : 25 ; 2 Corinthians s : 20. ilc. I • TIIK SACRAMENTS. 169 Holy Matrimony as the type to us of the union which exists between Christ and 1 1 is Cluirch and calls it "a j^^reat mystery," viac^nitm sinramcntum. It certainly is of Divine institution, but antecedent to Christianity datiui^ from the creation. It is of so deeply sacred a character that (lod (as God alone can be) is the avenger of all offence aij^ainst this deeply sacred estate. Open recoj^nition and tolera- tion of sins au^ainst inarriaj^e are tokens of a low standaid of Christian life. Where Matrimony is Holy there is doubtless a lar<;e supply of i^racc j^ranted. Indeed,* *' how can we tlnd words fully to describe the blessedness of that marriage which the Church cements, the oblation conhrms, the bless- \\v^ seals, an<jjels report, Ciod the Father ratihes !" One more is " commonly called " a sacrament, and is called I"!xtreme Unction. The tradition for this is very sliiii-ht. Doubtless all sacerdotal bene diction is sacramental in character, and our Church has rather introduced the solenui visitation of the sick in lieu of this, which was reii^arded as an inexact (jr even corruj)t followin<j^ of the .\|)ostles. In conclusion, we must remember that all sacra- ments and sacramentals are, as it were, " extensions of the Incariiation" to us while we are in this ])res- ent world, with our spiritual perceptions less keen than they will be hereafter. They are visible means of impartiuii^ to the faithful individualU ihe j)'irticl- |)ation of the benehts procured for all in f^enei'al by the IncarnatiDu. The words of Hooker, f .ij^ivinf^ the * Tertullian, " Ad Uxorcm." II. viii. t Hooker, " EciUsiasiical Polity," Hook V., ch. Ixvii., J^ 7. I/O THE SACRAMKNTS. [SH^.^il «>i^'i I' ill im points in which all aj^ree about the Holy Com- munion, are so valuable that they are here cited. "It is on all sides plainly confessed, first that this sacrament [of the Holy Eucharist] is a true and real participation of Christ, Who thereby imparteth Him- self, even His whole entire Person, as a mystical Head unto every soul that rcceiveth Him, and that every such receiver doth thereby incorporate or unite himself unto Christ as a mystical member of Him, yea of them also whom He acknowledi^eth to be His own ; secondly, that to whom the person of Christ is thus communicated, to them He giveth by the same sacrament His Holy Spirit to sanctify them, as it sanctifteth Him which is their head ; thirdly, that what merit, force, or virtue soever there is in His sacrificed Body and Blood, we freely, fully, and wholly have it in this sacrament ; fi)urthly, that the effect thereof in us is a real transmutation of our souls and bodies from sin to rii^hteousness, from death and corruption to immortality and life ; fifthlv, that because the sacrament beinir of itself but a corruptible and earthly creature must needs be thouj^ht an unlikelv instrument to work so admirable effects in man, we are therefore to rest ourselves altogether upon the strens^th of His j^lorious power. Who is able and will brinij to pass that the bread and the cuj) which He j^iveth us shall be truly the thinji^ He promiseth." The Incarnation Itself alone broui^ht infinite bless- ing to the creation at lar^e and to mankind in par- ticular. As a result of the Incarnation disease has greatly lost its power and malignity ; for in conse- quence of the " love of God toward man" therein •1 j^r.^: i':43 THE SACRAMENTS. I7» manifested, hospitals have been founded wliich liave enabled ph3'sicians to study disease. The power of the evil one has been marvellously checked ; demoni- acal possession has been minimized if not altos^ether quelled ; the oracles are dumb. Surely, then, we need not wonder that we are called upon to believe that the sacraments extend to our whole nature, bodies as well as souls and spirits, some of the marvellous benefits thus*(ained. " Who- so eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Hlood IIAIH eternal life, and I will raise hi in up at tin last </av." They are the words of Truth Himself. Therefore, saith tlic one who distributes, " The Body, the Blood, preserve thy dotlj' and soul unto everlastinjj^ life." Therefore may we say, " My flesh, my livinj^ flesh, also shall dwell confidently in iiope. " ** () my God, Thou art true ; () my soul, thou art happy." I i it I'. m '1 - I " LECTURE VII. THE GIFT OF THE HOIY GHOST. m 1, -i i , i ■ -0 1,;' ' rt> ! ■ m 1 . '■!U i \x i.f • 'ri t' : % i 1= _ t - -Oil I Mr " Hut this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive ; (or the Holy Ghost was not yet given ; because that Jesus was not yet glorified."— St. John 7 : 39. No work or revelation of God is without prepara- tion.- It may at the time seem to be sudden to the man who has not prepared himself or allowed him- self to he prepared for it ; but on lookinj^ back we can see how g^radual has been the preparation. This will be found to be true ot each one of us. When we look back on our past lives we must (if we are really strivinj^ to love and fear God) see how He has been all alon^^ deaiinjr with us. What is true of each one is true of the universe, so far as we know it ; it is true of God's dealings with man. Readin«^ in the Old Testament the record of God's dealinj^s with I lis chosen people Israel, we see how in si)ite of the stiff-hearted opposition and rebellion of the ])eople they were j^radually lifted to a know- ledj^e of one part of tlie Truth, the Unity of God. " A truth revealed by God is never a truth out of relation with previous thouj^ht. lie leads men to feel their moral and intellectual needs before He satisfies either. There was a preparation for He- brew monotheism, as there was a preparation for the doctrine of Christ. There was an intellectual prep- THE GUT OF TIIK HOLY GHOST. 173 aration for the doctrine of the Trinity, as tlierc was a moral i)reparation for tlie doctrine of the Incarna- tion. ^ This is seen in the merciful manner in which we read Ahniirhty God approached Ilissinninj^ aiul sin- ful creatures. It is generally by a question, in order to awaken a response in the man himself before any reproof or blame is spoken. To Adam after his sin there came the (]uestions, *' Adam, where art thou ? Who told thee that thou wast naked? I last thou eaten of the tree whereof 1 commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" To the wayward and in- diij^nant prophet there came the question, " Doest thou well to be ani»-ry ?" To the disheartened and despondent prophet the still, small voice said, "What doest thou here, Elijah?" And so is it ever. There is ever a preparation, and no work or revelation of God is sudden. Samuel the holy bov had to be prepared by Kli for the revelation that was to be made to him. Even after Pentecost continual preparation was required to reconcile the Aj)ostles and first converts to the widenini^ sphere of their labors. It is re- markable to observe how reluctant St. IV'ter was to receive the conceptionof the admission of the Gentiles to the full privilej^es of the Gijspel covenant. Even then, when he had been convinced by a miraculous vision, and by the outpouriiii^ of the II(^ly vSpirit on the Gentile centurion and his friends, and the Church at Jerusalem had decided the matter, even then St. Peter failed at Antioch to maintain the truth. Aubrey Moore, in " Lux Mundi," p. 90. \p 1! ! i , ; : 1 -i |, '■ 1 '■ ^' j S ■\, 1 :•' ' ■■ f , , ' t , l' / '74 THE GUT OK TIIK llOLV GHOST. The j^rcat truths about the Incarnation only be- came fully known after much controversy, but out of all o|>|)osinjj^ error the Truth issued. Must we not expect the same for all truth ? If this be the case, we must not be surprised that the doctrine about the Holy Spirit is evxMi yet lack- xn^ in its full revelation. We profess indeed that we "believe in the 1 j'oly (ihost." and this is a special characteristic of our Christian Creeil ; but what was felt by St. Auj^^ustine hfteen centuries aj^o is still a truth now, that '* the teachini^ about the Holy Sj)irit had not been as yet so fully and carefully discussed that we can easily understand I lis distinj;^uishin«( pro|)ertv." * At the present moment the one j^reat desideratum in theolo<j^y is a full treatise on the doc- trine of the Holy Ghost. It is certainly one evi- dence of this that it has l)een possible to issue twelve Lectures on the Nicene Creed," without a word about the I loly Ghost except as an obiter dictum.^ It may be, as St. liasil seems to intimate, that the full revelation of tlie Holy Spirit is reserved for the future beatitude of the Saints. " Who is so i«j^no- rant (the Saint writes) of the i^ood thing^s prejKircd by God for those who are worthy of them, as not to know that the crown of the ri»;hteous is the ^race of the Spirit, which is then given more abundantly and in greater perfection when spiritual glory is distrib- uted to every one in proportion to his good deeds ?" :{: At present it is certain that from one * De fide et symbolo, $^ 19. + " Christianity in Relation to Science and Morals." Lectures on the Nicene Creed by Malcolm MacCoIl. X St. Basil, " De Sancto Spiritu," $40, Tom. III., 34 B. TIIK (illT OF TlIK IIOI.V (IIIOST. 1/5 cause or another tliere is not perfect ajjjrecinent in the Church about this i^reat doctrine. It niav l)e that, as attacks of heretics and others caused the doctrine of tiie Incarnation to i)e settled at hir<^e, so now the assaults of intellectual scej>tics inav cause the Church to formulate, after reverent discussion, the doctiine of the Holy Spirit in a manner accept- able to the whole Church. Hitherto the revelation has been made very f;rad- :dlv. In the Old Testament the Ilolv S|)irit ap- u )ears r itiier as an intUience or an enerirv It was impossible 'to speak humanly) that lie should be represented as a Person in a dispensation which had to emi)hasize the Unity of (iod. In Christian times heretics, who failed to ^j^rasj) the doctrine of the Trinity, still regarded Him as an inlluence or oper- ation. 'The Spirit brooded over the waters at the creation, the Spirit was breathed into Adam when he became a living soul, ordc-r and advance toward perfection was bv the Sj)irit ; He tauLjht David to draw the plan of the Temple ; "He sj)ake i)y the prophets." Later on, in the books o, the silence, we read, *' The Spirit of the Lord hlleth the world," md aiiain, IS m a 11 tl im<rs. In the New Testament the revelr.tion is still jj^rad- ual. But in our IMessed Lord s(iiscourses there are words which, as interpreted by the insj)ired Aj)ostle, throw <;reat lifj^ht on manv passai^es of Sciii)ture.+ " He that bclieveth on Me ds the Scriptini' hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of livin.:^ water." I5ut this (explains the Apijstle) He spake of the Spirit I 1 ♦ Wisdom I : 7 ; 12 : I. f St. John 7 : 38. H 4' ' ' ' '''^l % 1 i 1 1 \ ' ■• 1 (' I, ' I i' * i ■ ip * ' 11 ?i'! !i ; I' ■ Vi J '• . ' . 1 1 ' • 1 ,1 ../ .« ; ! I'.'l 1/6 THE CUT OK TIIK IIOIA' GHOST. which they that believe ow Iliin should receive. This helps us to understand many sayinjj^s of the prophets — " With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." " In the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert," " I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and Hoods on the dry j^round ; 1 will pour My Spirit on thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offs|)rin<^." This, too, will help us to understand the vision of the Holy Waters, the River of Life, of I*!zekiel, explainetl, as it would seem to be, by St. John in the Apocalypse : "lie showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceedinj^^ out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb." So ajj^ain, in the prophet Zechariah : " It shall be in that day that livinjj^ waters shall ^o out from Jerusalem." * It also enables us to under- stand that when the Lord spoke to the Samaritan woman Me spoke of the Holy Spirit. t- " Whoso- ever drinketh of the water that I shall j^ive him shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springini^ up into everlasting^ life." Then it was that the Lord used the w^ord "j^ift," which became attached to the ij^reatest i)rivilcge of Christians, the " j^ift oi the Holy Ghost." He said, *' If thou knewest the ,4'//'/ 0/ God, and Who it is that saith to thee. Give Me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water." Thenceforward the Holy Spirit was spoken of as the gift of God. Thus St. Peter on the day of Fente- * Isaiah 12:3; 35 : 6 ; 44 : 3 ; Ezekiel 47 : r sq. 22 : I ; Zechariah 14 : 8. f St. John 4 : 10, 14. Revelation \ f 1 I TIIK GUT OF TlIK IIOI.Y (".HOST. 177 cost promised that, on Repentance and after Baptism tliis " «ijift" should be received, and tlirouj^houl the IJook of the Acts the word transhited ^j^ift in St. I'eter's speech is always of the "j^ift" of the Holy Gh(>st. It is iisetl by St. Peter when rebnkin*; Simon .Ma;;us, " IJecawse thou thou:^htest that the ^'■//7 of God could be purchased by money. " riiis is it which causes St. Paul to burst out, " Thanks be to (jod for Mis unspeakable ^i/-///." St. .\thanasius, too, says, '* The Holy Spirit is emphaticallv the jj^ift ot God." * St. Hilary of Poitiers also says, " He commanded to baptize in the Name of the Pat her. and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost— that is, in the conlession of the Author, of the Only Begotten, and of the (iift. F"or there is one (iod the P'ather, of whom are all thiiiij^s ; and one Only IJei^otten, oui Lord jesus Christ, thrt)UL;h whom are all thin<;s ; antl one Spirit, the Gift in all." \ Simdai ly .St. .\u<;us- tine, commenting; on our Lord's words to the woman of Samaria, says, "The jj^ift of God is the Holy Spirit." Indeed he rej^ards it as the personal char- acteristic of the Holy Spirit to be and to be called "the i^iftof God.":}: The Lord |esus also called Him " the P'inLfer of God," and in relation to His Church, " the Promise of the Father." He is the Lord — that is, very and true God, ecpially with the P'ather and the Son eternal, Ahni<;hty, * Oral. c. Arianos, II.. ^ 18. Opera Patavii, Tom. i., p. 3S3 0. t '* De Trinitate," II. i., Opera Veron;c, 1730, Tom. II., col. 26 A. t St. Augustine, in Jo., cap. iv., Tract XV., J5 12, Opera, Paris, 1690, Tom. III., p. 2, col. 4IQ G ; De Trin. XV., J^ 33, Tom. VIII., col. 990. 12 \\ mA IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) w ^ A ^. ^/ A A^ 4f, 7a 1.0 I.I 1.25 1^128 ^ us, M 2.0 U ill 1.6 V] ^. /: f% ^\'>' o 7 /A Photographic Sciences Corporation i3 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 ■■ I i 1 ■ ' '. ■ 'J t <:. :/• 'n-' i I ;■■' \''^\' ^' ■ i^ ' .,i K ' 1 ■ ■ ')■' ' 1 *maM i 178 THE GIFT OF THE HOLV CIMOST. God and Lord. He is also the life«^iver, of all life that is, natural and spiritual. Hence it is that the psalm which is the psalm of creation, abounding in life (Psalm 104), has been appropriated to Whit- sunday. By His o})eration the life, which is in the Word, is imparted to the world. He is the Giver of life spiritual ; by His operation the dead matter of the outward and visible signs in the sacraments be- comes instinct with life, for the conveyance and the maintenance of the spiritual life in each faithful Christian. He is a distinct Person. " Seeing the Father is of none, the Son is of the Father, and the Spirit is of both, they are by these their several properties really distinguishable each from other. For the substance of God with this property fo be of 7io7ie doth make the Person of the Father ; the very selfsame substance in number with this prop- erty to be of the Father maketh the Person of the Son ; the same substance having added unto it the prop- erty oi proceeding from the other 77£'<9 maketh the Per- son of the Holy Ghost. So that in every Person there is implied both the substance of God, which is one, and also that property which causeth the same Person really and truly to difter from the other Two."^- He is called " the wSpirit of the Father," and the Lord Jesus said that He " proceedeth from the Father," which statement has been incorporated in all full Christian Creeds. But also He is called " the Spirit of the Son ;" the Lord Jesus said of Him, " I will send Him unto you from the Father," from the * Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," Book V., ch. li., $^ i. THE GIFT OF THE IIOLV GHOST. 179 immediate Presence of the Father, from beside the Father ; he is also said to be jjiven by tlic Son.* Therefore we confess with St. Aiiirustine + that " the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son also," as well as from the Father, as also a few i)araij^raphs i)reviouslv he wrote; "The Holy Spirit, accordinir to the Scriptures, is neither of the Father alone, nor of the Son alone, but of both, and so intimates to us a mutual love, wherewith the Father and the Son re- ciprocally love One Another." Therefore is Jle believed to be the Bond of union between the Father and the Son, whereby (to speak with deepest awe and adoration) they two are mutually revealed One to Other. What a deep mystery is hinted at in the words of the Apostle! "The Spirit searcheth all things, even the depths of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him ? Even so the things of God know- eth none, but the Spirit of God." ^ The Spirit, therefore, is of both the Father and the Son, but not of both in the same way. There is but one eternal, efficient Principle, One Source, The Father. When, therefore, we acknowledge the truth of the Scriptures, we confess that " the Holy Ghost is of the Father, and of the Son ; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding." The vision of the Apostle St. John revealed to him j^ " a pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the * St. Matthew 10 : 20 ; St. John 15 : 26 ; Galatiaiis 4 : 6. f De Trin. XV. xvii., g 29, Opera, Paris, 1694, Tom. VHI.. col. 988. t I Corinthians 2 : 10. S Revelation 22 : i. IHHIII ^1^ at ; i H' i 'i .«t !! fin- * h ; J 4|^^ ' i It ! • ■, ^; : s r 1 ^ 1 80 THE GIFT OF THE IKJLV GHOST. Lamb ;" this has been thoug^ht to represent the pro- cession of the Holy Spirit. But we do nc^t confess that He i)r()ceeds from the Son, as from an inde- pendent source or ori<^in, but we beheve tiiat He proceeds from the Fatlier throu<^h the Son. The sensitive character of the Greek language en- ables it to represent accuracy of doctrine better than others, and this probably is at the root of the seem- ing divergence of creed between Eastern and VV^est- ern Christendom in this matter. When it shall please God that in this " the envy of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off, Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and judah shall not vex Ephraim ;" when the spirit of antagonistic irri- tation shall have been allayed, then, as we may hope, we shall come to an agreement on the truth and the proper mode of expressing the Truth. There is no occasion in this place and before this audience to dwell longer on the divergence, the unhappy diver- gence, of expression between the Eastern and West- ern Branches of the Catholic and Orthodox Church ; reference need only be made to the monograph of one of your own professors on the subject." Still there is much to be revealed about the glori- ous Third Person of the Ever Blessed Trinity. There are hints and images in Scripture which evidently have reference to Him, which are still without ex- })lanation. We read in the vision of the Apocalypse of " the Lamb, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God," and the passage seems to remind us of hints in the prophets of old, in * " The Nicene Creed and the Filioque," by Rev. T. Richcy, D. D. THE GIFT OF THE HOLY CHOST i8( Isaiah, and Zechariah, and, perchance, Ezekiel. Zechariah speaks of seven eyes upon One Stone— tlie Headstone, or the Corner-Stone, whicli are the eyes of the Lord." Isaiah speaks of tlie seven Spirits which should rest upon the Branch, f and the order in which they are mentioned is in itself a mvstery. It seems to imply that the seven Spirits, or, as some have said, ^ifts of the Spirit, form a ij^lorious circle of perfection, so that wherever a commencement is made, the return will brini( you to the same. And wherever you be^in, or wherever you leave off, if vou complete the circle you must be^-in where vou leave off, and leave off where you be^in. Thus St. Hilary and St. Ambrose show how the proj^het Isaiah enumerates the <;ifts in the natural order of their advance, bej^innini^ from Wisdom and advanc- in": to the Fear of the Lord. While St. Grcijorv the Great, seeing- that Holy Scripture speaks of the Fear of the Lord as the bei^inning- of Wisdom, beautifully likens the seven gifts to the seven steps which led up to the Temple in the vision of Ezekiel. As you regard the seven steps you would be inclined to number them down from the to[), but the bottom step would be the one first trodden upon to raise the man to the higher level. wSo, saith the Saint, the prophet Isaiah names the seven gifts from the top- most downward, while man, to ascend up, must com- mence from the last-mentioned, but the first to be attained, which is the Fear of the Lord.:}: There is much to make us feel that the full teach- * Zechariah 3 ; q ; 4 : 7, lo. f Isaiah 11 ; 2. :|: St. Gregorii, Opera, Paris, 1705, Tom. !., col. 1380. ,!l: h 182 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. IS f;' ' , " *•■; •11- inj;^ about the Holy Spirit is still to be revealed. The number seven, which clusters about these inti- mations of His operation, would seem to teach the perfection of His work ; for in Scripture seven de- notes completion and perfection.* But there is seen to be a special relation of the Holy wSpirit toward the Lord Jesus Christ. St. Paul t and St. Peter ;{: both call Him " The ^Spirit of Christ;" wSt. Paul § calls Him also "the Spirit of the Son," while St. Luke, in the Book of the Acts,|[ calls him (as the true reading is) " the Spirit of Jesus." We can understand, therefore, the state- ment of St. Basil, " So, then, you observe there are three, the Lord Who commands, the Word Who creates, the Spirit Who establishes." As he had said just before, in speaking of the Creation of the angels, " By the will of the Father ministering spirits subsist, by the operation of the Son they are brought into being, and by the Presence of the Spirit they are perfected." •[ The work of establishing and perfecting that, which the Son has created, is the special work of the Holy Spirit. Thus, at the creation, we read that when the creature had being granted and given by the Son, then " the Spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters," to bring the work to perfection. There is also a similar relation to be seen between Revela- tion and Inspiration ; Revelation is the work of the Word, as was seen in the first lecture ; Inspiration is by the Holy Spirit. Revelations may be for a li * See Appendix G. G. X I St. Peter 1:11. II Acts 16 : 7. f Romans 8 : g. ^ Gaiatians 4 : 6. 1 '• De Sancto Spiritu," g 38. THE GIFT OF THF HOLY C.HOST. 183 revealed, lese inti- teach the seven de- n of the ist. St. Spirit of Spirit of le Acts, II Spirit of le state- Jiere are rd Who he had )n of the ig spirits brought irit they ling and J, is the hen the he Son, I face of There Revehi- k of the ipiration )e for a «."§38. local, personal, or temporal purpose, whereas In- spiration is for all time. Inspiration enables the sub- ject of it to choose out of the Revelations, or, as in the Old Testament, to choose out of the history of God's dealings with His people, such events as have, whether as types or otherwise, an interest and value for the Gospel times, and so for all time. In this, too, is seen the special relation of the Holy Spirit to God the Word.* . Similarly, we find that in the New Creation, the work of the Holy Spirit is to carry on to perfection that which the Creator Word has called into exist- ence, to perfect the work which the Son has in- itiated. This is true in the Church at larire and in each individual member of the Church. Hence it is that by His operation we know God, and become more and more like Him. As St. Basil says,t "In the illumination of the Spirit we see the ' true Light, which lighteth every man coming into the world.' So that in Himself He shows the glory of the Only Begotten, and to true worshippers He supi)lies of His own means, in Himself, the knowledge of God. wSo the way of the knowledge of God is from one Spirit through the one Son, to the One Father. And, again, the natural goodness, and the natural sanctification, and the Royal rank originating from the Father extend through the Only Begotten to the Spirit. Thus the Persons are confessed, and at the same time the godly doctrine of the MonarcJiia does not fall through." The same St. Basil says again :X "As for the dis- * See " The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, its Nature and Proof," by Archdeacon Lee, D.D., of Dublin, 4th ed., Dublin, 1865. \Id'^ §47. Xld., % 39- y-\i\ ii ii' ti i i :^i' if::;'! ( : -; ;i ,'f (: is 184 THE GIFT OF THE IIOLV GHOST. pensations relating to man, wroui^ht by our great G'.<J and Saviour Jesus Christ, according to the goodness of God, who will gainsay that they are fulfilled through the grace of the Spirit ? Whether you will regard the things of old, the blessings of the patriarchs, the help that was given by the Law. the tyi)es, the prophecies, the heroism in war, the miracles wrought by the righteous, or the events of the dispensation concerning the appearing of the Lord in the flesh, all was by means of the wSpirit." At the creation of man, when the body oi the man had been prepared, then the Holy Spirit was breathed into Adam, and he became a living soul. But when Adam sinned, this glorious Presence, which clothed his soul like the robe of the King's Son, was stripped off him. " A certain man went down from Jerusa- lem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead." This has been thought by many to represent, in parable, the fall of Adam. The glorious robe of the Presence was stripped off, leaving a sense of nakedness, and his spoilers left him for a while really half dead — dead in soul and dying in body. In the curious apocryphal legend called the Revelation of Moses, Eve is represented as speaking of her fall and saying : " In that very hour mine eyes were opened, and I knew that I was naked of the righteousness with which I had been clothed." This will explain the intensity of poig- nant grief always attached in Holy Scripture to the shame of being naked ; it is the anguish, inexpressi- bly keen anguish, of the loss of God's Presence. In the first creation the Creator Word " formed THK (;iFr OF THE IIOI.V GHOST. 185 poijj-. . i Adam and then breathed into his nostrils tlic Hrcatli of Life. For the I loly Spirit cannot be received un- less he who receives have first of all an existence." '^' Similarly, as by analo<;y, we should expect, (iod the Word prepared the world of men for the re- newed communication of the Spirit of life ; that (as the fathers with one voice affirm) what man lost in Adam, he receives in Christ the last Adam, the sec- ond man. The text teaches us this: "The Holy Cihost was not yet ^iven, because that Jesus was not Li^lorihed." This threat Gift was not s^iven before the Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Son of God. For the world of men had to be pre])ared for this great Gift, as the body of Adam had been pre})ared. The mission of God the Son to the world was to a world of men alienated from God by sin. " God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." This reconciliation commenced at the moment of the Incarnation, progressed in the sinless life of the Saviour, was inaugurated in the Crucifixion, con- summated in the Resurrection, manifested in the Ascension. " To-day (said St. Chrysostom, preach- ing on Ascension Dav ) reconciliation with C»od was completed for the race of men ; to-day the long-con- tinued enmity was abolished ; the long war was ended. To-day a wonderful peace returned never before expected." St. John in the text speaks of the whole action of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension as " the glorifying" of Jesus. It completed the work of rec- S:. Cyprian, Ep. Ixxiv. iH ' ■ f , t i a?' '■ \ ' wm i BKm i^H i F^^M 1 IB ■ 1 1 '( H ! 1 ''<i ' : i,ri i i ': /' ii5 I ..U ri fi- ll :i \ % tl i' '" J ^ ' :: 1^:^ *'■■;- ■ bii ay^";^ 1 86 TlIK GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. onciliation, so far as the Lord was tlic doer of it. His mission was to an alienated world of men to reconcile them to God. Thereupon followed the mission of the Holy Spirit. Ilis mission was to a reconciled world — a world prepared for His Advent by "the glorifyinj^" of God the Word. Hitherto He had been workini^, but it was from without (so to speak) — in the exterior ; He had been a i^uide, a support from without.* But his relation to man was now to be chan<rcd. " He is with you (said the Lord), and shall bef in you." The parable of the Prodii^al Son speaks of the Restoration of the Robe which had been lost ; " bring- forth the Jirs^ Robe and put it on him." And the still later parable, spoken on the last day of the Lord's ministr}', teaches us the awful doom of the one who, having had the opportunity of bein<^ clothed upon, is found naked.:}: What was lost in Adam is restored in Christ in mani- fold abundance, but it may be lost again, therefore. " Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his gar- ments lest he walk naked." § When, therefore, the Lord was glorified, when the entrance of a Man into the innermost Presence of God in Heaven proved manifestly that the recon- ciliation between God and man was complete ; then, and not till then, the Gift, the unspeakable Gift, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, was given to the Church, and to the individual members of the Church. This was signified seemingly by the appearance like as of * See Appendix HH. \ St. John 14 : 17. The future is adhered to as the reading of many first-class mss. and versions, and of the Greek Fathers. t Revelation 16 : 15. § St. Matt. 22 : 11. TIIK GIFT OK TllK Ilol.V CHOSI'. IS; cr of it. men to ^vcd the kvas to a Advent litherto liout (so ^uidc, a to man said the i of the ic Robe obe and spoken :hes us lad the laked.:): II mani- Tefore, lis gar- when esence recon- ; then, ift, the hurch, This e as of of many 22 : II. tire. For, as St. Chrysostoin says, the word tnins- hited "chjven" means rather divided from one com- mon root ; as if tliere were at first one common mass from which spikelets, or tongues, were separateil to each head. This would tyi)ify at once tlie indwell- ing of the Holy Spirit in tlie Church, as one Body, and also in each individual member of the Church. But when we say that the Holy Spirit was not thus previously given, we must remember that we speak of a quite new relation set up as at this time ; it is not that His operations had not been before as widely extended, but they were of a different char- acter. His work, we have said, is to carry on to com- pletion what the Word has inaugurated. At the same time He is intimately connected with the Hu- manity of Gt)d the Son, and extends the benefits thereof to mankind. By His operation the Incarna- tion took place. The Word was conceived by the Holy Ghost. Before the commencement of His Ministry, the Lord Jesus was visibly anointed by the descent upon Him of the Holy Spirit ; it was through the Eternal Spirit that He offered Himself without spot to God. All this was for our sakes. He that brought about the Incarnation is He that extends the Incarnation to us through the Sacra- ments. St. Athanasius * is bold to say (and other fathers say much the same) : " The descent of the Holy Spirit (after His Baptism) did not convey any sort of advantage to the Word, but it was for our sanctification, that we might be partakers of His Opera, Patavii, 1777, Tom. i., 356 ; Orat. I. c. Arianos, § 47. ■Hi 188 THE Girr OF TlIK IIOLV (WIOST. >■ •\ ,..* unction." "When He rccci\'C(l tlie Spirit, we becaniu Irotn lliiii ca[jal)Ic of receiving the Spirit." So, aj^^ain, il it he " by the Internal Spirit liiat Ciirist offered llimself without spot to God." it is by the operation of tiie same Spiri* tnat tliere is i)ro(hiced in man a hatred of sin, as Gf)d in that saciilice is seen to hate sin. 'I'hus tiirou<jjhout in the New Cre- ation the Iloly Sj)irit carries on to perfection the work of the Word. First, in the Ciuircliat hirj^e : He is the Autiior of the I lypostatic Union i)etween the two natures of our Hlcssed I^ord; lie is the Author of the Mystical Union between Clirist and the Church ; He is the Author of tlie Sacramental Union of the members of the Mys- tical Body with their Head and with each other. " All have been made to drink into one Spirit." Here, once more, is there a direct Divine interven- tion in the course of human events, thouj^h it is but the result of the intervention in the mystery of the Incarnation. The intervention in the Incarnation was secret and known only to a few (as we now are beginning- to celebrate],* but the Christian Church was organized publicly in Jerusalem (which is the mother of us all) by a definite intervention publicly recognized at the time by representatives " of every nation under heaven." Thus runs the recoid, " There were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language." The result of what they saw and heard, and of the sermon preached * Tliis lecture was delivered on March 24'h. THK CIFT OK TIIK Iloi.V (JIFOST. 189 by ^t. IV'ttM* was that " the same day were added unto |tlie little lloek of one hundred and twenty | about three thousand souls. And tlu; l-oid was con- tinually adding", day by day, to the CMun\ h those who were in a state of salvation." " Thus was there formed an elect bod) , the Kini;- dom of God. the Church, which should <:;<) on and prosper and j^ather in the world, ( )l nhl, lor the sake ot the world, there was an elect bod\ , the family of Jacob, the chilrlren of Israel, to keep alive the knowledij^e of God and to be the means ol 1 lis Reve- lation to the world. ^Vithin this elect bodv there was another body who were to be a speciid protest against worldly and carnal aims and tlesires. The whole tribe of Lr^ . i were ch^^en in lieu of the tirst- born to draw near unto f iod and to luinister to I lim. Ainon;^ these, a^^ain, tlierc was one chosen family of priests. The one ^reat blessin<^ j^'ranted to the privilci^ed tribe oi Levi was, that f thev "had no j)art nor inheritance with his bretliren ; the Lokd is his inheritance, according as the Lord thy (iod j)romised him." This, then, was the contiiuial cry of a Levite, " Thou art my portion, () Lord." :{: " The liOrd is my portion, saith my soul," was the deep consolation of the priest prophet.,^ when his nation was captive and his land laid desolate. When the Levite psalmist ;! was in poverty and sickness, and his faith was for a while disturbed, because C»od had not given him health and wealth, then his eyes * Acts 2:56, 41, 47. f Deuteronomy 10 : 9 ; 12 : 12 ; 14 : 27, 29, etc. ^ Psalm 119 : 57. i^ Lamentations 3 : 24. II Psalms 73 : 2, 17, 26. 1, '::;.> '14 1 ■ i: y 'i ' K ' il'*' L »''..;■'!! 190 THE GIFT OF THE IIOl.V GHOST. were opened to his real ])osition when " he went into the Sanctuary of C»od," and he felt he could say what none but one of his tribe could, " Mv flesh and my heart faileth, but Ciod is the strens^th of my heart, and my portion forever ;" he had that which none could take from him. As, then, the Levites were to be a consecratint( nucleus of the Jewish Church, and as the Jewish Church was to be a separate or elect body for the sake of the Gentile world, so now the Christian Church was to be the consecratinj^ medium of the whole world. As said the Lord, " The Kin_<(dom of I leaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened." * This, then, is the last Divine intervention, the last disi)ensation in this world, preparin<^ for the final Revelation, the eighth day of eternity. Hence the Gospel times in which we live are spoken of in Scripture as " the last times," or the " latter days." Therefore the beautiful Christian poet f calls Chris- tians " the people of the evening-," the evening- of the world ; therefore Tertullian spoke of the Gospel times as the settin<^ age. or the age of sunset, the evening of the world. This is the reason why the Church has ever sung the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis at even-song-, in memory of the light of the Gospel illumining the evening of the world, in prep- aration for the morning of eternity. Of these times the prophets had said : " Also upon * St. Matthew 13 : 33. t Prudentius-Psychomachia, 376, ed. Arevali, Tom. ii., p. 621. THE GIFT OF THE l?OLV GHOST. 191 the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My Spirit,"- words that St. Teter claimed as referrin<r to the ^reatoutpourinir at I'ente- cost at the Birth of the Church. All Christians, then, now have " the })romise of the Father" in far fuller abundance, and in more intimate relation tluin the priests and Levites of old, who could claim the Lord their God for their inheritance. Not only is the Holy Spirit the author of, and means whereby, the cori)orate unity is maintained, but He is the Life of the Church, whereby She j^rows, i^rows with the increase of (iod ; "grows in wis- dom and stature and in favor with (iod and man." "Grows in wisdom." "lie shall take of mine and shall show it unto you," said the Lord. " lie will guide you into all truth. He shall glorify Me." Gradually does He reveal the full majesty of the Son, guiding into all the Truth those who follow His leading ; and guiding, not without effort on 1 ler part, the Church, " into the Truth in all its parts." f Hence He guides the councils of the Church into the declaration of the Truth. " It seemed good to the Holy (ihost and to us," :{; said the first Apostolic Council. The Church is a living Body, and there must be advance and growth. St. X'incent of Lerins likens the growth of doctrine to a living body. There must be advancement, he says,^ " But yet in such sort that it may be truly an increase in faith, and not a change. ... In this let the religion of our souls imitate the nature of our bodies, which, * Joel 2 : 29. f Westcott, /;/ loc. J; Commonilorium, cap. 23. X Acts 15 : 28. MHuattiMiMliik J ;i ^ ■5 J ii" I'll i; |H !• I 192 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. althouj^h with process of time they develop and un- fold their proportions, yet remain the same that they were. . . . Christian doctrine must follow these laws of growth, to wit, that with years it wax more sound, with time it become more ample, with con- tinuance it be more exalted, yet that it remain incor- rupt and entire, and continue full and perfect in the proportion of each of its parts, and, as it were, with all its members and proper senses." He alone Who of old spake by the prophets, and in these last times inspired the Apostle and Evangelists, can lead the Church and the various members of the Church into a full understanding of Holy Scripture. Vear by year, more and more, do the beauties and teaching unfold themselves ; constantly should we pray with the Church in the Canticles, " Come, Thou South Wind, and blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof ma}^ How out." * Again, the Living Church must grow in stature. She must be aggressive, seeking to bring all within the fold ; with utmost charity seeking to win, but at the same time when necessary " mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds ;" because she has " the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." Still the loving persuasion of invitation must be, " Let him that thirsteth come ; and who- soever will, let him take the water of life freely." f The Holy Spirit also makes the Church, the Bride, more and more pleasing in God's sight. By the operation and indwelling of the Holy Spirit does the Son " sanctify and cleanse the Church with the wash- * Canticles 4 : 16. f Revtlation 22 : 17. THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 193 ing of water by the Word, that He mii^ht present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having si)()t or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish."* He is the " Si)irit of Holi- ness," therefore His indwelling is the first reason why one of the titles of the Church is Holy. Even in the darkest times there is a remnant, as there ever has been. The Holy Spirit, indeed, in Scripture, warns us that there will be great falling away. We have no sure warranty that the candlestick will not be removed from any particular Church. If, then, the Spirit is grieved and quenched, that particular Branch will dwindle and die. If the sap flows not into it from its abiding in the True Vine, " it is cast forth as a branch, and is withered ; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned, "t But this does not mar the life of the Church, though it cripples her extension. We must remember, in our conceit, that God sees not as man sees. Elijah said, " I, even I only, remain ;" and Cardinal Newman could say, " I look into this liv- ing, busy world and see no reflection of its Crea- tor ;" but God saw seven thousand where Elijah saw none, and the fault may be in our own eyes. Here, then, we must say one word about such bodies as have separated themselves from the Com- munion of the Church. The individual members, if they have been baptized, are so far forth members of the Church. When they seek admission into the Communion of the Church they are not rebaptized. * Ephesians 5 : 26, 27. 13 f St. John 15 : 6. 1 1: ■-■ r ii i' . ! cj . i,W?; 194 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. As St. Vincent of Lerins* says, such a practice is " a<^ainst the Divine Scripture, against the rule of the Universal Church, against the mind of all the Priests of the time, against the custom and tradition of the fathers." But it is also the universal teach- ing that the Holy Spirit is not " given" outside the Church as an indwelling Power.f There is no prom- ised indwelling of the Spirit. The Shechinah is conhned to the One Temple. But He " bloweth where He listeth," and we have no right to limit His gracious influences. We admire and are thank- ful for the good which God is pleased to do by their means, but we cannot acquiesce in their separation, we must do all in our power to entice them back to the one flock under the one Shepherd, "endeavor- ing to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. For there is One Body and One wSpirit, even as we are called in One hope of one calling. One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in us all." + But the gracious indwelling in the Church is ex- tended to all the faithful members of the Church. The central mass, like as of fire, was cloven, divided out, so as to sit on the head of each individual mem- ber. The golden pipes, whereby the oil of grace is derived to each member, are the means of grace ap- pointed b}' Christ and employed by the Holy Ghost. Ill this, too, as elsewhere, the Holy Ghost carries forward to perfection the work which Christ com- * Commonitorium, cap, 6. X Ephesians 4 : 3-5. f See Appendix II. THE GIFT OF THE IIOIA' (IlIOST. '95 menced. Each means of grace, each sacrament, do- rives its efficacy from the assured ojjeration of the Holy Ghost. Each means of <,rrace is a golden pipe whereby the grace, stored in the Incarnate Saviour as in a Reservoir, is conveyed to the members of His Body. In the initiating Sacrament of Baptism it is " by one Spirit (that) we are baptized into one body ;" •- it is " the washing of Regeneration and renewhig of the Holy Ghost." f This is now accepted as'^the interpretation of the Lord's words to Nicodemus : " Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. " Hooker truly said : '* Of all the ancient there is not one to be named that ever did otherwise either expound or allege the place, than as implying external Bap- tism." X It is true that St. Cyprian and others held it to include Confirmation, which they regarded as a Baptism of the Spirit ; but this did not exclude external Ba})tism with water. ^ The Holy Ghost prepared the Body natural of Christ at the Incarnation ; it is He who cleanses us from the taint received at our natural birth and then uicorporates us into the immaculate Body of Christ. These are the "two ends proposed in Baptism,",^ a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness. " This, then, is to be born again of water and the Spirit, for death is effected in the water, but our Life is wrought through the Spirit." Therefore, in the piayer in the Baptismal service, we pray that the * I Corinthians 12 : 13. | -pilus 3 : 5. t Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," Book V., chap. Ijx., g 3. $5 St. Basil, /oc. cit. Appendix BB. T '"If. J^' Hi- ll !•■■■ ;: ■!: i- : i m ifl (:" 196 THE GIFT OF TIIF IK)LY GHOST. Holy Sj)irit may be given to the Catechumen in order that he may be born again. "^^' So Tertullian, beauti- fully referring to the first chapter of Genesis, says : " Water was the first to |)roduce that which had life, that it might be no wonder in Baptism if waters know how to give life . . . the Spirit of God who hovered over the waters in the beginning would continue to linger over the waters of the baptized." But, as has been said, the Tloly Spirit continually carries on to perfection the work commenced by God the Son. In the Church at large this is seen in comparing the four records of the Gospel with the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and these histories again with the Epistles following. It is noteworthy that the three earlier Evangelists record but little of the doctiine about the work of the Holy Spirit, though there is emphatic reference to Him in each of the three records. St. Matthew gives the Baptismal formula in the Commission to the Apostles at the end of the great forty da3'S. This is the essence of all creeds, as St. Basil inti- mates. " As we believe on the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, so also are we baptized into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The confession goes before leading to salvation, while baptism follows after setting the seal on our assent ." f St. Mark records in direct terms the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the disciples. " Take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye pre- meditate, but whatsoever shall be given you in that * See Appendix KK. f " De Sancto Spiritu," cap. 12, ad Jin. THE GIFT OF TIIK IIOLV GHOST. 197 hour, that speak ye ; for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost." * St. Luke t has the warninji^ against the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, " unto him that blasphem- eth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven." It is mainly in the record by St. John, written toward the end of his life, when Christianity had been preached for more than sixty years, that we read of the teaching about the Holy Spirit in our Lord's discourse at the mysterious Last Suj)per.* " The Comforter, VV^hich is the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My Name, He shall te:.ch you all things, and bring all things to your remem- brance, whatsoever I have said unto you." " Him I will send unto you from the Father, even the vSpirit of Truth, Which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me." "He will guide you into all Truth. He shall glorify Me ; for He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you." The Book of the Acts is a record of how these say- ings of the Lord have been fulfilled. wSo much so that Professor Westcott has well said : § " The Book of the Acts is the Gospel of the Holy Spirit, the typical record of His action. There we see how, at each stage of the building of the Church, the per- sonal direction of the Spirit rules the conduct of its earthly founders. The voice of the Spirit showed to St. Philip, to St. Peter, to St. Paul, the widening limits of their teaching, and in some cases the very details of their fortunes." In similar fashicjn has * St. Mark 13 : 11. f St. Luke 12 : 10. :j: St. John 14 : 16, 17, 23-26 ; 15 : 26 ; 16 : 7-14. i^ " Historic Faith," p. 106. \l '] ,fl h.; I ;. ] 'Sua *'»!5 :iii 1! ' ;■ It; !7r ■ iH i < Ml t t } • . i' ' 77^ 't/ I! I I ii' 198 THE GIFT OF THK HOLY GHOST. Bishop Harvey Goodwin written : * "If the Gospels can be rightly described as tlie history of the min- istry of the Son, the Acts of the Apostles may be snitably described as the history of the ministry of the Holy Ghost." In the Epistles we seem to be breathin<^ the very Breath of the Spirit. Each Apostle takes for granted that his hearers have the Spirit and are in the Spirit, and claim this for themselves. Then, for the individual, it is taken for granted that none is perfect in his Christian privileges until he has received the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands. This is seen clearly in the case of the Samar- itans, who had been baptized by a Deacon ; " they were only in the position of persons who had been baptized ;" therefore St. Peter and St. John went down to confirm them. U is evident that, as St. Paul went about and found " disciples," who pro- fessed to have been baptized, he made it his custom to ask, as he did at Ephesus, " Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed ?" The reception of the Holy ^Spirit was typified by the use of holy oil. When St. John spoke of this and said : " Ye have an Unction from the Holy One," he probably spoke in simile. But the use of oil in Confirmation commenced very early. Tertul- lian speaks of it at the end of the second century. Theophilus of Antioch (a.D. 180) likens Confirmation to the finishing porcelain with glaze, or burnishing metal. " What work (he says) has either ornament or beauty unless it be anointed and burnished. The * " Foundations of the Creed," p. 249. 'j: - THE GIFT OF THE HOLY C.HOST. 199 air and all that is under heaven is in a certain sort anointed by light and spirit, and are you unwilling to be anointed with the oil of God ? We are called Christians on this account, because we are anointed with the oil of God." * So, too, in the fifth century, St. Cyril of Alexandria writes; "The use of oil finishing to perfection has been before laid upon those who are justified in Christ by Holy Baptism." This, then, may perhaps lead us to see a reason for the name given to Confirmation in Dionvsius of Areopagus. He calls the rite " the perfecting unc- tion," and says : " The perfecting unction of holy oil makes him that has been initiated (baptized) well- pleasing ; for the sacred perfection of the divine regeneration unites things that were initiated to the Supreme Spirit." As the very word " perfecting" is ascribed to the Holy Spirit by St. Basil, it may have the meaning here that the rite of unction is the communication of the Perfecting Spirit, and not merely that it is the perfecting of that which was commenced in Baptism. In respect of the laying on of hands, commonly called Confirmation, we have no need to ask how the Holy Spirit is connected with this rite. The careful student of Scripture will at once recognize the ruth of what the present Archbishop of Canter- bury iias well said : "No thread of language and history is more distinct than that which connects Christ's promise of the coming of the Paraclete to be an Indwelling Power in all His chosen ones, with the institute of the Laying on of Hands by the ;j I Ad Aulolycum, I., xii. 200 THE GIFT OF TIIK HOLY GHOST. ■1 i ( I I II Si' Apostles. On the Twelve lie came with a visible Epiphany, as every analogy would expect. On Christians at lar<2^e Me came in this plainest sim- plicity. ' I will send Him unto you. They laid their hands on them. He fell on them.' And ever after, in the letters of the Apostles, such is the fre- quency of verbal and phraseological allusion to the custom, that, as a scholar once remarked to me, ' Conhrmation seems more ])resent to the earliest Christian habits of thought than Baptism itself.' " * Confirmation has always been traced back to the time when Philip the Deacon had baptized the Samaritans, and St. Peter and wSt. John, the two chiefest Apostles, were vSent down from Jerusalem to confirm them and convey the Gift of the Spirit. ft is quite true that often in Apostolic times the ex- traordinary graces were conveyed as well as the ordinary, t but this does not seem to have been always the case even in those days. For wSt. Paul asked certain who were regarded as disciples *' if they had received the Holy Ghost since they be- lieved." Had there been at all times a. bestowal of extraordinary graces, the question need not have been asked ; the Presence would have been mani- fested, and the lack of manifestation would have testified to lack of the Gift. Confirmation, then, is the one especial rite whereby the Gift of the Holy Ghost, the promise of the Father, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, is communicated to the Baptized Christian.:}; Ordinarily, the reconciliation between 1 /. * " The Seven Gifts," p. 87. See Appendix MM. f See Appendix LL. | See Appendix MM. THE GIFT OF TFIK IIOIA' C'.IIOST. 201 the individual and Aliiiij^hty God is granted in IJap- tism, in and by that sacrament union with Christ is effected before the coniniunication of the Gift of the Holy Ghost. In one instance was it otlierwise, l)ut for this there was a special reason. To prove that it was God's will that the Gentiles should be ad- mitted into the Ciuirch. the Gift was bestowed on the centurion Cornelius and his friends before Bap- tism. But ordinarily, just as the Holy (ihost was not given before that Jesus was glorified in the rec- onciliation of man with God, so also the Gift is not given to any particular man before he is prej)ared for it by Baptism. Next in the Holy Eucharist it is the Holy Ghost that causes the dead elements to be instinct with life and life-giving properties, conveying to the faith- ful Christian the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus. In the Eastern Church this is felt so strongly that, in the Consecration prayer, there is always a distinct invocation of the Holy Spirit, or prayer for His de- scent upon the elements of Bread and Wine, to make them the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus.* You, here, are happy in having such an Invocation, though brief, in your book ; there is no need here to excuse its absence. In the earliest English Prayer- Book there was a special Invocation which is now omitted. But there is no trace of any such in the ancient litur- gies of Italy, whether of Milan or Rome, and no fault was charged against them in early times. But whether this Invocation be present or not, all are agreed that it is by the operation of the Holy Ghost See Appendix NN. VT I f. ; 't 'M^ I i' m 1 1 ill >W: 202 TFIK CHIT OF TMK IIOI.Y GHOST. that the Sacrament of the Holy luicharist is com- plete. Here, a<j^ain, then, just as it was by the operation of the Holy Spirit that the Incarnation took place, so by the operation of the same Spirit the Incarna- tion is continually extended to the individual mem. hers of the Church, by means of the Sacrament of the Lord's IJody and Blood, whereby their union with Christ is maintained and His Likeness in them developed. The like mUvSt be acknowledj^ed of all the means of ^race whereby the life of the Church is maintained, and the Church j^rovvs, "and the hills are covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof are like the j^oodly cedar-trees, whereby she stretches out her branches unto the sea (of the world) and her bouj^hs unto the river (of the water of Life)." Whereby also each individual member gradually ceases to be a " babe in Christ," and increases and grows up " unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Whereby the individual life gradually extends itself into the cor- po-'ate life of the whole Body of the Church, so that we, " speaking the Truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ, from Whom the whole Body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the Body unto the edifying of itself in love." * Therefore, when the ministers and stewards of * Ephesians 4 : 12, 16. THK CUT OK TIIK IIOI.V (illOST. 20}, Christ's mysteries arc ordained, consecrated, and set apart for their work, \vc say, " Receive tlie Holy (f host for the office and work of a Priest or a liishop in the Church of (Jod." Some, indeed, have raised a superficial objection to the /or>/i of words, but at tlic same time suj^^jj^ested a prayer,* " I 'our (h)wn, () Father of Lij^hts, tlie Holy Cihost on tliis Thy ser- vant," which is only a variation of /orw and not of substance. It is true that in your Ordinal, brethren, an alternative form is jj^iven in the ordination of a I'riest, but not of a Hishoj), so that there can be no valid objection to the form of words. I'Or if the form be wroni^, it cannot be rij^iit to use it once. In every branch and part of the Christian life the Holy Spirit is the Source of stren^^th and action. But His j^race is not irresistil)le ; St. l?aul knew this when he intimated that it was possible to receive the g-race of God in vain. We must know it alas ! too well in our consciences, when we feel " that it is hard to kick ai^ainst the pricks." But we must be one with Christ, in Christ ; His life must be our Life, before His work avails for us. True, " in Mis own Person, He fulfilled the Will of God. True, in His ow^n Person lie fulfilled the destiny of man. And whosoever is in I lim shares the virtue of His life." f He is the " head of every man," as the Second and last Adam. He suffered as our Representative, He is glorified as our Repre- sentative. But there is a subjective side— there must * The commissioners of Wi!liam III., in 1689. On this question see ihe admirable treatise of my friend. Canon Churton, " Defence of the English Ordinal," London, 1872. f Westcou, " Historic Faith," p. 132. 204 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. P: ■■^.li'i ■■ift; 'J ' i- I ■■I' 'Ml II ' ;i till be a likeness to Him wrou<^ht out in our cold and hard marble nature. " Even the Passion of Christ is in vain until we have part in it, until the shadow of His Aij^ony creeps over our Soul, until our old man is crucified with Him, and from tlie ashes of our dead selves there rises the new man which after Christ is created in Righteousness and true holi- ness." * By Christ are we redeemed, by the Holy Spirit are we j^radually sanctified. " The righteousness where- by here we are justified is perfect, but not inherent ; that whereby we are sanctified is inherent, but not perfect. ' ' f We must yield ourselves to the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit, that He may produce in us ** the fruit of the Spirit." But fruit implies the co-operation of tzuo. The fruit of the Spirit re- quires the co-operation of the man, the Christian man himself. That he may " have his fruit unto holiness," he must give his own earnest and diligent co-operation. " The love of God is shed abroad by the Holy Ghost, Which is given unto us," that we may work, not from fear of punishment, but from the love of righteousness ; biit the source of it all, and of the " imitation of Christ," to which it all tends, is the Holy Ghost Himself indwelling in the man. In the New Creation He gradually prepares the elect, the members of Christ in this world, by pro- gressive sanctification, for the " glorifying righteous- ness, perfect and inherent, in the world to come. ":|: Thus we draw to an end. We have been admitted * Lias, " The Atonement," p. 63. f Hooker, Sermon IL, i^ 3. I See Appendix OO. THE (;iFT OF THE IIOLV GHOST. 205 to speak of the jrlorious circle of love 1 m\ mercy, proceeding from God and rcturnin^ir to Ciod, em- bracinir the creature in its unceasinir' flow of infinite condescension. The eternal jnirpose of the Creator to unite to Himself the creature in an infiniiy of ever-growinnr and developinjr blessedness, could not be frustrated by the rebellious caprice of the crea- ture. True, the rebellion called forth a new phase of mercy to meet and overcome the wroni; done ; but the eternal purpose could not be thwarted. The intimate union of the Fncarnation took place, blessinjr the creature with infinite possibilities, and the Crem- ator not only was made flesh, but throu.jrh the Eter- nal Spirit offered Himself without S|.ot to G(.d on our behalf. Then, in order that His Presence should not be limited to one spot, and to the friendship of a few, it was expedient that He should depart as .\ran, and that flis Universal Presence should be effected by the Holy Spirit. When, therefore, jesus was j^lorified and man was reconciled to God, " bein«r by the Rij^ht Hand of God exalted, and havin<r rc"- ceived the Promise of the Father, He shed forth" His Spirit on His Church and on the several mem- bers of it. He was to apply and perfect the work which the Son had done. Me was to iruide them, not drive or force them, but to guide them, recpiiring action, williuir action, on their part, into truth of every kind. He was to woik out in them the image of the C.eator once more, in which man had been formed at the first, and prepare them to see their Saviour and their God as He is. By the c )ming of the Holy Ghost, Good Lord, deliver us. i 2o6 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY ('.HOST. i m « j f I '(ii How marvellously does the Truth open out before us as we nieditrite. The faithful Christian claims all Truth of every kind, everywhere, as part of the revelation of Him Who is the Truth. He has no fear of scientific discoveries, he kno\vs that if they are true, they must be part of God's Truth, and that if he is patient, he will know them to be so in time. For it has been well said, rather in the mind of St. Vincent of Lerins, as already quoted : "In this sense the Christian Revelation of God claims to be both final and progressive ; final, for Christians know but one Christ and do not look for another ; progressive, because Christianity claims each new truth as enrich- ing our knowledge of God and bringing out into greater clearness and distinctness some half-under- stood fragment of its own teaching." " Here, then, we must stop, conscious of utter in- efficiency in attempting to touch, as on the hem of the garment, the grandest theme for the adoring love of man to contemplate. God grant that not one word ma}'^ have been said contrary to, or at variance with, His Truth. It there has been any such may the Holy Spirit overrule it f(^r good. Where there has been error, may it be corrected ; where there is deficiency, may it be supplied. And may the good Lord pardon the presumption of His servant in attempting to handle so wondrous a mys- tery. * Aubrey Moore. See also " Science and the Failh," p. 167. APPENDIX. A. PAGE 2. Gilbertus Grimand in Liturgia Sac. par, 3 c. 17, mult-i congeiii monumenta, quibus ostendit quanta'olim esset fidelium devotio erga Evangelium In Principio. In aliquibus enim ecclesiis olim legebatur post baptismum parvulorum. post viaticum, et post Extremani I'nc- tionem (.V. Benedicti, XIV. De Sacrosancto, Missa; Sacrificio, Lib. II. cap. x.xiv., § 8). II est une autre raison qui n'a pas peu contribuO a introduire dans le rit de la messe, l'6vangile selon Saint Jean, c'est la devotion que le peuple professait pour cet 6vangile. Lorsque le pretre desccn- dait de 'autel on voyait plusieurs personnes s'approcher du sanctu- aire et prier le celebrant de lire sur elles ce magnifique dC-but de I'evangeliste ; ie pretre mettait le boutde I'ttole sur leurs tetes, et 11- sait cet evangilc. L'affluence etait quelquefois assez considerable pour qu'il ne fut pas possible de se rendre aux desirs de ces personnes pieuses d'une maniere individuelle ; alors le pretre recitait colleciive- ment I'evangile pour tous les postulants, et se tenait a Tautei {I'AbbcMiirneEncyclopedie Tluologique, ?..\. " Kvangile," p. 571). I am indebted for the above references to my kind friend Rev. Canon W. Cooke of Chester. See also Le Brun, Explication de la Messe, Paris, 1726, Tom. i., p. 6S7. APPENDIX B. PAGE 4. The Harmonia Confessionum Fidei, published at Geneva in 15S1, begins with a section " De Scriptura Sancta, ejusque intcrpretatione." The translation of the Harmony printed at Cambridge in 15S6 begins in the same way. This is because the majority of the " Confessions" begin with this article. See Corpus Confessionum, Geneva, 1654. im II 208 APPENDIX. li'l ;i: ili APPENDIX C. PAGE 11. In his very excellent lecture on " The Christian Doctrine of the Godhead" (delivered in great St. Mary's, Cambridge, England, in 1886, and published at Cambridge), Dr. Hicks argues for the Personality of God in the following manner (page 5) : " These two notions of Infinite Being and of a First Cause do not by any means complete the Theistic idea. Nay, if taken by them- selves, they would tend, as a great part of human thought has tended, rather to pantheism than to theism— to the belief in an all-pervading unconscious Deity, immanent in all things, gradually moving on tow- ard perfection, according to necessary laws ; human lives, with their sorrows and joys, their aspirations and failures, being swept along, as in the current of a mighty river, till they are merged and lost in »•" '. boundless, fathomless ocean of absolute impersonal being. " If indeed this were so, that our personal finite existent. . are to be swallowed up in an impersonal infinite existence, from which they are supposed to have sprung, two difficulties would have to be met. In the first place, conscious personal existence is confessedly a higher thing than unconscious existence, llow can this noble attribute of personality have been caused by that which is impersonal ? And in the second place, if it is true, as we believe, that there has been prog- ress in the world, that step by step, according to definite law, the lower has led up to the higher, till the highest form of life in the visi- ble universe has been reached in man, are we to believe that, after all, this law of progress is finally to be replaced by a law of degrada- tion and that all personal beings are to be lost in an abyss of absolute existence, which is not distinguishable in thought from non-existence? " Thus we come to hail with relief the further notion that the First Cause is a Personal Being, conscious, intelligent, free." i'm APPENDIX D. PAGE 13. " The truth for which they contended, which was enshrined in their sacred vviitings, was that the ' Father is God, the Son is God. and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three gods but one God.' But the Fathers do not treat this doctrine merely as a revealed mys- tery, still less as something which complicates the simple teaching of Monotheism, but as the condition of rationally holding the Unity of God. * The Unity which derives the Trinity out of its ow^n self,' says Tertullian {Adversus Praxeam, cap. iii.) ' so far from being destroyed ArPENDIX. 209 is actually supported by it.' 'We cannot otherwise think of One God,' says Hippolytus {Contm Xoenini, i xiv.), ' but by truly believing in Father, Son, and Holy (ihost.' 'The Supreme and only Ciod,' says Lactantius {/ii^'ti/ii/iones, \\ . 29) 'cannot be worshipped except through the Son. He who thinks that he worships llie Father only, in that he dors not worship the Son also, does not worship the Father.' 'Without the Son the Father is not,' says Clement of Alexandri;. (Sn-oiii.iin, V. i), ' for in that He is a Father, He is the P\itherof the Son, and the Son is the true teacher about the Ft.ther.' So Origen argues {De Priiuipiis, I. ii., g 10) : ' If God had ever existed alone in simple unity and solitary grandeur, apart from some object upon which ftom all eternity to pour forth His love. He could not have been always God. His love, His Fatherhood, His very Omnipotence would have been added in lime, and there would then have been a time when He was imperfect. The Fatherhooil of God must be coeval with His Om nipotence ; for it is through the Son that the Father is Almightv.' This was the line of argument afterward developed by St. Athanasius when he contended against the Arians that the Son was the reality or truth of the Father, without whom the Father could not exist (.h/rrr- xns Ariiuios, i., i; 20) ; and by St. Augustine when he argues that love implies one who loves and one who is loved, and love to bind them together {Df 7'riiiHa/e, viii. 10 and ix. 2). Even one so unphilo sophically minded as Iren;eus {Adzu-rsiis J/„/ysi's, IV. iv. i, 2) cannot but see in the Christian doctrine of the rehition of the Father and the Son the sotution of the difficulty about the infinity of God : ' Imnien- sus Pater in Filio mensuratus ; mensura Palris, Filius. ' " While philosophy with increasing hopelessness was asking. How can we have a real unity which shall not be a barren and dead unity, but shall include differences ? Christi.nnity, with its doctrine of (Jod, was arguing that that which was an unsolved contradiction for non- Christian thought was a necessary corollary of the Christian Faith" (Aubrey Moore in Lux Mtind', p. (_)2). APPENDIX F. PAGE 16. We must remember that the beautiful interpretation put by the Lat- in Fathers upon a very difficult saying of our HleSsed Lord is proba- bly untenable. When the Jews ask^^d Him, "Who art Thou?" (St. John S : 25), His answer has been explained by the Latin Fathers thus: "I am the beginning, which am speaking to you." 14 1: 111 I 210 APPKNUIX. Cornelius a Lapide commences his note thus : "St. AiiRiistinc, Hede often, Rupert, Hernard, and St. Ambrose lake the word ' beginning ' to be the nominative meaning. 1 am the beginning." This arises from the fact that both the words which are u?ed here in the Latin versions are neuter, priiicipium and iuiiiicnt, and ihougii the trans- lator might have intended them as accusative, others ignorant of the Greek regarded them as nominative, which gives an easier sense. The Greek Fathers, to whom surely we should look for an explana- tion of a diflicult (iieek construction, rather treat the sentence " as a sad exclamation, which is half interrogative, Why do 1 so much as speak to you ?" (Dr. VVestcott in /oc). APPENDIX F. PAGE 46 AND PAGE 61. Luthardt in note 17 to Lecture IIP cites a passage from a letter of Johann v. Muller, in 1782 : " Since I have been in Cassel I have been reading ancient authors in their chronological order, and mak- ing extracts from them when any remarkable facts struck me. I do not know why, two months ago, I took it into my head to read the New Testament, before my studiis had advanced to the age when it was written. How shall [ describe to you what I founrl therein I I had not read it for many years, and was prejudiced against it befoie I took it in hand. The light which struck Paul with blindness on his way to Damascus was not more strange, more surprising to him than it was to me when I suddenly discovered the fulfilment of all hopes, the highest perfection of philosophy, the explanation of all revolutions, the key to all the seeming contradictions of the phjsical and moral world. . . . The whole world seemed ordered for the sole purpose of furthering the religion of the Redeemer, and if this religion is not divine, I understand nothing at all" (Translation published at Edin- burgh, 1SS8, p. 354). APPENDLX G. PAGE 47. It has been pointed out (Mason's " Faiih of the Gospel," p. Si), that the preposition iiiay be translated inlo " Let Us make man iii/o Our image ;" this would imply " that> a higher potency was conferred on an already existing thing." Anj' such development of interpretation is valuable. The Scptuagint, however, translate the two prepositions " »'// Our '|i!t' \nv, Hede ;ginning ' lis arises the Latin the irans- :inl of the lense. -1 explana- ice " as a so much APPKXDIX. 21 I image, a//^r Our likeness," by the same Greek word M/ra. The Vulgate and Vclus Itala combine the two expressions under one prep- osition, "(?(/ imaginem et similitudinem." Some of the Latin fathers have sectindum, while St. Ambrose once (de ofRc'is Minis- trorum. i, xxviii.) has ad imaginem secundum similitudinem. See Sabatier in ior. As the Septuagint has only one preposition it may perhaps be open to question whether the not infrequent confusion of // and k' in Hebrew have not here caused a variation of preposition, which did not originally occur. a letter of isel I have and mak- me. I do } read the ge when it herein I I ■;t it befoie less on his o him than f all hopes, evolutions, and moral ole purpose gion is not ed at Edin- ' p. Si), that lan into Our anferred on terpretation )ns "in Our APPEXDLX H. PAGE 50. The opening paragraph of the Essay is here given : "In attempting to speak of such a mystery as the Gospel of Creation -that is, of the promise of the Incarnation which was included in the Creation of man, it is evident that we have need of watchful and reverent care lest we should strive to go beyond the limits which bound the proper field of our powers. It is necessary also that we should guard ourselves against the danger of using human language, not only (as we must do) to represent as clearly as possible our con- ceptions of the divine, but as the legitimate foundation for secondary conclusions. If, however, we do devoutly recognize that in such spec- ulations we are entering on holy ground ; if we steadily refuse to ad- mit deductions as absolute which are derived from the conditiims un- der which we apprehend the Truth made known to us ; then it is well for us to look for a time toward the loftiest heights and the deepest foundations of faith. If we essay something »vithout ' presumption and in submission to the judgment of the Church'— to borrow words spoken on the subject three hundred years ago— ' and supported by the light of the divine word give expression to our thoughts humbly to the best of our power with stammering lips, not only do we not offend God, but we do Him reverence, and not unfrequently profit the weaker members of the Church.'" We must always welcome an investigation undertaken in such a spirit by a man like Dr. Westcott. APPENDIX I. PAGE 56. Some try to raise a little dust to hide the most probable origin of the error— viz., the wrong writing of one letter, by speaking of a read- 212 AP'^F-XDIX. ■t- ing"Ipsunn." But this reading does not occur in ancient days. The only readings are simply Ipse and Ipsa. When Cornelius a Lapide speaks of Ipsum he merely wishes to point out ihat some authorities use the neuter in agreement with semen. For he cites St. Leo for ll)5um, without particular reference ; whereas all we can find is a ref- erence to semen. " Denuncians serpenti futurum semen mulieris, (///('(/ no.xii capitis elationem sua virtute contererct" (Serm. xxi. in Nat. Dom. ii., Opera Paris, 1675, Tom. i , p. 145). The statement of the Douay note, " others read //>su>n," seems to be without foundation. It is very remarkable that no reading Ipstttn is found. It is possible that a scribe seeing only .f^wt'« and wz/Z/tv as antecedents, and not knowing the Greek masculme as the authority for Ipse, and seeing that the reading could not be ipsum, may have of set purpose changed the (' into un a, to make better grammar. Dr. Pusey (" First letter to the Very Reverend J. II. Newman, D.D., London, iSCx), p. 3S2 sq.) glides a long paragraph to the question and also gives the summing up of the e.xhaustive note of Dc Rossi, the very learned Roman Catholic Orientalist, which is as follows : " To whomsoever, then, the present reading of the Vulgate belongs, whether to the interpreter or (which is more probable) to the amanuensis, it ought to be amended from the Hebrew and Greek fountain-heads, and to be referred to those passages of the Clementine Etlition which yet can and ought to be conformed to the Hebrew te,\t, and to be amended by the authority of the Church." i I i APPENDIX K. PAGE 87. It is worth while to note the effect produced on the Eastern mind by the various symptoms to which reference has been made in the text of Lecture IV., on the question of Mirth. The writer, P. C. Mozoonmar, is an Oriental, a friend of Keshub-Chunder Sen ; but the book is well worth reading though the writer is outside the Christian fold, " feeling after Christ, if haply he may find Him." He acknowledges that the fasting of our Blessed Lord was more in ac- cordance with Eastern asceticism than His feasting ; but he adds : 'While the brief day of mutual union lasted, He grudged not His disciples a few intervals of freedom and mirth. . . , Christ would not be coextensive with human nature, if He did not combine fasts and feasts in that many-sided discipline which gives perfection to the diverse faculties of man's heart (" Oriental Christ," Boston, 18SS, p. 169). i i ArrKNDix. 213 APPENDIX L. PAGE S8. In Archdeacon Wilberforce's "Doctrine of the Incarnation" there- is a loriR passage devoted to this ciucstion of our Lord's sympathy in our ignorance. Toward the end he writes : "Since it would be im- pious to suppose that our Lord had pretended an ignorance which He did not experience, we are led to the conclusion that what He partook as man was not actual ignorance, but such deficiency in the means of arriving at Truth as belongs to mankind. Without asserting th;it the man Christ Jesus was ignorant, it may be said that he was igno- rant, as man, of that which by His other nature was known to Him. His growth, then, was no delusion, but a real one ; but the advance was in those means of intercourse by which the human mind com- municates with the e.xternal w<jrld. He made trial of those channels of communication whereby the children of men are furnished wiih knowledge; He tested their uncertainty; He is able to pity those who are in like manner "compassed with infirmity" (Chapter IV.. fourth edition, 1S52, p. 84). APPENDIX M. PAGE S,). *' Chiist's tenderness was like that of the woman. His courage and strength were like those of the hero. His holiness has set the standard of all human morality and pureness of motive. His trustfulness was that of the child." (" The Oriental Christ," Mozoomdar, p. 13S.) APPENDIX N. PAGE 90. "The strong and fierce language used on occasions by Him who is fitly known as the Lamb of God is a difficulty to the mind of the ' mild Hindu' " (" Oriental Christ" p. 98). It is deeply interesting to read these words of one who has thoroughly appreciated and approved the denunciation of hypocrisy uttered by our Lord. There is very much in this book of deepest interest, showing full sympathy with the universal perfection of our Lord's character ; so much so that we feel inclined to say, as Bossuet did of Hishop Bull, " Talis cum sis, v.tinam noster esses." The following is very striking: "The testi- mony of His life and death makes heavenly realit'es tenfold more real to us. His patience and meekness in suffering are like an everlasting rock, which we may hold by when tossed in the tempest of life. His m i t '111 Ki i ; i ' ■■■ ■■ :h ml' ■ I 214 Al'I'KNDIX. poverty has sanctified the home of the poor. His love of healing fills the earth with innumerable works of benevolence and sympathy, an.i fills with womierful hope the bedside of the sick and dying. His death and resurrection call us to the mansions where He has gone to wait for us" (" Oriental Christ," p. 45). APPENDIX O. PAGE 95. There is a most excellent note on Romans 9 : 5 in the Speaker's Commentary by Archdeacon (iifford, who says: "The reference to Christ is supported by the unanimous consent of tha Anti-Nicene lathers. . . . Against this remarkable consent of Christian antifjuity there is nothing to be said of any weight. Cyril puts into the mouth of the Emperor Julian a denial of the reference to Christ only in order to atfirm the true interpretation." Yet the error of the apostate is admitted into the margin as a possible interpretation. No wonder that the New Revised Vefsion has been stigmatized as "The Atian- i/ed Version." APPENDIX P. P\GE 97. The following is a table of the comparative fulness of the Narrative of each of the four Evangelists, in various stages of the Lord's life. It is perhaps not exactly accurate to small fractions, but it affords a sufficient approximation for comparison. As St. Luke's account is the longest, it is taken as the standard : St. Luke — 100 St. Matthew = 93 St. John - 73 St. Mark = 59 making in all 325 divisions. I. Early Years of our Lord's Life till His Baptism^ .;',-. St. Matthew, 5. St. Mark, o. St. Luke, 10.5. St. John, o. II. From the Baptism until the Passover in St. John 6 : i (less than i^). St. Matthew, 38. St. Mark, 20. St. Luke, 27.5. St. John, 16.5. III. From St. John 6 : i //// Feast of Tabernacles St. John 7, (about V,i). St. Matthew, 11. St. Mark, 13. St. Luke, 4. St. John, C. IV. From Feast of Tahernaeles till Palm Sunday (about {). ArPKNDIX. 215 St. Matthew, 6. St, Mark, 3.5. St. Luke, 35. St. John, i.}.5. V. From I'alin Smtd'iy to Maundy Thursday (about i). St. Mitihew, 20.5, St. Mirk, 11.5. St. Luke. 8.5. St. John, 3. VL From Maundy Thur^lay until I'.aster Eve [x-Ji\.\wx more than |). St. Miilhevv. 10. St. >Lirk, S.5. St. Luke. (^.5. St. John, 21.5. VI L The Rosurn-ctioii (-,'„). St. Matthevv, 2.5. St. Mark, 2.5. St. Luke, 5. !^'. John, 6.5. I APPENDIX O. PAGE 100. In the lately recovered " Teach in}.,' of the Twelve Apostles" th'fe is a p.issaRe which see.ns to regard the sign of the Cross as \w\\\\<, the "Sign of the Son of Mm" spoken of in St. Matthew 24 : 30 ?s one of the signs of the clay of judgment. Speaking of the signs of the last day, "The Teaching" says; "And then shall appear the signs of the truth : first, the si,^n of stretching out in heaven ; then the sign of the voice of the trumpet ; and the third, the Resurrec- tion of the dead." The word used for stretthing out is the noun de- rived from the verb in Romans 10 : 21, which is acjuotalion from Isaiah 65 : 2 : " All day long have I stutched out my hands to a disobedient and a gainsaying people." In the F.pistle of Barnabas, said to be nearly contemporaneous with "The Teaching," the passage is ex- plained of the Cross. This seems to show that " the sign of stretch- ing out" is meant to be " the sign of the Cross," spoken of in a man- ner which would be understood by Christians and none else. APPENDIX R. PAGE 105. The passage is referred to by Archdeacon Gifford, and is to be found among the fragments of the third bjok De Republica, III., xxii., ?; 16, ed. Nobbe, Lipsiaj, TS27, p. Ii6t: "Est quidem vera lex recta ratio, naturae congruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna, qure vocet ad offi'ium jubendo, vetando a fraude deterreat, q la; tamen necjue probos fruslra jubet aut vetat, nee improbos juben io aut vetando movet. . . . Nee erit alia lex Rom:e, a'ia Athenis ; alia nunc, alia posthac ; sed et omnes gentes, et ouitii tem- pore, una lex et sempitern 1, et immutabilis conlinebit, unusque erit ccm nunis quasi magisterel Imperator omnium Deus. llle legis hujus 2l6 Ari'KNDIX. iiivcDlnr, dij-reptalor, lator ; cui (jui n«)H [)arfl)it, ipse sc fii;:ict, ac, iiatiirdMi hoiiiinis aspcrnatus hoc ipso luul maxitnas poenas, cliain si calcra supplicia, <iu:l' putanlur, tCfiifjeiil." APPENDIX S. PACir: 113. " It is deeply intereslinR to observe that the Mishna ordaiiud that on the day of killin^j the Passover, if that day was also a Friday, the daily siacrifice was to be killed half an hour after the si \t/i hour, sac- rificed after the scvi'iith ; and the Passover killed half an hour after the eighth, and sacrificed half an hour after the ///;///< hour. If tiiis may be relied on, the ciarkness from the sixth to the ninth must have utterly precluded the offering of both sacrifices. Thus did the true Continual Offering and Paschal Lamb cause the Mosaic to cease on that wondrous day, Dan. (j : 27" (Freeman, " Principles of Divine Service," Part II., p. 299, note). The reference to the Mishna is Pesiuhiiit, cap. v., ii 1. Translation by De Sola and Raphall, Lon don, 1S45, p. 107 : Ed. Surenhusius, Tom. ii., p. 150. i ill! APPKNDIX T. PAGE 113. " If we go back to the really early fathers, we find them with one voice affirming that the Last Supper was not a Paschal meal at ail, and soTfie of them complaining of the novel opinion, which introduced discrepancies into the plain and easy narrative of the Gosptls. Let us go seriatim through the primitive evidence which is collected by the anonymous Byzantine writer of the CInonicon PascJuxlc, from works of which little save the name has come down to us. " Hippolytus of Portus, near Rome, in his book against all heresies, writes as follows : ' I see the matter is one of dispulaliousness. For he [/.('., the (Juartodeciniar. of whom he is speaking] says thus : The Lord performed the passove,; on this d\y and suffered ; wherefore I also ought to do as the Lord did. But he is astray, not under- standing that when the Lord suffered He did not eat the legal pass- over. For He was the Passover that was proclaimed beforehand, and that was perfected on the appointed day.' " Again, in the fiist book of his lost treatise on the Passover. Hip- polytus says : ' Neither in the first nor in the last is it manifest that he has not spoken wrongly, because He who of old said beforehand. AI'I'KNDIX. 21 " I sliall no more eat the Passover," probably supped tlic Supper before the I'assover ; but the Passover He ate ;/('/, l)Ht suffered ; for neither was it the time of the ealin^j thereof.' "The next witness is ApoUinarius of Ilierapolis, tlie town men lioned by St. Paul in his Kpisile to the Colossians aiotiK with Laodicca. His date is usually i;iven a.d. 170 and onward. His words are : ' Some people dispute about these things, suffering a pardonable ailment, for ignorance does not reciuire accusation, but needs instruction. And they say that on the 14th the Lord ate the sheep with His disciples, and suffered on the ^reat day of unleav- ened bteail, and declare llut Matthew says as ihcy opine ; whence their opinion is both discrr pant from the law, and, accordi?)g to them, the Gospels seem to be at variance.' " Last comes Cb^ment of Alexandria, whose lanpuaije is equally plain. In his lost treatise on the Passover he says : ' In the past years the Lord used to observe the festival of and eat the Passover that was sacrificed by the Jews ; but when He had preached beini.j Himself the Passover, the Lamb of God, led as a sheep to the slaughter, He immediately taught His disciples the mystery of the type on the 13th, on which they ask him, " Where wilt Thou that we prepare the Passover for Thee to eat?" On this day, there- fore, both the sanctificalion of the unleavened bread anfi the previous preparation of the feast used to take place ; whence probalily John writes that on this day the Disciples, as undergoing previous preparation, had their feet washed by the Lord. lUit our Saviour suffered on the next day, being Himself the Passover, being sacrificed by the Jews.' *' And again : ' Consequently on the 14th, when he suffered, the chief priests and scribes, on leading Him in the morning to Pilate, did not enter into the pr.nctorium that they ;Tiight not be polluted, but might eat the Passover without hindrance in the evening.' With this exact account of the days both all the Scriptures agree and the ( lospels are in harmony. And the resurrection bears additional testimony. At any rale. He rose on the third day, which was the first day of the week of the harvest, on which it was the law that the priest should ofYer the sheaf." (" Notes and Dissertations," l)y A. H. Wratislaw, London, 1^63, p. 179.) This extract gives the earliest testimony with which Ircna-us (iv., 23). Tertullian (.Adv. Jud.xos, 10) and Justin Martyr (Dial. c. Try., Pars. II., ^ III, p. 33S) agree. In the latter part of the fourth century trustworthy tradition (on these smaller points) had died out, IP'l Hll if'!'!. ■ tifl >/'1h I I t' li :*^-l lit j;-f|iril 218 Ai'PKNDIX. and the modern popular view that our Lord did partake of the Paschal -Supper took its rise. See Freeman, '' Principles of Divine Service," Part II., Chapter II , J; 2 ; also Bishop I:^llicott, " Historical Lectures on the Life of Our Lord," Lecture VII., 3d cd., 1S62, Lomlon, p. 321. A summary of many points of the arj^ument may also be found in my book on " Fasting Communion," 2d ed., p. 341 set}. APPENDIX V. PAGE 113. " (Daniel) speaks not of a temporary suspension of sacrifices, but of the entire aboliiion of all which had been offered hitherto : the sacrifice vviih the shedding of blood and the oblation, the unbloody sacrifice wiiich was its complement. Those the Messiah was to make to cease three years and a half after that new covenant began, whether this was at first through the ministry of the Baptist or His own. It seems to me absolutely certain that our Lord's ministry lasted for some period above three years" (Pusey on Daniel, p. 174). See also the very valuable treatise, " The Evidential Value of the Holy Eucharist," by Rev. G. F. Maclear, D. D , 2d ed.. S P.C.K., Parr L, Chapter I. APPENDIX W. PAGE 114. The following volumes will be found useful in the study of the doctrine of the Atonement : ** The Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement," by H. N. Oxenham, M.A., 2tl ed , London, 18(19. This is mainly historical, and thcrtfote is valuable. "The Atonement," the Congregational Union Lectures for 1S75, by R. W. Dale, M.A., nth ed., London, iSSS. This is an * locjuent and valuable series of lectures. " The Atonement," the Hulsean Lectures for 1883-84, by Rev. J. J. Lias, NLA., 2d ed., London, 18S8. Four lectures of most con- densed matter, and very useful for those who do not desire a long treatise. The subjects of the four lectures are : L Popular '! heology and Popular Objections. II. Scripture 'leaching Ri'gardiiig Pro- pitiation. III. Theories of Propitiation in ine Christian Church. IV. The Various Aspects of Propitiation. APPENDIX. 219 APPEN'DIX X. PAGE 121. Bishop Pearson (on Creed, Article X., 10. page 364) writes : " In vain it is objected that the Scripture saith that our Saviour reconciled men to God, but nowhere tcachcth that He reconciled God to man ; for in the language of the Scripture to reconcile a man to God is in our vulgar language to reconcile God to man - that is, to cause him who before was angry and offended with him to be gracious and pro- pitious to him. As the princes of thf. Philistines spake of David. ' Wlierevvilh should he reconcile himself unto his master ? Should it not be with the heads of these men ? Wherewith shall he reconcile Saul, who is so highly offended with him ? Wherewith shall he render him gracious and favorable, but by betraying these men unto him ? ' As our Saviour adviseth, ' If thou bring thy gift before the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother— that is, reconcile thy brother to thyself, whom thou hast injured. Render him by thy submission favorable unto thee, who hath something against thee, and is offended with thee.' As the Apostle adviseth the wife thai departeih from her husband to remain unmarried or to be reconciled to her husband— that is. to appease and get the favor of her husband. In the like manner we are said to be reconciled unto God when God is reconciled, appeased, and !)ecome gracious and favorable unto us. And Christ is said to reconcile us unto God when He hath moved and obtained of God to be reconciled unto us, when He hath apneased Him and restored us unto His favor. Thus when we were enemies we were reconciled to God— that is, notwithstanding He was offended with us for our sins, we were restored unto His favor bv the death of His Son." APPENDIX Y. PAGE 139. Til his excellent work. '• Cnurch Doctrine Hible Tiuih," Mr. Sadler thus introduces his argument ((.hapter HI.) : " Tne Scripture teaching beari " -•;■ .n baptism may be siimmed up Uiiaer the five following heads : "' 1. In about twelve places in Scripture Christ or His Apostles connect salvation with Baptism. '• 2. The Christians of the Apostolic Churches are always addressed as ha.-ing b^en brought iulc a s;ate of salvation or regeneration at their baptism. 1 [v. ;' Mill 220 APrENDIX. " 3. This state of salvation or regeneration does not Insure the final salvation of those brought into it. On the contrary, the memtjers of these churches are always supposed to be in danger of falling into sin and liable to be cast away. '* 4» Those who thus fall away are always assumed to fall from grace. They are never for a moment supposed to fall into sin because God has withheld grace from them. " 5. In no case are baptized Christians called upon to become regenerate. They are called upon to repent — to turn to God — to cleanse their hands— to purify their hearts; never to become re- generate." Mr. Sadler as a lad was brought to Baptism and the Church by means of a sermon preached at Leeds, England, in 1S41, by the late Bishop Doane, of New Jersey, having been enticed by curios'ty ts see and hear an American bishop. APPENDIX Z. PAGE 140. In his treatise on Baptism Tertullian has gathered many in:t, nces of the importance attached to 7C'(i/er among the heathen as wel' as in the Scriptures. " De Baptismo," iii., Iv., v., ix. In ;he -.intn chapter he sums up all the passages where water is brought into some connection with our blessed Lord. He says : " This is the 7C'(j((r which was continually flowing down for the people from the companion Rock. For if the Rock was Christ, without doubt we see Baptism blessed by 'wdtcr in Christ. How great is the grace of loatt'i before God and His Christ for the confirmation of Baptism. Never is Christ without water ; if, as is the cas> Himself is baptized in uater ; solemnly inaugurates the first displays of His power in 7iHiter when a guest at the marriage; when He preaches He invites the thirsty to His everlasting ivafer ; when He teaches of love He approves the cup of 7i<aicy given to the poor among the works of charity ; He refreshes His strength at a well ; He walks on the water ; constantly sails by loater ; ministers waicrXo His disciples. He continues His witness to Baptism until His Passion ; when He is given over to the Cross water intervenes — the hands of Pilate are conscious of it ; when He is wounded water breaks forth — the spear of the soldier is con- scious of it " It is interesting and instructive to read the following from the work already quoted " The Oriental Christ," by P. C. Mozoomdar. The I m APPKXDIX. 221 first chapter is headed " The Bathing Chris,,' and treats of our Lord s Baptism. " Why did Jesus bathe > Water to the Oriental means perpetual blessedness. The rain which fer.iPxes is God's grace. The stream which rustles on is a running source of divine inspiration. We in India at various t.mts, have worshipped .he God of rain. The confluences of our r.yers. the mountainous solitudes where they take their rise, and the white Illimitable expanse where they mingle with ,he sea are more sacred than we can tell. There is a transcendental sense of he divme m them. Power, speed, fruitfulness, beautv, purity come from the nve r. We Hi^.dus, like our far ofTancestors.'makc offerings to the sea, the emblem of eternity. There is no pilgrimage without .mmersion in water. Bathing is ever holy. Over an<i above the niorriing bath, which renews the body, and is an invariable prelude to the daily devotions, we immerse ourselves in water a, special times Whenever an Oriental has ,o purify himself from a personal impuritv from a social contamination, from a death in the household • when- ever he has to rise from one stage of religious life to another • when- ever he requires an initiation into higher spiritual life and precept he must bathe." Page 47. ' 1 • APPENDIX AA. PAGE 141 A similar argument may be drawn from the Greek translation of Esthers : 17. The Hebrew has, " And manv people of the land became Jews ; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them." TheSepiua- gint has, " Many of the (ientiles were cinunnheu and Judai/ed for fear of the Jews." If at the time of that translation fprobablv about the middle of the second century, v..c.), there had been anv such rite as Baptism in use among the Jews, we should e.xpcct it to be included in the addition made to the Hebrew narrative. As the reference to circumcision is an addition by the translators, we must suppose that It was regarded by them as the only ceremony necessary for a man to become a Jew. Philo and Josephus, and the earliest Targum (Onkelos) are silent on the question. This will probably bring us down .0 the end of the second century a.i,. The first reference seems to be in the Targum of Jonathan : and later on in Maimonides. etc.. there is constant reference to the ceremony of Baptism. It has been argued that the Jews would not have adopted bapti^n from the Christians. This is true. But John, the son of Zacharias, )t ^t *m ^ AITKNDIX. was not a Christian ; " he that is least in the iciii};(lom of Hciveii is greuter than he." If the Jews a(h)pte(| it from John the Haplis-t, there would have been no suspicion of following the Na/arenes. Such a ceremony is common among Orientals. See AppencJi;; Z. No liuuht there were continual washings in practice among the Jews, in common life as well as in ceremonial purification. But there It no certain evidence of Haptism as a ceremony of initiation into the Jewish religion in our Lord's day. AI'PENPiX I;H. page 1.43. '■\\\ <. .tl !i..n(i, to abolish the body of sin, that it should no ilo death ; on the other, to live to the Spirit, and " And this clearly answers the question, For what reason was water joined wi he Spirit? Because there are two ends proposed in Hap- tism : on • ' longer be, 11 to bear fruit n ■ ictihcation" (St. Basil, I)e Sancto Spiritu, J; 35, Benedictine Ed., Tom. iii.,p. 29 C). Then, again, a little before he discusses the phrase, " They were baptized into Moses," in compari- son of Cliristian Baptism. " What then'.' Because they were typically baptizetl into Moses, does it follow th.it small is the grace of Baptism ? Assuredly in this way nothing else of ours would be of importance, if we depreciate the dignity of each by their types. . . . The Passion of the I,ord would not be glorious, since a ram instead of Isaac filled the tvre of the sacrifice. ... A man, then, does just this same thing in the case of Baptism who compares the reality with the shadow, and sets the things signified side by side with the types themselves, and by means of Moses and the sea attempts to tear asunder the whole dispensation of the Gospel. For what sort of ninission of sins ^ what kind of )inc-,val of life ^ what sort of spiritual grace is given by Moses? what kind of death of sin is tlieie \o be found? Why, then, do you compare baptisms, which have but the name in common, but differ as much as a dream from reality, or shadows and images from substances ?" (j5 32). " The dispensation of our God and Saviour toward man consists in a restoration from the effects of the fall and a return to intimate union with God, after the alienation causec' by disobedience" (J; 35). The controversy between St. Cypiiin and Stephen, Bishop of Rome, concerning the rebaptism of heretics, on their joining the Church, brings clearly into prominence two points in which there was full ununimitv at the time : APPENDIX. 223 I. There was aK'recmetu about the Rrace or virtue of Baptism, liaptism (si-{)arate fr.Mii Coulirrnalion) conveyed i. Remission of sins, ii. Rejfeneratioii. iii. Renewal. This is summed up in the Epistle of Firmiiian, Bishop of Ca-sarea in Cappadocia, to .St. Cyprian He complains that Stephen allows to heretics the power of conferring " Hie great and heavenly Rifts of the Church in Baptism," and these, he says, are, " they wash away the filth of the old man, they forgive the ancient sins of death, they make sons of God byheaverdy regeneration, they renew them to eternal life jjy the sanctitication of the divine laver" (Ep. l.xxv., ^; 17. Paris. 1726, p. '14S). See also Ep. Ix.x., i^' i ; Jxxiii., i; 7. 12, iS : Ixxiv., i< q, (,' ; Ixxv.^ JJ B, 14. H. There was aKrce,.,e>,c that Confirmation, or the laving on of hands, was the outward means of the communication of the Holy Spirit (St. Cyprian, Epis. Ixxii.. i; i ; Ixxxiii., ;^ (,, ,) ; jxxiv., ,^ 5. 7 ; Ixxv., .^ 12, iS). This was the basis and strong point of St. Cyprian's argument. All agree that heretics cannot convey or communicate the Holy Spirit. All agree that regeneration is given in valid Baptism. Well, then, argues St. Cyprian, How can a man who neither has nor can communicate the Holy Spirit how can such a man baptize ^ Stephen answers. It is the custom of the Church ; and herein he was right. But St. Cyprian answered, " It is in vain that some, who are conquer- ed in argument, bring ' custom ' as an answer to us, just as if custom were greater than truth, or just as if that should not be followed in spiritual matters which has been revealed for the better plan by the Holy Spirit." Stephen answered by excommunicating St. Cyprian, the African Bishops, and all who agreed with them. Sr. Cyprian justly regarded this as a very poor argument. St. Firmiiian pointed out that this was practically excommunicating himself. But Stephen was right, as the event proved, in his position, but not in his arrogant temper. The XXVI hh Article of our Church gives much the same view of Baptism : Baptism " is a sign of regeneration or new Birth, whereljy, as by an instrument, thev that recci^-e bajUi'-m rightly are grafted'into the Church : the promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adorition to be the sons of God by the 1 loly Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed, faith is confiimcd, and grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God."' 224 Al'PENDIX. : i ' li APPENDIX BB.* PAGE 151. The following passages will be sufficient to show this : Secoiu/ century, Tertullian, Df Baptisino, xix., " Easter is the most solemn time for Baptism, when also the Passion of the Lord by which we are baptized, was completed. . . . Next to that Pentecost is the most joyous time for arranging feasts." He gives reasons. luiiirt/i Ci'iilioy, A.IJ. 3S5, Siricius of Rome, writing to Himerius, Bishop of Tarragona (J; 2), forbids solemn public Baptisms to be celebrated except at Easter and Pentecost, and blames Baptism of large numbers taking place on Saints' Day ; but in peril of death at any time (Labbei Concilia, Tom. ii., col. 1018). A.D. 390, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. xl.. Opera, Paris, 1609, speaks of excuses for putting off Baptism, " I am wailing for the Epiphany. Easter is much belter. I will await Pentecost." J-'ift/i century, St. Leo, A.D. 447, Ep. xvi , Tom. i., 462, also 718. Baptism not to be celebrated publicly on the Epiphany, only at Easter aiu' ' ntecost. Sixth ceii:ury, Co. Macon, IL, A.D. 5S5, forbids Baptism at any other time except in case of necessity, complaining that at Easier "there ar -nly ' i or three to be regenerated by water and the Holy Spirit." .St. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Francorum, VHL, ix., at Christmas, this would probably include Epiphany ; Easter ; St. John's Day, I/ist. /■>., X., w., " Release the Abbess, or not a single cati chumen shall be baptized at Easter." l-'.ii^ltth century, Gregory H,, A.i). 720, Easter and Pentecost (Labbei Cone, vi., 1443 and 1453). Xiuth century, Co. Paris, VL, A.D. 829. Easter and Pentecost (Labbei Cone, vii., 1603 and 1621 ; also Co. Tribuiiense, Can. xii., A.l>. 895, Labbei, ix., 445). APPENDLX CC. PAGE 153. " The Power of the Priesthood in Absolution," by Rev. \\^ Cooke, Hon. Canon of Chester, is the most valuable treatise on this subject, though it seems impertinent to praise the work of one to whom the writer of these lectures owes so much as he does to Canon Cooke. The following passage shows the inclusive character of the Confes- sion in the service of the Holy Communion. "The Confession is, in fact, the expression of the results of that APPENDIX. 225 careful .elt ex iminati.n which the Priest was or.Iered to exhor, his par- .sh.oners to make, before they communirated on the Hody and Hlood of Christ. I hat u includes venial sins may be gathered from the re- quirement, ' that you confe^syour sins of infirmity or ignorance • ' that u ,s not confined to these is manifest from the general tone M the Exhortation, wh.ch treats of ' sins and unkindness toward God's Majesty committed ; ' sins of ' malice and hatred and wrong done to a neighbor ; sins that need deep sorrow, and confession, and amend- ment ; without which, it declares, ■ Neither the absolution of the Priest can avail, nor the receiving of this holy sacrament doth any- thing but increase damnation.' And as it stands in our present Book, the Exhortation contain, an expression which has marked ref- erence to mortal sin. The teaching of the Schoolmen is ' th-t mortal s.ns must be diligently recollected and individually detected • ' and m strict accordance with this the Church orders: ' IV/wreins.'cver y^ shall perceive yourselves to have offended, either bv will, word oi deed t;>ere to bewail your own sinfulness, and to co'nfess yourselves to Almighty God with full purpose of amendment of life ' •• I i.e Confession, therefore, being framed to en:bodv the results of such minute search and examination of conscience, and including all sms, mortal as well as venial, is suited both for those • that are -Satis- fied with a general confession,' and for those who 'do use to their further satisfying, the auricular and secret confession to the Priest ' Rubric'. Tf" h'„"':' ^'^^ '^ ^"""' ^°"^^^^'°"' P-"'^^ - 'he Rubric Then shall this general Confession be made.' It is in general terms, so as to apply to the whole body of assembled Chris tians ; yet m such wise as to admit of each individual making therein particular mention of h.s own sins and burden and grief " _ " 1 he Absolution reaches as far as the Confession, and the sentence Pardon and deliver you from all y.nir sins.' remits all the sins con- fessed, mortal as well as venial." Then^with respect to the Confession and Absolution in daily prayer Canon Cooke writes : "J"='i •• In the Second Book of King Edward VI. were placed at the begin n.ng of the Office of M ttins the general Confession and the Ib^o u- tion which preface both the Matins and Evensong of our present book. Archdeacon Freeman points out that ' these are constructed m that form which would most completely adapt them for super- sedmg, in all ordinary cases, private Confession and Abso' uion ' An examination of the Confession will show that, like the Confe«=eion m the Liturgy, it is framed with the closest regard to the old defini 15 ■•'i^r {.' .( '^f !. i ; I ( ' 226 APPENDIX. tions of mortal sin ; and that it differs in this respect from the Ancient Confessions at Prime and Compline, which were considered to refer to venial sins alone. The clauses. ' \Vc have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep, we have f( Mowed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, ' are simply the definition of .St. Thomas A(iuinas thrown into a i>rccatory form : ' Mortal sin proceeds from the aversion of man's will from G(nl by its conversion to a commu- talde good ; ' the petitions, ' Spare Thou them which confess their faults, r store Thou them tli;it are penitent,' with the final prayers for ^'race to amend, accord exactly with the definition of penitence, winch 'consists in the reconversion of the will to God, with detesta- tion of the past, and a purpose of amendment for the future.' And the Absolution which follows covers all that is included in the Con- fession." APPENDIX DD. PAGE 154- The foMowing p;\ssaj;e is (juoted by Canon Cooke from Bishop Fleetwood, Chaplain to William III. : " Bishop Fleetwood, in his ' Essay on Miracles,' thus ex- plains the passage: 'On a certain occasion, when one sick of the p dsy was brout;ht unto Ilim, He said unto the sick of the pdsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. Bu'. there were certain of the scribes sit- ting there and reasoning in their hearts. Why doth this man speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? And immedi- at- ly when Jesus perceived in Ilis spirit that they so reasoned within the.Tiselves, He said unto them. Why reason ye these things in ycur hearts? OurSiviour does not here blame them for thus reasoning with themselves ; for certainly ihey reasoned right, that none but God could forgive sins ; and it was no great matter to mistake, and think that Christ attributed such power to Himself, by pronouncing so absolutely ' that his sins were fotgiven him ; " and such a power they never knew committed to any man : He does not blame them therefore for so reasoning, but takes occasion from thence to show them TC'/iJ He 7t'as, and the pozui'r lie hid comiiiittCi/ to I/i'ii, and for what purpose ; and therefore He goes on, " Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the pa'sy, Thy sins be forgiven thee ; or to s.ny, Arise, tike up thy bed, and walk. But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forqive sins I say unto thee " (speaking then to the sick of the palsy), '' Arise, tjke up thy bed, and go thy way unto thy house. " Considtr with yourselves this matter. Ycu heard AI'I'KNDIX. 22 - uicient () refer d from cs and rhonias Is from :ommu- ;s lluir vers for iiitence, dftesta- .• And ic Con- Bisliop hus ex- k of the sy, Son, ibes sit- n ?peak immedi- d wiihin in ycur ■asoning one but ake, and ouncing a power iiie them lo show and for |er to say , Arise, Son of peaking thy way u heard Me lately tell this si- k man thnt his sins were forgiven him, ami thought immediately that I had spoken impious and blasphemous words, atlriljuling to Myself a power ()Iainly ilivine and incommuri- cable, th;it is, of forgiving sins. That God alone can forgive sins committed against Himself is certainly true ; hut if yot< think tliat /A ccv'n.ft Ciuiiiiiitiiicdt,; this /.'Ti'.r, you arc tnistakot ; for 1 assure you. that the Son of Matt, even I who speak to you, have power on earth to forgive sins, and I was exercising this good power upon this mis- er.iblc paralytic, which was, you know, the occasion t)f your inward reasoning, and concluding Me to liave blasphemed. And what think you? You see this poor creature, how impotent and weak he is before you, how altogether un.ible he is to stir and help himself : do not you believe it is as easy for God to give Me the power of forgiving sins, as it is to give Mc the power of working miraculous cures? Muy I not say as easily, "Thy sins are forgiven thee," as I can say, " Arise, take up thy I>cd, and walk " ? If I, without the ap- plication of proper means, or any manner of prescription, shall cure this man of his distemper by the bare wortl of My mouth, by saying only, " Arise, take up thy bed, and walk," will you not believe that I have also power to forgive sins, since one is full as easy as the other - Now, that you may know assuredly that I, the Son of Mau, have power on earth to forgive sin«:, you shall see that I have power tfi cure this paralytic presently- -" I say unto thee, then," thou lame ard helpless creature, " Arise, take up thy bed, and walk, and go thy way to thy house. " Whether his sins be truly forgiven him, according to My word, is what you cannot possibly discover ; but whether I have power to cure this man's disease, the effect will show immediately, and you will visibly discern. " And immediately he arose, took up his bed, and went forth before them all ; insomuch that they were all amazed, an i glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fash- ion. " Here is an act of great mercy shown to a poor miserable man ; but it is plain that Christ's design was now to show the Jews the truth of that doctrine, " That the Son of Man hath power on earth to foKi^ive sins." That was the thing the Jews stuml)!cd at, and this was the way Christ took to set them right ; the miracle was to piocure attention and belief ; the visible effect of a divine power was to con- vince them that what He said was true, although the effect (namely, the forgiveness of sins) was and must be invisil)le.' " Our Lord does not deny that God only has the absoUite power and right to forgive sins. He does not here claim to forgive sins as being God. He states simply that He, the Son of Man, Jias power on earth h "■ rsr"^'^ f i: ■ ■■ ti I, ' 1 ■ It ■ . i. ' J ? . ^ .(, 1 ^ i' i r ''' t \ lil 1 ILm^.. . . 228 AI'I'KNDIX. to fofRive sins. The word which is translated ' power ' is a clew to the mcaiiii)^'. It is not /'i>j<r;-, absolute and inlu-icnt, or ])rerogalivc' , but delet;ale(l i)ower, license, permission, granted from a higher au thorily. And this delegated power to forgive sins on earth, this license and permission to forgive sins on earth, lie claims for Him- self as the Son of Man. He explained on another occasion that //u- ->';';; of Man cast out devils and workeii miracles by the spirit of God. He said, ' The Spirit of the Lord hath anointed Me. ... He hath sent Me ... to set at liberty them that are Ijruised.' The Holy ."Spirit gave H"m, the Son of Man, power to work miracles and to for- give sins on earth." APPENDIX EE. PAGE 159. " It were an unexplained and unexainplcd metaphor that to eat His Flesh were to believe in Him ; the more so, since in that language such metaphor is only used of preying upon a person, or on one's self, or of calumniation (the metaphor is from wild beasts — e.g., When the wicked, even My foes, came upon Me to eat up My llesh, iliey stumbled and fell' [Psalms 27 ; 2] ; ' Who also eat the flesh of My people' [Micah 3:3; cf. Job 19 : 22 ; Psalms 14:4; Jeremiah It) : 25 ; 50 : 17])." A sermon by Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., "This is My Body," 1S71, pp. 21, 22. APPENDIX FF. PAGE 160. Arnold on Baruch i : 10 writes (Commentary on Apocrypha, 1753, p. *95) : The word "is improperly rendered //'<y^(z;v ,• it is asacrificial e.Kpression, and signifies /(' (^'rr. . . . The words at the institution cf the Eucharist would be as well rendered, * Offer this in remembrance ol Me.' It is likewise so used by the Jewish Hellenistic writers and by the Greek ones of the Church, 2l?, facere is also among the Latins." So too Bishop Bull (" Corruptions of the Church of Rome," Works ed., Burton, 1827, vol. ii., p. 251) : " They held the Eucharist to be a commemorative sacrifice, and so do we. This is the constant language of the ancient liturgies, ' We offer by way of commemoration, accord- ing to our Saviour's words when He ordained this holy rite, Do this in co)iimc)Horation of Me.'' " In order to help students to make up their minds on this subject, the following references to the Greek Septuagint are given ; when the same Greek word as St. Paul (i Corinthians 11 : 24,25) and St. Luke ArrKNDix. 22t; . I7?3> acrilicial tulion cf brance and by ns." Works to be a nguage accojd- Do this subject, fhen the )t. Luke (22 ; Kj) represent our Hlesscd Lord as usin^; is employed for uuriju, or ojfer : Kxndus 10 : 25 ; 29 : 3Ct, 38, 3(}, 41 ; Leviticus 4 : 20 ; <) : 7, \(), 22 14 : U), 30 ; 15 ; 15 ; \() : 15, 24 ; 17 : 4. rj ; 22 : 23. .■•4 ; 23 : !2, M : Numbers 6 : ir, 16, [7 ; 8 : 12 ; 15:3, 8, 24 ; 28 : 4, 8, 15, 24, 31 . 29 : 2 ; Deuteronomy 12 : 27 ; Joshua 22 : 23 ; Judges 13 : 16, i(> I Samuel i : 24. 1 Kings 3 : 15; 8: 64; ii; 33. This passage is remarkable. The Creek is "[)![) to Astarte." The Knglish has '' Worship; i\i Ashtoreth." The Hebrew is the Hithpalel of S/uu/uVi, to bow down or prostrate one's self ; it is the same as in Genesis 22 : 5 : "I and the lad will go yonder and xvorsliip'' and i Samuel i : 3, " This man went up yearly to vorship.'''' For the Greek To/f/r to be used for this word shows how entirely the sense of sacrificial worship had become at tachcd to the Greek rrtinir. It is used here as intransitive, followed by a dative '' offered to Astarte." 2 K' igs 5 : 17 ; 10 : 24, 25 ; 17 : 32 ; 2 Chronicles 7:7; Job 42 8 ; r*salm (>() : 15 ; Isaiah ig : 21 ; Jeremiah 33 : 18 ; Kzekiel 43 : 2? 27 ; 45 : 17, 22, 23 ; 46 : 2, 12, 13, 15. The following are instances of Trmiiv with unbloody sacrifices : Exodus 2<) : 41 ; Leviticus 2 : 7, S (II )ur), 11 ; 6 : 22 ; Numbers 15 5 (wine), C) (flour), 14 ; 28 : 21, 24 ; E/ekiel 46 : 14. In the following passages there is no Hebrew to correspond ; Numbers 15:6; 28 : 5 ; 2 Kings 10 : 2r ; Baruch i ; 10. The following are some of the many passages, where the word ~<in'iv is used of kt'i-piuj^, or celebrating the Passover. Exodus 12 : 48 ; 13 : 5 ; Numbers 9:2, 3, 4,6, 11, 12, 13, 14; Deuteronomy 16 : i ; Joshua 5 10 ; 2 Kings 23 : 21 ; 2 Chronicles 30 ; 2r, 23 ; 2 Chronicles 35 : i, 16, 17, iS 19 ; Ezra 6 : 19, 22 ; i Esdras i : 6 ; St. Matthew 26 : iS ; Hebrews 11 : 28. In St. Luke 2 : 27, " When the parents brought in the child Jesus to Jo for Him after the custom of the law," it would be far better to trinslate as is required, "to offer for Him ;" this is distinctly the meaning of the passage : it is as much a sacrificial word as that trans- lated off-r in 5 : 24, which really means (0 i^niw. Indeed, though the meaning in this connection is not > .-rtain, in St. Mark 14 : S, to translate, " She offered what she had," is simpler, and gives the grammatical force of the two aorists far better than " she /lafh done what she could." Leavinj^ Scripture, we have the following in the earliest Christian times : :'i I ^ ;»: i 230 AIM'KNDIX. St. Clement of Rome. Tp. to Corinthians, ^ 4(j, where Hishop Li>j;tuf()()t transl;it( s " wi//!.' their ofterings" without note. St. Justin Mcirtyr uses the word in this sense in three passages, and it is sadly amusing to ^ee to what straits purlis.ins are reduced in the translation. Apology I., 5i Ixv., ed. Thirlby. London, 1722, p. (/j, 1 S. Here, in ("lark's Ante-N'irene Library, the passage is rightly rendered " ojTirs." Here the verb is in the middle voire. Dialogue with Trypho, Jl 4T, ed. Thiril)y, p. 220. Here Brown i 1745 translates accurately, " The offering of fine flour was also a type of that Eucharisiical bread which our Lord Jtsus Christ lias rotiunand- ed us 10 ojft'r" (Reprint, i^-\(i, p. i/i). Hut in Clark's .\. N. Library liS()7, p. 13S) Rev. G. Reith, A. M., throws scholari-hip and, indeed, sense, to the wind, and renders " the bread of the luicharist, iIk- ct-/c- />r,jtion of wliich our Loid prescribed. " Now 'v/iich refers to I'lratl and not to Eucharist ; but this translation leads us to bclit vc that the crle- h>\Uioi! of the Eucharist is said to have been prescribed. This would be sense. But " the celebration of t/w /'/raif is pure nonsense. How can any one besirles Mr. Reith (elchmtc bread ? J)ial()gue, v- 70, ed. Thirlby, p. 290. Here Mr. Brown (reprint, 1^46, p. 151 ) is correct : "That bread which our Christ hath commanded us to ^//Iv- . . . that cup which He commanded those that celebrate the Eucharist to ry7>''." But Mr. Reith gets wilder than before (p. 187" He has '"the bread which our Christ gave us 10 i;at. . . the cr which he gave us to dkink !" Can any scholar (besides Mr. Reith) lind one passage any where in a reputable Greek author, where -unir civi mean to ea/, and also to ,irink, in the same sentence ? Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, .\.i). 251. His letter about Novatus is given in Eusebius (Imc. Hist., vi., 43, ed. Heinichen, vol. ii., p. 279), " Having olft-reJ the oblation." This meaning is continued to this day in the Greek Church. In the prothesis, when all is ready for the Liturgy, the Deacon says to the priest : " It is time to oj/rr loxha Lord," -iii7,ntH (Euchologion Mega, Venice, 1S62, p. 44). See also the rubric on p. 105, " When the priest is about to oJ^cT the Prohegiasmene." i f •f !! if ! •\ . ■f ii 1 1 .% ! : i^ 'i APPENDIX GO. PAGE 1S2. There is no doubt that in Scripture the number seven denotes per- fection or completeness. When St. Paul had written to st-zrn Al'I'I'XhIX. 251 Churclu's. his messa^'c to the whole Church was complete .-.n.l no more Llplsiles of hi.s were inspire,!. He wrote to the followin« Churches: Thessalonian. Corinthian. Roman, (iahuian, Kphesian Ihiiippian.Coiossian. Kven if the Kpistle to the flebrews he as- cribe,! to h,m. it is rather to a class of persons within the Chu,, h thai It IS written, t!i an to a Church. Simiiarly. St. John in the .Apocalypse was instructs! to write to sc-ru Churches, am! the messawe was complete. In t!,e Apocalvpse the .r, rv;, Can(!lestirl<s represent the whole Church ; an.l the seven Seals an<l the seven Trumpets and the seven Vials all signify completeness in various w.iys. Then there are seven weeivs en.ling at I'tnlecosi (Leviticus 23 : 15). seven pilla.s to the House of Wisdom (Proveths 9 : I), seven notes in tlie nuis.ca! scale, an.! seven ,lavs in the weel< The fn||owin;r is from a manuscript, in handwriting about the mid- dle of the fourteenth century, in the writer's possession, and is inter- esting in this connection : "Of the .seven i,etitions in the Lord's Prayer, it is to be remarked that by them i. The seven deadly sins are jjut to tlij,'ht. ii. The seven ^ifts of the Spirit are introduced. iii. The seven Ueatitudes are achieved, iv. The seven Rewards are bestowed. " L The first petition is, ' Il.allowed be Thy name.' That is, Thou, O Father, Who art the Father of all bv Creation art ours by special l(,ve ; Who a,t in the natural Heavens by presence and power, in the spiriiu d Heavens by grace. Of which it IS said ,n the psalm, ' Th. Heavens declare the ylory of God.' /An7o7cu;/ -that IS, may this Thy name of Father be confirmed in us, that we may ever be and l;e found Thy faithful children by obedience and filial subjection. i. Thus the deadly sin of /';/,/,■ is excluded, which refuses subjection, ii. ThcKiftof filial fear is introduced, fleeing from sin on ac- count of its offence to God, and on account of love of our Father ; for the fear of the Lord drives away sin. The first Heaiitude is obtained-viz.. Poverty of Spirit ; that is, when a man is poor, so far as tfie spirit of perversity and boasting, of which it is said in fsaiah, ' Cease ve from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for he is reputed lofty.' ( l'ti/^(i/e version.) The first reward is bestowed ^ viz., the Kingdom of Heaven, 111. IV. ^}>2 AI'l'KNDIX. N h 1 I" M "4: S'l I r ;!i f II. iii. iv. ' Hlosseil ;ir«' the pmir in si)iiil : for llii'irs is tin- Kiiii;iloni (if Heaven.' "II. 'I'lu' sfcoi'd pi-titidii is, ' Tliy Kin,i;ii(iMi conic;' llial is, I pray lliat tlu' wlmli- world may come to Thy Kingdom. i. Tims ilie deadly sin of envy is i-xcliidcd, wliich docs not dc- siie tlie uood of others, 'riie \^\{\ of trnc (iodliness is introdmed. The second Beatitude vi/., Mt-ekness, is obtained. The second reward is tiesiowed— vi/., the possession of the heavenly land ; of wliich it is said, ' Thou art my poition in the land of the livini;.' " III. The third petition is. "Thy will he done :' that is, that men inay l>e of one mind and trampiil. This prayer, ' Thy will he done,' is that men may l)e tran(iuil on earth as the an^^els are in Heaven. i. Thus is exckiiled the de.idly sin of An^;er, which prevents a man from knowinj; what the will ol Hod is. ii. Thus is intioduced the ^ift of Knowledge, which teaches us v.'hat we must do and liow we must live, ii'. Thus is obtained the third licatitude viz., mourninp. He who does not know lu)w to live rightly ought to mourn for his sins, iv. Thus is bestowed the ihinl toward- viz., eternal consolation, ' Bi( ssed are they that mourn : for they shall be (dmfoitcd.' " W . The fourth petition is, ' (live us this day our daily Bread ;* that is. I ask not merely for boddy lood, but fooil lor my soul. i. Thus is excluded the dta<)lj sin of sloth ; tliat is, distaste for the word of (iod. ii. Thus is introduced the gift of Cihostly strength. ill. Thus is ob ained the fouith Bc;alitude ; that is, hungeiing after Righteousness, iv. Thus i'. bestowed on man the fourth reward - viz., Satisfaction. ' Blesse^i are thev that hunger and thirst after lighteousness : for they shall be filled.' " V. The fifth petition is, ' Forgive us our debts as we forgive them that are indebted to us ; ' that is forgive us our debts by remit- ting them, ami by bestowing on us the gift of grace. As we forgive our debtors — ih.it is, by pardoning their debts and by giving i.iem a gift. i. Thus is excluded the deadly sin of avarice. ii. Thus is brought in the gift of counsel, whii h i<, ' Go and sell all that you have and give to the poor.' ■srt.^ "Ji^.^'-'H- AITKNDIX. 233 iii. Tluis is bestowed the lifih ncaiitu.le. whi.h is Merry in (his |)r('scnt W()il,|. iv. Thus is bcsK.wed the fifth r<-w..nl. win.h is the ..htainiriK Mu-rcy aiKl freedom in the future. ' Hlessed are the i,ur< ,- fill ; for they shall obtain mercy." "VI. The sixth petition is. ' L, ad us not into temptation ;' thai .s that we be not ovenome by temptation ,.^v . ^-xress of foo.l or ,!,ink I. I iuis IS excluded gluttony. ii. Thus is int.oduced the KJft of u^,^erslandinK^ which is against excess. iii. Tbus is obtained the sixth Heatilude, which is purity of he,,! IV. I bus ,s bestowed the sixth rewa,.|, the beatihc vision of ':..) Ilnnself. ' Hiessed are th-: |.ure in heart, for they shall s.e " VII. The seventh petition is, ' Deliver us from ev.l ; ' that is. fmn, the evil of incontinerue. i. Thus is e.\( luded luxury. ii. Thus is introduced the Rifi of wi.sdom, «ivi„K spiritual taMe aijamst the tiesh. Tor when spiritual deliKhts have be. n pi rceived. ail Mesh se( ms tasteless, iii. Thus is obtaine.J the seventh Beatitude- that is, peace. For he alone has peace at home, who. by subduin.; the 11,.,, knows how to taste h.>w ^radons the Lord is iv. The seventh reward is bes.owe.l-vi.. , .livine adopt on Kk-ssed arc the peacemakers : for they shall be ralle.I the children of God.' " API>KNI)IX nil. 1>A(;E iS6. The following passage from St. Augustine is valuable in this con- necon (Kp. ad Sixtum. CXCIV.. ^; .8. Opera, Paris. tbSS, Ton, b.. col. 720 I') : ■ " Just as no one is wise aright, understands aright, prevai, ar ^-ht m coun.sel and might, no one is devout in kuowle,lge. no one (e.os God w„h spotless fear, unless he have received the spirit of wis.b.in and umlerstanding, of coun.sel and might, of Knowld^-e ami e<.,lli. ness and the fear of God ; nor has anyCne true virtue, sincere b ve god. fearmg temperance, except by the spirit of virtue and love and temperance ; so also without the spirit of fai.h no one will believe r.ghtly. nor without the spirit of prayer will one pray profitably Not Ifl i ■ i m '■1 4 ii 234 APPENDIX. that there are so many Spirits, hut all this workelh me and the self- same Spirit, dividing to everj- one sevrally as lie will ; because the Spirit ))!()weth where He lisieih. Ikit because wc must confess that He //(■//>s i)i ow way Ih-forc iiui-.>.<ell'nii^; in another way after indwelling. Kor before He is indwelling He helps men to be faithful ; He helps them when they are faiihful by indwelling." APPENDIX II. PAGE 194. This is manifest in the controversy between St. Cyprian and Stephen of Rome. This brought out the fact that all were agreed that the Holy Spirit was ;/('/ given outside the Church. Hence heretics were admitted to the Church, if t y had been validly baptized, only with unction and laying on of hands. In mod- ern times a distinction has been made between Confirmation as a sacramental rile and the reception of converted heretics. Rut this is really only a differtnce of name. The words used are the same. Thus the Seventh Canon of the Second General Council (Constanti- nople, I., A.n. 381), speaking of certain heretics whose baptism was regarded as valid, says : " We receive them if they give written renunciation of their errors and anathematize every heresy not of the same mind as the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of God, and being sealed — that is. anointed first with holy unction on forehtad,and eyes, and nostrils, and mouth, and ears, and sealing them we fay : • The seal of the gift of the Huly Ghost.' " These are the words used at Confirmation. St. Leo the Great coniinualiy repeats that heretics cannot com- municate the Holy Spirit, though their Hipiism is valid, as the fol- lowing passage will show : ** They have received the form of H.tptism, therefore they are not to be baptized ; but they are to be joined to the Cail.olics by the imposition of hands ; the viitue of the Holy Spirit being invoked, lohich cannot be received froDi /ie> e/ics" (Kp. ii.. Opera, Paris, 1675, Tom. i., p. 411). This is quoted by Au.vilius in, the tenth century. Aga m. Tht ptism must not be outraged by repetition, only the sanctification of the Spirit is to be invoked, that ri/ujf no one reeeii'es fuvn heretics may be obtained from Catholic Hishops" (Ep. cxxix., i- 7, Tom. i.. p. 688). See also Ep. c.xxxv., ^ 2, i., p. 717. This must suffice on this head. AJ'PKXDIX. 235 APPENDIX KK. PAGE 196. _ When a particular gift or ^race of the Holv Spirit is pravcd for it IS specially named and thus limited. In Haptism we pray fo, regen- eration : "Give Thy Holy Spirit to this person. tluU h, ,„av be born again: ^ In or.lination it is "/.r the -work of a Prie-a orHishop " ihere is no such limitation in Cf)nfirmation. Didymus, the blind marvel of learning, appointed bv St. Athana- s.us as head of the Catechetical School of Ale.xandria, draws attention to the fact that, sometimes, at all events, the omission of the Article m Greek belo.c " Spirit" shows that an influence or gift is intended and not the Personal Presence of the lioly Spirit. ' The treatise of D.dymus on the Holy Spirit is preserved in a Latin translation by St. Jerome among his works (Opera, Verona-, 1735. Tom ii col 124). The same is referred to by St. Athanasius himself (Kp ad berapionem, I., ^- 4, Opera. Patavii. Tom. i.. pars 2. p. ,20). Bishop M.ddleton (on the Article, ed. Rose. 1S55. p. 127, on^St. Matthew I : i>) says the same : " The sacred Writers have clearly, and in strict conformity with the analogy of language, distinguished the tnjluaue from the rerson of the Spirit." APPENDIX LL. PAGE 200. '* The first great distinction between God's gifts to the sou! of man divides the orJnuuy from the ,:xfnwn/i„a,y gifts of grace The or- dmarygilts ol grace are those which are commonly given to each soul for us own particular edihcation. The extraordinary gifts are those which are only given at ce.tain limes and to certain persons for the general good of the Church. The ordinary gifts of grace are those which give spiritual strength and enable us to resist temptation to conquer .in. to keep our baptismal vows, and generally to lead J Chn.tian life" (Benjamin Webb. "Instructions and Devotions for Candidates tor C<)n(irmation--a very valuable little book). See aNo The Spirit ot Enthusiasm Exorcised," a sermon by George Ilicke^ D.D. (afterward a Bishop of the Nonjurors), London 16S0 APPENDIX MM. PAGE 200. There is now a strong feeling that we must return to the primitive teaching about the truth of the especial grace of Confirmation-viz., 23<5 APPENDIX. fh ■'!S? what the Archbishop of Canterbury has so well said : " No thread of language and history is more distinct than that which connects Christ's promise of the coming of the Paraclete, to be an indwelling Power in all His chosen ones, with the institute of the laying on of Hands by the Apostles" (" The Seven Gifts," p. S7). This was the primitive teaching, so that Bishop Cornelius could say of the heretic, Novaius, that having received clinical Baptism in danger of death, '' he did not receive the completion, which he should have received, accord- ing to the Canon of the Church, nor was he sealed by the Bishop, but not having received this, /low could he have received the Holy Ghost?" (Ap. Euseb., His. Ecc, VI., 43), There was only one way recognized by the Church. A little essay published in iS3o by Rev. F. W. Puller, "What is the distinctive grace of Confirmation?" (Rivingtons, London) is very valuable. It is full of leat.iing and close argument. In the Eastern Church anointing with chrism seems to have superseded the Scriptural rite of laying on of hands at an early date. In the West, too, unction has become regarded as the important part of the rite ; though some have argued that the necessary touch of the finger, in the anointing in East and West, is suthcient "laying on of hands." In the gossipy and interesting history of St. Gregory of Tours (a.I). 5S0), he only speaks of anointing in his constant reference to the reconciliation of Arians, on which Ruinart has the following note : " Gregory everywhere speaks of the reconciliation of the Arians by chrism alone ; just as now, in conferring Confirmation, hardly any mention is made of the laying on of hands, which, however, is necessary." There seems good evidence that in the English Church the laying on of hands was never dropped. In the seventh century, we find Bishop Cuthbert, in the North of England, "laying his hand on the head of each one." In the eighth centioy, Bede mentions this without qualification : " He ministered the grace of the Holy Spirit by impo- sition of hands on those who had just been regenerated in Christ" (" Life of St. Cuthbert." XXXII., ed. Giles, vol. iv., p. 30b). A manu- script service book of the Church of England, written in the eleventh century (preserved in the library of Sidney-Sussex College, Cam- bridge, G. B.), expressly directs the Bishop to lay hands on each can- didate. Two centuries after, Wiclif refers to Confirmation in a manner which implies (or has been held to imply) that laying on of hands was the practice in his day. Two hundred years later " tlie s-.fc»i:-*«*^wJii:;jiti»x,'aB Ji iia'iW.: APPENDIX, ^17 kmg s Book." in 1543, shows the sane. " The holy fathers of the primitive Church, taking occasion and founding themselves upon the sa,d acts and deeds of the Apostles. ... did use and obse.TL i hath been hitherto by succession 0/ ages coniinueJ) that all Chr stian people shoud. after their baptism, be presented to their bisho to e .ntent that by their prayers and Unposition of O.ir n.J^l If ; ■ • , vr r " '^°"fi''"^'^-" I" ^549 the first Prayer-Hook the^ h'h .y ^.T' ''"' ^'^ '^''^'^P ^^'-''^ " ^^y his hand upon the. heads, and this is continued to the present day among us. There can be little doubt that the decline of true teaching about i^v° nfr' n" r"' K"""'"'' ^'""^ '''' carelessness and lack oi activ- ty o the B.shops, This carelessness spread to the people and the result was that the sober Philip Melanchthon could call the rite ''otiocl ca.remon,a. But when he said that in primitive times Confirmation was nothing more than a catechizing of those that had been baptized as infants, he ma^ie a perfectly groundless statement. He seems' to have misunderstood a Canon of the first Council of Aries (a n 3,4) and one of Laodicea (? a.o. 320), both of which are about there ception into the Church of conveited heretics ; they were to be openlv .atech,^ed about their errors. Of the modern popular view, that Confirmation is a ratifying of baptismal vows. riL. is sor niK su(urr..:sT TRACE t„ uk roLXD in Christian Anti.-uitv • it must' therefore be erroneous. What is new is not tkuk; am, wiir TRUE IS NOT NI'.W. underTh'"" '" '"' ''' ""''"' '''"'''''' ''' ^^^« ^'^'^'^ ^° ^vriters under the various centuries. Fir.| Ccillnry. (.Acts S .-17 ; 19:6). " Ever after in the letters of the Apostles such is the frequency of verbal and phrase ological al usion to the custom, that, as a scholar once remarked to n^e Confirmation seems more present to the earliest Christian habits of thought than Baptism itself " (Archbishop Benson of Can terbury, " The Seven Gifts," 1SS5. p. 87). It has been doi.bted by some whether in the beautiful story of St John and the young robber. Confirmation is referred to ; but as Euseb.us relates the story, and as St. Clement of Ale.xandria seems to use uie word sea/ of Confirmation, and as the epithet per/ecr ^r./.-voi) is commonly used of Confirmation, there cannot be much doubt that we are not wrong in claiming the passage for Confirma- " The Bishop took the young man home. fed. disciplined, fostered him, and at length baptized him. After this he relaxed his excessive 238 Al'I'EXDIX. f •^■' i ki ■ fe£ care of hiiri, as he had Ijestowed upon him the perfect preservative, the SiwI o{ the Lord "(Eiisubius (|uoting St. Clement of Alexandiia, Eccl. Hist,, III , 23, ed. IKiniciun, 1S27, Torn, i., p, 232). A fragment referred to St. Clement of Rome probably belongs to hitn of Alexandria, but even so the reference to Confirmation is douljtful (St. Clement, ed. Lightfoot, i.. p. 220). St'<'J>IMl Ci'eillliry. " Tne woman begged of him, saying: 'Apostle of the Most High, give me the seal, that the foe may not come back upon me again. ' Then he made her come near him, and putting his luind upon Ju), he sealed her in the name of the Father, and cf the Sjn, and of tliL* Holy Ghost," Apocryphal Acts of the Ap. TItJiiias. This probably refers to Baptism and Confirrnation together, as is often the case. The Presbyterian Dr. Dale refers to this and other places as being liand-baptism without water I {('hrislir Baptism, p. 115 ; Juhannic Baptism^ pp. 221, 222). A.D. iSo. " What work has cither oinameiit or beauty, unless it be anointed and burnished? The air and all that is unJer heaven is in a certain sort anointed by light and spirit ; and are you unwilling to be anointed with the oil of God ? We are called Christians on this account, because we are anointed with the oil of God" (Theophilus of Antioch to Aulolycus, Claik's A. N. Lib., p. 62). A.D. 196. Tertullian has many passages to the point. " Not that in the water (of Baptisii;) we oLt.iin the Holy Spirit, but in the water, under the influence of the angel, we are cleansed, and thus prepared for the Holy Spirit. . . . In the next place hand is laid on U-, iiiv iking and inviting the Holy Ghost. . . . Then that most Holy Spirit gladly descends from the Father upi-m our cleansed and blessed bodies. . . . Nur is this without the supporting evidence of a fore- going type. For just as after the waters of the deluge, by which ancient inicjuity was purged away, after the baptism (so to speak) of the world, a dove was the herald which announced to the world the peace of heavenly wrath, sent forth from the ark and returning with )live so by the law of heavenly effect to earth (that is, our flesh) emerging from the font after its old sins, the dove of the Holy Spirit flies, bringing the peace of God" (De Haptismo. cap. S., Opera, ed. Oehler, i., p. 627). Ag am. The liesh is the very hinge of salvation. The flesh is shadowed by the imposition of hand, that the soul may be illumi- nated by the Spirit" (De Resur. Carnis, cap. S, ed. Oehler, ii., p. 47S). Tllird 4'oiltlll'y. Ori^en, l)')rn \.\k I'^5, died A.n. 254. " In the Acts of the Apostles, that the Holy Ghost was given in ■•Hi AI'PEXDIX. 239 B.p...m by :he lay.ng on of the Apostles' hands" (De Prinripiis, I .... ^ 2, Opera. Pans. ,733. Ten. i., p. 6,). This is often ,unted see aalt. IlereCunfirrnat.on .s regarded as par. of Baptism. So, again p ;; ^:::;:t' r '"' '"-^'"'^ '^ ""-^^-^ ^'^« ^^ ^' ■•'- : of he (,%''"• "• "■• '^^ ''"^'- "^"°^d"'« to ,he tradition oMhe Church we are all baptised in visible water and w,th visible A.D. 250 St. Cyprian is full of reference to the effect of Confuma- One^or two passages are quoted and references given toother pas- Speaking of the confirming of the Samaritans (Acts S) he s-ivs that as they had been properly baptized. '« that which w.s lacking wa^ done by Peter and John, that prayer bein, offered for them and he hand la,d on them, the Holy Spirit should be invoked and p on d upon ,hem. Wh.ch now also ,s done among us. that .hey wh re ba t..ed H, the Church are presented to those set over the Churc and by our prayer and laying on of hands receive the Holy Spin" and are /.^.,../ .vich the .../ of the Lo^d" (Kp. l..iii., , . jf ' 1720 p. 132). I I. i €.11 J-l, Again, "If they attribute the effect of P..p!ism to the Majesty of he Name. Why is not. in the nan.e of the same Chnst the and lu. 1 on the bap.,.ed that he may receive the Hulv Spiri, > ' More over, a man is not born by laying on of hands" when he receives the n 7h fi T', "''-■ '"''''' "■' ""'y ^^P'^'^' J"^^ ^*« ^vas in ,he cast of the firs Adam. For fi.st God formed him. and then brea.hed no ■ s nostnls the breath of l,fe. For the Spirit cannot be receil unless the recover first have an existence'' (Paris, .y.,, pp"';;' ^^See also Ep. Ixx.. Paris, 1726, p. 125 ; Ixxii.. Ixxii., pp. t2S, r36, St. FirmiPan in answer to St Cyprian, argues preciselv in the same manner. H,s letter is amo.g .he Ppisfes of St. Cyprian (Ep. Ixv Pans, 1726, pp. 145-47). P'-\.\v., A.D. 231. St. Cornelius of Rome, in a ri-cular letter about the heret.c Novatus. wr.tes : " He f. 11 into a gri.vnus sickness, and being thought moribund, he was bap.i.ei on the bed where h lav i"u w en he recovered he did not receive the rest whi.h he shou-d he rece.ved. according ,0 the Canon of the Church, nor was he sealed b- ' 1 If*' i i ■■ . ji t ■: 1! 'e 1:1 ^ 240 APPENDIX. ihu Hishop. But not having received this, how could he receive the Ho'y Sp'rit ?" (preservsd by Eiisebius Eccl. Hist., VI., xliii). A.D. 25r)(ibout). In an anonymous tract on the question of reb ip- tism, preserved among the works of St. Cyprian, the following pas- sages occur; but the whole treatise is valuable and worth realing, an] takes for granted thit the Holy Spirit is //c^/ given in Baptism, but in Conftrination : " Whether in some respect he halts when he is bapt'zed with the biptism of water, which is of less account, provided that afterward a sincere faitli in the truth is evidenced in the Biptism of the Sp'rit, wiiich is !iii,/i)ii'>/i'c//y of greater account ;'' i.e., Confirma- tion. " We ought only to help them with the Baptism of the Spirit — that is, by the laying on of the hand of the Bishop, and the supplying the Holy .Spirit." " By the laying of the hand of the Bishop the Holy Spirit is given to each bL'liever, as the Apostles did to the Samaritans after Philip's l^aptism, and by this means conveyed to thetn ihe Holy Spirit" (Cypriani, Opera, Paris, pp. 353-55. 3^^!. etc). F4»lirtll Ci'iiliiry. Very full evidence is to be found in this century. A.D. 305. Co Elvira, Can. xxxviii. Incases of necessity, a fiith- lul layman (who is properly baptized and not twice married) may bap'ize ; but if the man survive, he must bring him to the Bishop, that by laying on of hands he may be perfected (Canones, ed. Bruits, ii., p. 7 ; Labbei Cone, Tom. i., col. 974). A.D. 314. Co. Aries, I., Can. viii. If any one comes to the Chf.rch from heresy, they ask him his creed ; and if they find him to have been baptized in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, only let hand be laid on him, that he may receive the Holy Spirit {Bruiis, ii., io3) -See also Co. Laodicea, Can. vii., xlviii. A.D 347. St, Cyril of Jerusalem, like many others of the fathers, often includes Confirmation under Baptism ; as the Benedictine ed- itor points out. Catechesis Lect., xviii., j; 33, " You shall hear first about what is done directly before Baptism ; and then how you were cleansed from your sins by the Lord, with the washing of water by the Word : and how in priestly fashion ye are made partakers of the title of Christ ; and how the seal was given you of the Communion of the Holy Spirit ; and about the mysteries in the altar of the New Covenant" (Opera, Paris, 1720, p. 301). Catechesis Lect., xxi. " You became Christ's when you received the antitype of the Holy Spirit {i.e,, sacred oil or chrism), and all things happened to you in an image, since you are the image of Christ AITEXDIX, 241 He, Indeed, was baptized in tho river fordan • ir. .= 1 , waters ; then the descent of the oiySp ri loll T 'r'''' "" on like. To you also in like manne X \ ^'^^-''^e resting all roughness being dlsmisse7l 1 1 ''''' ''"''^ A.D. ,,70. ,.ac,a„, Mishop o, Hariio'na: ' ■""• '^ "'•'■ Might the Apostles alone bind and ioosp^ Th«„ ,. f^aptize. they alone give the Ilolv Snirirl' ^f ^" '^'^^ ^'""^ '"-ght of the Gentiles becan.r.h ^ ^ ^ ' ^^ ''°"' ^"''S^ ""•« ^'■"-'' Apostles If rri '°""''"' ''"' «"'^" ^° "^"^ l^^t See also Sermon on Haptism, Migne. col. ux,^. ^'\v'u ^'■^^^'"''' Hishop of Milan. and understanding the Smrlr f P"" '^ "f^^^-J. 'he Spirit of wisdom SP.U o, ^no„,e7g;i?f;::^irs:: .e"s;t:;'L;7er;' ■" i6 242 Ai'ri;N])i.\. m t '■ ii 't }. m. (It will be observed that these two passages cover the prayer of Confirmation, which has come down to us from his time. This is of the essence of Confirmation, j See also De Mystcriis, cap. 7, Tom. ii., col. 336 ; De Sancto Spirilu I., viii., > 1)1), Tom. ii., col. fii<;. Ambrosi.ister. In Hebrews '1 ; 3. 'W.ityii!^ I'll iij hands, by whicli it is believed tlie Holy Spirit can be received ; which after IJaptism is wont to be done by Hishops for the Confirmation of unity in tlie Church of Christ." I This is quoted by Kishop Jeremy Taylor (Works, ed. Eden, vol. v., p. 6-14) and Hingham (" Anticiuities," XII., iii.. ^ ^), by Hisliop Charles Wordsworth, of St. Andrew's (" Mending of N'ets," p. 15), and iiy Sainte-IJeuve (De Sicramentis, Paris, lOSO, p. 130) and some others. I have not been able to verify it.] The passauje is incorporated in the commentary of Primasius (.\.i'. 550J on Hebrews 6. A.D. 37(j. Si. Jerome, priest. [It has been said that toward the end of the fourth century trust- WMrthy tradition in some points was dying out. In arguing against Helvidius, the impetuous Jerome invented his argument, and, as Hishop Ligiilfoot points out, he is not consistent to liis own theory (" Galatians," 0th ed., p. 251;). In his treatise against the Luciferians he exhi!)its much youthful impetuosity, and ([uotes as Scripture a text of infinitesimal, if any authority, which he has not admitted into his own text, in order to gain a point against his adversary.] He introduces the Lucifcrian, asking, " Don't you know that this is the custom of the Churches, that on the baptized hands are afterward laid, and so the Holy Spirit is invoked?" St. Jerome answers, " I deny not that this is the custom of the Churches, that to those who have been baptized by Priests and Deacons, at a distance from larger towns, the Hishops go out to lay on hands for the invocation of the Holy Spirit." He acknowledges the custom, but, he argues, What of thcjse who die before they are Confirmed? " Percliance the eunuch must be believed to be without the Holy Spirit, because he was baptized by Philip the Deacon, of whom the Scripture says, ' They went down both of them into the water. And when they went away from the water the Holy Spirit came on the eunuch.' " [This interpolation is clearly to meet a difUculty about which there has been continual discussion ; and the safest determination arrived at is, that while Bishops are bound to do all in their power to confer \*^f* •*i»'^.jrtr.' *^m^mm n »h m^ i in fi ^ k .\i'ri:xi)ix. ^4.^ Ihe ,ra.., atvl w,;i be hcl,l responsible for culp,.blc or rarel. ^. ne« ect ; yet wc- .lo nol believe that God will pnnsl, the (.nthful for the carelessness of His Minister. The d.m.uUv w.s soo„ felt • and th ^ o.theCo.„,,.nof,.:,virau.,,.3o5).etit:.Mfad. Rector and have baptixed any in the absence of Jiishop or priest the B.shop „H,st /../,./ them by benediction ; but If the/ die fus,', c.rU m.\ I'^Jtisuh.'.i under the faith he professed."! A.I). 3S0. r)..m .sus. Ibshop of Rome, the p .tron , f St. Jerome, t ..s the Mb •eah.ne of the Apostles and their successors to «ive 'e Holy Sp,r,t. . . Not one of the seventy disciples is read t. u c «u-en the ,,ft of the IKdy ..pi.i^ by .he imposU.on of hands" (^P- v., Labbei, 11., ?,~t)), A.n 3Sr. Co. Con^ant., I.. Can. ^ii. Quoted above, p. .,, A.fK yjo. St. Chry.osto.-n has several pas.sa.es, gcnerallv rhetori- cab Here .s one. I avmg spoken of .St Paul's ,ayin, hands on tlu- E hes.ans. he .says : " IletKe is displayed a «reat do^.. tha, ,hev who are bnpt.ed are perfectly cleansed from sin. For had thev noc be n cleansed they would not have received the Spi.it, thcv wm;M not have been thought imme.iiately worthy of the KUts," Then ui,h personal application, he says : - We have received remission o" sins sanct.ficafon. parfcpation in the Spirit, adoption, life eternal What more ]. ,i,,, S^^,^,,, Hut they are done away. Vou ha.x' a,th. hope, chat.ty. which remain : seel, these, they are greater than si^ns (Horn, in Act., xl.. ^' 2, Tom. i.x., 33,;,. A.D. 3<)5- Prulentius, the beautiful Spanish poet, has continual reference ,0 the chrism traced with oil on the forehead .rivmn gomg to sleep. .. 1.5 : Arevali. Tom. i.. 30;; Apotheosis, i , ,,- P^ychomach.a. 353, ii., Gvj ; Contra Symmachum. !.. 5,.;, i,' iiVihivutUvy. A.D. 402. Innocentius I. " Rut about seal- u,,Mnfants u .s clear that it must not be done by any but a Hish- op. Tor though presbyters are priests, they have not the hi.h- pr.esthood. Hut that this should only be <ione by Hisho^s hat hey euher seal or hand on the Holy Paraclete, not onlv L u Tost^ \ r' ''''""'' '"' ^'^" ''' P'-^^-^^' - ^'- Acts of tl Apostles wh.ch says that Peter and John were directed to hand on the Holy Sp.ru to those who had been already baptised" (Labbei. ii.. [This passage is continually quoted and incorporated in the writ .ngs of Theodulf of Orleans. Alcuin, Magnus o'f Sens etc in t e eighth and ninth centuries.] ■ <-ic--. m the f'Krttif.-iir'afmtnaemmr rfMoumnm .■ s Hi i I -'44 AI'rKN'DIX. A.D. 405. St. Aiigustint'. As we should expect, there art- many rclcrciK cs in many ways to Cuiitirmatdn. " Wno now expects lliis, that they on whom hand is l.ii'I, that they may receive the Holy Gho^t, should inimedialely speak with tonj^ues ' No ; but invisibly and secretly the love o[ God is understood to be inspired in their hearts on account of the bond of peace" (I)e Hap. (.'on. Donat., III., xvi., ;; 21, Tom. ix., col. 1 16|. Tlu- same argument i^ repeated in F.p. Joh., cap. 4, Tract vi., ^ 10, Tom. iii,, pars 2, t ol. S53. See also Dc Trin., Lib. xv., ,^ J^d, Tom. viii., col. t)i)i), etc A.U. 440. St. Isidore of Pelusium. I'hillp, that converie.l the S.imarilans, was not an .\postlc, "for IV-ler and John, the Apostles, went down from Jerusalem, and con- veyed to ilicni the grace of the I loly S|)irit. . . . lie hnpii/es as a disciple, jjut liic Ajjoslies complete the grace, for to them was granted tne power to bestow so great a gift" ( Ep. i.. 450, Paris, i(>}^, p. 214). A.!). 450. Anonymous commentary on St. Matthew in St. Chrys- oslom's works, Toin. vi., p. 770, In this there is the following sinking passage ; "lie that lias not been so baptized as to be thought worthy to receive the Holy (ihost, has indeed been baptized in body, and his sins have b'.'en forgiven, but in soul he is a catechumen. For it is thus written, ' He that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of His ; ' because the Ib.'sh puts forth worse sins afterward, since he has not the Holy Spirit in him, preserving him, but the Temple of his body is empty. Afterward that Spirit fmding the house empty and swept with doctrines of faiiii, as with brooms, he enters there in sevenfold ]>ovver, and ilwells there, since words of faith, which we call l)rooms, cleanse from ignorance, but not from sins or lusts." Si. Leo I. has many passages, some of which have been given in -Appendix II., page 234. A.I). 450, Ciennadius. .Archbishop of Constantinople. " When they believe, they are baptized ; when they have been bap- tized, they submit to the laying on of hands of the Hishop, for the participation of the Spirit. . . . Watch, then ; for if you live care- lessly you may not be baptized again, and again receive the Holy Spirit by ihe laying on of hands" (preserved in (Lcumenius, in Ep, ad Hcb., Opera, Parisii=. 1631, Tom. ii., p. 355). Ni\|ll l'eilllir,V* A.I). 550. Primasius, liishop of Adrur^ietun commenting on Hebrews 13 : 25, incorporates the saying ,rn given above, " The gift of the Holy Spirit is given in Hapt: y the laying on of hands of the Hishop" (.Migne, col. 71)4). I, ' Ai'i'i:\i)i\. •^45 A.D. 590. St. Gregory the Great. " By us indeed the faithful come to IIolv fLnric,., . arc .hey b,.,,.,. „., „„ ,,,.;„„ „„ ,„ ,.1';' , '", "el^'^.TirT s.rr '':,';:;■''■'■•'■ ""- -^^ ■»'■— .fse.„. ,,„. "Just .1, in rtaplism remission of sins i< ..iven so i„ !•„ ,■ sanctiHciion „f ihe Spirit is a„„li,.,l Th„ , """ ""■' .ha. .he Holy s„iri,, Invo. | , ' b,e sinrTvT " "•""" " come. For .hen .ha. ,■„,„ le.e vv,„in«lv „„:i: ,r ';.'/" orcein- -;:■«------'■ .-::.: :::'^7 This pas.s;ige is a retnini.s.ence of Tertu'Iiin n^ i' ,• above. *^"" "'^"- tie M iptismo, (|uotcd .a;;:':,.:':;;r.xr'Kn ^r;"^ '" '"^•■- -^ A.n;.S,.. Arc„.ish„„The.,.,'„re!'oVc:,;2:r "■'"'■ above"* ;;t,. "■ ''"'"'"' '" "="'•' "'= "' -^^ '^"•l"-". as .-.ed „|;"""" «■"■"•■■•)■. A.O. ;ao. VeneralJe Bede ,,,,,, ,,^3. " Mad Philip |,een an Apcslle he could have laid his hm,l on ,h , .hey might receive .he Holy Chos, for this is .h Bishops only . . , pries.s ma no, s™, e Ue ^ iXh'^" been b. p„„d torn, on Acs 8, ed. Giles. Tom, xii,, ,,). A-iJ 7jO. Isaac, Hishop of Langres ^;d'b;3r?^:c;::-:rirr;:::;t:r--5 (Cin. Tit., .K,.. Can. .xii., Libbei. viii.. col. ^^3) .02^'^x"^-'' .^'':";"^"°'^^^hesayi„,.of Innocent .,uotH above . :. 4')2. Again, m his letter to Charlemav^ne- " When the xvhh. o are taken from the baptised, it is fi.Hn, that t^v^ tin,::;; 2^6 AI'I'KMMX. ' '-'I ^ IVilllll <'ei!llliry. In this century almost all the statements al)oul Coiilirtnalioii are liiilc more ih.iii the ripi'tilion of what ha-: heen said before. Thecdiilf of Oriean? (in St. ('rcg., Mag. Oper., I'aiis, 1705, Tom. iii.. rol. 370) writes almost in same words as Magnus, A.r'hljishop of Sens, in liis Idler to Chailemagne (Maitene lie Riiiltus, i., ds). A.D. 81J. Jes-;e, Bishop of Amiens, writes (F,p. de H.ipti«mo «jallaudi, xiii., p. 400) : " Alter this let the llishop confirm him wiiii chrisin on the forehead. Aid layin:j; on of liand it, ihen conftried. so that the Holy .Spirit, tu-ing invoked and invited hy benedicliun, may descend upon tliem." A.D. S2(> Co. Paris, VI., (luoies the Homily of St. Gregory the (Jreat. cited above. A.D. 830. Jonas, liishop of Orleans. " The Acts of the Apostles teach us that it appertains to the IJishop alone to give the Holy Cihost to the faiiiiful by the laying on of hands" (Lib. 1., De Insiiiut. Cleric, cap. 7. Ouoted by Drouvcn, De Re .Sicrainuntaria. i , p. 299). Ti'iilll 4'rilliiry. A.D. 007. Au.xilius quotes from St. Leo I. as above (.Xsseman. Codf \ Liturglcus, Tom. viii., p. 232). A.[). <))■■). Council of Pt)itier-;, Can. ii.: "That no Hishop receive or reipiire fees for absolution, nor for the gift of the Holy Spirit, unless a man make an offeiing with a willing mind" (Labbei, i.x., col. 781). A.D. i)_'4. Atto, Hlshop of \'ercell;i.', ([uotes the passage from Am- brosiastcr, as above. I'j|<'%'t'lllll i'flllliry. 'riie teaching begins to weaken. A.D. 1050. Ivo, Hishop of Chartrcs. " By the sign of the Cross those who have been b.ipti/ed receive gifts of grace by the laying on ot hands" (Sermon, Sli. Aug.. Opera, Tom. v., Appendix, col. 407). Again: "Ye have received spiritual armor against invisible foes by the laying on of hands" (Opera, 1^147, Ti)m. ii., p. 263). A.D. M57. Peter Dmiian. "In Piptism the Holy Ghost is given for pardon, in Contirtnalion for tight" (cit. Sainle-I!i.uve, De Sacramentis, p. iw'j). A.D. I(j7o. Lunfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. "They must be bapfi/ed for the remission of sins, with a view to receive the gifts of the .Spirit ; must be perfected by the laying on of hands of the Hishop" (Dupin, vol. ix., p. 12). Tu'Oltlll 4't'lilliry. A.D. 1135. Rupertus Abbas. " This is peculiar to Hishops alone, that they seal and hand on the Spirit Paraclete, which not only does the custom of the Church .. « ■ *■> J ;*j%s v'^;s(wn«*4*k«#,fe> AI'I'KXDIX. 24; show, buL also the Acts of the Apostles," (juoting Acts S and ii^ (Hittnrpius, Ron ;i', 1511, p. 52j). A.I). n.i'>. Hugh of St. \'iclor. "Since in Baptism there was given full forgiveness of ^ins, what does Confirmation give? In Baptism the Spirit is given for forgive- ness, in Conlirmation for strength. Without this a man can be saved if he does not decline it through contempt" (De Sacramcntis, cap. 22 ; Hittorpius, p. 7"M TIlirUH'illll Ccillliry. A. I) i2')4. Innocent III. " Bv the anointing of the fc^rehead the imposition of hand is be- tokened, which is also called Confirmr.tion, because by it the Holy Spirit is given for increase and strength. This none but the chief priest (that is, the Bishop 1 may give ; since we read of Aposlks only (of whom the Bishops are \icarsi that the Holy Spirit was given by the laying on of hands" (Decretal, Lib. i., 'lit. xv., cap. i ; Corpus Jur. Cas., Boehmcr, Tom. i., col. 114). A.D. 12511. Innocent I\'. " Bishops alone may seal the baptized on the forehead, because the anointing should noi be offered but by the Bishop, since the Apostles alone (whose place the Bishops fill I are read to have given the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hand, which Confirmation or anointing of the foreliead represents" (I.abbei, .\i., col. di;,). A.I). 1270. St. Thomas of .\(|uinum. Confirmation " is to be given even to those who are at the point of death, that in the resurrection they may appear peifccl" (Summa, pars 3, (1., l.x.\ii.. S). A.I). 12-^'). Durandus, Bishop of Mende. "After Baptism there follows the Spiritual seal — that is, Confirma- tion, which is when the Holy Spirit is outpoured at the invoking of the H'shop. . . . In Confirmation, the fulness of the mystery of the Chris- tian Religion is fulfilled. Tor in B.i[)iisin remission of sins is given /m' the lioly Spirit. Here, however, the Spirit Himself is invited to come, that He may vouchsafe to descend into the heaif which He has sanctified, and dwell there, and He is infused at the invocation of the Bishop," (Rationale, \'I. Ixxxiv.. ?! 1, 2, I-ugfluni, I5'"4, fo. r/17). A.D. 12S1. Archbistiup I'cckham, of Canterbury. " Many neglect Conlirmation for want of watchful advisers ; so that there are many who lack the grace of Confirmation, though grown old in evil days. To cure this disastrous ncg'ect, we ordain that none be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood that has not been Conlirnied, except at point of death, unless he have tm' *.*'•% .fUh r;yiw r W 'f, ." f ! 1 248 AITKXDIX. a reasonable inipe(llment"|(Conslitutions, Johnson's Canons | A.C.L. ] ii., 277; I.abbei, xi., 1160). This Constitution is the origin of the rubric after the Confirmation Service. F4»lirlciMllll €oiiliiry. A.D, 1310. William of Paris. " When prayer has itecn offered over those who are to be confirmed, the Sign of the Cross is traced with chrism on their foreheads and hands being laid upon their heads, it is said, ' Peace be with you.' since at the laying on of the hands of the Apostles the Holy Spirit was wont to be given, and He is given now at the laying on of hands of the Hishops" (Lib. de Sacramenlis. Ouotcd in the notes on St. Gregory's Sacramentary, Opera, Tom. iii., pt. i, col. 351J, Paris, 1705). A.D. 1330. James of Vilerbo, Arciiliishop of Naples. Confirmation " was partly instituted by the Apostles, so far as the laying on of hands is concerned ; partly by the Church, so far as the unction of chrism, which we do not read the Apostles used" (Hist. Occidentalis, cap. 37. (Juoted in notes on .St. Gregory, as above). Firiooillll ('onlliry. A.D. 1422. Bishop Lyndcwode (Pro- vinciale, O.xford, 1679, p. 34) calls Confirmation "a S icrament of necessity, and, therefore, that which may not be contemm-d." A.D. 1450. Dionysius Carthiisianus. " When the .Apostles which were at lerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God. Philip sent them word, asking that some of them might come to Samaria to lay hands on those who hail been baptized, that by the visible sign tliey might receive the Holy Ghost. For to liy hands on the b.ipti/.ed was the olh :e of the Apostles, as it is now of Hishops, who are their successors" (in Acta Apost., viii., Paris, 1=152, fo. 76, fi). A.D. 140?. John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's. [Founder of St. Paul's School, the first school founded in England ti) tt'dc/i (/leri- ; he was once nearly burned by Henry \'HI., for his reforming tendencies.] " Confirmation is the Sacrament of the giving of the Spirit, traced back to and established at the lime when one was sent i)y the Apostles to convey to those who had alrcaiiy been bapii/ed at S.iniaiiathe Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands : otherwise they would not have been reckoned as belonging to the Church" (De Sarramenlis EccIesi:o, ^9, ed. I.upton, \>()7, p. i)2). " It is to be observed that Dionysius sptaks of Confirmation in _WM*»&i:Sw.io#^j^^.^^ ,,,_^ ,^^, ,,,,.,., >^.fi*3ter? AirKXDlX. 249 to be one and the saZ Wr '^. "' '' '' '°^ '' ^"^ '^"P'-"^ ^ix,o..HlMVun,n.. The Refon.ation upheaval, L'ueen Klizabeth was confirmed hv \r,'-M • u'" '/- days o,d ; i.:dwa.d .he s,.H ii^vi^t;:;: ^^ -^3: -- •^- though, thank God the Ca nna. :"'"'' ^"«'"" ^-'^^-' l^ut slight variation " ^''^■^■'' ""'' ^"" retained with SeeC.eorge\Vit/eI,,533),MethodusConcordir viii • P ucuius Rerum Kxpetendanun. r.ondon. ,0,,. ;p":' :'; '7,V ^•;^- Regia, London, i6,jo, App. p-,o ^ ' ■' ''P> ?• / ^ .>. and his \ la l.rm and ,.erfe,:t ,hat »l,icl, the .;ra. ■ „f ,h! J'' '""' """"■ l-irnn in Ba,ni,„.- „:,:cl. Poli;. Uk.;' .tiTr ''"'"' ""' ""^-"- I'ishop of Orleans. *• ' ''''''■ ^-'"-i^'' Albaspi„;n-s, the gift of the Ho^- ;;::;;. ^-" -"'-'^^ -d gifed wi.h Lovanii. ,;.;„ Tom. i . '^,;' ^' ' "' '•^'""' >-■ ^•■-'- '•'-•.. -■'eein^Fr .^^"^'■^' /^^^^-'^^V ^^ i'resby.erians (Scotland,. fai-eth^:: t^: :::r^^,::::;— ^; i'npositionof >-- ^^y -^^^o,. [Th (Acts of Ge n. Ass A.I) IS IS a new departure] i() 4'). IJishop Hall, of X, also Hamon L'Est ranije. S'M 402, etc embly, p. 20). Twich. Work, Oxford, i> iance." A.C.L., Oxford, All I ■>-!( P- 441. i''. pp. \fter the great rebellion the Hish. on Confirmat ion. I>s* \'isitat!oii Art'cl es al 1 ri s 1 i. t A. I). 1(1-^6. Hishop I' I'itflileeiiili CVIK and Man. •arson, I.ect, "n A.l). i" A( ta Ai)nst. VIII. /D Hisho[) Wil The effect and blessing of C onfirmation is to mabie blessing of the Holy Spirit of (iod by son, of Sudor convey the inesti prayer and the imposit ion i^i . 1 1 If * 250 Al'l'KXDIX. of han;Is of G')d's mini?lci, tliru He may dwell in yoii. . . . Confirma- tion is the perfection of Baptism. Tlie Holy Cthost descends invisi- bly upon such as are rigluly prepared to receive such a bhssing, as at the first Me came invjvibly upon tlvse that had been baptixed. Uy the imposition of the hands of God's minister, God lakes, as it were, possession of you as His own peculiar rreaturr ; He saiictifit-s and consecrates you again to Himself." 'Sacra Privata, Oxford, p. 109.) A. f"). 17I''. Archbishop Wake, of ''aiueibury. " Does the liishop give the Holy Ghost by the imposition of his hands in Confirmation ? " Tiiat we do not say, nor did tlic Apr-siles ihcin^ielves do it. They laid on their hands, and G jd gave the Holy Spirit to ihose on whom they laid them. And we piously presume that by the ftrvent prayeis of the Hishop, and the Church, those on whom he n'>\v lays his hands shall also receive the Huly Ghost, if they do but pre[>are themselves for it" (on Church Catech'sm, 6th v.],, i~i'>J, p. i;^). Xiiii'loeiilli Coiiliiry A.I). 1 Hishop RavL'nsrroft, of Xonh Carolina, has an excellent sermon on Confirmatiun (Works, vol. P- -4';: New York, iS />). The view of the present Archbishop of Catiterbury has been al- ready given more than once; see p. M'). As a view of the Greek Church, to a certain e\tent, the following short extract is given : " ISoth these mysteries ( Baptism and Confir- mation) complete one perfect whole, and having been j )ined, as now, are fulfdled in the Church before the Liturgy. /-V/// <irt' iJu' door \x\\,o the Church of Christ and the Kingdom of Cv:>i\, and, in consetiuence, th potos, Athens, 1869, p. 251)). See also Mason's " Failh of the (/O'iiel," published by Messrs. e commencement of the other mysteries" 1 Ltitourgikr, by 1\ Rhom- Pott \ Cc chap. IX. 10. ri. In certain .\riicles on Grace and Freewill, issued in the fifth century, it is said : '' Let us have respect to the mysteries of priestly prayers, which have been handed down by the Apo?tlcs in the whole world, and are offered uniformly in every Catholic Church, so that the laiv of prjycr ddcrmiiiiS the law cf l>iiic/" — ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi (Labbei, ii., loiA). St. Augustine has nearly the same idea : " Would that the slow of heart would so hear, that they woi.' 1 the more heed their prayers, which the Church always had, and always will have, from the begin- mmmm'jHf ^^ fmmmmmmf im^ t^mxTemi^ AI'I'ENDIX. ■ 251 ning till this world be (Inished I" (De Bon. Per, ^' 23) - ut m.^ris in tuerentiir orationes suas. ^ ^ ^^ '" In accordance with this we must turn to the special IVayer o' Con firmat.on an.l see what we pray for. It is L for any parti a. la r' grace. .. for .race to keep our bapu.s.n.l vows. ,.. fo' anyt n" but or ,he Holy Spirit Himself in His sevenfold fulness ' "' Ahnighty and ever-living God. who hast vouchsafed to regenerate these I hy servants by Water and the Holy Ghost, and hast gfv" othem forgn-^ness of all their sins ; Strengthen them, we b e ,' thee, O Lor,l. w,th the Holy Ghost the Comforter, and .iailv increa e stand ng. the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength; the spirit of nowledge and true goJI.noss ; and lill them. O Lo'nl, wi.h t f sir of Ihy holy fear, now and forever. .h„e„ ^ / J'i7s?T /'' ''^'^" ""■^'■'^^ '" '^'^ Western Church from /vAw M. t.on .s that .mmute :n eos" is rather paraphrased ' strengthen them In the Eastern Church the prayer ha. the same >hou,hts expressed at much greater length, as is their custom. Hut wherever the Chur -sts .n the mtegrity of her ministry, the ConHrmation p yer " ta.ns (,.) a thanksgiving for regeneration and forgiven// ;0 ,7 .■ ,-.«Av/. and (ii.) a prayer fur the Holy Spirit ' aborthe"'!; ''''''"'■, "''^'' ''''"''' --^g-'^te modern mistakes ^0 ^deprr,::^' ^'"' ''''-' -'"' ''-' °^ ^"-'^-"-'°" '^ -ch APPENDIX XX. PAGE 2or. On the (luestir)n of the Inv ocationof the Holy Spirit in 'he Con.c mg ;i:l^'' ""' '"'"^'^'- ^^^^■^"- -'^ '^ --'e to the foll.w. Le Hrun E.xplication de la Messe, Pa.is, ,72^ Tom iii ^ .,. and S "T"" "^"" ''■'" "f '*'^ -^^-^"'^ Hougeant.'p.r'i.; ■,:.:• ol cL UC ''• '^'7- '''^''''' '' ' — t'sentiment ur'-la lorme de la Consecration, Paris i- — Bishop Hrett (the Non-juror',, "a Collection of ,he Principal I-'ti.rg'e.s. eu- . London, i;.., Dissertation ,^ p ,-.. ^ ' ^^S,r William Palmer, o.gines Liturgic,.., u,. n./p. ,,,,.,., ,,h ■■«'*»;# .-^ ***WPil«KK.«ltj»k 2^2 AI'I'ENDIX, Freeman. '' I'finciples of Divine Service, " pt. 2, chap, i., ^ ii, p. ]>)('■ I'hi* most complete appeal for the revival of the Invocation is " i'rimitive Consecration of the Eiicharistic Oblation," by Rev. K. S. I'fmilkts, London, 1S85. A1'IM;\1)IX 00. P.VGE 2U4. It will he olijcctcd that only a small part of the work of the Holy Spirit has here been treated of. This is (juite true. The Mission of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is intermediate between the Advent of the Son in His Incarnation to redeem the world, and His second .•\dvent to judge and condemn. It is the worlc of the Holy Spirit to complete the first, and to prepare for the second. It has been (rightly (jr wrongly) thought that it is beyond the scope of these lectures to do more than refer thus to the work of preparation for the judgment. I'or after all, the chief part of the work of preparation is the com- pletion of the previous work of the Incarnate Son. *>'-!*i^h'.^/fsi^S!Lj^:1\ ».v ... ■> ,> ir, ition is V. !•:. S. ; Holy sion of Advent second pirit to rightly 3 to do tment. '.'om-