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THE INCARNATION OF THE 
 SON OF GOD 
 
 BEINi ; 
 
 THE BAMPTON LECTURES 
 FOR THE YEAR 1891 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES "&ORE, M.A. 
 
 Principe of Pusey Hboss; Fellow of Trinity 
 College, Oxford 
 
 Tu ad ft'i*r~iT[frYfm tu({tftur£<i hoimncm non 
 
 /&..■. . "--^ 
 
 | $ 9/19/93 :• ■ 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 [891 
 
 [All right* restt 
 
COPYRIGHT, 189I, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
EXTRACT 
 FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 REV. JOHN BAMPTON, 
 
 CANON OF BALISBUEY. 
 
 "I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the 
 
 « Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of < txford 
 u for ever, to have and t<» hold nil and Bingular the Baid Lands or 
 •■ Estates upon trust, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter 
 "mentioned; thai 1 will and appoinl that the Vice- 
 
 •• Chancellor <>t' the University <>( ( Oxford for the time being Bhall 
 M take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and 
 "(after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made) 
 "that he pay all the remainder <<• the endowment of eight 
 -Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the 
 1 University, and to be performed in the manner following : 
 
 •• I direct ami appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in 1 
 "Term, a Lecturer may be yearly chosen by the Heads of Col- 
 es only, ami by qo others, in tin' mom adjoining t«> the 
 •• Printing-House, between tin- hours "f ten in the morning and 
 -two in the afternoon, t<> preach eight Divinity Lecture 
 
 - mons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between 
 -tli'' commencement <>f the last month in Lent Term, and the 
 I of tin- third week in Act Term. 
 
 "Also I direct and appoint, that tin- eight Divinity Lecture 
 M S mons shall be preached upon either of the following 
 
vi REV. JOHN BAMPTON'S WILL. 
 
 " Subjects — to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and 
 " to confute all heretics and schismatics — upon the divine 
 " authority of the holy Scriptures — upon the authority of the 
 " writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and practice 
 " of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord and 
 " Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost — 
 " upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in 
 " the Apostles' and Nicene Creed. 
 
 " Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity. Lec- 
 " ture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months after 
 " they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the Chan- 
 " cellor of the University, and one copy to the head of every 
 " College, and one copy to the mayor of the city of Oxford, and 
 "one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library; and the 
 " expense of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of 
 " the Land or Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture 
 " Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not be paid, nor be entitled 
 " to the revenue, before they are printed. 
 
 " Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified 
 " to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken 
 " the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Uni- 
 " versities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the same person 
 " shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice." 
 
 : 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Bampton Lectures are addressed necessarily, at 
 Least in modern Oxford, to a general rather than to a 
 dally theological audience. It La natural there- 
 fore to endeavour to keep within limits the discussion 
 of points of technical theology. 
 
 Thus in the present volume of lectures — which 
 are printed as they were delivered, with not more 
 than verbal changes and occasional expansions — I 
 aim at presenting the Bubject of the Incarnation rather 
 to the general reader than to the professed theologi- 
 cal student; and I hope to have the opportunity of 
 preparing another volume which shall appeal to a 
 more strictly theological public, and deal with some 
 subjects which are necessarily alluded to rather than 
 
 discussed in these pages, Bucfc for example aa — 
 
 (1) The conception entertained in early Greek 
 theology of the supernatural in its relation to nature 
 
 I see pp. 11-17 ami notes ). 
 
 (2) The relation of Ebionism ami Gnosticism t«> 
 
 the theology of the New Testament and of the 2nd 
 century ( pp. 91 96 and not, 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 (3) The conception of the Incarnation at different 
 epochs, patristic (p. 177 and note), early mediaeval 
 (pp. 177-9), later scholastic (pp. 164-5). This is 
 said, however, only to explain what would otherwise 
 appear to be the deficiency in the annotation to these 
 lectures, not in any way to depreciate the criticism of 
 theological experts on anything that is contained in 
 them. 
 
 It is my hope that these lectures express through- 
 out the same intellectual principle: — the principle 
 namely that all right theor}^ emerges out of experi- 
 ence, and is the analysis of experience : that the 
 right method of philosophy is not a priori, abstract, 
 or external, but is based in each department of 
 inquiry upon a profound and sympathetic study of 
 the facts. 
 
 As Christians of course we desire that the moral 
 and spiritual facts, with which our religious life is 
 bound up, should be appreciated as from within, 
 before they are criticised ; and should be allowed fair 
 opportunity to tell their own tale, and justify their 
 claims at the bar of reason by their power to inter- 
 pret and deal with experience as a whole. But it is 
 not only in the case of critics of Christianity that 
 we have occasion to deprecate the abstract, external, 
 a priori method. Within the area of Christianity 
 this false method is frequently intruding itself. 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 Thus In current discussions as to the nature of 
 religious authority it is remarkable how seldom the 
 appeal is made to the actual method of our Lord, 
 and how small is the force allowed to indisputable 
 tacts of Church history in limiting and conditioning 
 abstract general statements. And in the highest 
 subject of all, the doctrine of the being of God, 
 abstract statements of the divine attributes — infinity, 
 omnipotence, immutability — frequently takes the 
 place of a careful estimate of what God has actually 
 manifested of Himself in nature and conscience and 
 Christ. The religion of the Incarnation is pre-emi- 
 nently a religion of experience and fact. We know 
 what God has revealed of Himself in the order of the 
 world, in the conscience of men in general, by the 
 inspired wisdom of His prophets, and in the person of 
 Jesus Christ ; and the best theology is that which is 
 moulded, as simply and as closely as may be, upon 
 what has actually been disclosed. 
 
 I am at a loss in expressing 1113- obligation to others 
 in the preparation of these lectures: in part because 
 it is indirect: in part because it is obligation to so 
 many persons. My indirect obligations to many 
 writers will be apparent; not least to the writers of 
 Essays i, ii, v, vi, in Lux Mundi. I have contracted 
 obligations to many persons, because the common 
 enemy, the influenza, made it necessary for me to 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 prepare these lectures for press at a distance from 
 libraries and thus made me dependent upon much 
 external assistance, which I can only gratefully 
 acknowledge. 
 
 Wimbledon, 
 St. Bartholomew's Day, 1891. 
 
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 WHAT CHUISTIAXITY IS. 
 
 Christianity la absolute faith in a certain Person, Jesus Christ . 
 
 I. it loses its character vrhere the relationship to a Person is 
 obscured : as by — 
 
 (1) false eeclesiasticism .... 
 Eaggerated devotion to Mary 
 
 (3) protestant subjectivism .... 
 
 (4) untheological philanthropy . 
 (."») academic intellectualism 
 
 Summary account of Christianity by St. Paul, sec. 
 
 II. < hnstiauity distinguished from other religions by the posi 
 tion which the Person of Jesns holds in it — 
 
 (1) from Mohammedanism: position of Mohammed 
 
 in Islam 
 
 (2) from Buddhism : position of Gautama In 
 
 Buddhism 
 
 III. The position assigned to Jesus Chrlsl accounted foi by His 
 Personality and claim as d e s cr ibed In the Synoptic 
 
 ( lospels 
 
 The dilemma: " ant Dens ant homo non bonus " 
 
 iv. Christianity is faith in Jesus Christ, incarnate God . 
 These lectures are 
 
 (1 ) a vindication of the rationality of this faith 
 c_') an exposition of its meaning or content 
 
 v. These lectures will involve theological, or metaphysical, 
 propositioni 
 
 \i 
 
 q 
 
 3-4 
 
 1 B 
 
 B 
 
 7 
 
 : 3 
 
 S 111 
 
 10 
 
 IT 
 
 17 
 
 18 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 19 
 
 19 
 
 •LI 
 
 I 
 
Xii SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Such propositions are — 
 
 (1) the necessary result of any attempt to give a 
 
 rational account of the Christian's relation to 
 Jesus Christ 23-25 
 
 (2) the inevitable background of " the Gospel " . 25-26 
 
 (3) involved in the claim of moral lordship made 
 
 for Christ 26-28 
 
 (4) established dogmas to which the Christian 
 
 Church is committed 28-29 
 
 The effect of these considerations on our inquiry . . 29-31 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 CHRIST SUPERNATURAL YET NATURAL. 
 
 Christ a supernatural person. Is He in harmony with nature, 
 
 which is admitted to be a work and word of God ? . 32-33 
 I. Reasons for interpreting nature spiritually, not material- 
 istically : these grounds assumed 34-36 
 
 II. Nature a progressive revelation of God culminating in 
 
 Christ 36-37 
 
 The order of nature incomplete without Him, because of 
 its inadequate disclosure of the moral character of 
 
 God 37-38 
 
 Christ is thus ' ' supernatural " from the point of view of an 
 incomplete nature, as moral nature is " supernatural " 
 from the point of view of what is merely physical . 39 
 
 III. Christ not only the consummation of nature, but also its 
 
 restoration, in view of the ravages of sin ... 40 
 The sense of sin, and the accompanying moral desire, the 
 
 condition for recognizing the naturalness of the Christ. 40-41 
 The possibility of losing moral sensibility, and the condi- 
 tions of its vigorous action 41-44 
 
 IV. Answer to objection (1). The unity of nature and grace 
 
 recognized in the best theology — 
 
 in New Testament 45 
 
 in Fathers 46-48 
 
 V. Answer to objection (2). Miracles not a violation of 
 nature, hut vindications of its true, divine, order; when 
 that had been obscured by sin 48-51 
 
synopsis OF COH i i:n PS. xiii 
 
 Probable and improbable miracles 
 
 Miracles in the case <>f Chrial the natural phenomena <>( 
 His unexampled nature, ai nature on each new level 
 exhibits new phenomena [ 
 
 VI. Answer to objection (3). Christ, as son of Qod Incarnate. 
 
 nece ssari ly unique: but also He originates anew type . 
 
 Summary 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 THE 8UPERNATURAL CHRIST HISTORICAL, 
 
 I. The conditions for accepting the Christian evidences . . BO 00 
 Undue subjectiveness in estimate of evidence 
 < bristian conviction rests on (1) faith, (2) evidence . 
 
 II. Historical grounds (A). Tk>. witness of St. Paul's central 
 
 Epistles I 
 
 They witness to points agreed upon between St Pan! and 
 the Judaism • . 
 
 III. Historical Grounds (B). I7k< fundarm ntal Qospi l,as reprs- 
 
 sented in St Mark • 
 
 (1 ) its trustworthiness 
 
 (2) it represents the teaching of Peter . . . 70-72 
 The Chri-t it presents, the Chrial of the Apostles' Creed . 72 73 
 
 IV. Historical Grounds (C). 8t. Luke's preface . . . 73-74 
 
 v. Historical Grounds (D). 8t.Joh I . . . .74-78 
 
 The term " Logos '* 75-76 
 
 St. John witness 76-77 
 
 • i-ially iii the discourses 77 78 
 
 his witness to out Lord's assertions of His own i>rr- 
 
 tence 78 
 
 corroborated by St. Paul and the Synoptists . ■ . 1 
 
 Bummary 
 
 VI. The trustworthy <li:ir:ictfr of tlif :i|><>-t<»lic witnesses . 
 
 vn rhe historical louroes <>f the narratives of 1 1 *. ■ Virgin-birth . 
 Insion 
 
XIV 
 
 SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE CHRIST OF DOGMA THE CHRIST OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The dogmatic definitions of the Church 88 
 
 I. Their substance : and the views taken of them . . 88-89 
 
 (1) the ancient and Anglican 
 
 (2) the ultramontane 
 
 (3) the neologistic 89-91 
 
 II. The first Christians really possessed a theology, and a 
 
 " rule of faith " 91-93 
 
 The process which connected this faith of the first Chris- 
 tians with the faith of the Fathers of the Councils . 93-95 
 Intellectual interest of this process two-fold — 
 
 (1) a corporate consciousness taking shape . . 95-96 
 
 (2) the via media emerging 96-97 
 
 III. The dogmatic decisions more exactly considered — 
 
 (1) against Arius 98-101 
 
 (2) against Apollinarius 1G1-102 
 
 (3) against Nestorius 102-104 
 
 (4) against Eutyches 104 
 
 Summary in " Athanasian Creed " 104-105 
 
 IV. These decisions protect, without addition, the faith of 
 
 the apostles 105 
 
 Development within the New Testament .... 105-106 
 The final language of the apostles justifies and renders 
 
 necessary the conciliar decisions 106-108 
 
 What the Church borrowed from Greek philosophy was 
 
 not the substance of her creed, but the terminology . 108-111 
 
 Further reservation in regard to personality . . . Ill 
 V. Permanence of Catholic dogmas. Their value because 
 
 ancient 111-113 
 
 Nothing in them which renders them liable to be super- 
 annuated 113-114 
 
 But not strictly " adequate " to the truths they express . 115 
 
 VI. The functions of these dogmatic decisions limited . . 116 
 
 (1) they are negative, rather than positive; guides 
 
 to the Gospels not substitutes for them . 116-117 
 
 misuse of dogma in scholastic method . . 117-118 
 
 (2) they were justified only by necessity: the 
 
 fewer necessary, the better for the Church . 118-120 
 
BTKOPSIS OF CONTENTS, xv 
 
 (3) the appeal of the Chord) not to logic; but its 
 
 Implied logic deeper than thai <>f the beretioi 120 
 
 Limits to the power of logic in apprehending the self- 
 
 saentice ol the Incarnation 121-122 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 GOD REVEALED IX CHRIST. 
 
 Christ the manifestation of the Father 123 
 
 1. The bearing npon this truth — 
 
 (l) of the Nicene dogma li'i 128 
 
 (•_') of Mansels apologetics 125-127 
 
 II. The Bnbstance of the revelation of God in Christ — 
 
 (1) His personality pj; u.i 
 
 ('_') His love 129-130 
 
 This revelation bound up with Christ's Godhead and 
 
 Resurrection l.,n i .._• 
 
 (3) His justice and truth 1. 
 
 The possibility of eternal sin i:;.-» 
 
 III. God works in accordance with law in spiritual matters . 1 
 
 as in Christ, so in the Church 138 
 
 so in the Old Testament 130-140 
 
 so in Nature 1 1<> 
 
 God's very Being involves law 140-142 
 
 IV. Cod's trinne Being disclosed in Christ .... 142 144 
 The dogma of the Trinity based on experience . . . 144-145 
 
 In what sense it is rational 145 II s - 
 
 The harmony of pantheism ami deism . . . .14 
 V. The results of belief in God — 
 
 (1) worship l. r »<> 102 
 
 (2) confidence L52 153 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 MAN REVEALED IN CHRIST, 
 
 Christ the rerelation of manhood 154 
 
 I. The truth safe-guarded in dogma, bat nom ot i m oi ob- 
 
 ■eared In tad 154 156 
 
 of this 156 157 
 
XVI 
 
 SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 II. The pictures of Christ's human condition as given in the 
 
 New Testament 157-159 
 
 Limitation of knowledge 160-163 
 
 III. Fidelity to the Gospel narrative causes us to part com- 
 
 pany, in part, with — 
 
 (1) later scholastic dogmatists (De Lugo) . . 163-166 
 
 (2) recent asserters of our Lord's fallibility and 
 
 peccability 166-167 
 
 IV. The double life of infallible authority and of human lim- 
 
 itation finds analogy in the prophets (Jeremiah) . 167-168 
 It is harmonized by considering — 
 
 (1) the motive of the Incarnation .... 169-170 
 
 (2) its method, as conceived by St. Paul . . . 170-171 
 This " self-emptying " no dishonouring of God . . . 171-173 
 In part intelligible 173-175 
 
 V. Summary 176-177 
 
 Patristic supports : patristic and mediseval repudiation . 177-178 
 
 Question not fully faced in ancient days .... 179 
 
 VI. Christ the Son of man. His humanity unlike ours, be- 
 cause — 
 
 (1) sinless and perfectly free 179-181 
 
 (2) perfectly developed 181-182 
 
 (3) Catholic 182-185 
 
 Summary 185-486 
 
 LECTURE VLT. 
 
 CHRIST OUR MASTER. 
 
 Christ the summary authority in religion 
 
 I. The authoritative method of our Lord, contrasted with 
 
 that of Socrates or Plato 
 
 187 
 
 187-189 
 
 II. Christianity authoritative — 
 
 as an educational system 190-191 
 
 as a revelation of God 191-192 
 
 Authority is either (1) despotic, or (2) fatherly . . 192-193 
 
 (1) represents the authority of the Old Testament, (2) that - /, 
 
 of the New Testament 193 
 
SYNOPSIS OF C< >N ri.-- wii 
 
 Moderation of Christ's authority— 
 
 in range 198 191 
 
 in method 194 196 
 
 Characteristics of Christian, or paternal, authority . . I • 
 
 111. rhe Anglican ideal of authority explained and Justified I 
 ( entrusted with thai of Some 20i 
 
 l\'. 'ill.- seal of Christian authority in tin- Church and the 
 
 Bible 202 ! 
 
 That is to Bay our authority is from Christ ai Interpreted 
 by tin- inspired apostles 
 
 Who— 
 
 (1) Instructed the Churches 204 
 
 (2) provided the New Testamenl Scriptures . . 204 206 
 The Scriptures the permanenl criterion of the church's 
 
 thing !'"."> 207 
 
 V. Tin- Old Testamenl al.su recognized as authoritative by 
 
 our Lord 207 
 
 (1) a- nl to the Jews 206 210 
 
 (2) as God's word also for all Christians . . 210-211 
 This does not necessarily Involve acceptance of Jewish 
 
 literary tradition I'll 212 
 
 E.g. Davids authorship of r>. ex, not a matter of m •. 
 
 sary faith 212-1 
 
 In His allu>iou to that psalm our Lord Is questioning and 
 
 not teaching 213 216 
 
 Bis teaches only " tin- words of God," hut He questions 
 
 in. n as to their us.' ..f human reasonings . . . 216 216 
 Human reasonings and divine faith 21) 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE AM' NXW I.1FK. 
 
 I. Christ our example by exhibition of character . . . 219 
 What rules "f conduct n«- enunciates have to be int.-r- 
 
 preted in their principle 
 
 Bui not explained away 2 
 
 Christ's example exacting '. 
 
xviii SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 II. Christ deliberately refused to appeal to the "average 
 
 man " 223 
 
 Contrast with Mohammed 224-225 
 
 False methods of diffusion, which have weakened Chris- 
 tianity — 
 
 (1) wholesale conversions (Fraukish) . . . 225-226 
 
 (2) minimizing of the moral, by the side of the 
 
 ecclesiastical, claim (Jesuits) . . . 226-227 
 
 (3) identification of the Church with the nation 
 
 (Anglican) 227-228 
 
 Result from such methods, that the moral obligations of 
 
 Christianity, e.g. its social obligations, are ignored . 228-230 
 Need for a clear understanding of the theological and 
 moral requirements of the Church, and a revival of 
 
 discipline 230-231 
 
 Christ's moral claim, once made, permanent . . . 231-233 
 
 III. Is the Christian standard practicable ? .... 233-234 
 Christianity not only proclaims the standard but also 
 
 supplies the means for its realization .... 234-235 
 The doctrine of the "new birth": " Christ in us " by 
 
 His Spirit 235-237 
 
 The Church the " extension of the incarnation " . . 237-239 
 
 IV. The indwelling of Christ in His people interprets — 
 
 (1) the value of His external example . . . 240-242 
 
 (2) the imputation to us of His merits . . . 242-245 
 
 (3) the function of faith inside the Christian life 
 
 in its relation to the Sacraments . . . 245-248 
 
 V. Summary of lectures. Conclusion 248-251 
 
 APPENDED NOTES. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Note 1. " This is the true God" 253 
 
 2. Exaggerated devotion to Mary 253 
 
 3. The place of Mohammed and of the Koran in Islam . 255 
 
 4. The place of Gautama in Buddhism .... 256 
 
synopsis OF CONTENTS. 
 
 \i\ 
 
 N. 1 1 1. 5. " Aut l>> us nut homo non bonut 
 
 6. Pharisaic Ebionites 
 
 7. Th< need of a clear moral ideal , 
 
 . 259 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 \"ir. 8. The common ground of seii net and Christianity in <i 
 
 belie/ in naturt 260 
 
 '.». Mind from thi point of view of merely physical 
 
 scit nee 261 
 
 10. Theistic arguments 262 
 
 11. Moral life " supernatural " 263 
 
 12. Mr. Darwin's account of his own mind .... 263 
 
 13. The unity of " natun "and'*graa "in thi best The- 
 
 ology 264 
 
 n. Thi rationali of miracles 26B 
 
 15. Prof. Huxley <"* scientific objections to Christianity . 266 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Note 16. Hume's " Canon" 
 
 17. "J priori" tendencies in Dr. Martineau and ( 
 
 nal Newman .... 
 
 is. The witness of 8L Paul's Epistles 
 
 19. Synoptic Qosp< Is 
 
 _'n. St. ■/•■/iii's Oosp< I 
 
 21. Thi " Logos" .... 
 
 22. Our /,<>/•</'* discourses in St. John 
 
 23. 77/- apostles as witnesses . 
 •ji. 77,. narratives of thi Nativity and Infancy 
 
 ardi 
 
 267 
 
 _' >7 
 
 260 
 269 
 269 
 270 
 270 
 •J71 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 N"ir. 26. Thi relation of dogma to original Christianity 
 
 26. 77// theology of thi New l'< stfim- nf ... 
 
 '_'7. &u6afX>tfo{{0 nritcrs 
 
XX SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Note 28. The formula of Chalcedon 277 
 
 29. Theological confusion in period of councils . . . 278 
 
 30. The "via media" 278 
 
 31. Dogmatic passages in the New Testament . . . 278 
 
 32. ChrisVs permanent manhood 279 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Note 33. ManseVs " Bampton Lectures " 279 
 
 34. ChrisVs humanity personal or impersonal? . . . 279 
 
 35. God's love revealed first in Christ 280 
 
 36. Prayer in accordance with laio 280 
 
 37. The death of Christ not God's act 280 
 
 38. God's gradual method in the Old Testament . . . 281 
 
 39. St. Augustine on evolution 281 
 
 40. God self-limited 282 
 
 41. Arbitrary decrees attributed to God .... 282 
 
 42. The three elements in man's spirit 283 
 
 43. God's triune being disclosed in Christ .... 283 
 
 44. Unitarianism -untenable 283 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Note 45. Johannes de Lugo 283 
 
 40. Divine power shown most chiefly in self-humiliation . 284 
 
 47. The conception of the Incarnation 284 
 
 48. Fathers on the human ignorance of Christ . . . 285 
 
 49. The protest of Theodoret 286 
 
 50. Christ could have sinned if lie had ivilled . . . 286 
 
 51. Man not originally " perfect" 286 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Note 02. Wi know in part and prophesy in part .... 287 
 
 63. St. Augustine on purgatory 287 
 
 64. No new doctrines in the Church 288 
 
 66. Our Lord's argument from P8. ex 288 
 
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. I \ 1 
 
 I.l.< TUBE VIII. 
 
 PAOI 
 
 spirit " and " Uu U tter" 
 
 ."7. Excommunication '_ m .m> 
 
 68. / ■ • m 10 birth 290 
 
 59. The spirit convi ying to us the life of Christ . 
 
 r>0. The glorified Christ " quickening spirit " . . . '-".'i 
 
 61. The connection of graa with sacraments . . . 294 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY IS. 
 
 We know ti,,,t the Son of God is come, and hath given us an und\ r- 
 standing, that we know him that is true, and "•< are in him thai 
 is true, >'■'.' in his Son Jesus Christ. This is flu tnu Qod,and 
 eternal life. My little children, guard yourselves from idols, — 
 
 1 Si. JOHH v. 20, 21 (R. V.). 
 
 Christianity exists in the world as a distinctive 
 religion; and if we arc asked, "What is the distin- 
 guishing characteristic of this religion?" we can 
 hardly hesitate for an answer. Christianity is faith 
 in a certain person Jesus Christ, and by faith in Him 
 is meant such unreserved self-committal as is only 
 
 possible, because faith in Jesus is undersi 1 t<» be 
 
 faith i" God, and union with Jesus union with Cod. 
 11 YVc know him that is true, and we are in him that 
 is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the 
 true ( rod, and eternal life." ' 
 
 T. 
 
 That true Christianity is thus a personal relation- 
 ship — the conscious deliberate adhesion of men who 
 know their weakness, their sin, their fallibility, to a 
 
 appended note i. 
 
2 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 redeemer whom they know to be supreme, sinless, 
 infallible — is shown by the fact that it produces its 
 characteristic fruit only in proportion as it is thus 
 realized. We can make this apparently obvious 
 proposition more emphatic it" we recall to our mind 
 sonic of the many ways in which the true character of 
 our religion bas been, and is, distorted or obscured. 
 
 1. For, lirst, Christianity has brought with it a 
 visible society or church, with dogmatic propositions 
 and sacramental ordinances and a ministerial priest- 
 hood, and it has been easy so to misuse these elements 
 of the ecclesiastical system, as to make Christianity 
 no longer devotion to a living person, but the accept- 
 ance on authority of a system of theological proposi- 
 tions and ecclesiastical duties. When churchman- 
 ship assumes this degenerate form, Christianity is 
 not indeed destroyed, nor does it cease to bring forth 
 moral and spiritual fruit ; but the fruit is of an infe- 
 rior and less characteristic quality, it is not the spirit 
 and temper of sonslnp. At the lowest it even tends 
 to approximate to what any religious organization is 
 capable of producing, merely on account of the disci- 
 pline which it enforces, and the sense of security 
 which its fellowship imparts. To the true and typi- 
 cal churchman, on the other hand, all the ecclesias- 
 tical fabric only represents an unseen but present 
 Lord. The eyes of an Ignatius, or an Athanasius, or 
 a Leo, or a, Bernard, or a, Pusey, however much his- 
 tory may lightly identify these men with zeal on 
 behalf of the organization and dogmas of the church, 
 
 were in fact, as their waitings sufficiently testify, 
 
what CHBIS1 ULN1T3 is. 
 
 oever off their Lord for whom alone and in whom 
 alone all externa] things had their value. 
 
 '1. Again, the constant outlook of the soul of the 
 Christian upon the person of Jesus Chrisl may be 
 intercepted by the undue exaltation of saintU inter- 
 cessors. Thus their ale districts of the church ill 
 
 which devotion to our Lord's mother has usurped 
 such prominence in Christian worship as in feci to 
 interfere with His unique prerogative, so th;tt in 
 some real sense, then- has been a division of terri- 
 tory effected between Him and her as objects of 
 devotion. This statement may be justified by quot- 
 ing from a writer who i- specially representative of 
 the attitude encouraged in the Roman communion 
 irds the blessed Y irgin — St. Alfonso de' Liguori. 
 M When .she conceived the Son of God in her womb," 
 he writes, "and afterwards gave Him birth, she 
 obtained the half of the kingdom of God, so that 
 she should be queen of mercy, as Christ is kin 
 justice." Thus, while the king must have regard 
 t«» the interests of justice, the queen can be appealed 
 i<>;i> unmixed compassion. 1 Once again, then, when 
 Mary is thus exalted t«> a pedestal, which no one 
 would ever have refused ,s«, utterly as .she herself, 
 the wine of Christianity is mixed with water. For 
 the human character of Jesus, the historical char- 
 acter, combining the strength of manhood and the 
 tenderness of womanhood in perfect alliance, 
 always strengthening t" contemplate and t«» adore. 
 In Him mercy and truth are met together, righteous- 
 t ipp, note 
 
4 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 ness and peace have kissed each other ; but the 
 purely ideal figure of Mary, as it finds expression 
 in all the weakly conceived images of the "mater 
 misericordiae " which meet our eyes so constantly in 
 the churches of the Continent, appeals to a senti- 
 ment, a craving for a compassion unalloyed with 
 severity, which it was part of the proper function 
 of Christianity even to extirpate. 
 
 3. Once, again, it is possible for our religion to 
 lose its true centre by becoming what we may call 
 unduly "subjective." Great stress may be laid on 
 personal feeling, on the assurance of personal salva- 
 tion. Questions may be freely asked and answers 
 expected as to whether this or that religious emo- 
 tion has been experienced, as to whether a person 
 has "found peace,'' or "gained assurance," or "is 
 saved." Now "peace with God," and " joy in believ- 
 ing," even assurance of a present state of salvation, 
 are endowments of the Christian life, which God 
 habitually bestows — which may be both asked for 
 and thankfully welcomed. But they are not meant 
 either to be the tests of reality in religion, or gener- 
 ally subjects of self-examination. 
 
 What our Lord claims of us is, first, service, the 
 service of ready wills, then developing faith, and lives 
 gradually sanctified by correspondence with Him. On 
 these points we must rigorously examine ourselves, 
 but the sense of the service of Another, of co-opera- 
 tion with Another, is meant to become so absorbing 
 a consciousness as to swallow up in us the considera- 
 tion of personal feeling, and at least to overshadow 
 
WHAT CHRISTIANITY is. g 
 
 even the anxiety for our own separate Balvation. 
 By Losing our lives in Christ and IIi> can-.', we are 
 meant to save them; to serve Christ, not to feel 
 Christ, is the mark ol His true servants; they 
 become Christians in proportion as they cease to 
 be interested in themselves, and become absorbed in 
 their Lord. 
 
 4. Once, again; the enthusiasm of humanity may 
 send men out using the name of Him who is the 
 true Liberator of man: but depreciating doctrine in 
 the supposed interests of philanthropy. This inevi- 
 tably results in the substitution of zeal for work for 
 teal for Christ. Where Christ is really contem- 
 plated and meditated upon, it is impossible to be in- 
 different as to the explanation to be given of His 
 person and work; in the knowledge of this Lies the 
 inspiration of Labour and the ground of perennial 
 hopefulness. When in fact this is ignored, the work 
 Ih-couh'S more and more the execution <>f the worker's 
 own schemes, or the schemes of some one under 
 whom he works, with Less and Less regard to what 
 can truly and historically he called the purpose and 
 method of Jesus. It becomes external or intellec- 
 tual, it ceases to touch the springs of character; in 
 a w<»rd. it becomes less and Less a characteristic 
 expression of the energy of Christian faith. 
 
 5. Once again and for the Last time: the inter- 
 ests of a Btudent may convert Christianity into a 
 philosophical system, coloured intensely by the 
 method and terminology of a particular phase of 
 thought and very exceptional conditions ^^ life. 
 
6 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 This was the case, more or less, with the Christian- 
 ity of Clement of Alexandria; it has been the case 
 not infrequently, since his clay, in academic circles. 
 Where it is the case, a system becomes the object 
 of interest rather than a person, and the real appeal 
 of Jesus of Nazareth, whether to the heart of the 
 student himself, or of those whom he may be 
 required to teach by word or by writing, is propor- 
 tionately weakened. Nothing, I suppose, can keep 
 the Christianity of a theoretical student from deteri- 
 oration, save the constant exercise of prayer, which 
 is the address of person to person, and the constant 
 and regular contemplation of the character in the 
 Gospels, even as the apostolic writer bids us "con- 
 sider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, 
 even Jesus." 1 
 
 I have specified these various ways in which 
 Christians of different tendencies may obscure, and 
 have in fact obscured, the true glory of the Chris- 
 tian life, because it is important to throw into high 
 relief, what is the simple verdict of Christian his- 
 tory, that the characteristic fruitfulness of our 
 religion — its fruitfulness in the temper and spirit 
 of sonship — varies with the extent to which Jesus, 
 the historical person, the ever-living person, is 
 recognized as the object of our devotion, and the 
 lord of our life. This is true equally of personal 
 religion and official ministry, for it is converse 
 with the perfect personality of Jesus, which gives 
 the pastor his power to deal with the various per- 
 
 * Heb. 3, 1. 
 
WHAT <!II:ISTI.\MT\ IS. i 
 
 sonalities of his flock, and the preacher his power t<> 
 move the wills and consciences of his bearers. It 
 fa devotion to Jesus which has been the source of 
 the enduring forms of Christian heroism. Ii is the 
 same reality of personal relationship which touches 
 the Christian's private Life with the brightness of 
 Bonship. "To me," Bays Paul the prisoner, sum- 
 marizing his religion, "to Live is Christ and to die 
 is gain," for thai too is "to depart and to be with 
 Christ," which "is very far better." 1 "Eighty and 
 >i\ years," says the aged Polycarp, again summariz- 
 ing his religion in response to the demand thai he 
 Bhould revile the Christ, "eighty and six years have 
 I been His servant, and He never did me an injurj ; 
 how then can I blaspheme my king who is my 
 Baviour?"* 
 
 II. 
 
 To recognize this truth is to be struck by the 
 contrast which in this respecl Christianity presents 
 to other religions. For example, the place which 
 Mohammed holds in Islam is nut the place which Jesus 
 Chrisl holds in Christianity, bul thai which Moses 
 holds in Judaism. The Arabian prophet made for 
 himself no claim other than thai which Jewish proph- 
 ets made, other than thai which all prophets, true or 
 false, or partly true and partly false, have always 
 made, to Bpeak the word of the Lord. The Bub- 
 Btance of Mohammedanism, considered as b religion, 
 lies simply in the message which the Koran contains. 
 
 1 Phil. i.-Ji 28. 
 
8 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 It is, as no other religion is, founded upon a book. 
 •The person of the Prophet has its significance only 
 so far as he is supposed to have certificated the 
 reality of the revelations which the book records. 1 
 
 Gautama, again, the founder of Buddhism, one, 
 I suppose, of the noblest and greatest of mankind, 
 is only the discoverer or rediscoverer of a method or 
 way, the way of salvation, by which is meant the 
 way to win final emancipation from the weary chain 
 of existence, and to attain Nirvana, or Parinirvana, 
 the final blessed extinction. Having found this 
 way, after many years of weary searching, he can 
 teach it to others, but he is, all the time, only a pre- 
 eminent example of the success of his own method, 
 one of a series of Buddhas or enlightened ones, who 
 shed on other men the light of their superior knowl- 
 edge. Thus, in the Booh of the Great Decease he is 
 represented, in conversation with his disciple Ananda, 
 as expressly repudiating the idea of the dependence 
 of the Buddhist order on himself. "The Perfect," 
 that is, the Buddha, he says, "thinks not that it is 
 he who should lead the brotherhood, or that the 
 order is dependent upon him. Why then should he 
 leave instructions in any matter concerning the 
 order? . . . Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps 
 unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge to yourselves. 
 Betake yourselves to no external refuge. . . . And 
 whosoever, Ananda, either now or after I am dead, 
 shall be a lamp unto themselves, and a refuge unto 
 themselves, shall betake themselves to no external 
 
 1 Sec app. note 3. 
 
WHAT CHRISTIANITY is Q 
 
 refuge, but holding fast to the truth as their lamp, 
 shall l<>nk not for refuge to any one besides them- 
 selves ... it La they, Ananda, who shall reach the 
 very topmost height." l 
 
 It was plainly the method of Buddha, not the 
 person, which was to save his brethren. As for the 
 person, he passed away, as the writer of the Bud- 
 dhist scripture repeatedly declares, "with that utter 
 passing away in which nothing whatever is Left 
 behind," Living on only metaphorically in the 
 method and teaching which he bequeathed to his 
 followers. We arc touching on no disputed point 
 when we assert that according to the Buddhist 
 scriptures, the personal, conscious Life of the 
 founder of that religion was extinguished in death. 
 But this single fact points the contrast with Chris- 
 tianity. The teaching of Jesus differs in fact from 
 the teaching of the Buddha not more in the ideal of 
 salvation which he propounded than in the place 
 held by the person who propounded the ideal. For 
 Jesus Christ taught no method by which men might 
 attain the end of their being, whether He Himself, 
 personally, existed or was annihilated: but as He 
 offered Himself to men on earth as the satisfaction 
 of th.-ir being their master, their example, their 
 redeemer -so when He Left the earth He promised 
 to sustain them from the unseen world by Ili^ con- 
 tinued persona] presence and to communicate to 
 them His own Life, and He assured them that at the 
 Last they would liml themselves face to her with 
 
 1 Bee ipp. not* I. 
 
10 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Him as their judge. The personal relation to Him- 
 self is from first to last of the essence of the religion 
 which He inaugurated. 
 
 III. 
 
 If we wish to account for the unique position 
 which Jesus Christ has held in religion it is only 
 necessary to examine the claim which He is repre- 
 sented to have made for Himself in the earliest 
 records which we possess. History in fact gives a 
 very distinct account of the positions relatively to 
 the faith of their disciples, claimed by the three 
 founders of religion whom Ave have just been con- 
 sidering. For however busy legend has been with 
 the Buddha, there appears to be little difficulty in 
 obtaining a clear picture of what he claimed to be, 
 how he claimed to have become what he was, and 
 how he wished his disciples to follow his example. 
 Legend has not materially distorted the picture of his 
 own estimate of himself. No more than Mohammed 
 does he, on his own showing, enter into rivalry 
 with the Jesus of the Christian tradition. Whether 
 history has or has not left us the true image of the 
 personal claim of Jesus of Nazareth will be matter 
 for consideration afterwards. Here I am only con- 
 cerned to make good the position that the teaching 
 and the claim of Jesus as it is represented generally 
 in the Gospels, or (let me say) more especially in 
 the Synoptists, accounts for and justifies the place 
 assigned to Him in historical Christendom. 
 
what CHRISTIANITY LB. 1 1 
 
 This will be most apparent it" we confine onr 
 attention chiefly to the education which He is repre- 
 sented as giving to that little company who united 
 themselves to Him under various circumstances, and 
 whom He bound together into the body of Apostles. 
 For, diverting attention from others, He concen- 
 trated it more and more on these. We are admitted 
 in the Gospels to observe how He trained tl. 
 men to understand His person and commit them- 
 selves body and soul to Him. 
 
 Many passed to Christ from the school of John 
 the Baptist, and their initiation to discipleship con- 
 Bisted in the experience of their former master lay- 
 ing down his crown at the feet of Him, "the latchet 
 of whose shoes " he professed himself "unworthy to 
 stoop down and unloose." The personality of Jesus 
 lavs upon them from the Brst its Btrong fascination. 
 It is only gradually, however, through the experi- 
 ence of His manhood that they are Led to any real 
 conviction of His superhuman nature. They listen 
 to His words of power, as He speaks Like the em- 
 bodied voice of conscience, "as one having author- 
 ity," convincingly yet without reason given, setting 
 aside, ;is inadequate, what the Lawgiver of old had 
 spoken as <oh1"s own □ ir, **It was said to 
 
 them of old time . . . But I say onto you." ' They 
 are made to feel that it is im Longer the servant who 
 is speaking, but the Son. Moreover in the midst of 
 His authoritative teaching, a claim makes itself 
 heard, which is of a pice- w'nh His general tone, 
 
 i st. Matt r.21, 
 
12 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 and yet by itself is of staggering import, claim to 
 pronounce at the last the final divine judgment, not 
 on the overt actions of men only, but on their secret 
 lives. This claim is first expressed in regard to His 
 professed followers in the Sermon on the Mount. 
 " Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did 
 Ave not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast 
 out devils, and by thy name do many mighty works ? 
 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew 
 you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." 1 It 
 makes itself heard again and again, but it culmi- 
 nates in the picture which our Lord draws of Himself 
 before His passion, when before Him shall be gath- 
 ered, not His own followers only, or the Jews, but 
 "all the nations," and He shall pass sentence on 
 them individually, as one who knows them better 
 than they know themselves. 2 Conceive what it 
 must have been to live with one, who, however 
 gently and carefully He respected and dealt with 
 human individuality and freewill, yet declared Him- 
 self to be, and was believed to be, the final judge of 
 all human actions and human motives. In such 
 intercourse must not reverence inevitably have 
 tended to pass into worship, for is it not our great 
 preservative against idolizing any other human being 
 that we know that he and we alike are the simple 
 subjects of divine judgment? The Apostles had 
 to do with one Who never spoke of Himself or 
 seemed to conceive of Himself, as liable to sin or 
 failure under probation, and Who claimed to be the 
 
 i St. Matt. vii. 22, 23. 2 St. Matt. xxv. 31^6. 
 
WHAT CHRISTIANITY IS. 19 
 
 final enunciator and vindicator of the law of right 
 and wrong. It was only the same claim in other 
 words which He made when He declared that 
 the Son of man bad power on earth to forgive 
 sins, 1 for it is the ultimate judge who is the proper 
 absolver; nor could it seem strange to them that 
 His moral power should have Its counterpart in 
 His physical power to impart life and to heal dis- 
 There is —a pious Jew at least would know 
 — only one ultimate lordship in spirit and in mat- 
 ter, and He who claimed and exercised it in the 
 
 oii«' department would naturally claim ami exercise 
 it in the other. So it was that by teaching and 
 miracle, and still more by the Bubtle influence of 
 long months of companionship in work and in travel, 
 He deliberately trained the twelve men to trust Him 
 utterly in His pro, Mice and in His absence, as the 
 unerring friend, the all-powerful guide, the supreme 
 and unfailing resource. Such trust undoubtedly 
 transcended the limits ( »t' what is legitimate from 
 
 man to man; a mere man, however exalted, must 
 
 always point his fellow -men away from himself up 
 to God; he must always exalt his message above 
 
 himself; he must always explain that lie is only one 
 
 of the many messengers that God in His wisdom can 
 ii-'-. lint as in .lesns there was a marked absence of 
 all th.it sense "f unwortbiness, which has clung to 
 God's messengers before and after Him in propor- 
 tion to their g lie--, so in Ilim also there was the 
 
 opposite of all that disparagement ^( merely per- 
 
 1 st. Matt. ix. »;. 
 
14 THE INCAENATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 sonal. claims which made Moses cry, " Oh Lord, send, 
 I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt 
 send," and St. Paul, "What then is Apollos? and 
 what is Paul?" 1 What scripture calls the jealousy 
 of God, that exclusive unique claim which God 
 alone can make on the souls of men, because He 
 alone can absorb without narrowing the allegiance 
 of all spirits whom He has created, — that jealousy 
 of God utters itself in the solemn words, " No one 
 knoweth the Son save the Father ; neither doth any 
 know the Father save the Son, and he to whomso- 
 ever the Son willeth to reveal him. Come unto me, 
 all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will 
 give you rest," 2 or again, "If any man cometh unto 
 me and hateth not his own father, and mother, and 
 wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, 
 and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." 3 
 Set yourselves to imagine what the effect of such 
 language must have been, not on the crowd who 
 came and went, who received the seed by the way- 
 side, but on the good soil of the hearts of the Apos- 
 tles, kept under careful cultivation to receive the 
 deliberately sown seed of the Master's word. Christ 
 was systematically training them to trust Him with 
 the sort of trust which can be legitimately given to 
 God only. This becomes all the more conspicuous 
 when we find Him repudiating from one who came 
 with the vague language of casual respect, even the 
 familiar title, "Good Master." 4 Such ordinary and 
 
 i Ex. iv. 13; 1 Cor. iii. 5. 2 St. Matt. xi. 27, 28; cf. St. Luke x. 22. 
 
 a St. Luke xiv. 26. 4 St. Mark x. 17. 
 
WHAT <iii:istiam ty t8. 15 
 
 casual deference, the language of mere compliment 
 commonly addressed to contemporary Rabbis, He 
 would not accept; bnt language Ear higher, devotion 
 of Ear intenser meaning, He was meanwhile deliber- 
 ately encouraging in the disciples who did know 
 Him, and had reasons for what they said and felt: 1 
 just as with tlic women, while He checked the vague 
 enthusiasm of her who Lifted up her voice out of the 
 multitude to cry, "Blessed La the womb that bare 
 thee, and the paps which thou didst Buck," He wel- 
 comed thf more deliberate honours paid to Him by 
 the woman who was a sinner, or Mary the Bister of 
 Lazarus. 9 
 
 The training of the Apostles, which is always pro- 
 ceeding, has certain critical moments. Thus at 
 CsBsarea Philippi, our Lord solemnly evoked, under 
 conditions of trial and disappointment, the expres- 
 sion of the gradually clearing faith of His disciples 
 in Himself, so far at least as the full acknowledg- 
 ment of His Afessiahship — that 1 le was "the ( 'hrist, 
 the Sou of the living God" or "the Holy One of 
 dod."* :; Again, at the Mount of the Transfigura- 
 tion, lie revealed mi mist akably to the inner circle, 
 to Peter, James, and John, something of His hidden 
 glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father.* 
 More than once II<" gave mure or Less explicit utter- 
 
 1 Cf. Mp. St. Matt, xxiii. 7-10. 
 
 - St. i.ukr xi.'JT; rii.36 BO; St. Matt. xxvi. 6 IS; St John ri.2. 
 
 8 St. Matt. xvi. 16; Ct St. Mark viii. 20; St Lokfl ix. 20 ; St. John 
 vi. 60. 
 
 t St. Matt.xvii. 1 Bj St. Murk lx.2 8) St. I.ukr ix. 28 86; - ivt.-ri. 
 1G-18. 
 
16 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 ance, so that the disciples might hear and take heed, 
 to His inner consciousness of essential relation to 
 the Father, as when He spoke of the mutual and 
 exclusive knowledge of the Father and the Son, 1 or 
 distinguished Himself as the only son, in the parable 
 of the vineyard and the husbandmen, from God's 
 many servants and messengers, 2 or confessed His 
 divine sonship before the Sanhedrim on his trial in 
 full view of the mortal penalty which that confession 
 involved. 3 No doubt up to the time of the passion, 
 the faith of the disciples in their Lord was dim and 
 inchoate. It was personal loyalty not yet theologi- 
 cally articulate or self-conscious. The passion, the 
 failure, the death, were enough to crush it down for 
 the moment, in spite of all the intimations with 
 which Jesus Christ had prepared their minds for 
 that foreseen catastrophe. The fact of the resurrec- 
 tion was hardly and with difficulty believed. But 
 when it was believed, it lifted their faith to a new 
 level and planted it upon a solid rock whence it 
 could never be again dislodged. He was marked 
 out for them, and through them for the world, as the 
 Son of God by the resurrection from the dead. 4 The 
 confession of Thomas after the resurrection recorded 
 in the fourth Gospel, "My Lord and my God," is 
 no less representative than the earlier confession of 
 Peter recorded in the three earlier Gospels, " Thou 
 
 i St. Matt. xi. 27; St. Luke x. 22. 
 
 2 St. Matt. xxi. 33-4(5 ; St. Mark xii. 1-12 ; St. Luke xx. 9-18. 
 
 8 St. Matt. xxvi. G2-G5; St. Mark xiv. G0-G4; St. Luke xxii. 6G-71. 
 
 4 Rom. i. 3, 4. 
 
WHAT CHRISTIANITY is. 17 
 
 art the Christ of God," — "the Christ, the Son oi 
 the Living God." The last utterance of J 
 St. Matthew records it. not only assured Ili^ disci- 
 ples of tli«' universal authority assigned to Him as 
 the exalted Son of man, both in heaven and on earth, 
 and of IIi> continual presence with them "all the 
 days unto the end of the world," but also gave per- 
 manence and security to their highesl thoughts of 
 1 1 i in as Son of God, by formulating the name, or 
 revelation of God, for all time, as the "name of the 
 
 Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 After Pentecost, the Apostles had no doubt at all 
 that Jesus Christ as Son of God was the summary 
 object of faith and worship, and that in committing 
 to Him theirwhole being, they were not running the 
 risk of idolatry, but were only attaining union with 
 God through His Son by the Spirit which He had 
 given them. 
 
 I have endeavoured briefly to traverse very famil- 
 iar ground in thus recalling to your minds how the 
 Christ of the Gospels does make a claim for Himself 
 which warrants (to speak generally) the belief about 
 Him to which we are accustomed in the Christian 
 Church. That this is familiar ground, upon which 
 it is not necessary long t<> dwell, is due in great 
 measure to one, the tones of whose memorable voice 
 the majority of us must have heard from this pul- 
 pit last Whitsunday, and heard for the Last time. 
 Among all Dr. Liddon's titles to our grat itude, none 
 is more conspicuous than the service which he ren- 
 dered when in his Bampton Lectures he put his 
 
18 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 faultless powers of analysis and expression at the 
 disposal of his passionate faith in order to exhibit 
 the nature and the significance of our Lord's asser- 
 tion of Himself. 1 He is identified, as with hardly 
 anything else, with the re-statement of the great 
 dilemma based on the claim of Jesus Christ, that 
 either He was what alone could morally justify that 
 claim, the very Son of God, or He was indeed guilty 
 of the supreme arrogance of putting Himself in the 
 place of God, — u aut Deus aut homo non bonus." 2 
 
 Thoughtful men generally view with distrust the 
 dilemma as a form of argument. We in Oxford may 
 remember how a very brilliant contemporary of Dr. 
 Liddon gave expression to this distrust by saying 
 that he had made it a rule when any one presented 
 him with a dilemma to turn his back and refuse to 
 have anything to say to it. But, after all, there are 
 dilemmas, though they may not be many, the force 
 of which grows upon us the more we consider them ; 
 the dilemma based upon the claim of Jesus Christ is 
 one of these; and it may be asserted here at the 
 beginning of our discussion, that to represent our 
 Lord only as a good man conscious of a message from 
 God, like one of the Prophets or John the Baptist, 
 is to do violence not to one Gospel only or to sin- 
 gle passages in various Gospels, but to the general 
 tenour of the Gospels as a whole. 
 
 1 See Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, Lect. 4. 
 
 2 See app, note 5. 
 
W BAT CHRISTIANITY [S. !'.• 
 
 IV. 
 
 Among those who cannot accept cordially the prop- 
 ositions of the Christian creed, bnl at the same 
 
 time arc anxious to maintain religion in society and 
 in their own lives, there is an unmistakable unwill- 
 ingness l'» consider fairly what, historically and in 
 experience, Christianity has been, wherein its great 
 strength Lies and lias lain. They wish, for safety's 
 Bake, to fuse the distinctive outlines of our religion 
 in a vague atmosphere. But it is never wise t«» 
 refuse t<> look steadily at facts. 
 
 Whether Christianity can or can not be rationally 
 maintained is another question. But there is not 
 much doubt, so far, what Christiantity is. I do not 
 think it can hi- reasonably gainsayed (1) that Chris- 
 tianity has meant historically, faith in the person of 
 JeSUS Christ, considered as wit Grod incainat. . 
 much so that if this faith were -one. Christianity 
 in its characteristic features would he g< also; 
 
 el) that, thus considered, Christianity is differen- 
 tiated from other religions by the attitude of its 
 members towards its Founder; (3) that this attitude 
 of Christianity towards its Founder La (speaking 
 erally) explained and justified bythewitnes 
 
 the earliest records to I lis personality and claim. 
 
 Taking then these positions for granted, I am to 
 ask your attention in these Lectures t" the Person 
 
 of Jesus Christ, with especial reference to I Ii^ incar- 
 nation, that is, to the truth that being the Son of 
 
20 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 God, He was made very man ; and I am to endeavour 
 to express and justify the conviction that, however 
 slowly and painfully, the old faith in Him is being 
 brought out in harmony not only with our moral 
 needs and social aspirations, but also with that 
 knowledge of nature and that historical criticism 
 which are the special growth of our time. 
 
 In presenting Jesus Christ to you, as Christians 
 believe on Him, I must necessarily present to you 
 one who, though human, is yet, what is called 
 miraculous and supernatural. It will be my en- 
 deavour in the next lecture, so to interpret these 
 words "supernatural" and "miraculous" as to make 
 it apparent that the supernatural in Jesus Christ is 
 not unnatural, and the miraculous not the "reversal " 
 or the "suspension" of nature; rather, that Jesus 
 Christ incarnate is the legitimate climax of natural 
 development, so that the study of nature — if only 
 in that term moral nature is included — is the true 
 preparation for welcoming the Christ. In the third 
 lecture it will be necessary to face the objection 
 made to the historical facts of the Incarnation, on 
 the ground that, however credible in themselves, 
 they lack adequate attesting evidence. We shall 
 consider then the function of evidence, and the par- 
 ticular character of the historical evidence, consid- 
 ered merely as such, winch the New Testament sup- 
 plies, to the facts of our Lord's birth of the Virgin 
 Mary, life, death, and resurrection; and we shall 
 ask ourselves whether this evidence really allows us 
 to suppose that in the traditional Christ we have the 
 
WHAT CHRISTIAN] TV is. 21 
 
 result of His gradual deification by the imagination 
 of uncritical disciples. Next, the question will pre- 
 sent itself, whether it is not possible to admit gen- 
 erally the historical character of the New Testament 
 records, and still to decline the faith of the church, 
 on the ground that the catholic dogmas about the 
 person of Christ do not in fact simply represent or 
 guard the faith of the first Christians in Jesus Christ 
 crucified and risen. Thus in the fourth Lecture the 
 view will be considered that elements other than 
 
 those Supplied by the historical Christ must enter in 
 
 in order to link the faith of the New Testament to 
 
 the faith of the fathers of the councils. We shall 
 have to consider the nature of eeclesiastieal dogmas, 
 their function and value, as well as the dangers con- 
 neeted witli them, and the limits to their applica- 
 tion. Starting then from the assumption of the 
 church's faith about Jesus Christ, we sh;ill be in a 
 
 position to scrutinize reverently the revelation in- 
 volved in His person, and to ask ourselves what 
 exactly it is in our knowledge of the character and 
 being of God, which we owe to the fact that He has 
 been manifested in manhood. This will occupy the 
 
 fifth lecture. It will lead on to the consideration 
 
 in the sixth lecture of what is taughl us about 
 human nature through the humanity of the Son 
 
 <>\' man, and at this point it will be necessary to 
 examine what is the picture which the Gospels pre- 
 sent to as <.f our Lord's condition in the days n\ His 
 
 flesh; what Limitations upon the mode of existence 
 
 natural to the Son of God wdv accepted in order 
 
22 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 that He might really enter into the experiences of 
 manhood; what is the meaning of His "self-empty- 
 ing." In the seventh lecture our Lord will be con- 
 sidered as the supreme authority and the fount of 
 all lower forms of authority in the moral and spirit- 
 ual life of man. It will be considered what was the 
 method in which He Himself exercised authority, 
 and presumably, therefore, meant that it should be 
 exercised in His name ; what is the nature of relig- 
 ious authority, and what for Christians its seat; 
 what sort of authority Christ recognized in the Old 
 Testament scriptures, what authority He imparted 
 to His Apostles, what to the church. In the last 
 lecture, leaving aside for lack of space our Lord's 
 work of atonement, we will contemplate the moral 
 standard of human life which He erected by His 
 teaching and example, and we will consider Him in 
 that part of His redemptive work which He accom- 
 plishes from the other world, as head of His body 
 the church, redeeming men by the infusion of His 
 own life through the Spirit and moulding them in- 
 wardly to the pattern of the humanity which He set 
 before them outwardly during His life upon earth. 
 
 V. 
 
 In these lectures it is obvious we shall be dealing 
 constantly with such theological propositions as find 
 their statement in the creed. Now it is impossible 
 but that in a congregation such as this, there should 
 be some who, more or less articulately, deprecate 
 
WHAT CHRISTIANITY is. 28 
 
 theology, and desire the severance of practical Chris- 
 tianity Erom what they would call ecclesiastical 
 dogma, or perhaps in a more recent phrase, Greek 
 metaphysics. Perhaps they would accept the phrase 
 of recently-published Hibbert Lectures that the 
 "Sermon od the Mount is not an outlying portioo 
 of the Gospel, but its sum." 1 Jt' I am speaking 
 
 to any of this mind. I would in the time that 
 
 remains to me tins morning, ask their attention to 
 tour brief considerations. 
 
 (1) Christianity became the metaphysical simply 
 and only because man is rational. His rationality 
 means that he must attempt w to give account of 
 things," as Plato saw because he was a man, not 
 only because he was a Greek. .Man cannot go on 
 acting without reason given and accepted for his 
 actions. Thus in morality. If lie finds himself act- 
 ing on a moral law, and regarding it as obligatory, 
 he must give some account of its obligatoriness; he 
 must regard it as expressing the moral will of the 
 Supreme Being, or as the law of reason, transcen- 
 dental and prior to experience, making itself felt in 
 his conscience as a " categorical imperative " j or 
 reject Lng these metaphysical theories, he may explain 
 
 morality as nothing *'\^r at the bottom than the 
 
 desire for pleasure and shrinking from pain, disci- 
 plined and taught in the successive experiences oi 
 our race. This last theory nu;. be called unmeta- 
 physical, but there can be no doubt thai If it were 
 
 i Dr. Hatch'a Rlbberi I. S, p. 851, ef. p. L Bee forth** 
 
 i • h '• ftpp. ii*'* 
 
24 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 commonly held, in a generation or two the old sense 
 of absolute moral obligation would have yielded 
 place to the more or less enlightened sense of self- 
 interest. For man, however inconsistent he may 
 seem to be, if you take a transverse section of 
 humanity at any point, presents a much more logi- 
 cal aspect if you look down some long reach of his 
 development; his action at least settles down to his 
 theory, if his theory does not justify his higher 
 action. Just like morality, then, Christianity must 
 have become either metaphysical or anti-metaphysi- 
 cal. Christians found themselves treating Jesus 
 Christ, believing in Jesus Christ, as they had never 
 treated or believed in any other man, and that 
 because of His personality and claim, as moral 
 master and judge of mankind, — a claim, which, by 
 the way, appears nowhere more prominently than 
 in the Sermon on the Mount. Because they were 
 rational they must have asked themselves, "Why 
 do we treat Jesus Christ in this exceptional man- 
 ner? Who is He to be so treated? What is His 
 relation to God whose functions He exercises ? Why 
 are we not idolaters if we yield Him such worship? " 
 They must have asked these questions because they 
 were men endowed with reason, and could not there- 
 fore go on acting without giving some account of 
 their action. The questions once asked must have 
 been answered, and the answer must have involved 
 metaphysics, if Jesus Christ was to retain His excep- 
 tional position. He could only be treated in a way 
 in which no prophet or righteous man had ever been 
 
WHAT CHRISTIANITY is. ZO 
 
 treated, if in fact, He was more than they were, in 
 some peculiar relation to God, in some transcen- 
 dental sense the Son of the Father. Here is meta- 
 physics. Or if some Buch explanation had been 
 refused and Christians had settled down to do with- 
 out any fresh metaphysics, it' they had refused to 
 give any account of Christ except that II«- was a 
 prophet, the special characteristics of Christianity 
 would have tended to vanish; as in fact, that class 
 of Ebionites, 1 who most approximated to this refusal, 
 were the Least significant and progressive element ol 
 early Christianity. Be it said, then, once for all. we 
 cannot go on treating and believing in Jesus Christ 
 in a way in which it would be wrong to treat and 
 believe in another man, without a theory of His per- 
 son, which explains that II«' is something more than 
 man, which by the nature of the case must be meta- 
 physical. V<>v metaphysics is nothing else than 
 the attempt of rational man to take account of the 
 rational, spiritual, eternal elements which enter 
 into his experience. 
 
 (2) The glory of Christianity has been that it is a 
 G pelf a mi f good tidings to mankind bur- 
 
 dened with sin and pain, overwhelmed in despon- 
 dency and dismay. Jesus said, "Come unto Me all 
 ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give 
 you rest." Now what is it that has in fact made 
 Christianity so real a Gospel? It is the simplicity 
 of its n It holds up the crucifix and Bays 
 
 "Si,- D. -ns dilexit mundum." This is a simple mes- 
 
26 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 sage, and it is simple because it points to facts, to 
 the old, old story of the life and death of Jesus. 
 But observe, the facts only constitute a Gospel, 
 because a certain interpretation of them is implied. 
 It were no Gospel that the best of men, after a life 
 of boundless self-sacrifice, should have been harried 
 to death on Calvary. It only becomes a Gospel if 
 He who submits to this ignominious death really 
 reveals the love, not of man only, but of God, if He 
 really was the Son of God, who out of the love which 
 is His own and His Father's, had come to give 
 Himself in sacrifice for man. It only becomes a 
 Gospel, again, if God's power is shown through the 
 weakness of Christ's death, and He gave assurance 
 of this to all men in that He raised Him from the 
 dead. If He was the Son of God, if He was raised 
 from the dead, we have our Gospel for the world: 
 " God sent His Son into the world not to condemn 
 the world, but that the world through Him might 
 be saved." But the power of this Gospel depends 
 utterly on an interpretation of the facts which is 
 necessarily theological, or (considered intellectually) 
 metaphysical, involving the special doctrine of the 
 pre-existent person of the Son who was sent into 
 the world. 
 
 (3) Many who are indifferent or hostile to the 
 theology of Christianity, have an even passionate 
 enthusiasm for its morality. And indeed it is easy to 
 see why men should cling even beyond logical justifi- 
 cation to an objective moral standard such as Chris- 
 tianity supplies. They may be impressed, like the 
 
WHAT CHRISTIANITY is. 27 
 
 author of Natural Religion 1 with the Lack in almost 
 all classes of English society of any clear moral ideal 
 in the education of children; or they may be dis- 
 mayed to tee! how precarious is the position held by 
 some moral dogmas which are yel intimately bound 
 np with the well-being of society, such as the indis- 
 Bolubleness of the marriage-tie, or the obligation and 
 possibility of purity, or the absolute sinfulness of 
 conscious Buicide; or again, in prospect of the great 
 Bocial changes which seem to be approaching, they 
 may take note, Dot without the gravest alarm, of the 
 slight hold which the authority of the mora] law 
 seems to have over men in masses. At all c< 
 they feel, we must assert mora] authority. Truly we 
 do need, beyond all question, the recognition over 
 us of an unbending mora] law such as in fact is 
 given, if Jesus Christ is owned as our mora] master. 
 We may be touched and not surprised then when 
 we find men doing homage beyond their logic to His 
 moral Lordship, treating Him as the ultimate author- 
 ity who sets the moral standard tor all time, claiming 
 
 of men. because they are men, submission to the 
 Son of man. And yet Buch a position, if it is t" be 
 
 deliberate ami peas d, — nay, if it is to be perma- 
 
 neiit at all, — requires for it^ basis some belief, at 
 Least, in Christ's supernatural nature. One man of a 
 particular race ami age cannot be the standard for all 
 men, the judge of all men of all ages ami races, the 
 goal of human moral development, unless II'- is some- 
 thing more than one man among man\ . Such a uni- 
 
 i iioto I. 
 
28 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 versal manhood challenges inquiry: it demands an 
 explanation beyond itself: it quite transcends even 
 the position assigned to a Homer or a Shakespeare in 
 the realm of poetry. 
 
 (4) I have been asking yon to consider how the 
 practical aspects of Christianity as a religion, a 
 gospel, a moral standard, are obviously enough 
 bound up with its theology. It has many other 
 aspects which give it affinities to art, to science, to 
 history, but its spiritual and moral functions are 
 beyond all comparison the most important; and a 
 great deal is gained if we see that for the fulfilment 
 of these, its primary functions, Christianity depends 
 upon its theological background. There is only one 
 other kindred consideration which I will ask you 
 to entertain. 
 
 On the doctrine of Christ's person the historical 
 Christian Church has committed itself beyond recall. 
 On many subjects, such as the doctrine of the atone- 
 ment or of the inspiration of Holy Scripture the 
 church, while insisting upon the truths, offers no 
 definite dogma, and binds us by none. Certainly the 
 dogmas of the English Church are few and central, and 
 consist mainly of those truths about God and the 
 person of Christ which the Nicene creed contains. 
 But on these points the church's requirement is 
 perfectly definite; so that, for example, she con- 
 stantly requires her ministers to make public and 
 unambiguous profession of their personal adhesion 
 to the propositions of the creed, as the condition of 
 their public ministry. On these central points, 
 
WHAT CHRISTIANITY is. 
 
 then, it La impossible for the Christian Church to 
 exhibit any wavering or uncertainty, and 8 till to 
 retain credit as the teacher of a divine revelation. 
 By these articles of our faith, Christianity certainly 
 as a revealed religion, stands or falls. 
 
 It is well that these considerations Bhould be 
 present to our minds at the beginning of our inquiry 
 into the truth about Christ's person. It may indeed 
 be suggested that these are, in part, only considera- 
 tions of "consequences," consequences which would 
 follow it* Christianity were not true, and that the 
 c.iivid, -rat ion of " consequences " ought to be alto- 
 gether excluded from any inquiry into matters of 
 fact: but the suggestion is somewhat delusive. It 
 
 is not only that the consideration of "consequent 
 
 gives us an adequate sense of the seriousness oi 
 our inquiry, it enters also into the actual argument. 
 It forces as to remember that the rationality of any 
 
 belief means more than its logical appeal to the 
 intellect, for human life as a whole is rational, and 
 a philosophy can hardly he true to reality which 
 would leave our human nature, in Borne of its best 
 ami most universal faculties ami aspirations, dis- 
 consolate and paralyzed. To no one who in any 
 -•■ believes in God, can it Lean argument at any 
 rate against Christianity thai it is so satisfying, or 
 
 in the common phrase, "too good to he true. 
 
 Sounder surely is Al»t Vogler's thought: how can 
 wc "doubt thai God's power can till the heart that 
 
 I I is power expands "? 
 
 On the other hand, the Bense of the seriousness ol 
 
30 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 what is at stake in our inquiry should make us 
 more rigorous in demanding that the inquiry shall 
 be real. The wish to believe, it has been truly 
 pointed out, in the case of the best men of our day, 
 sharpens their critical faculties instead of blunting 
 them. 1 We do not want to be hoodwinked into 
 believing, or to believe because it would be pleas- 
 ant, or in defiance of the facts. Let us at any rate 
 know the truth: 
 
 ev bk (pdei Kal 6\e<rcrov. 
 
 Thus it is very right that we preachers should 
 be jealously watched to see that we do not yield 
 to what has been at all times the temptation of the 
 pulpit, to substitute well-sounding phrases for real 
 discussion. St. Jerome tells us that when once he 
 asked his master Gregory of Nazianzus for the ex- 
 planation of a difficult word in St. Luke, the saint, 
 with no slight humour, replied that he would prefer 
 to explain it in the pulpit; because when there is an 
 applauding crowd around you, you are compelled to 
 know what in fact you are ignorant of. 2 It has been 
 the temptation of the pulpit at all times to explain 
 without understanding, and to gloss over the weak 
 points in the argument that is being conducted. 
 Thus his audience can assist the preacher by enabling 
 him to feel that they will be severe on any failure to 
 face the point of an objection which he professes to 
 consider, or on any tendency to press an argument 
 further than it legitimately carries; and we may 
 
 1 W. Ward, The Wish to Believe (Kegan Paul, 1885), pp. 7-10. 
 
 2 S. Hieron. ad Nepot. Ep. 52. 8. 
 
WHAT CHRISTIANITY IB. 
 
 be buw thai no refusal t<> examine) and no veiling 
 of disagreeable truth, can ever al the Last resorl be 
 for tin- L, r "">l of human life, or to the honour of Him 
 who is not only the author of our redemption, but 
 
 also the light of our reason. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 CHRIST SUPERNATURAL YET NATURAL. 
 
 The Son . . . the firstborn of all creation; for in him were all things 
 created, in the heavens and upon the earth . . . ; all things have 
 been created through him, and unto him; and he is before all 
 things, and in him all things consist. And he is the head of the 
 body, the church : who is the beginning, the firstborn from the 
 dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence. — Colos- 
 sians i. 14-18. 
 
 Jesus Christ, as the Christian Church presents 
 Him for our acceptance, is a supernatural person. 
 It is because He is this, that He has been " believed 
 on in the world"; it is because He is this, on the 
 other hand, that many who have drunk more or less 
 deeply of the spirit of our time withhold their belief 
 from Him. For the supernatural, they say in effect, 
 is the unnatural. Now the believer and the disbe- 
 liever in the supernatural Christ have this common 
 ground, they believe in nature. 1 In whatever sense 
 men believe in God, they believe that nature is God's 
 ordinance, and nature's laws God's laws, and the 
 knowledge of nature as far as it goes the knowledge 
 of God. Here is a voice then which is on both sides 
 admitted to be God's voice. That other voice which 
 
 1 See app. note 8. 
 32 
 
CHRIST SUPERNATURAL Yl.T NATURAL. 33 
 
 makes itself beard in Jesus Christ <• la in is to be God's 
 voice — His fuller and more articulate utterance. 
 Now it' there is an admittedly authentic work of an 
 author, and a work of which the authenticity is dis- 
 puted, the admitted work must obviously BUgj 
 important presumptions for or against the contro- 
 verted work. Tims we contemplate nature, God's 
 admitted work, and we contemplate the Christ — so 
 ardently believed in, so vehemently rejected — and 
 leaving aside other considerations, we ask the ques- 
 tion, whether nature suggests presumptions against 
 the Christ or for the ( brisk This is the contro- 
 versy, and the chief law of its discussion is that 
 which has been laid down by minds characteristically 
 English as valid equally in the region of physical 
 and of theological inquiry. Bacon and Butler alike 
 warn as, each in Ids own department, against putting 
 too much trust in abstract ideas, in the "anticipatio 
 mentis." We are not then in this investigation of 
 ours to Buppose that we can determine a priori how 
 God's completer revelation of Himself ought to have 
 been given, if given al all. We must Look as faith- 
 fully at the Chrisl of Christian tradition who is de- 
 clared i" be the revelation of the Father, as we do 
 look at the phenomena of nature, and when we have 
 been equally faithful to both, we must ask, what is 
 the testimony of nature as a whole with reference to 
 Him. And first let us clear the ground for discus- 
 sion* 
 
34 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 I. 
 
 There are some who see in nature no good evi- 
 dence of authorship at all, no good evidence, that is, 
 of God. Mind, as they view it, is simply a function 
 of material life in its highest developments, or a 
 phenomenon of a distinctive kind, attached to it. 1 
 "He that made the eye, shall He not see"; and He 
 that planted the mind and heart, shall He not think 
 and feel ? — is a question to which, they allege, there 
 is no answer. Nature bears witness only to an in- 
 scrutable force, working by constant laws, in the 
 production of all structures and forms of life. It 
 reveals no mind, no purpose, no being behind itself. 
 
 Now obviously to the atheist, if such a person 
 exists, or to the convinced agnostic, the Christ is 
 supernatural, and as supernatural, also unintelligi- 
 ble, because He falls outside the only nature which 
 his eyes can see. But then his conception of nature 
 has been formed by excluding from consideration 
 important classes of facts which really exist in 
 nature. For, first, the metaphysician, with his 
 analysis of sensation and experience, discloses in 
 mind, not merely one product of nature, but the 
 necessary constituent of nature considered as an 
 ordered, knowable system. Again, if Charles Dar- 
 win and the scientific world whom he represents, 
 have materially altered, yet they have not funda- 
 mentally impaired, the evidences in nature of divine 
 
 1 See app. note 9. 
 
CHRIST SUPERNATURAL Yi.r NATURAL. 
 
 purpose or design, qoi have they touched the argu- 
 ment (to many minds the Irresistible argument) 
 from tlif beauty of nature to the spirituality of the 
 Being which it reveals. Once more, ethical inquiry, 
 where it is true to Its subject-matter, postulates an 
 absolute and superhuman law of righteousness, with 
 w bich men are as truly brought into relation through 
 conscience as they are, through the eye, brought into 
 relation to the objective reality of light ; — postulates 
 also a certainty of moral obligation, which has n<> 
 meaning unless man has really a tree will, however 
 Limited and conditioned its freedom. And the 
 argument mounts one step higher. The universal 
 mind and divine righteousness which arc disci 
 in nature, are inseparable from the idea of personal- 
 ity, for mind is only conceivable as a function, ami 
 righteousness only as an attribute, of a person; and 
 personality is the highest form in which life is 
 known in the universe. God then, or the spiritual 
 principle in nature, is, we believe, in BOme real 
 sense, personal; transcending qo doubt human per- 
 sonality in infinite degree, yet at Least so truly per- 
 sonal as that man in virtue of his personality is Liker 
 
 to God than any Lower form of life. 1 
 
 Tin- arguments I have just summarized, I shall so 
 Ear take for -ranted as to assume that Done of those 
 I am now reasoning with are, at any rate, convinced 
 agnostics — men who positively disbelieve that God 
 
 .•an be known to exist, or that nature's order can he 
 
 ascertained to be more than mechanical. And from 
 
 is.-, however, further, i». 128; .-111.1 on ftfl tin • argument* ftpp. 
 LO. 
 
:: 
 
 z . ^ --7- ^~- - -_r -1;1,. 
 
 - -__-- . . . t- - l .. - ~'--\- _- '-/ ■-_'.- 
 
 zs. 
 
 God, d» onfolding of dirine qoalitks. r*: 
 
 "'"--, ~ : _z_ -- t _ .- 7 i::r"- . :.. 
 
 : 
 
 _ . zz. : u_ ;; ; r_ ., ~ru- n- .-..- -_ i_ -. ..- "._ 
 
 is afire: in htrman nature He has given, glimj 
 }:_- ___jl : ~-.~ : .L-.r - - ."-r:. T:_ _;_::-: l ~ it : 
 r^lit: :■:">*_ .:.:. :.- L- ..".:. _'.-~L: :-,-. ':.' ±y-. 
 ±rr_rl: :: ".-.-" :-- 1 - : z;^ :. ir_ :;_-: 
 erpnCTtMi of the divine character, thedhrinep 
 
 ::. 
 
ch: 
 
 a law. which could 
 
 come into n . which could not be rationally 
 
 _s part of the universal life and in cor- 
 
 with its fundamental laws* the reason 
 
 of man would have been rig _ gered and r 
 
 liou-. nsistent with nature it could 
 
 ind a place for. I 
 natural, only in the sense of transcending, or advanc- 
 
 nature exhibits apart from H 
 whi. me He ^:;t^ts in fundamental 
 
 han- :h the whole, and is incorporate _ 
 
 previous rv e reason should experience no 
 
 sue:. Behind the \ iture there has 
 
 lain hid all along the divi:_ 
 ness and character, and no reason to be- 
 
 that nature as i: xLiusts 
 
 the divine quali: re mar : 
 
 to b \ture ineon: 
 
 the divine author in fa I a I xsid. 
 
 cannot be untrue to His own pri:. 
 exh m, but He can advance upon thr 
 
 ure of them hitherto made in the moral and 
 :n of the world. 
 B .at real sense does the 
 
 Christ :r imaginatioo or mind 
 
 without 
 H ;ion wilL I sup: 
 
 be most who think most of the 
 
 ho are more par: 
 ■ 
 
 .oralch 
 
38 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 such as goodness and love, express God more ade- 
 quately than the mechanical motions of planets and 
 suns, or than the life of plants and animals, then we 
 are driven to expect some fuller revelation of God's 
 being than is offered us, or seems at all likely to be 
 offered us, anywhere apart from Jesus Christ: then 
 the world without Christ, is nothing else than an 
 imperfect fragment. For certainly God's righteous- 
 ness and justice find in our present experience very 
 inadequate realization, His goodness very ambiguous 
 expression ; and thus the contemplation of the moral 
 revelation of God in nature begets in the mind what 
 Bishop Butler calls, "an implicit hope of somewhat 
 further." The earnest expectation of the creature 
 appears to be waiting for some manifestation not yet- 
 given. And conversely, if personality, if character, 
 is the best image of God which nature affords, then 
 we are in a measure prepared for the occurrence of 
 an Incarnation. There is a necessary kinship be- 
 tween God and man, and if human qualities are not 
 the measure of the divine, yet they are cognate to 
 them. It becomes intelligible that God should take 
 man's nature and reveal Himself in it, without either 
 annihilating our manhood, or compromising His God- 
 head. 
 
 Christ then, I say, is the crown of nature : He is 
 thus profoundly natural, and to interpret the Christ 
 we postulate only those spiritual realities, which (as 
 every theist must admit) do in part find expression 
 and in part lie hid behind the veil of nature. 
 
 But then is Christ supernatural ? The term super- 
 
CHRIST SUPERNATURAL ZET nati i:al. 
 
 natural is purely relative to what at any particular 
 Btage of thought we mean by nature Nature is a 
 progressive development of Life, and each new Btage 
 
 of life appears supernat ural from tin- point of view 
 of what lies below it. Moral lite [a thus certainly 
 supernatural from the point of view el' physical life 
 
 The moral spirit in man does indeed use the animal 
 organism as its instrument, and emerge out of the 
 heart of physical development, but it is supernatural, 
 because, when it appears on the scene, 1 it lb as a new 
 kind of lite, working by new laws of its own, tin- 
 laws of conscience and of choice, and exhibiting 
 phenomena — such as the deliberate recognition of a 
 divine law of righteousness, self-judgment, peni- 
 tence, conscious fellowship with God- -which the 
 merely physical world cannot, considered by itself, 
 explain or account to]-. In the same sense Christ 
 is supernatural from the point of view of mere man. 
 because in Him the divine Being who had been 
 always at work, in physical nature as "the persist- 
 ent energy of all things," and in human aatun 
 the rational light of man, here assumes humanity, 
 spirit and body, as the instrument through which 
 to cxliil.ii with ;i new completeness and in a new 
 intensity His own personality and character. The 
 same force is al work all through the stages of lite, 
 tor the force of all things is God; onlj God is pro- 
 gressively revealed, and at the last with intensified 
 reality in Chrisl "the life was manifested and we 
 have seen it." 
 
 1 See ftpp, note 1 1- 
 
40 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 III. 
 
 This is the true account of the matter, but not yet 
 the complete account, for to interpret Christ Ave have 
 to recognize even from the beginning the reality of 
 sin, as something which appears nowhere below in 
 nature but first in man, the rebellion of free-wills. 
 In other words we have to recognize — what it is 
 hard to see how any moralist can deny — that human 
 nature, as we have had experience of it in history, 
 presents in great measure a scene of moral ruin, so 
 that Christ enters not merely to consummate an order 
 but to restore it, not to accomplish only but to 
 redeem. He is not only "Christus consummator " 
 but also " Christus redemptor." This idea of redemp- 
 tion will in its turn appear natural in proportion as 
 it is believed, faintly or decisively, that God is good, 
 and realized on the other hand that man is sinful. 
 The more you contemplate from a moral point of 
 view the condition of man, the more luminously 
 certain it becomes that the Christian view of sin is 
 the right one, so far as that sin as we know it now, 
 in ourselves and in the world, is lawlessness — the 
 violation of our true nature, not its expression, the 
 taint in our development and not simply its necessary 
 condition. 1 "Our life is a false nature," as Byron 
 cried, "'tis not in the harmony of things." Grant 
 this, and you find it surely credible on evidence that 
 the goodness of God should have moved Him to 
 
 1 See Lux Mundi (Murray, 1891), App. II. on The Christian doc- 
 trine of sin. 
 
CHRIST SUPERNATURAL \i:r NATURAL. 11 
 
 redemption. Tims it comes about that our readi- 
 ness to believe in the Redeemer does in fact depend 
 upon the Btrength of the impression made upon our 
 minds by the Bin of the world. Whatever impulse 
 to belief may come from intellectual or aesthetic con- 
 siderations, til*- primary force which stimulates to 
 belief is the desire for righteousness and the sense of 
 Bin. 
 
 And here we must not fail to remind ourselves how 
 possible it is to weaken or even to Lose this desire for 
 holiness, and this sense of Bin, through diverting qui 
 faculties into other channels. It is very well known 
 how Darwin describes his own mind as having"be- 
 come a kind of machine for grinding general laws 
 out of large collections of facts,*' with the result of 
 
 producing ••atrophy of that part of the 1 train on which 
 the higher tastes depend." ' What is singular about 
 this confession is probably its honesty. I » u t we must 
 not hesitate to recognize that a mind tints exclusively 
 organized lor physical investigation is not a mind 
 " disposed," as St. Luke expresses it, for eternal life. 3 
 
 Christ would naturally seem to such a mind an alien 
 
 object. What Darwin is speaking of in his own case 
 
 is the atrophy of 8BSthetic, rather than of moral, fac- 
 ulty. But a similar abnormal atroj-hy IS possible in 
 
 the case of all disused faculties and in all pursuits. 
 For example, the pursuits of the priest and pastor, 
 may tend of themselves to disqualify the mind for 
 
 1 Sp<> Hpp. note 13. 
 Alford in toe. 
 
42 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 physical or historical inquiry. At present, however, 
 we are concerned to notice this only : that the atro- 
 phy of a man's moral faculty is a probable event in 
 certain cases. Thus literary or classical studies, in- 
 tense concentration on business, exaggerated athlet- 
 icism, absorption in pleasures, higher or lower, each of 
 these may preoccupy the whole man, stunting and 
 overgrowing the moral faculties, making the Christ 
 seem a remote figure, the crucifix an unmeaning and 
 disagreeable object, the vocabulary of Christianity 
 unnecessary and unreal. But it needs only to re- 
 kindle in a man the hunger and thirst after righteous- 
 ness, in himself or in the world, in order to bring 
 Christ near to him, and to teach him to look upon 
 His person with different eyes. Whatever in fact re- 
 awakens in him the sense of God and eternity gives 
 him faculties to acknowledge Christ. It may be any 
 experience which stirs the depths of his being, possi- 
 bly the death of some one with whom his life was 
 bound up, and the sense which comes with it of the 
 fragmentariness and incompleteness of the world. 
 It may be also something less personal to himself. 
 For example, suppose a man to devote himself to the 
 bettering of social conditions : suppose him so far 
 Christian — and it is a great way on the road — as to 
 realize that he is his brother's keeper and must go 
 out to bear his share of the world's burden. Such an 
 one after a few years' work will surely be impressed 
 with the truth that, much as can be done by improved 
 laws, improved social adjustment, improved organiza- 
 tion, to remedy the evils under which society groans, 
 
OHBIST BUPERNAT1 EtAL KBX NATURAL. J: 1 . 
 
 the heart of the matter lies in clKu.iii.-i-. The obsta- 
 cles to progress In every class are within rather than 
 without: they lie in jealousy, in suspicion, in suit 
 assertion, in lust, in dishonesty, in carelessness — in 
 
 a word in sin. In sin, in the omnipresent tad of sin, 
 there is th«- evil. In redemption, redemption from Bin, 
 there is the central and fundamental remedy and the 
 thing supremely needful. Mote and more, behind 
 Legislator, instructor, economist, agitator, there dawns 
 upon the horizon <>\ the true reformer, to refresh his 
 exhausted brain, to reinvigorate his desponding heart, 
 the true emancipator of man, his Redeemer, Jesus of 
 Nazareth, whose remedies alone are adequate to hu- 
 man ills, because lie gauges bo profoundly, so accu- 
 rately the nature and seat of man's disease, because 
 
 He deals with men as individual characters, and b 
 the regeneration of society on the conversion and re- 
 newal of men. In a word, brethren, the Son of man 
 will seem in the highest seii.se Datura] to you in pro- 
 portion as you are human, in proportion, that i . 
 what you are in contact with is not merely things or 
 - or minds but persons, not problems merely hut 
 characters. 
 
 Lei me sum up briefly my positive contention: 
 
 it i> that Christ LS supernatural, if you mean by this 
 
 thai He transcends all the manifested natures, and is 
 not explicable out of their elements. Bu1 if H< 
 supernatural He is also natural. Nature as a whole, 
 moral ami physical, demands Him to accomplish its 
 yearnings and to restore its order. Nor is this 
 other position than that suggested Long ago in the 
 
•44 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 profound words of Bishop Butler: " Persons' notions 
 of what is natural will be enlarged in proportion to 
 their greater knowledge of the works of God and the 
 dispensations of His providence. Nor is there any 
 absurdity in supposing, that there may be many 
 beings in the universe, whose capacities and knowl- 
 edge and views may be so extensive as that the whole 
 Christian dispensation may to them appear natural." 1 
 
 IV. 
 
 To the view of the relation of Christ to nature 
 which I have been trying to express, there would be, 
 I suppose, three main objections. 
 
 First, it would be asked, " how is it then that in 
 popular Christianity the Redeemer and His work 
 have been so much isolated from nature, and indeed 
 put into antagonism to it?" It is partly because in 
 the mind of Christian preachers or their hearers there 
 has been a confusion between " nature," that is, the 
 ordered world and "nature" in the sense of our hu- 
 man nature as it exists in a state of sin : between the 
 world as God's creation, and "the world " of human 
 society considered as "refusing to have God in its 
 knowledge." But in theology worthy of the name, 
 the sequence and fundamental unity of nature and 
 grace, of creation and redemption, are always insisted 
 upon. 2 
 
 Thus the doctrine of St. Paul and St. John will 
 
 1 Analogy, Pt. I. ch. 1 ad fin, 
 
 2 See, in justification of the following paragraphs, app. note 13. 
 
CHRIST SUPERNATURAL yi;t BTATURAL. I" 
 
 not allow us to separate the two parts of the self-man- 
 ifestation of God. I am qoI for the moment con- 
 cerned to inquire how these first Christian teachers 
 got at their conception of the Word or Son of God 
 as the creator no Less than the redeemer. Bnt cer- 
 tainly St. Paul and St. John do teach that the Son of 
 
 God who redeems is also the creator, and that II 
 
 mediation in grace is strictly od the lines of His ear- 
 lier mediation in nature. 
 
 He is, according to those theologians of the New 
 Testament, the author of the universe, and He abides 
 in all His creation as its principle of cohesion. He 
 is the ground of its progress and the light of its ra- 
 tional members. Finally He is the goal of all its 
 movements. When sin perverted His creation in 
 part. He was not haflled by its ravages, hut came out 
 again to redeem, and in redeeming to consummate 
 His creation, by the same method as characterized 
 His previous working. I**)' His Incarnation He in- 
 augurated a kingdom of redemption in the heart of 
 the old kingdom of nature. Again He abides in that 
 
 new creation as the inner principle of its life. Again 
 
 He bears along this new work', and with it the old 
 
 work which it completes, to its final goal in Himself. 
 
 In creation and in redemption He is author and in- 
 herent lite, and final can 
 
 Thus the doctrine of St, Paul and St. John gives 
 the secure basis for a conception of order in nature. 
 Indeed the idea of order in nature came to men's 
 
 niind> at the first from :i religious Or philosophical 
 rather than a scientific point of view, in part an. 
 
46 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 the Hebrews and more emphatically among the 
 Greeks. It had been appropriated by Christianity 
 in its cradle as part of its heritage from the fusion 
 of Greek and Jewish thought; it is developed in its 
 full significance by the Greek Fathers. Their teach- 
 ing claims our notice at this point in three particulars. 
 
 (1) They insist on the unity of God's work in na- 
 ture and in grace. The Incarnation is on the lines 
 of God's inherence in nature. No one, they argue, 
 who believes that God is living and manifesting Him- 
 self in the world, can reasonably repudiate His inten- 
 sified presence in Christ. If the Word or Son reveals 
 God through the Incarnation, He has previously re- 
 vealed Him in the body of nature through its beauty, 
 its order, its power. This belief in fact gave many 
 of the early Christians that fresh delight in nature 
 for its own sake, which Humboldt the naturalist 
 rightly recognizes as the distinctive merit of the 
 Christian Fathers among ancient writers. 
 
 (2) They were very emphatic as to the necessary 
 universality of order and law. When, for instance, 
 Gregory of Neo-Caasarea is describing Origen's method 
 in training his pupils, he explains how after he had 
 taken them through a course of " logic " and " dia- 
 lectic," by which he aimed at securing the accurate 
 and truthful use of reason and language, he led them 
 on to physiology or the study of nature. And here 
 he made it his object to substitute for the merely 
 irrational wonder and terror at phenomena the ra- 
 tional delight in order and system. It would be very 
 easy to multiply quotations to illustrate the patristic 
 
CHBIST SUPERNATURAL vi:r NATURAL. 17 
 
 appreciation of the divine principle of law; but in 
 fact, though modern science has an incomparably 
 clearer view of the method of Datura] operations — 
 though it thus gives to the idea of law a Ear more 
 accurate content, — modern scientific men themselves 
 cannot hold the conception of the necessary order of 
 the world more strongly than some of the early ( Ihris- 
 tian teachers. Thus when they treat of miracles, they 
 often teach us that even miracles must aot be lawless, 
 but in harmony with nature's fundamental law. 
 
 (3) In the moral and intellectual region, Greek 
 theologians maintain the position that the Incarna- 
 tion gathers into one and completes previous work- 
 ings of God in the human mind and conscience. 
 Everywhere the same light had been lightening 
 every man: everywhere the same Sun had been in a 
 measure revealing the Father; everywhere where 
 men lived by right reason, they lived by Christ, and 
 
 were the friends of Christ: philosophy was thus i<> 
 the Greeks, as the Law to the Jews, a divine prepa- 
 ration for Him who was to come. The Bible is in 
 • •lie respect distinguished from other Literature, be- 
 cause the ooble truths which exist everywhere 
 scattered fragments, are there t«» he found purified 
 and centralized, even as the silver which from the 
 
 earth is tried, and purified BOVen times in the lire. 
 
 We know oow-a-days much more about comparative 
 morality and religion, about the varieties and unities 
 of religious beliefs among all nations. We are thus 
 in a position t<> exhibit much more exactly how 
 
 Christianity unifies the truths which appeal t<» - 1 
 
48 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 and to Greek, to Mohammedan and Buddhist and Brah- 
 min. But the idea of Christianity as superseding all 
 other religions, not by excluding but by including 
 the elements of truth which each contains, would be 
 an idea thoroughly in accordance with the deeper 
 thoughts of Greek Christian teachers in the first age. 
 It militates in no way against the truth of the special 
 vocation in religion assigned to Israel among ancient 
 nations. In accordance with this view other masters 
 would be regarded as hostile to Christ, only when 
 they taught what was positively noxious, or when 
 they began to enter into rivalry with Him ; as twi- 
 light is darkness, when it is once brought into com- 
 parison with light. If then we speak of the Incar- 
 nation as the crown of natural development in the 
 universe, and in accordance with its law, we are not 
 using a language new to Christianity. Indeed it 
 could hardly have been otherwise than that the 
 church teachers should have expected to discover 
 law throughout all creation ; because, in Hooker's 
 language, " The being of God is a kind of law to His 
 working," and the being of God as Christians believe, 
 is an eternal process according to necessary law. 
 
 The second objection to our position would be on 
 the score of miracles. " Nature," it would be said, 
 " does in fact bear witness against Christ on account 
 of His miracles, for a miracle is a supposed event, 
 which is described as inconsistent with nature, or a 
 
CHBI8T 8UPEENATUEAL vi:r N.vnu.w.. 
 
 violation of natural laws, and as guch it is contrary 
 
 to order, and not its perfection." Tins objection is 
 constantly heard, and it cannot be denied that a good 
 deal of Language used on the Christian side has gone 
 to justify it. but I cannot but hope, that the prin- 
 ciples to which I have been endeavouring in this 
 lecture to gain your assent will be seen to carry us 
 most of the way — I do oot say to the acceptance of 
 miracles, for that is a matter of evidence in cadi par- 
 ticular cast-, but to a position from which miracle can 
 
 be regarded as a rational and credible element in the 
 revelation of the Christ. 1 For it" we admit on the 
 
 one hand that the force in nature is the will of a 
 God, who through the whole process <>f the univi 
 has been working up to a moral product in the char- 
 acter of man, and if we admit on the other hand that 
 there is such a thing as sin in humanity which has 
 disturbed the divine order of the world and made it 
 necessary for God to eonie forth for the restoration 
 <>f His own creation: if we admit these two positions 
 
 we have already admitted by implication the reason- 
 ableness of miracle. For miracle depends on the one 
 on God's character, on the other .side on the 
 
 Sequences of man's sin. 
 
 What is a miracle? It is an event in physical 
 nature which makes unmistakably plain the presence 
 and direct action of God working for a moral end. 
 God is always present and working in nature, ami 
 men were meant to recognize Him in the ordinary 
 course of events, and to praise Him as they re 
 
 1 1. 
 
50 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 nized Him. But in fact man's sin has blinded his 
 spiritual eye, he has lost the power of seeing behind 
 the physical order; the very prevalence of law in 
 nature, which is its perfection, has led to God being 
 forgotten, His power depreciated, His presence denied. 
 In a miracle then, or what scripture calls a "sign," 
 God so works, that man cannot but notice a presence 
 which is not blind force, but personal will. Thus 
 God violates the customary method of His action, 
 He breaks into the common order of events, in order 
 to manifest the real meaning of nature, and make 
 men alive to the true character of the order, which 
 their eyes behold. Miracles are God's protests against 
 man's blindness to Himself, protests in which He 
 violates a superficial uniformity in the interests of 
 deeper law. An example will make this plain. The 
 death of Jesus Christ occurred in the ordinary 
 sequence of physical and social law. Granted social 
 and moral conditions, such as in fact existed in 
 Judaea when our Lord came into it, and it could 
 not have been but that Christ should be rejected, and 
 if rejected crucified. God did not cause the death of 
 Christ by any intervention. He simply did not spare 
 His only begotten Son. He let circumstances operate, 
 and they operated to slay Him. But such an event as 
 the crucifixion of the Son of God, though it came in the 
 plrysical order, did not represent the real divine order 
 of the world, it was only possible because of the 
 monstrous anomaly of sin. The miracle of the resur- 
 rection, on the other hand, does break into the physi- 
 cal order: God bares His arm, and shows His life- 
 
CHRIST SUPBENAT1 i:.\i. STBT N.\ni:\i.. 51 
 
 giving presence and will. Bnt why? Only to vindi- 
 cate, at the centra] crisis, the real order of the world, 
 its fundamental underlying law. There is a disturb- 
 ance, thru, of the superficial order in the interests of 
 the deeper, fche rational order. Now this ( the ancient 
 view of miracles) can only be objected to, either on 
 the ground of defective evidence, with which we 
 arc not yet concerned; or, on the ground that the 
 operator in nature is a force and not a person. If 
 God is pcisonal.it' His being is better expressed in 
 human will and character than in mechanical motion 
 and unconscious Life, miracles with adequate cause 
 arc neither impossible nor unnatural. It is blind 
 instinct which works on in monotonous uniformity 
 where conditions are exceptional. It is rational char- 
 acter which from time to time will violate uniformity 
 in the interest of rational consistency. 
 
 These considerations do not certainly leave us in 
 the attitude of welcoming all miracles indiscrimi- 
 nately. The knowledge of God, which we gain from 
 
 nature and conscience, gives us certain criteria which 
 
 we cannot but apply. Thus we could not see the 
 hand of God in portents appealing simply to a bar- 
 baric love of lawless power^for God is a God of 
 order: <>r in miracles unworthy of God's character — 
 
 for Ho is holy and just and L, r ""d : or in miracles 
 calculated to BUbvert that moral discipline which lies 
 
 in u enduring ing Him who is invisible." But 
 
 the considerations we have been entertaining do ena- 
 ble us to attach a rational meaning to mira 
 ially at great initiating moments in God's i 
 
52 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 lation or vindication of Himself to man ; and, in par- 
 ticular they lead us far towards the acceptance of 
 miracles such as are presented to us in connection 
 with Jesus Christ. 
 
 What has just been said represents the ancient, 
 perhaps the accepted, rationale of miracles ; as a gen- 
 eral theory it seems to be valid and to hold its 
 ground ; but so far as we are concerned simply with 
 the miraculous works of Christ there is a prior, and 
 to many minds a more satisfying, consideration which 
 we must entertain, a consideration calculated to 
 remove from miracles in His case the appearance of 
 being abnormal or exceptional events. 
 
 The incarnate Son of God could not have been 
 otherwise than, to our view, miraculous. Formerly 
 men spoke of the uniformity of nature as " our intui- 
 tive conviction that the future will resemble the 
 past." Now we have learnt to view nature as a 
 progressive order, and we know that it admits of 
 new departures, of moments when a fresh level seems 
 to be won, and a fresh sort of product begins to ex- 
 hibit new phenomena. Thus when in the midst of 
 the inorganic world, the germ of organic life first 
 appeared, however you account for it, the future did 
 not resemble the past. Organic growth, unknown 
 before, became a fact. Once again, when rational 
 life appeared, when men first talked and planned, 
 and learnt by experience, and developed civilization, 
 it was a new tiling, and the future in consequence 
 did not resemble the past; a new nature or kind of 
 life had begun to exhibit new phenomena in accord- 
 
0HBI8T BUPBBNATURAL I BT N \ ri i;al. 
 
 ance with new law. Now on the Christian hypothe- 
 sis ( Shrist is a new nature. I (e ua the creative •• Word 
 
 math' flesh." If so, it is to be expected that, as a 
 uew kind of nature, He will exhibit oew phenomena. 
 A oew vital energy will radiate from Him, for the 
 very springs of the universal life are in Him. As in 
 human nature the material body is seen for the first 
 time more or less adapting itself to spiritual ends, as 
 the organ of a spiritual being, so in Christ we Bhould 
 expect the material body to exhibit a far higher 
 degree of this subserviency to spirit. And this, in 
 fact, is what appears to be the ease; a new energy 
 of spirit is seen in Him controlling the material 
 forces. It is not that the old laws are either violated 
 or suspended. All natural processes go on, but they 
 are counteracted or inter-acted by a new kind of 
 nature working by a new law with a new power. 
 Thus Christ's miracles in fact appeal' as laws of His 
 nature: there is a healing power or "virtue" which 
 goes out from Him, occasionally even without any 
 special action of His will, as when He perceived that 
 some one had touched Him. for virtue had gone out 
 
 of Him. 1 Miracles arc described as "His work . 
 
 they are the proper phenomena of His person. In 
 fact, the more we considered the character of the 
 personality of Jesus, the more Datura] do min 
 appear in HU ca$e ; they are not arbitrary portents, 
 but appropriate phenomena. Matthew Arnold once 
 
 Suggested, afl against the evidential power BUpp 
 
 1 St. Lake rili. \fi : Bt M:irk v. 80; <-f. St Lake It. 14, tL 19. 
 
 2 St. John vii. :;, x. :;s, x iv. n. 
 
54 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 to belong to miracles, that " if he could change the 
 pen with which he wrote into a pen-wiper, he would 
 not make what he wrote any the truer, or more 
 convincing." 1 But such a suggestion, as directed 
 against the miracles of Christ, wholly misses the 
 point. For certainly Christ's miracles are not mean- 
 ingless and detached portents, they are " redemptive 
 acts " ; they are evidential because they give to the 
 eye, as object-lessons, exactly that same instruction 
 in mercy and judgment which the words of our Lord 
 teach to the ear. The moral miracle of forgiveness 
 is interpreted by the physical miracle of the renewal 
 of vital power. " That ye may know that the Son 
 of man hath power on earth to forgive sins (then 
 saith He to the sick of the palsy), Arise, and take up 
 thy bed, and go unto thy house." And we may still 
 ask, " Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins are for- 
 given ; or to say, Arise, and walk." Depend upon 
 it, the more you contemplate the personality of 
 Jesus Christ and His moral authority and purpose, 
 the more you will find that His miracles are accord- 
 ing to the law of His being, " in rational sequence," 
 to use an expression of St. Athanasius, 2 with the 
 character of His person and mission. It is not that 
 the miracles prove the doctrine or that the doctrine 
 makes credible the miracles. It is rather that as 
 parts of one whole they cohere as soul and body. 
 True, Christ depreciated miracles in comparison to 
 
 1 Literature and Doc/ma (Smith, Elder and Co. 1873), p. 128; cf. 
 Bruce, Chief Aim of Revelation. (Hodder and Stoughton, 1881), 
 ch. iv. 
 
 2 Be Incarn. 31. 
 
0HBI8T SUPERNATURAL \\.V NATURAL. 
 
 teaching. " Believe me,*' He said, thai is, My pei 
 Myself, u or else believe me for the very works' 
 sake." 1 He puts the miracles below the person. 
 
 Still it is hardly conceivable how without mira 
 His revelation of Himself could have been made. 
 Without the resurrection His death, instead «»t' being 
 an encouragement to faith, would have been the 
 Bupreme obstacle to it. With the resurrection it 
 gives us tin- final and adequate evidence of what 
 faith demands — namely, that there is only one ulti- 
 mate Lordship in matter and spirit, and that the whole 
 universe at the last resort subserves a divine and 
 moral purpose. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The last objection which I must very briefly con- 
 sider may be expressed thus : " If at a certain moment 
 in the world's development, a new type of being had 
 appeared, Buch as you describe, an incarnation of God 
 in humanity, and had propagated itself by methods 
 corresponding t<> its nature -so thai the Christ-life 
 was at the present moment a fact among us, like 
 plant, or animal, or man, concordant with the 
 and y»-t distinct, as an advance upon them — all would 
 be plain, and we should no more urge objections 
 against the uaturalness of Christ than against that of 
 the plant or man. It is the isolation of the Christ 
 which constitutes His inconsistency with nature, [f, 
 
 a- you would Urge, His appearance is in continuity 
 
 i St. John \i\. 11. 
 
56 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 with what preceded it, yet it has no persistence ; the 
 Christ-nature does not become part of permanent 
 experience. It is the isolated Christ which is to us 
 so incredible." 
 
 Now, so far as this objection rests on the fact that 
 Christ is out of the order of gradual development, 
 and leaves us looking backwards for the highest point 
 of attainment, it is met by the consideration that de- 
 velopment on the moral and intellectual level is not 
 generally a gradual progress. Personality has some- 
 thing in it always incommunicable. The great gen- 
 iuses who inaugurate epochs in human history vanish 
 and leave no successors worthy of them ; we are in 
 fact often in the position of men looking backwards 
 for our ideals. The poetry of Homer, the statues of 
 Phidias and Praxiteles, the painting of the Italian 
 Renaissance, the dramas of Shakespeare, represent 
 levels once attained and not again. In religion St. 
 Francis is greater than the Franciscans, Gautama 
 than the Buddhists. Jesus Christ even on the hu- 
 manitarian estimate remains unique. The history of 
 religious movements is, in fact, very generally the 
 history of a continuous decline, through a long period 
 of years, from the level attained by a founder or a 
 reformer. Thus we are not to look for steady advance 
 or persistent realization in moral and spiritual mat- 
 ters. Moreover in regard to Jesus Christ, His unique 
 greatness is inseparable from the facts of the case. If 
 it is in accordance with the true nature of things that 
 God should manifest at last, not His attributes only, 
 
CHRIST BUPERNATUBAL TBI NATURAL. 51 
 
 bat His personality, — if this is the crown of univer- 
 Bal development — then that personality when 
 manifested must remain Bupreme. — ' 1 " 1 1 * - Word made 
 flesh " must be the highest thing possible in all i 
 tii»n. There can be no second. No relation <>!' God t" 
 the creatures, <>r of the creatures to God, can be even 
 conceived of equal to that which is realized in Him. 
 The most that He can do is t<> impart to ether men 
 for their perfecting and redeeming a share in His 
 Divine Sonship; and this He has done. Tin, 
 Christ is truly unique, it" by the necessities of the 
 
 there cannot he more than one incarnate Son, 
 
 yet He is oot isolated, Il«' ha- set at work a new 
 development, which is the movement <>t' the redeemed 
 
 humanity. He has left this world, indeed, for man- 
 hood in the process <>f its perfecting breaks through 
 
 the boundaries of this world into the wider Bphere of 
 
 eternity, and the heavens must receive Him "until 
 the times of restoration of all things": hut he is still 
 spiritually present and operative in the world. 
 
 I must Leave this thought for development until 
 the last Lecture, only Let me Bay that we believe that 
 when the slow-working forces of the Incarnation have 
 borne their perfect fruit.it is not Christ the He. el 
 
 alone, who will 1..- sen to crown and justify the 
 
 whole development of the universe, hut Christ as the 
 centre of the redeemed humanity, the Head with 
 the body, the Bridegroom with the bride; and things 
 in heaven and things in earth and things under the 
 
 ; i >hall acknowledge in that triumphant BOCiety 
 
 the consummation of the whole worl q^ • 
 
58 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 It may have been irksome to some to be asked to 
 deal, as we have been dealing more or less in this 
 lecture, with abstract ideas and a priori credibilities. 
 Opponents of Christianity from the side of science 
 may make Professor Huxley their mouth-piece, 1 to 
 protest that they take exception to miracles solely on 
 the ground of evidence, not at all on the ground that 
 they are antecedently incredible. But it cannot be 
 denied that objections to miracles do still in a major- 
 ity of cases rest largely upon negative presumptions, 
 the serious consideration of which it would not have 
 been possible to omit. On the basis of such consid- 
 eration we can approach more freely the examination 
 of the evidence. 
 
 Meanwhile let me summarize my preliminary con- 
 tention. Read, then, I would say; the book of nature 
 which is God's book, read especially its later chapters, 
 when moral beings appear upon the scene ; you find 
 it a plot without a denofiment, a complication without 
 a solution, a first volume which demands a second. 
 Study the Christ. He appears as the second volume 
 of the divine word, in which the threads are being 
 disentangled. The justifying principle emerges, the 
 lines of incident are seen working towards' a solution, 
 the whole becomes intelligible and full of hope. But 
 the eye is still carried forward, there is a third vol- 
 ume yet expected. It is to contain " the revelation 
 of the glory," the " far-off divine event to which the 
 whole creation moves." 
 
 1 See app. note 15. 
 
LECTURE TIT. 
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL CHRIST HISTORICAL. 
 
 men therefor* which harn companied with us nil the ttmt thai 
 tin Lord Jesus went in and went out among us, beginning from 
 i/i. baptism of John, unto the day thai he was rea ived up fro 
 of these must one beconu a witness with us of his n. — 
 
 Acts L 21, 22. 
 
 THERE is an admirable scene in Mrs. Gaskell's 
 Mary Barton, which probably holds a permanent 
 place in the memory of many of us. It is where the 
 sailor Will Wilson is telling tales of his experiences al 
 sea to Job Legh, the self-taught naturalist, in the Man- 
 chester cottage. He tells him with the Mime simplic- 
 ity of assurance how his party saw a mermaid, and 
 how he saw a flying-fish, and he is angry because the 
 
 old man. who knows what belongs to nature and 
 
 what do»'s not, treats his first story with contempt, 
 ami welcomes his second with enthusiastic accept- 
 ance. "You will credit me," he complains, "when I 
 say I have Been a creature half-iish. half -bird, and \<"i 
 
 won't credit me when I say there are BUch t> 
 
 mermaids, half-man and half-fish; to me one i> just 
 
 as -trail-'' BS the other."" 
 
 I. 
 
 We are to consider to-day the witness of history t<» 
 
 our ( Ihristian l'aith. ami this COD 
 
 69 
 
60 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 to illustrate at starting the limits, which ordinarily 
 exist, to the power of external testimony in carrying 
 conviction. The witness which suffices to prove the 
 flying-fish does not suffice to prove the mermaid. 
 To make even excellent testimony convincing it 
 must be able to appeal to an antecedent sense of 
 probability in the mind of the recipient. Where a 
 supposed event, for which witness is offered, can find 
 no point of cohesion with our general sense of what 
 is credible, we tend all of us to act upon Hume's 
 canon, and to suppose that it is more probable that 
 the witness was mistaken than that the event hap- 
 pened. 1 Testimony is not like mathematical demon- 
 stration. Thus, in the case of Christianity, the mere 
 external testimony of history will not produce con- 
 viction that Jesus Christ was really raised from the 
 dead the third day, unless the man who is to be con- 
 vinced is responsive to the idea of redemption, and 
 alive to the place which the resurrection holds in it. 
 He will not believe the Christian witness, unless he 
 is at home with the Christian spirit. On the other 
 hand, Christian faith is meant to depend upon testi- 
 mony, and a large part of our intellectual duty, in 
 the case of Christianity, as also in inquiries which 
 have nothing to do with religion, lies in submitting 
 ourselves to evidence. 
 
 Real submission of mind to good evidence, contem- 
 porary or historical, is not so common a quality as is 
 sometimes supposed. Very many men are mentally 
 preoccupied with their own ideas ; they are full of 
 
 1 See app. note 16. 
 
Tin; BUPEBNATUBAL CHRIST HISTORICAL. 61 
 
 prejudices: they Bee in experience) and welcome in 
 evidence, only what they want to believe. It is the 
 few wli<» are real observers, who know the difference 
 
 between a fact and a fancy, and when they arc I 
 
 to faro with a fact allow it to mould and control 
 
 their ideas. Undoubtedly the tendency to be too 
 subjective in the estimate of evidence, needs to be 
 jealously watched and kept in check. It is very 
 apparent in the intellects of many of the great I 
 
 mans, and their followers in their own country and 
 in England — witness Dr. Mart mean's recent treat- 
 ment of the Gospel story. It is equally apparent on 
 the other hand in bo on-German a mind as that of the 
 Late Cardinal Newman. In his essay on Ecclesiastical 
 Miracles, for instance, the a priori faculty, the "illa- 
 tive sense," IS allowed almost to run riot, and destroy 
 the distinction between a fact and an idea, between 
 
 what is historical, and what is supposed to be appro- 
 priate. 1 Passing behind the work of OUT own time, 
 we may enter the Bodleian Library and scan long 
 rows of tomes — shall we say in ecclesiastical his- 
 tory? — to find them suggest nothing so much as the 
 melancholy reflection how easily boundless industry 
 
 and rich capacity can be rendered fruitless by the 
 wilfulness which will not be true to the evidence. 
 The fact is that in order to estimate rightly the func- 
 tion of external evidence in producing eonviction.it 
 
 is necessary to pay impartial regard to two opposite 
 
 elements of truth. On tin e band it is absurd to 
 
 deny the necessity for presuppositions in accepting 
 
 ■ a\<\>. mite 17. 
 
62 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 evidence — absurd to pretend that, in matters affect- 
 ing us nearly, we can possibly annihilate the wish to 
 believe or to disbelieve ; indeed this sort of wish has 
 been actually the great stimulus to inquiry of all 
 sorts. On the other hand we must recognize the 
 obligation, and courageously encourage in ourselves 
 the tendency, to submit simply to evidence. Nor are 
 we in this respect without great hopes for the future. 
 There is, not least among Christians of our own coun- 
 try and our own communion, an increasing spirit of 
 candour, an increasing desire to know the truth, an 
 increasing reverence for fair inquiry, which is of good 
 augury for the time which lies before us. 
 
 Jesus Christ undoubtedly intended religious belief 
 to rest upon a double basis. If we watch the method 
 by which, in the Gospels, conviction is represented as 
 being generated in the minds of the Apostles, we find 
 that it includes both inward faith, and outward evi- 
 dence. On the one hand our Lord, more perhaps 
 than any other master, caused His disciples to be 
 educated by external events, ordering circumstances, 
 and letting them teach ; and He chose for His 
 Apostles men of such sort, as are most simply recep- 
 tive, and least possessed by a priori ideas. Chris- 
 tianity in a unique sense is a religion produced by 
 outward facts, and promoted by the witness of those 
 who saw. On the other hand, Jesus Christ deliber- 
 ately made His appeal to faith, properly so called, 
 and educated in His disciples the faculty of faith, 
 and challenged and welcomed its spontaneous activ- 
 ity, and refused to demonstrate mathematically what 
 
THE BUPERNATURAL CHRI8T HISTORICAL. 
 
 He wished men to believe, na\ rather He appeal 
 giving men Loop-holes for escape, and not pressing 
 conviction too forcibly upon them. He did not, for 
 example, appear after His resurrection to unbelii 
 but to believers; which means that this crowning 
 miracle was to be used to confirm an existing faith, 
 not to create it where it did not exist. Again He 
 deliberately refused to respond by demonstration to 
 the complaining request of the Jews. "How long 
 dost thou keep our souls in suspense? it' thou art the 
 Christ, tell us plainly": — pointing out that disposi- 
 tion is always necessary for belief; that *• 1 1 i^ sheep 
 hear His voice"; that He spoke and acted clearly 
 enough for them. 1 So on another occasion He as- 
 serted the limits of external evidence in moral mat- 
 ters: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, 
 neither will they be persuaded it" one rise from the 
 
 dead." - 
 
 Jesus Christ then taught by events, He made His 
 Apostles not so much prophets as witnesses ; bui He 
 also postulated a will to believe. It is faith based on 
 evidence that He wishes to generate, but Btill faith. 
 We then will approach the consideration of the evi- 
 dence for our religion on the one hand with the dis- 
 
 positi< i faith, that is, in the intellect a perception 
 
 of the Deed and reasonableness of redemption, in the 
 heart the desire for the word of God, and the will to 
 surrender ourselves to Him; on the other hand with 
 a simple and open-minded determination to submit our- 
 selves to the results of real inquiry at its Last issue. 
 
 'm. John \. 29 
 
64 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 II. 
 
 The inquirer into the historical grounds of our 
 Christian faith, will be wise to make a beginning with 
 St. Paul's epistles, and he had better go back at once 
 to that specially characteristic group, which bears the 
 most unmistakable evidence of authenticity, that is to 
 say, the epistles to the Galatians, to the Romans, and 
 to the Corinthians. 1 Now what is the conception of 
 Christ's person which he finds there expressed or 
 implied ? He finds Jesus Christ co-ordinated with 
 God in the necessarily divine functions and offices, 
 both in nature and in grace, in a manner impossible 
 to the mind of a Jewish monotheist like St. Paul, 
 unless the co-ordinated person is really believed to 
 belong to the properly divine being. So complete is 
 this co-ordination that (to quote the language of Pro- 
 fessor Pfleiderer) " we need feel no surprise when 
 Paul at length calls Him without reserve ' God who 
 is over all blessed for evermore.' ' And St. Paul can 
 thus pay divine honour to Jesus Christ in the present, 
 only because of what He was antecedently to His 
 appearance in our flesh. Thus there is no disputing 
 that these epistles teach — or, more truly, assume as 
 believed — the doctrine of the Incarnation. Jesus 
 Christ was the mediator in creation, " through whom 
 are all tilings," before He was manifest to human 
 eyes. He was with the Jews in the wilderness sup- 
 plying their wants, "for they drank of a spiritual 
 
 1 See app. note 18. 
 
THE SUPERNATURAL CHRIST HISTORICAL. 
 
 rock that followed them : ami the rock was Christ.* 1 
 Before the days of His flesh He existed as the "Son 
 of God," "God's owe Son," before He waa "sent 
 forth born of a woman." Thus the "second man 
 "I'ruin heaven," but that not without a change. His 
 Incarnation was a voluntary act of Belf-beggary, an 
 act by which the divine Son for our sakes "became 
 poor," depriving Himself of the riches of His pre- 
 vious state, iii order for our redemption to become 
 true man. in the reality of our nature "according to 
 the flesh," ami, though lie "knew no sin " Himself, 
 "in the likeness of the flesh of i sin." Thus in order 
 of time, He is first divine, afterwards human. lint in 
 
 the order of His Belf-disclosure He is first human, 
 
 then divine. He showed His Divinity through His 
 
 Humanity. He appeared as man. afterwards through 
 the evidences of II is manhood men came to believe 
 in His Godhead. In part this belief was due to His 
 miracles or power, in part to the spirit of hoi; 
 
 which gave His miracles a moral character and im- 
 
 pressiveness, at the last resort it was to Hi^ resurrec- 
 tion. So St. Paul summarizes the matter, " He was 
 
 horn of the seed of David according to the flesh, 
 ami marked ou1 as the Son of God in power (that i^, 
 trding i" a recognized use of St. Paul's, by miracu- 
 lous working) according t<> the spirit of holiness, by 
 the resurrection of the dead." 
 
 Of detail of our Lord's life St. Paul gives OS very 
 
 little. He was not, We IVMU-llll 11T. like the other 
 
 Apostles, an eye-witness of its incidents. But he d 
 in the epistle to the ( lorinthians lead us to recognize an 
 
CG THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 important fact, viz. that his first preaching to his con- 
 verts contained more of narrative than his subsequent 
 letters. On two occasions he recalls the memory of 
 the Corinthians to his original teaching in the form 
 of a narrative of events, " I delivered unto you first 
 of all that which I also received " ; "I received . . . 
 that which also I delivered unto you," — that is, the 
 account of the institution of the holy eucharist at 
 the last supper, and of the appearances after the 
 resurrection. In the former case the narrative is in 
 obvious correspondence with that of the Synoptic 
 Gospels ; in the latter case, it is a summary narrative, 
 which, omitting for whatever reason, all appearances 
 to women, is our best help in combining the state- 
 ments and implications of St. Matthew and St. Luke 
 in the Gospels and the Acts taken together. 
 
 In a word, we get in St. Paul's undisputed epistles, 
 first a clear doctrine of the incarnation and person of 
 Christ not developed into a theology, but unmistak- 
 able in character ; secondly, an account of the method 
 of Christ's manifestation, the manifestation of the 
 divinity through the humanity, which corresponds 
 with the evangelic record ; thirdly, an appeal back 
 behind his present teaching to primary instruction in 
 the events of Christ's passion and resurrection, which 
 presupposes an evangelic narrative already existing 
 in the memory of the church. 
 
 These epistles of St. Paul were written in the year 
 57 or 58, but the teaching they contain is no new 
 thing at that moment, it goes back in its main feat- 
 ures to the time of his conversion twenty years before, 
 
Tin: BUPERNATUBAL 0HBI8T HISTORICAL, 67 
 
 not more than ten yean after the death and resurrec- 
 tion of Jesus. At that time he "learnt Christ," and 
 began his career as an Apostle) and after that time he 
 preached do other Gospel than that which hie com 
 first received. 1 Moreover, whereas these epistles are 
 epistles of controversy with tin- Judaistic party, we 
 are enabled to perceive that among the points <>f dis- 
 pute between St. Paul and the false conservatives, the 
 doctrine of Christ's person was not on.-. St. Paul 
 does, Indeed, imply that unless the Judaizers are pre- 
 pared to advance in practice t<> a fuller recognition 
 of the newness and Largeness of Christ's work, they 
 will evacuate the Gospel of meaning and play false 
 to Him — ami in fact the Pharisaic Ebionites of 
 church history are a fulfilment of St. Paul's pro- 
 phetic warning; — but he never allows us to suppose 
 
 that the doctrine of Christ's person or the reality of 
 
 the resurrection were at all in controversy either 
 among the Apostles or in a body of the church, at 
 
 a date when the greater part of those who had seen 
 the risen Christ were still alive. 
 
 We Can he sure then that, if we COUld he carried 
 
 back across the centuries and planted of a sudden in 
 these earliest ( Christian churches, our traditional faith 
 would not receive a shock, at Least in fundamentals; 
 we should find them believing in the [ncarnation, 
 instructed as to the manner in which Jesus Christ 
 manifested Himself in miraculous working, and rec- 
 ognizing that the most significant of the mira 
 accompanying His manifestation was the resurrection 
 
 i G«L i. - 
 
68 THE INCAKNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 on the third day from the dead. Certainly, then, 
 neither the belief in the divinity and incarnation of 
 Jesus Christ, nor the belief in His miraculous man- 
 ifestation, can, consistently with St. Paul's epistles, 
 be regarded as an accretion upon the original belief 
 of the Apostles and their first disciples. 
 
 III. 
 
 The question next arises, have we in our present 
 Gospels something which represents faithfully the 
 original narrative of the apostolic witnesses ? In 
 answer to this question an inquirer who aims rather 
 at satisfying his faith than at solving the complicated 
 literary problems of the first three, the Synoptic, Gos- 
 pels, will do well to give his attention first of all to 
 the Gospel according to St. Mark. Can we with 
 reasonable certainty assign a date to this Gospel? 
 A recent critic, Mr. Estlin Carpenter, who writes in 
 a sense strongly adverse to Christian theology, dates 
 St. Mark's Gospel about a.d. 70. 1 We may depend 
 upon it that that is at least not too early a date, and 
 it commends itself more or less exactly to a great 
 many independent critics. What is of more impor- 
 tance is to notice that this Gospel, or what was in 
 substance this Gospel, has formed the basis both of 
 St. Matthew's and St. Luke's narrative. Here, then, 
 in the matter common to St. Mark with both the 
 other evangelists — or we may say, though for our 
 
 1 Syyioptic Gospels (Unit. S. School Assoc, 1890), p. 381. 
 
THE SUPERNATURAL 0HBI8T HISTORICAL. 
 
 present purpose it makes little difference, with either 
 of the other evangelists —we get as near as we can 
 to the roots of the evangelical tradition. Let as con- 
 sider this (as it is called) "first cycle" of teaching 
 about Jesus Christ, and Irani its main Lessons: — 
 
 (1) First, I would rank the impression mad.- Upon 
 the mind of reality and historical truthfulness. Let a 
 man read St. Mark afresh, in some accurate text which 
 
 divides the narrative into sections, rather than into 
 
 the customary chapters and verses, Let him read the 
 
 Gospel as a connected whole, ami he will receive a 
 fresh and vivid impression that the picture brought 
 under his eyes represents no effort of imagination or 
 
 invention, hut is the transcript of reality on faithful 
 and simple memories. There is DOthing ill the liter- 
 ary situation out of which this Gospel, or the Gospels 
 generally, sprang, which justifies us in believing that 
 it could produce a supreme effort, or rather several 
 supreme efforts, of the creative imagination. Con- 
 sidering the supernatural character of the central 
 
 figure in the Gospels, and the unity which underlies 
 
 their varieties, it is not an exaggeration to Bay that 
 
 the ( Ihrist <>f the ( rospels, if He he not true to history, 
 represents a combined effort of the creative imagina- 
 tion without parallel in literary history. lint the 
 literary characteristics of Palestine in the first cen- 
 tury make the hypothesis of such an effort morally 
 impossible. Moreover, the existing legends about 
 
 our Lord's childhood in the apocryphal Gospels fthow 
 
 us what the imagination of early Christians or half- 
 Christians could in fact produce -Mm. •thin-- which 
 
70 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 is as different from the canonical Gospels as the real 
 light of the sun is from the imitation of it on the 
 stage. 
 
 (2) Secondly, as we look more closely at the mat- 
 ter of St. Mark's Gospel, we shall see great reason to 
 believe the tradition which Papias first records, who 
 himself lived under the shadow of the apostolic age. 
 " This (he writes) the elder used to say : ' Mark, hav- 
 ing become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down 
 accurately everything that he remembered, without 
 however recording in order what was either said or 
 done by Christ. For neither did he hear the Lord, 
 nor did he follow Him; but afterwards, as I said, 
 [attended] Peter, who adapted his instruction to the 
 needs [of his hearers] and had no design of giving a 
 connected account of the Lord's oracles. So then 
 Mark made no mistake while he thus wrote down 
 some things as he remembered them; for he made it 
 his one care not to omit anything that he heard, or to 
 set down any false statement therein.'" Internal 
 evidence makes it very difficult to doubt that this 
 " teaching of Peter " is the bulk of our second Gos- 
 pel. It would have constituted the material of the 
 catechetical instruction which, as St. Luke's preface 
 assures us, formed the basis of the written Gospels. 
 Here is a narrative simple and brief enough to have 
 easily been the subject of oral instruction in the dif- 
 ferent churches of St. Peter's foundation. St. Peter 
 was never a theologian, like St. Paul or St. John, 
 and his Gospel was probably a narrative of incidents 
 which impressed themselves most vividly on his 
 
THE SUPERNATURAL CHRIST HISTORICAL. 71 
 
 memory, and which he judged especially suitable for 
 primary instruction, with but small accompaniment 
 of discourse. 
 
 We scan then this first cycle of evangelic teaching, 
 and what do we find in it? A record which im- 
 presses as with its fidelity, but which is pre-eminently 
 miraculous. Miracle is here at its height, its propor- 
 tion to the whole narrative is greater than in any 
 other Gospel, because of the comparative absence of 
 discourses, and the miracles are exhibitions of su- 
 preme power such as do not admit of any naturalistic 
 interpretation. There is the feeding of the five thou- 
 sand, and the raising of Jairus 1 daughter, and the 
 healing of the paralytic, and of the man with the 
 withered hand, and of the Leper, and the Btillin 
 the tempest, and the walking upon the water. More- 
 over, the impression which Christ's person makes on 
 us, in spite of the comparative absence of discoui 
 is exactly the same as that which we receive from 
 
 St. .Matthew and St . Luke The absolute autlioiita- 
 
 tiveness of the Christ is the impressive fact, "II'' 
 taught as on.' having authority." With authority 
 He announces beforehand His passion and resurrec- 
 tion after three days, and tin- world-wide Bpread of 
 His Gospel, and the glory of the saints with Him- 
 self when He shall come ;it the Last day to exei 
 divine judgment. With authority He controls the 
 devils. With authority He governs physical nature. 
 II< heals men's bodies even in His absence, and 
 absolves their sins, and commands their allegiance. 
 And tlii- because of what II : because though 
 
72 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Son of man, He was not mere man, there was some- 
 thing behind what appeared, which He would not 
 freely disclose, which He left men mostly to find out, 
 but which the devils recognized ; " Jesus, the Son of 
 the most high God." This He was declared to be at 
 His baptism and His transfiguration by the voice of 
 the Father. So He described Himself in the parable 
 where He distinguishes Himself as the only Son from 
 the servants who were God's previous messengers. 
 Because He is this, He would have the Jews think of 
 the Messiah as David's Lord rather than as David's 
 son. It is when He confesses Himself " the Son of 
 the Blessed," in response to the demand of the High 
 Priest, that He announces also that He shall be man- 
 ifested at the last, "sitting at the right hand of power 
 and coming with the clouds of heaven." As Son 
 once more He speaks of Himself as superior to 
 the angels, even when He is declaring Himself igno- 
 rant of the day and hour of the end. In a word, 
 the brief statement of St. Paul, already referred 
 to, is a sufficiently accurate analysis of this Gos- 
 pel. It is the Gospel of "one born of the seed 
 of David according to the flesh, and marked out as 
 the Son of God in miraculous power according to 
 the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the 
 dead." 
 
 Once again, then, a sifting of the evidence discloses 
 in the earliest Gospel the Christ of the Apostles' 
 Creed. It affords us no justification for supposing a 
 process of accretion by which a naturalistic Christ 
 was gradually deified, or became the subject of mir- 
 
THE SUPERNATURAL CHRIST HISTORICAL. 
 
 acles. The Chrisl of the original apostolic testimony 
 appears unyieldingly the miraculous Son of God as 
 the most human Son of man. 1 
 
 IV. 
 
 At this stage of our inquiry we shall do well to 
 exercise a strict self-denial. Tempting problems Lie 
 before us in the relations of the Gospels to one 
 another, but we will deliberately refrain from touch- 
 ing these problems at all. Again, we hear it sug- 
 bed that there arc indications in St. Matthew and 
 St. Luke of deteriorations in the common tradition; 
 again that there arc discrepancies between the three 
 Evangelists. For the moment we will Let the 
 go by default in favour of these suggestions, but at 
 least, as we read each of the three Gospels in turn, 
 we shall find the Christ presented to us the same fig- 
 ure, Only with Such characteristic features as would 
 
 be derived in part from independent testimony, in 
 pari from fresh treatment of the same material. Dis- 
 crepancies, if they arc made the mosl of, do not 
 approach the point at which, according to the rules of 
 
 ordinary historical inquiry, they \\<»uld be supposed 
 
 to invalidate the record as a whole. 
 
 But even at the first stage of our inquiry we must 
 pause over St. Luke's preface. We shall feel thai 
 these few verses* give us an account, as true as it is 
 simple, of the origin of the written Gospels. 
 
 They tell us how the evangelical narrati 
 
 i Bee app. note IS. - St Lulu I 1 4. 
 
74 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 at first delivered by eye-witnesses and authorized 
 expositors of what they related, " eye-witnesses and 
 ministers of the word " ; how it became familiar to 
 Christians orally in the catechetical system of the 
 churches ; how after a time many began to write 
 down the familiar record, according to their ability ; 
 how St. Luke had special opportunities of accurate 
 information extending over the Avhole period of our 
 Lord's life from the beginning, and therefore thought 
 it right to be at pains to construct an orderly narra- 
 tive, which he offers to Theophilus as something 
 which may be depended upon for a trustworthy 
 account of the subject-matter of his faith. What a 
 fund of re-assurance lies in those simple verses with 
 which St. Luke opens his Gospel ! How vividly 
 they enable us to realize that, behind the written 
 Gospels, reducing them, at the moment of their com- 
 position, even to comparative insignificance, lay the 
 authoritative apostolic message, enshrined in the memo- 
 ries of churches. 
 
 I must here be allowed to assume the results of my 
 predecessor's labours in this lectureship, 1 and state 
 simply, though with sincere conviction, based on the 
 best inquiry I can give, that it is those who deny, and 
 not those who affirm, St. John's authorship of the 
 fourth Gospel who do violence to the evidence. The 
 evidence, external and internal, combines to press it 
 home upon " the disciple whom Jesus loved." Here, 
 1 See app. note 20. 
 
TIN-: SUPERNATURAL CHRIST HISTORICAL, 75 
 
 then, we have, to piece In with the testimony of St. 
 Paul and the Synoptists, tlif witness of the old 
 Apostle. 
 
 Fifty years of brooding meditation, and many 
 years of constant teaching, since Jesus Left this world, 
 have crystallized the record of his memory into clear- 
 cut and distinct images of tin- person, the words, the 
 deeds of his friend, his master, his God. He lias 
 passed into a wholly new world at Ephesus, half- 
 Greek, half-Asiatic, where Gnostic questions art- 
 beginning to be agitated, and men are seeking to 
 locate the person of Jesus Christ in some universal 
 cosmogony or system of sons. The central problem 
 is " Who Jesus was?" "He was," answered the old 
 Apostle, "the Word made flesh." The phraseology 
 of the famous prologue is obviously familiar phrase- 
 ology, which requires no explanation in St. John's 
 new home; and it is apparently deliberately applied 
 to suggest answers to the Q6W questionings. But the 
 characteristic force of its central term, "the Word" 
 or "Logos," appears to be derived from Hebrew, Dot 
 Gn-rk, sources ami from the atmosphere of Palestine 
 rather than of Alexandria. 
 
 In the philosophical Language of Alexandria, as it 
 appears in the writings of the Jewish Philo, the term 
 "Logos" is osed to express the divine reason or 
 thought, which is the archetypal idea or moulding 
 principle of the material world. "Logos 1 in Philo 
 must be translated "reason." But in the Targums, 
 or early Jewish paraphrases on the <>hl Testament, 
 the "word " of Jehovah (" Memra," " Debura " 
 
76 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 constantly spoken of as the efficient instrument of 
 divine action, in cases where the Old Testament 
 speaks of Jehovah Himself. " The word of God " 
 had come to be used personally, as almost equivalent 
 to God manifesting Himself, or God in action. Now 
 in the Apocalypse, 1 it is plain that the person whose 
 name is the " Logos " of God expresses not the divine 
 reason, but the divine word or power : and the same 
 is true of the fourth Gospel. Here also " Logos " 
 must be translated not "reason" but "word": and 
 this means that the phraseology of St. John has its 
 roots not in Platonic or Stoic idealism, but in the 
 Jewish belief in the word of God, the manifestation 
 of His will in creation or in revelation. 2 
 
 In effect St. John's theology of the Incarnation is 
 the same as St. Paul's ; but in St. John it has a pecul- 
 iar interest, because in a unique sense it is the out- 
 come of his own experience. He could never forget 
 how he had passed from John the Baptist to Jesus, 
 and had even at the first, according to the Baptist's 
 own witness, perceived the vital difference between 
 the old master and the new. This perception of dif- 
 ference had deepened into a conviction in which faith 
 was indistinguishable from experience, in which it 
 became certain knowledge. " The Word, who in the 
 beginning was in fellowship with God, who was God, 
 by whom all things were made, whose life was the 
 light of men, who was all along coming into the 
 world," now at the last " had been made flesh and had 
 tabernacled among them, and they had beheld His 
 
 1 Rev. xix. 13. 2 See app. note 21. 
 
THE SUPERNATURAL CHRIST HISTORICAL. 77 
 
 glory, the glory sua of the only begotten of the Father." 
 This is St. John's summary and emphatic wita 
 
 and he passes on to giw those vivid memories of the 
 life of Jesus on which that witness is based. For 
 whatever intention St. John may have had of supple- 
 menting existing records, the impulse which mainly de- 
 termined his selection of incidents seems to have been 
 his own special memory and the fruit of his long medi- 
 tation. Thus he depicts for us scenes in that early, 
 pecially Judaean, ministry of our Lord, which, though 
 not recorded by the Synoptists, is yet — as critics of all 
 schools are increasingly inclined to recognize, — pos- 
 tulated by the relations in which our Lord is seen to 
 stand to the Jews at Jerusalem in the closing daj 
 1 1 is life. Again he gives us memorable picture 
 our Lord's dealing with single souls, with Nicodemus, 
 with the woman at the well, with the man who was 
 lorn blind, witli individual disciples before and after 
 the resurrection. Again he unfolds before our i 
 our Lord's relations to men, as a great drama of be- 
 lief and unbelief. Once more he fills in the Synoptic 
 history of the trial and passion of Jesus with scenes 
 and touches of liying power, producing a whole of 
 wonderful harmony, even though his narrative intro- 
 duce one, perhaps insoluble, difficulty, as to the rela- 
 tion <>f tin- List Supper to the paschal meal. Bui 
 the pre-eminent interest of St. John's Gospel lies in 
 his representation of our Lord's discourses, and in 
 the witness which these bear to Hi- eternal pre-exist- 
 ence. Our Lord's general method was to i.-t men 
 come to believe ffi Godhead gradually through tl 
 
78 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 experience of His manhood. In his discourses in St. 
 John there is a distinct note audible. He is heard to 
 assert plainly His own pre-existence and His own 
 essential relation to the Father. Now did this asser- 
 tion of His own eternal being historically form part 
 of the teaching of Jesus ? 
 
 We shall not lay stress on the exact form of the 
 discourses as they appear in St. John. The literary 
 habit of the age (as Cardinal Newman well pointed 
 out 1 ) allowed great freedom in the use of " oratio 
 directa." We have every reason to believe that that 
 freedom was used in those summaries and combina- 
 tions of our Lord's discourses, which are given in St. 
 Matthew. Accordingly we shall not hesitate to rec- 
 ognize that the discourses in the fourth Gospel as 
 well, have taken their verbal tone and form in St. 
 John's own mind. But if the author of the Gospel 
 was St. John ; if he was the special friend of Jesus ; 
 if he was the most spiritually apprehensive of all the 
 disciples ; if (as he tells us) he believed that he, with 
 the rest of the Apostles, had been endowed with a 
 special gift of the Holy Ghost " to bring all things 
 to his remembrance that Jesus said to them"; — we 
 cannot but admit that these discourses do in sub- 
 stance come from Jesus Christ; Jesus did Himself 
 bear witness to His own eternal relation to the 
 Father. In support of this conclusion we shall re- 
 member : — 
 
 (1) that it would be otherwise very difficult to 
 explain the thoroughly accepted position of this doc- 
 
 1 See app. note 22. 
 
THE SUPERNATURAL CHRIST HISTORICAL, 79 
 
 trine in the earliest churches as St. Paul bean wit- 
 ness to it : 
 
 (■J) that there are utterances in the Synopt 
 parallel bo those in St. .John. "All things have 
 beeD delivered unto me of my Father, and do man 
 knoweth the Sou save the Father, neither doth any 
 know the Father save the Son." ( >r again, - ( >f that 
 day and that hour knoweth no one, not even the 
 angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Fat) 
 Or again, " Go ye . . . and make disciples of all the 
 nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," a formula 
 which certainly implies the Son's eternal existence 
 with the Father and the Spirit. If Jesus Christ was 
 in this transcendental Bense "Son of the Father," II«' 
 could only be a visitant from the higher, the eternal 
 world. 
 
 (3) We shall remember that the absolute moral 
 
 authority of the Son of man and His coming OS 
 
 divine judge of the whole world in glory at the last 
 — this authority which appears so emphatically in 
 the discourses of the Synoptists- is not really di 
 ciable from divine, that is, eternal being. We need 
 
 only to suppose that St. John's theological mind 
 
 s ized and retained, more than that of the other Apos- 
 tles, th<- particular class of sayings which character- 
 G spel: that while the words and works of 
 authority and the claims of judgment made most 
 impression upon the minds of St. Peter and St. Mat- 
 thew, tin- more mysterious utterances were (in the 
 ways of Providence, which works under the 
 accident ) retained and recorded bg St John. 
 
80 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 We have traced up the evidence of our faith along 
 three chief lines : we have examined the testimony 
 of St. John, we have scrutinized the earliest evangel- 
 ical narratives, which certainly reproduce for us the 
 apostolic teaching, and we have investigated the 
 belief of the earliest churches under the guidance of 
 St. Paul. The result of our inquiry is that we are 
 able to repudiate as un-historical the notion of a natu- 
 ralistic Christ hidden behind the miraculous Christ, 
 the incarnate Son of God, of the church's belief. 
 Historical evidence, let me repeat, cannot create 
 faith, but it can, and does, satisfy it where it exists, 
 and rationally justify the venture that it makes. In 
 a word, it is those who deny and not those who 
 affirm the traditional belief, who do violence to the 
 evidence. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The force of such positive historical evidence as I 
 have been trying to present, is sometimes met in our 
 day by depreciating not, as of old, the moral honesty, 
 but the intellectual or critical capacity, of the Apos- 
 tles and first disciples. "If first-hand evidence is 
 always good evidence," it is said " Ave have very good 
 evidence for multitudes of mediaeval miracles. If 
 we are not prepared to interpolate accepted history 
 with miracles passim, we cannot place exceptional 
 reliance on the testimony of the disciples of one par- 
 ticular man." 
 
 Now it is undoubtedly true that there are certain 
 
THE SUPERNATURAL CHRIST HISTORICAL. 81 
 
 when belief is so utterly uncritical that it d 
 seem as if they could not under any circumstaB 
 afford us satisfactory evidence of miraculous occur- 
 rences; and in every age, including our own, there 
 are a great uumber of people whose superstition, or 
 prejudice, or careless untruthfulness, is bo great that 
 we could never rely on their evidence for any excep- 
 tional event, where their interests were enlisted or 
 their passions excited. But I feel sure that it' ever 
 such a book as the " History of testimony" is worthily 
 and fairly written, the Apostles will take very high 
 rank among the world's witnesses. As represented 
 in the Gospels they were men not of the pooivst. hut 
 of tlit- more independent trading class ; simple, literal- 
 minded men; not superstitious and still Less roman- 
 tic ; free from all traces of morbidness ; -low of belief 
 through lack of imagination ; as individuals strikingly 
 different in character, so as not easily to be led the 
 same way; with the exception of St. John not well 
 adapted to be theologians and none of them (like St. 
 Paul) controversial theologians; hut singularly well 
 qualified as witnesses. They were qualified as wit- 
 nesses 1h-.mii-''. tree from all preoccupation with ideas 
 and Bystems, they were plain men who could receive 
 
 the impress of facts; who can tell a simple {.lain talc 
 
 ami show by their live- how much they believed it. 
 And they were trained to he witnesses. Jesus Christ 
 intended Hi^ Gospel to rest on bets; ami in corre- 
 spondence with this intention, the whole Stress in the 
 
 apostolic church was laid <>n witness. The first 
 thing the church had to do, before it developed its 
 
82 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 theology, was to tell its tale of fact. " We are wit- 
 nesses of these things." 2 
 
 And in what atmosphere, we ask, did the Apostles 
 bear their testimony? It was in face of the Sad- 
 ducees who were their chief opponents and who sat 
 in the seat of authority. And the Sadducees were 
 sceptics, with the scepticism of worldly men who 
 have a political cause to maintain, and would fain 
 keep the supernatural at arm's length ; men who 
 were regarded as denying resurrection and angels 
 and spirits. 
 
 And of what sort was the testimony of the Apostles ? 
 Consider its originality. When once a type of appro- 
 priate miracles has been set, it is very easy, so to 
 speak, to go on taking off impressions as in medieval 
 hagiology. Again, miracles of mere healing or por- 
 tents of power any one can invent. But for the sort 
 of miracles which Jesus is mostly described as work- 
 ing, so . spiritual and original, so characteristic, there 
 was no type. For a resurrection body there was no 
 pattern. If Jews full of Messianic hopes, as is sup- 
 posed, had pictured a Christ coming again from death, 
 it would have been, like the " Son of man " of the 
 Book of Enoch, a Christ in glory, or " one like unto 
 a Son of man " of the Apocalypse. What was there 
 in the imagination of this group of Jews which could 
 project into the outward world the strong vivid image 
 of the risen body of Jesus, spiritual, superior to the 
 limitations of the grosser material life, yet so real ; 
 the pierced body of the same Christ, yet so changed. 
 
 1 See app. note 23. 
 
THE Bl ri.KNA 11 KAL CHBIBT HISTORICAL. 
 
 For observe: visioDs which are Bubjective can be 
 explained out of the images and presuppositions 
 which already exist in the visionary's mind. For 
 St. Theresa's visions, or Joan of Arc's vision, the 
 pattern existed within. It needed but an imagina- 
 tion to project it. Disbelieve their visions — their 
 lives are still Intelligible wholes, with adequate causes 
 to interpret, and to account for them. But the Apos- 
 tles were men whose Later lives can only be accounted 
 for by a certain fact, the fact of the resurrection. 
 This fact transferred them from one level of charac- 
 ter to another; it transferred men first confounded 
 and desperate after their Lord's death, then slow of 
 
 heart to believe what .seemed too good to be tine, into 
 
 men confident, quiet, strong, invincible in the might 
 of a fact experienced on certain definite occasions, and 
 not again. Depend upon it, merely subjective visions 
 do not transform human lives. If mediaeval visions 
 of Jesus exercised power, they were only recurrences 
 <»f a known image, fresh impressions of a known truth. 
 The Apostles' lives were rapidly driven round a sharp 
 turning with a force which only objective facts can 
 exercise. The resurrection moulded them, they did 
 not create the resurrection. The more closelj you 
 consider the originality of such an event as the 
 urrection, of such a figure as the risen Jesus, the less 
 ready you will he to attribute it t<> imagination. The 
 more you consider the intellectual and moral charac- 
 ter of the Apostles — not imaginative men, even in 
 
 the BOIlSe in which St. Paul wafl -the more you will 
 trust them as wit QeSfi 
 
8*4 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 This consideration also you will not neglect — their 
 fairness to their opponents. The mediaeval disciples 
 of a persecuted master would indulge in diatribes, 
 would grossly caricature their opponents, like parti- 
 sans in even later ecclesiastical conflicts. But while 
 the evangelists record our Lord's denunciations of 
 certain classes, how wonderfully they (or the Apostles 
 whose teaching they reproduce) abstain from impre- 
 cations of their own. How free from abuse are the 
 Gospels ; how simply drawn, how justly, are the char- 
 acters of even a Pilate, a Caiaphas, a Herod, a Judas. 
 They are not abused, they are photographed. The sin 
 of a Judas and of a Peter is told with the like sim- 
 plicity. Such fairness, wherever you find it, belongs 
 to a trustworthy witness. 
 
 VII. 
 
 (2) There is one event commemorated in our 
 creed which does not rest primarily on apostolic 
 testimony. It is the virgin-birth of Jesus. And a 
 few men — very few perhaps, but still a few — who 
 believe in His resurrection, deny or doubt the miracle 
 that accompanied His birth. Now there is no doubt 
 that this event was not part of the primary apostolic 
 preaching, as it is given us in St. Mark's Gospel, 
 simply because that preaching was limited by what 
 the Apostles had actually witnessed during "the time 
 that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among 
 them, beginning from the baptism of John unto the 
 day that he was received up from them." The first 
 
THE BTJPERNATUBAL CHRIST HISTORICAL. 
 
 preaching was Bimple personal testimony. There is 
 also no doubt that the Apostles themselves wen 
 be taught by their own experience of Jesus, and had 
 no knowledge given them to start with of His mirac- 
 ulous origin. But when once they had believed, 
 they must have been interested to know the circum- 
 stances ot* the Incarnation. There were two sources 
 of original evidence, Joseph and Mary. Have we 
 reason to believe that we have their testimony in the 
 opening chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke? 
 
 Having asked this question, read St. Matthew's 
 count of the birth, and you will see how unmistak- 
 ably everything is told from the side of Joseph, 
 his perplexities, the intimations which he received, 
 his resolutions and his actions. The narrative 
 has been worked up by the Evangelist in his dom- 
 inant interest in the fulfilment of prophecy, but it 
 lias all the marks of being Joseph's story at the 
 bottom, though we cannot tell by what steps it 
 comes to us. 
 
 On the other hand, St. Luke's narrative, an in- 
 tensely .Jewish document following on his markedly 
 (J reek preface, has all the appearance of containing 
 directly or indirectly Mary's story. It is so intensely 
 coloured by Jewish national hopes thai it is hardly 
 possible to think of it as embodying feelings subse- 
 quent to the rejection of the Christ. It appeal 
 be in special view of this opening narrative that St. 
 Luke in his preface emphasizes the fact that his 
 accurate information reaches back to the beginning. 
 Once again, whatever the independence of the two 
 
86 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 narratives of St. Matthew and St. Luke, at least they 
 agree on that which alone concerns us at present, the 
 virgin-birth at Bethlehem. Further, that event holds 
 a firm place in the earliest traditions of east and 
 west. " The virginity of Mary, her child-bearing, 
 and the death of the Lord," constitute to Ignatius at 
 the beginning of the second century " three mysteries 
 of shouting (that is, of loud proclamation) which 
 God wrought in silence." 1 If we turn from the 
 question of evidence to a priori considerations, we 
 find that the virgin-birth, so far from being an incon- 
 gruous portent, has appeared to Christians at large as 
 hardly dissociable in thought from the occurrence of 
 the Incarnation. I would affirm, then, that though 
 it is a perversion of evidential order to begin with the 
 miracle of the virgin-birth, yet when we approach 
 it on the basis of the apostolic testimony already 
 accepted, with confidence in the evangelical narrative 
 already secured, we find good reason for believing, 
 and no good reason for doubting, this element of the 
 Christian creed, constantly emphasized from the be- 
 ginning. 2 
 
 We Christians then may say our creed in the con- 
 fidence that we can face the facts. The primary 
 motive to belief is the appeal which Jesus makes to 
 our heart, and conscience, and mind. The poiver to 
 believe, or to maintain belief, is the gift of God which 
 we must earnestly solicit in prayer ; it is the move- 
 ment of the Spirit. " No man can say, Jesus is Lord, 
 but in the Holy Ghost." But belief, Christian belief, 
 
 1 Ign. ad Eph. 19. 2 See app. note 24. 
 
THH BUPBBKATUBAL CIIKIst iiisn »i:ic.\i.. 87 
 
 is justified and supported by the evidence. We will 
 be a little afraid of d priori conceptions ami abstract 
 anticipations, but we will not be afraid of evidence, 
 
 of facts, for the witness standeth sure. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE CHRIST OF DOGMA THE CHRIST OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus : who, being 
 in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality 
 with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, be- 
 ing made in the likeness of man. — Philippians ii. 5. 
 
 In the lectures which have preceded we have been 
 occupied with justifying at the bar of nature and of 
 history the faith of the Christian in the incarnate Son 
 of God. We are to pass now to a more exact exami- 
 nation of what that faith means, of what the Incar- 
 nation of the Son of God teaches us about the God 
 who is incarnate and about the manhood which He 
 assumes. But in doing this, we shall constantly find 
 the need of some definitions of the terms we use, and 
 there are definitions which of course suggest them- 
 selves for our guidance, ancient, famous, venerable, 
 contained in the catholic creeds, and dogmatic decis- 
 ions of. the general councils about the person of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 These definitions consist in substance of four pro- 
 positions ; 
 
 (1) that as Son of God, Jesus Christ is very God, 
 of one substance with the Father ; 
 88 
 
OHBIST OF DOGMA THE 0HBI8T OF SOBIFT1 I . 
 
 ( 2 ) that as Son of man, I [e is perfectly man. In the 
 completeness of human faculties and sympatic 
 
 (3) that though both God and Man, He is yet one 
 ■II, namely the Son of God who has taken man- 
 hood into Himself; 
 
 (4) tliat in this incarnation the manhood, though 
 it is truly assumed into the divine person, still re- 
 mains none the Less truly human, bo thai Jesus ( I 
 
 is of one substance with us men in reaped of II 
 manhood, as He is with the Father in respect of His 
 godhead. 
 
 Now of these dogmatic formulas, different v; 
 are taken. 1 
 
 In the view of ancient and Anglican orthodoxy, 
 the creeds are simply summaries of the original 
 Christian faith as it is represented in scripture. 
 They arc summaries such as are necessary for the 
 purposes of a teaching church, to serve as introduc- 
 tions to the study of scripture and guides to it- Bcat- 
 1. hut consistent, statements and implications: 
 
 summaries which always refer US hack to scripture 
 
 for their justification or proof, it being the function 
 of "the church to teach," as the phrase "the 
 
 Bible to prove." And, according to the same view, 
 the dogmatic decision of councils are formulas ren- 
 dered necessary for no other purpose than to guard 
 the faith of scripture from what was calculated to 
 undermine it. They do no1 make any addition to its 
 substance, but bring out into Light and emphasis some 
 oi its most important principles. 
 
 I c app. note 25. 
 
90 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 This, the ancient view of ecclesiastical dogmas, has 
 never been abandoned in the authoritative documents 
 of the Roman Church, but some Roman controversial- 
 ists, when confronted by the fact that ancient Chris- 
 tianity certainly did not recognize their more recent 
 dogmas, have made a reply of this sort : " It is true 
 that our modern theology represents an advance of 
 the religious consciousness of Christendom upon an- 
 cient catholicity, but the catholic theology of the 
 fifth century represents the same sort of advance 
 upon primitive Christianity." Thus, on this view 
 the ancient decisions of councils represent simply one 
 stage in a gradual process, by which the rudimentary 
 consciousness of primitive Christianity was gradually 
 expanded into a great dogmatic system, covering a 
 much wider area of positive teaching than the origi- 
 nal Christian faith, and supplying a good deal of 
 additional information. 
 
 With a not dissimilar conception of the facts, but 
 from a widely-opposed point of view, the theology of 
 the councils has been viewed as a needless metaphysi- 
 cal accretion upon genuine Christianity which it 
 would do well to get rid of. Christianity began as a 
 moral and spiritual "way of life." It was under 
 Hellenic influences, and by incorporating the terms 
 and ideas of late Hellenic philosophy, that it devel- 
 oped its theology. It can throw this off and be only 
 the freer for the loss, for " what was absent from the 
 early form cannot be essential." Christianity can 
 end as it began, with the Sermon on the Mount and 
 the spirit of brotherhood, for its substance and its sum. 
 
CHBIST OF DOGMA 11 1 1: CHRIST OF BCBIPT1 RE. 91 
 
 These are the current views about church dogma: 
 we are concerned with them here onlj bo far a 
 necessary for answering the question which forms our 
 subject For to-day -"what is the relation of the the- 
 ology of the creeds and dogmatic decrees to the faith 
 of the New Testament in Jesus Christ?" 
 
 II. 
 
 Can we then describe in general outline the pro- 
 cess connecting the church of the New Testament 
 with the church of the General Councils? 
 
 The apostolic churches must be recognized on any 
 
 view which can make a reasonable claim to being 
 historical, as a confederation of spiritual societies, 
 united by a common faith as wdl as by a common 
 rule of life. Their relation t<> Christ's person, that 
 i-. their belief in Him as the Son of God, who had 
 taken their nature in cider t<» redeem it. and had 
 
 sent His Spirit to dwell in their hearts, did, as has 
 been already pointed out, 1 involve a theology of 
 
 Father, Son, and Spirit, and of the Incarnation i>\ the 
 
 Son. This theology is implied from the first, 1 not 
 in the epistles only, but in the utterances of our Lord 
 about Himself as recorded in the Gospel "i St. John 
 and also in the Synoptists. Even the Least theo- 
 logical of tli'- epistles, that of St. James, implies a 
 theology <»f Christ's person, by identifying Him as 
 Lord with the Lord Jehovah of the old Testament. 
 
 i Bee ftbore, pp. 23 25, M fT. 
 
 on following paragrftpfa kpp. not* 
 
92 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 A theology is conspicuous again in the formula of 
 baptism, "into the name of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 It has, of course, often been made an objection 
 against the originality of this formula that it is only 
 once mentioned in the New Testament, while on the 
 other hand, the phrase " to be baptized in (or into) 
 the name of the Lord Jesus " occurs more than once 
 in the Acts of the Apostles. 1 But whatever force 
 such an objection may have been supposed to have, 
 has been greatly weakened since the discovery of the 
 Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. For that early docu- 
 ment, which is sometimes referred to as if it represented 
 a Christianity more original than that of the New 
 Testament, mentions twice over the formula of bap- 
 tism into the three-fold name, and thus interprets 
 the expression which it also uses in common with St. 
 Luke, that of being " baptized into the name of the 
 Lord.'' 2 There is, in fact, no difficulty in seeing how 
 the two phrases could be used indifferently ; for he 
 that hath the Son hath the Father and the Spirit also, 
 and to be baptized into the " name " or revelation, of 
 the Son is to be baptized with the formula of the 
 three-fold name, which the Son reveals. 
 
 That this "one faith," in the three-fold name of 
 God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and 
 in the incarnation of the Son, was a main connecting 
 link, or basis of union, among the apostolic churches 
 is unmistakably witnessed in the documents of the 
 New Testament and the sub-apostolic epistles of St. 
 
 1 Acts viii. 1G, x. 48, xix. 5. 2 Didache vii. 1, 3, ix. 5. 
 
till: IS r OF DOGMA THE CHRIST OF SCRIPT! I 
 
 Ignatius and St. Clement, This has become a still 
 more certain proposition, Bince the missing portions 
 of St. Clement's Letter have been discovered, and the 
 genuineness of the [gnatian Letters finally vindicated. 
 Thus to represent the original Christianity as a way 
 of Life without a theology, as the Sermon oo the 
 Mount and nothing more, even it' the Sermon on the 
 Mount did not involve a theology, would be an 
 arbitrary act which could only be paralleled for 
 onhistorical boldness by (shall we say?) the identi- 
 fication of early Christianity with the medifflval 
 Papacy. 
 
 There was then from the first a common faith 
 which is often alluded to in the New Testament as 
 
 "the tradition" to 1 held"by Christians, or the 
 
 M pattern of teaching to which they were delivered," 
 or k * the apostolic teaching,' 1 or M the pattern of sound 
 words,*' or ••the faith once for all delivered t<» the 
 saints." 1 Thus the churches, as Left by the Apostles, 
 believed themselves to possess, in the person of Jesus 
 Christ, God's full and. for this world, final revelation 
 of Himself to man. Their duty was to hold this 
 word or message of God fast till the end. But the 
 revelation, ;is they knew it, was noj in the form of 
 ordered knowledge; its meaning, its coherence, its 
 limits, were very imperfectly recognized, its termin- 
 ology Was n<>t exact. The faith of the church as it 
 
 expressed itself in life, in worship, in fervent state- 
 ment, in martyrdom, was vigorous and unmistakable 
 in meaning; it referred back for it^ authorization 
 
 1 1 C.r. xi. 2, 1 ::.. \.. IT I .' Inn. i. 13 j J« I 
 
94: THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 to apostolic teaching and apostolic writings ; but it 
 was a faith, not a science ; a faith which in some sub- 
 apostolic documents finds such inexact or even careless 
 expression as impresses upon us the difference between 
 the writers within, and those without, the canon. 1 
 
 Then the church, whom we cannot help, as we 
 watch the process, speaking of as a person, is seen 
 subjected to a series of interrogations from various 
 quarters. The most important of her questioners 
 were the Gnostics. Would she admit these half- 
 orientalist, or theosophist, speculators, with their 
 denial of the unity of all things, their belief in rival 
 gods, good and bad, or higher and lower deities, their 
 denunciation or depreciation of the material world, 
 their rejection of the Old Testament and mutilation of 
 the New, their denials of a real incarnation, their depre- 
 ciations of simple faith and exaltations of Gnosis or 
 abstract speculation, their shifty idealism — would 
 she admit these bold theorizers into fellowship, on 
 the ground of a good deal in Gnostic asceticism and 
 mysticism which sounded lofty and Christian enough ? 
 Would she admit Gnostics to brotherhood and let 
 them mould her creed? Or, on the other hand, 
 would she put up with the Ebionite's lower view of 
 Christ as a prophet like Moses or Jonah, or a restorer 
 of primitive religion ? Might the Sabellian regard 
 her Trinity as only three manifestations of a unitarian 
 God? Might the Adoptionists regard Christ as a 
 deified man ? So she was cross-questioned, and with 
 more or less of difficulty and hesitation — like a 
 
 1 See app. note 27. 
 
CH&I8T OP l>< h,m \ THE CHRIST I >\ BCBIPTl l:i:. 
 
 person, as I Bay, subjected to cross-questioning about 
 his convictions — she elaborated her negative ana 
 and bo interpreted her creed. Finally, in respon 
 the defined positions of Anus and Apollinarius, of 
 v storius and Eutyches, Bhe Laid down clear and 
 formal replies. The result of this process is that the 
 church passes from holding her faith Bimply as a 
 faith, to holding it with a clear consciousness of its 
 intellectual meaning and limits, with ready formulas 
 and dearly worked-out terminology. Great theolo- 
 gians have done good service at different Btages of 
 this process. Ignatius, Justin, [rensBus, Tertullian, 
 Origen, Athanasius, Gregory of N . Cyril of 
 Alexandria, Augustine, Leo, leave their Btamp on 
 the church's terminology and thought, but qo one of 
 them enslaved her : she corrects their one-sided bias, 
 when such becomes apparent, and in spit.- of strong 
 pressure on this Bide and on that, Bhe keeps her mid- 
 dle way. holding together the term- of the great syn- 
 thesis, which is involved iii her faith in God, three in 
 one, — in Christ, God and man, the highest and the 
 -i made one. 
 
 Now intellectually, the Bpecial interest of this 
 process, which connects the New Testament with the 
 creeds, Lies in two points : 
 
 First we observe here, as perhaps nowhere else in his- 
 tory, a corporate consciousness, the mind of a society, 
 gradually taking explicit and formal shape. Under- 
 neath the superficial disturbances of the church's 
 life, one steady current has been moving. Beneath 
 genera] confusions of thought, violent partisans! 
 
96 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 imperial influences — stronger than all in the result, 
 stronger to the point of obliterating the traces of 
 their action from the final product — one continuous 
 faith or consciousness has been holding its own and 
 gaining clearer expression. We have other instances 
 in history of the genius of a nation or a society find- 
 ing expression. It is the Roman genius, and not the 
 thought of any individual merely, which is expressed 
 in Roman law. The social theory of Plato and Aris- 
 totle has behind it the social experiences of the Greek 
 city. But there is not, I believe, any case where a 
 product which appears so purely intellectual as the 
 formula of the Council of Chalcedon, 1 a product so 
 exact and definite, can be ascribed so little to any 
 individual or individuals, can be regarded with the 
 same truth as the expression of the consciousness of 
 a historical society, gradually through many efforts of 
 many individuals, elaborated into explicit and formu- 
 lated utterance. 
 
 Secondly, the intellect is attracted by the balanced, 
 antithetic, form of the dogmatic product. The pe- 
 riod of the ecumenical councils, like the period of 
 Gnosticism, seemed to Christian theologians, who 
 lived in it, a scene of wild confusion. 2 The student 
 of its ecclesiastical history to-day, appears to himself 
 to be fighting his way through a wild sea of conflict- 
 ing determinations and shifting views. Yet out of 
 it, by some process, which at lowest must have been 
 the survival of the fittest, emerged a frame-work of 
 dogmatic statement, which is a very synonym for 
 1 See app. note 28. 2 See app. note 29. 
 
0HBI8T OF DOGMA Tin; 0HBI8T OF SCBIFTUR] 
 
 unshakeD consistency and balanced strength. In [act, 
 the thoughtful man cannot Look back upon the result 
 of thai period without being Btruck with the sense 
 that something was going on, greater than can be 
 accounted for by what appears on the Burface of 
 events. For on the surface imperial influences or the 
 tyranny of chance majorities arc apparently all-power- 
 ful. In spite of the venerable dignity of an Athana- 
 sius, a Basil, a Gregory, a Flavian, a Leo, there is 
 violence and partisanship, not only in Little men. but 
 in great theologians, like Cyril of Alexandria. Yet 
 the results are just what these sorts of causes cannot 
 produce. For the decree of the Council of Chalee- 
 don, which practically sums up the results of the 
 epoch, is not merely a solid and substantia] frame- 
 work : it has another quality which accidental party 
 majorities could never have produced ; it has balance, 
 
 moderation, reserve, antithetic exactness, equal re- 
 spect for both elements in a double truth. It is, a- it 
 
 was called from the first, the via media,* which means 
 not the way of compromise, but the way of combina- 
 tion and impartiality. There has been some influence 
 at work here besides what has appeared .in the Burface 
 of history: "this is the Lord's doing, and it is mar- 
 vellous in our e\ es." 
 
 III. 
 
 But the <lM_.iii.tiic product is something more than 
 the sun ival of the fittest formulas. It represents 
 Bimply and faithfully, in Language supplied by 
 - ■ app. no* 
 
98 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Greek philosophical schools, the original apostolic 
 creed in Christ the incarnate Son of God. To justify 
 this position I must recall to your minds, with greater 
 exactness, what are the four main determinations 
 about the person of Jesus Christ, which form the 
 material of the Chalcedonian formula. 
 
 The first decision, as against Arius, assigned to 
 Christ as Son of God the epithet o/aoovo-ios, " of one 
 substance with the Father." Arius' conception of 
 Christ, whatever the intellectual motives which pro- 
 duced it, assigned to Him in effect the position of a 
 demi-god. Current, non-Christian religious beliefs, 
 popular and philosophical, had made men familiar 
 with the notion of intermediate beings, the objects of 
 religious worship, who represented on a lower plane, 
 something greater and more eternal behind them- 
 selves. In particular, philosophical paganism had 
 given currency to the notion of a mediating Mind, 
 which stood half way between the material world and 
 the absolute and unknowable God. On this model 
 Arius moulded his conception of Christ : a Christ 
 whom men were to worship and treat as God, while 
 all the time He only represented God, and was not 
 God, but was in fact a creature, though the supreme 
 creature, and if older than all others, yet not eternal 
 nor really belonging to the being of God. Observe 
 then that in repudiating this conception of Christ, 
 and in declaring it to be un-Christian, the church 
 was not only for her Lord's honour vindicating His 
 real Godhead, was not only, as she believed, defend- 
 ing scripture and tradition, but was also reasserting 
 
OHBIST OF DOG MA THE CHRIST 01 BCRIPT1 
 
 the first principle of theism as distinct from panthe- 
 ism and idolatry. For the very principle of theism 
 is, thai there is no gradual descent Erom Creator to 
 creature, no intermediate half-gods, qo Legitimate mul- 
 tiplication of the objects of worship. Thus if Christ 
 was to be worshipped, it could only be because He 
 was God, very God; belonging to the one eternal 
 nature. I shall have occasion in the next Lectun 
 develop the position that the Christian doctrine of 
 the Trinity is the true safeguard of theism. Hen I 
 am only concerned to point out, how Christianity in 
 asserting the doctrine of the 6fioovaioi> was doing 
 nothing more metaphysical than is involved inasc 
 ing the first principle of the Theist'a creed, that there 
 is only one God, one supreme object of worship, that 
 Christ is, if God at all, then the very God of the 
 Father's substance and essential nature. That the 
 aim of the church was practical, rather than meta- 
 physical, is in fact shown by her being content to use 
 the same word to express Christ's relation t<> God 
 
 and His relation to man — "of one substance " with 
 
 God, "of one substance" with as men. It was 
 enough for her, that as He was really man, so also 
 
 1 I«* was really < rod. 
 
 It is worth noticing that we have independent 
 
 witnesses, Buch as Thomas Carlyle and our own 
 Thomas Hill Green, to the necessity of tin- church's 
 action in the condemnation of Arius. "The ten- 
 dency of Ariaiiisiii," said Prof. Green, 1 "was in 
 reaped just the reverse of Gnosticism. It was not 
 
 1 on Chr '■-'• 
 
100 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 the moral, but the metaphysical side of Christian 
 thought which it lowered, and we owe it to the firm 
 front opposed by orthodox dogma, that Christian dog- 
 ma is still a thing of the present : one need not be an 
 orthodox trinitarian to see that if Arianism had had 
 its way, the theology of Christianity would have 
 become of a kind, in which no philosopher, who had 
 outgrown the demonism of ancient systems, could for 
 a moment acquiesce." Again, Mr. Froude writes of 
 Thomas Carlyle, 1 "He made one remark which is 
 worth recording. In earlier years he had spoken 
 contemptuously of the Athanasian controversy, — of 
 the Christian world torn in pieces over a diphthong : 
 and he would ring the changes in broad Annandale 
 on the Homoousion and the Homoiousion. He now 
 told me that he perceived Christianity itself to have 
 been at stake. If the Arians had won, it would have 
 dwindled away to a legend." Nor in fact, is this 
 mere theory. The Goths were converted to Chris- 
 tianity in its Arian form ; they accepted Christ as a 
 hero-God, like those to which they were accustomed. 
 Provided thus with a platform which lay between 
 heathenism and Christianity, they came to a prema- 
 ture halt. The Christianity of the later Goths in 
 Spain appears to have admitted of a certain impar- 
 tial veneration for the Christian God and heathen 
 idols. " We do not," says Agila, the envoy from the 
 Arian Leovigild to Chilperic at Tours — " We do not 
 reckon it a crime to worship this and that: for Ave 
 say in our common speech, it is no harm if a man 
 
 1 See Life in London, ii. p. 4G2. 
 
0HBI8T OP DOGMA THE CHRIST 01 SCRIPTURE. 101 
 
 ing between heathen altars and a church of God 
 makes his reverence in both directions.' 1 ' 
 
 Thus by its first dogmatic decision the church at 
 Nicasa refused to admit into Christianity the concep- 
 tion of ili«- demi-god, just before the period when the 
 rough German tribes, to whom this conception was 
 dangerously familiar, were turned over to her for 
 schooling. That Christ was very God of very God, 
 fixed itself in the mind of an able and interesting 
 man, ApoUinarius of Laodicea. As being 1 rod, ( Jurist, 
 he went on to argue, must be morally unalterable ; 
 yet He is in Bome sort human, and the human mind 
 and will is alterable, liable to sin — nay. he seems to 
 have thought, necessarily sinful. How then ran 
 Jesus be human? To solve this problem, Apollina- 
 rius endeavoured to develop a systematic theory of 
 the person of Christ on the basis <>f a more or Lees 
 philosophical psychology. He drew a distinction be- 
 tween the body, the soul or animal life, and the 
 reason or spirit, in man's nature, -a distinction to 
 Borne extent sanctioned by St. Paul; and lie con- 
 ceived that in Chrisl the eternal and immutable mind 
 nr Bpirit, the Word of God, took the place of the 
 
 human mind, and united itself t<> the ><>ul and body, 
 
 that is the animated body, so that Christ was made 
 up <»f the Godhead, manifesting Himself in the Living 
 body of man. 'That Christ was, as thus conceived, if 
 like man, yet not really man. because without that 
 human mind or Bpirit, in virtue of which alone the 
 
 1 Greg. Tor. //«.-'. Franc., •>. n. Cf. Mr - 
 
102 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 body in man becomes human and not merely animal, 
 — Apollinarius frankly recognized. Yet he seems to 
 have suggested, that the archetype of manhood exists 
 in God, who made man after His own image, so that 
 man's nature in some sense pre-existed in God. The 
 Son of God was eternally human, and He could fill 
 the place of the human mind in Christ without His 
 thereby ceasing to be in some sense human. Such 
 refinements, when their point was plain, the church 
 again met with a very emphatic negative : if man is 
 made in God's image, yet man is not God, nor God 
 man. It is, again, a first principle of theism, as dis- 
 tinct from pantheism, that manhood at the bottom is 
 not the same thing as Godhead. This is a principle 
 intimately bound up with man's moral responsibility 
 and the reality of sin. Thus the interests of theism 
 were at stake in this controversy no less really, though 
 less obviously, than the reality of Christ's human 
 sympathies. At any rate, the church could not have 
 Christ's real humanity explained away. He had a 
 really human will, human mind, human reflective- 
 ness, human sympathies: He was completely man 
 in all human faculties, to be tempted, to pray, to suf- 
 fer, to learn, as truly as He was very God. That 
 was the second determination — reasserted in the 
 sixth century against the Monothelites, in connection 
 with the truth of Christ's human will. 
 
 But if Christ was God and man how was the union 
 to be conceived of the Godhead and the manhood ? 
 The manhood — so insisted a school of theologians 
 from Antioch — if it be truly manhood, must have 
 
CHRIST OF DOGMA THE CHBI8T 01 BCRIP1 I 
 
 free-will euid Belf-determination. Christ then, must 
 be really a tree human person, how then is He G 
 Because, they replied, God unites Himself to man 
 all men in proportion to their merit, to Christ in a 
 unique and exceptional manner on account oi II 
 unique and exceptional merit. As this merit was fore- 
 seen, so the man ( Ihrist Jesus was from the first united 
 in a special degree with < rod. But that which was born 
 of Mary was not, properly Bpeaking, God the Son: it 
 was a human child Jesus, wh<>. when lie had grown 
 to manhood, became Son of God by adoption at II 
 baptism, and at Last was made one with God in glory. 
 This was the theory which, as originated or suggested 
 by the famous commentator Theodore of Afopsuestia, 
 was adopted and popularized by Nestorius. But the 
 church saw (dearly enough that it is uot what the 
 Bible teaches, or what our redemption requires. The 
 ( Shrist of Nestorius was, after all, simply a deified man, 
 not find incarnate: He was from below, not from 
 above. If He was exalted to union with the Divine 
 ace, His exaltation was only that of one individ- 
 ual man. This is not the (iospcl. that "the Son of 
 
 God for us men and for our salvation was incarnate 
 and was made man." According to the Gospel, the 
 person who was born of Mary, who lived and taught 
 and died upon the cross, who was raised again the 
 
 third day from the dead. WM DO other person than 
 the eternal Son in the human nature which He had 
 
 taken. The Nestorian theory, then, was met with a 
 negative as emphatic as possible in the d< 
 Ephesus. Jesus Christ, as bom of .Mary, was truly 
 
104 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 God incarnate, albeit it was only in respect of His 
 manhood that Mary was His mother. This was the 
 third determination. 
 
 Christ then is God incarnate. In Him the human 
 nature is assumed by the divine Person. But, in that 
 case, can the human nature be said to remain? No, 
 persisted an abbot of Constantinople, named Euty- 
 ches; distinct as manhood and Godhead are before 
 the incarnation, by the incarnation the manhood loses 
 its own proper and distinct nature. It is transub- 
 stantiated into that which assumed it : it is no longer 
 of our substance. Once more, this position was met 
 by the church with an emphatic negative in the 
 Council of Chalcedon. The humanity in Christ 
 remains distinctively what it was : it is not trans- 
 muted out of its own proper character ; the eternal 
 person assumes the human nature, and acts through 
 it, without its ceasing to be human. Christ, who is of 
 one substance with the Father in respect of His God- 
 head, is of one substance with us in respect of our 
 manhood, and that for ever. In Him the two natures, 
 divine and human, subsist in the unity of the one 
 person. 
 
 This is the last determination that we need con- 
 sider, for later ones only reassert principles already 
 determined. Thus the dogmatic matter is summa- 
 rized in the decree of the Council of Chalcedon, or 
 in the more familiar language of that exposition of 
 the faith, converted into a psalm of praise, which we 
 call the Athanasian Creed: "for the right Faith is, 
 that Ave believe and confess that our Lord Jesus 
 
CHRIST OF DOGMA ill 1 : CHBI8T OF BCBIPT1 KB. L05 
 
 Christ, tlic Son of God, is God and Man: God, of the 
 Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds: 
 ami Man. of the Substance of His Mother, born in the 
 world: perfect God, and perfect Man: of a reasonable 
 soul and human flesh subsisting. . . . Who although 
 He be God and Man, yet He is not tw<>, but one 
 Christ; One; not by conversion of the Godhead into 
 flesh: but by taking of the Manhood into God; One 
 altogether; not by confusion of Substance: but by 
 unity of Person." 
 
 IV. 
 
 Now these decisions do, it is contended, Bimply 
 express in a new form, without substantia] addition, 
 the apostolic teaching as it is represented in the New 
 I stament. They express it in a new form for pro- 
 tective purposes, as a Legal enactment protects a 
 moral principle. They are developments only in 
 the sense that they represent the apostolic teaching 
 worked out into formulas by the aid of a terminology 
 which was supplied by Greek dialectics. 
 
 In justifying this position, it is obvious to admit, 
 first of all, that the earliest Language of the apostolic 
 teachers has not the explicitness of the later Language 
 of the church. But there is a development in 
 the New Testament, and the reason of this gradual 
 unfolding of teaching, in part at Least intentional, is 
 sufficiently plain. The Apostles themselves had I 
 Led gradually on in correspondence with their con- 
 Bciences to explicit belief in Jesus Christ. They led 
 their first disciples by a similar process. To 
 
106 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 preached "Jesus Christ is God," nakedly and simply, 
 would have shocked every right-minded Jew, who 
 would have seen in the assertion the proclamation 
 of a second God, and would have been welcomed by 
 every pagan, only too easily, because he believed in 
 "Gods many." Thus, according to the account given 
 in the Acts of the Apostles, the early preaching of 
 St. Paul to the heathen goes to lay a basis of belief 
 in the one true God as a background for Christianity, 
 and the early preaching to JeAVS, or those under Jew- 
 ish influence, goes to make good that Jesus was the 
 Christ. Both Jews and Greeks are to be brought to 
 their belief in Christ's true nature, through accept- 
 ance, along different lines of argument, of His moral 
 authority and divine mission. They are to obey and 
 trust Him first of all, that is, to believe in Him prac- 
 tically ; and so afterwards to know the true doctrine 
 about Him. Thus if you take St. Paul's early epistles, 
 those of the first two groups, or the first epistle of St. 
 Peter, or the epistle of St. James, you find the God- 
 head of Jesus Christ more often implied than asserted ; 
 but when you advance a step further, you find it 
 dwelt upon, and made explicit and unmistakable, 
 though in language still carefully calculated to guard 
 the unity of God and the truth that in the Father 
 only is the fount of Godhead — as in the great dog- 
 matic passages of St. Paul's epistles to the Philippians 
 and to the Colossians, or in the epistle to the He- 
 brews, orin St. John's epistles and his Gospel. 1 
 
 The language of these writings is such that I say, 
 
 1 See app. note 31. 
 
0HBI8T OF DOGMA THE CHRIST OF SCRIPTURE. 107 
 
 not only that is there nothing in the decrees of the 
 councils thai is not adequately, if untechnically, n 
 Bented there; but that also, whereas the decrees of 
 the council are of the oature of safeguards, and 
 rather repudiations of error than sources of positive 
 teaching, the apostolic language is a mine from which, 
 first taught and guided by the creed of the church, 
 we can draw a continual and inexhaustible wealth of 
 positive teaching. The decrees are but the lie 
 tin- New Testament is the pasture-ground. 
 
 Thus to come to details. St. John calls the Word 
 who is Christ Jesus, God with God, God only be- 
 gotten. He is represented in the Revelation as the 
 Lamb receiving the adoration given to God: "Unto 
 him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, 
 be the blessing, and the honour, and the glory, and 
 the dominion, for ever and ever." St. Paul speaks of 
 Him as " pre-existing in the form, or characteristics, 
 of God," and as ** God over all." The author of the 
 epistle to the Hebrews rails Him the M wry im 
 
 or counterpart, of God's substance." The apostolic 
 writers generally identity Him as Lord, with the 
 Jehovah of the Old Testament. Now if these Apos- 
 tles being all of them monotheist dews, who knew 
 that God would not crive Hi> crlory to another, do 
 thus speak of Christ, it is not reasonable to doubt 
 
 that they would have 0660 with Athana-ius against 
 
 Alius, in affirming the position that Christ, S >n of 
 God, if subordinate to the Father, vet really belongs 
 to God's eternal beta 
 
 1 St. .John i. 1. 1- I; . 1 ::. I'l, 1. : I i: 
 
108 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Again, the Evangelists, including St. John, and 
 the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, dwell much 
 on the complete humanity of the Son of man : on the 
 action of the human will in obedience, of the human 
 spirit in prayer, of the human mind even in limita- 
 tion of knowledge. St. Paul describes Him, as tak- 
 ing the characteristics, or form, of man's servile 
 nature. St. Peter speaks of His human spirit, side 
 by side with His human body. 1 Can we doubt, then, 
 that they would have repudiated Apollinarius as 
 warmly as Gregory of Nyssa, and (let me add) more 
 accurately ? 
 
 Once again, if St. Paul speaks of the Son of God 
 as emptying Himself, beggaring Himself, to become 
 man: if he speaks of the Incarnate as having "come 
 down " from heaven : if St. John's theology is that 
 of " the Word made flesh " ; 2 is there room for ques- 
 tion that they would have emphasized against Nesto- 
 rius the continuity and unity of Christ's person ? 
 
 Finally, if St. John is emphatic against all attempts 
 to explain away the reality, and the permanent real- 
 ity, of Christ's flesh : if he asserts a Christ not only 
 come, but still " to come in the flesh " : if St. Paul 
 takes the present glorified state of Christ as the pro- 
 totype of our own spiritual body : if the manhood of 
 Christ in heaven is a truth proclaimed under differ- 
 ent forms in the Acts of the Apostles and in the 
 epistle to the Hebrews ; 3 is it really open to question 
 that the apostolic writers would have regarded Mono- 
 
 1 1 St. Peter iii. 18; on the previous reff. see further Lecture VI. 
 
 2 Phil. ii. 7 ; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Eph. iv. 9, 10; St. John i. 1-14. 
 
 3 See app. note 32. 
 
CHBI8T OF DOGMA THB CHBI8T OF BCEIPT1 I 
 
 physitism or the absorption of manhood Into God- 
 head, as inconsistent with right belief? When i 
 these four problems were really presented to them, 
 though they must have deplored the necessity for 
 formal legislation, they could not, I contend, have 
 refused to answer them, and they must have answered 
 them in one way. 
 
 It is then a fact of the most astonishing kind, that 
 the Hibbert Lectures recently published, 1 — which 
 result in the position, that the theological proposi- 
 tions of the creed are no part of original Christianity 
 au<l need be no part of the Christianity of the future, 
 which speak of Christianity as passing from being a 
 rule of life in the beginning, t<> a creed in the pro 
 of centuries, — should actually have left nut of con- 
 sideration tin- theology of the apostolic writers, is 
 there theology in St. Paul, St. John, ami even St. 
 Jam--/ Does that theology represent or misrepre- 
 sent the religion of Jesus Christ? These questions 
 are not considered. Is the theology of the Nicene 
 Creed any more metaphysical, <>r only more technical, 
 than the theology of St. Paul or St. John? This 
 question again is not considered. Now it seen 
 
 me that a 1 k written about the development of 
 
 Christian theology, which omits any real examination 
 of the New Testament writers, is like a work written 
 t<» account t^i the later French empire which should 
 omit any Berious consideration of the Napoleon. 
 
 It may then he said with undoubted truth, that be- 
 tween the period of the Apostles ami the period of the 
 
 1 Sru . 1 1 • J ■ . lioto 
 
110 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 councils there was a great development of theology. 
 The church was gradually learning to use that exact 
 terminology with which the Greek genius supplied 
 her, to enshrine her creed. In the process of learning 
 to express their thoughts the Christian theologians 
 made abundant mistakes ; phrases can be produced 
 from Justin Martyr, or Tertullian, or Dionysius of 
 Alexandria, or Gregory of Nyssa, which by compari- 
 son with accurate standards must be pronounced in- 
 exact or verbally heretical. But these have either to 
 do with the exact statement of truth, or, much less 
 frequently, express some exceptional opinion adopted 
 by this or that individual but, on reflection, repudi- 
 ated by the " common sense " of Christians. All 
 along, the traditional faith which men are endeavour- 
 ing to express, from Athanasius and Augustine back 
 to Origen and Tertullian, from Origen and Tertullian 
 back to Ignatius and Clement, in an unbroken stream 
 of tradition, is the same faith in the realities of the 
 Trinity and the Incarnation. Gradually the most 
 exact and fitting language to express these verities 
 is elaborated in testing, sifting controversy. A theory 
 which, like Gnosticism, denied the unity of God and 
 of the universe, or, like Ebionism, denied the pre- 
 existence of the Son, can never put in any fair claim 
 to represent the teaching of the Apostles or the tradi- 
 tion of the churches. As we look back at the issues 
 raised all down the line of controversy, we see plainly 
 enough that the rejected heresies do in fact represent, 
 like Ebionism, a deterioration from the original teach- 
 ing, or, like Gnosticism, a subversive and alien doc- 
 
CHRIST OF DOGMA THE CHRI8T OF 8CRIPT1 1:1:. Ill 
 
 trine, or, like Sahelliani&m and Ajianism, a one-sided 
 Logic; the church dogma meanwhile baa held the 
 balance and preaerved the apostolic type. 
 
 What the church then borrowed from Greek 
 thought was her terminology, doI the Buhstance of 
 her creed. Even in regard to her terminology we 
 must make one important reservation, for ( Christianity 
 laid all stress on the personality of God and of man, 
 of which Hellenism had thought but little. Thus the 
 phrases, " hypostasis " or "persona," used to ex] 
 personality, have an altogether new Bhade of meaning 
 given to them to meet new needs of thought. Thus 
 even in regard to phraseology, Christianity, in its 
 intense consciousness of personality, had to infuse 
 its own meaning into the terms it borrowed. Still 
 I I ek philosophy did supply the terms, hut the truth 
 to be expressed in them is the original faith in Jesus 
 Christ the Son of God mule Son of man : it is noth- 
 ing else than this which at last, amid the tumult of 
 controversy, wins it> way to clear and impressive 
 Utterance, which rings down the ages in dominant 
 
 and unmistakable note-. 
 
 V. 
 
 The notes of the catholic creed still ring on, for 
 the Christian dogmas claim the Bame permanent 
 
 the ( '1 1 list Ian ( 'hureh. 
 
 In considering their title to permanence, 
 deal depends on the spirit in which the} 
 preached. It is necessary that they .should he fairly 
 
112 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 criticised, but also that they should be appreciated 
 before they are criticised. One is inclined to ask, 
 " breathes there a man with soul so dead " as not to 
 feel the title to veneration which attaches itself to 
 our ancient creeds merely because they are ancient ? 
 Necessarily a great deal in human life changes ; 
 science grows, criticism advances, institutions vary, 
 society makes its way to new forms of organization, 
 the outward fashions of life pass. All this is obvious, 
 and inevitable, and the ground of hope for the future; 
 but it causes all of us, who are not shallow-hearted, 
 only to love more intensely anything in human life 
 which does not change. For there is underneath 
 what is variable an unchanging region in man. It 
 is one main pleasure in the study of an ancient classi- 
 cal literature that it enables us to shake hands across 
 the ages with men of other days and other races, on 
 the basis of a common manhood. This common 
 manhood is especially apparent in the region of 
 poetry and in the region of religion. A great poet 
 gets down below the surface, to what is permanent 
 in us : " deep in the general heart of men," Words- 
 worth says, " his power survives." What delights us 
 in the verse of Homer, for instance, is in great meas- 
 ure the simple, noble expression which the poet of 
 so long ago gives to the radical, fundamental passions, 
 sorrows, joys, of men all over the world. Now what 
 is true of poetry is true also of religion — pre- 
 eminently true of the religion founded by Jesus 
 Christ. " Deep in the general heart of men His 
 power survives " ; for He evoked into consciousness, 
 
CHRIST OF DOGMA THB CHRIST OF SCRIPTURE. L18 
 
 and then satisfied, the deepest needs and instinct 
 human life. Tims He founded a catholic religion, 
 capable of infinite adaptation in different soci< 
 
 but appealing to the manh I which does not ohai 
 
 in the name of an unchanging revelation of God t«> 
 man, in the person of Jesus ( Ihrist, " the same yester- 
 day, to-day, and I'm- ever." As a matter of fact, this 
 religion has found expression in creeds which have 
 idy during fifteen centuries shown their capacity 
 f<»r permanence through very different Btates of bo- 
 rimy. I say then, that any one who is not shallow- 
 hearted in his Love <>f what i> modern, must be well- 
 disposed towards the catholic creeds, merely because 
 they are old, because they represent so wide ami 
 permanent an assent of the redeemed humanity, be- 
 se they offer an unchanging basis of definite 
 religious instruction, ami a form of religious confes- 
 sion which unites us, as we repeat it, with a great 
 catholic communion of many ages ami many nations. 
 
 I am nnt qow putting the claim of the creeds 
 permanence on any ground of authority; all that I 
 am asking is that their value should be tirst recog- 
 nized and felt, before they are criticised. When once 
 they arc thus appreciated, they can, I feel sun-, jus- 
 tify their claims to 1"- Legitimate interpreters ami 
 guardians of tin- apostolic faith for the time t<> come. 
 
 I- there, I ask, anything in these dogmas, consid- 
 I in themselves, which disqualifies them as perma- 
 nent safeguards of the Christian faith? Surely not, 
 unless they are Liable t<» 1»«- superannuated in respect 
 ot the questions the} raise, or the answers th 
 
11-i THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 or in respect to the phraseology in which they give 
 their answers. But the questions they raise are the 
 permanent questions, of as vital moment to-day as 
 ever before. Is Christ indeed, as Son of God, really 
 God? Is His character God's character, His love 
 God's love ? Or again, is He really man in human 
 sympathies and human faculties, really tempted, 
 really tried? Or again, is He God incarnate, made 
 man for our redemption, not a splendid example 
 merely of one man deified ? Or again, is He still 
 truly human in nature and sympathy? These are 
 living problems, vital to the preaching of the Gospel, 
 vital to the general heart of man. Their solution in 
 the creeds is the solution necessary to safeguard apos- 
 tolic Christianity. To answer them in the opposite 
 sense, or not to answer them at all, is, in different 
 degrees, to allow the foundations of the Christian 
 Gospel to be undermined. Lastly, the language in 
 which they express their decisions shows no signs of 
 being antiquated. 
 
 It may be truly said of the dogma of transubstanti- 
 ation that it is couched in terms of a distinction of 
 substance and accidents which belongs only to a par- 
 ticular moment in philosophy : or again of a popular 
 doctrine of the atonement, that it is couched in lan- 
 guage, which does violence to man's moral sense ; but 
 the dogmatic language of the Council of Chalcedon 
 is open to no such objection. Its language is perma- 
 nent language, none the less permanent because 
 Greek. The Greek lanimao-e was in fact fitted, as 
 none other ever has been, to furnish an exact and 
 
CHRIST OF DOGMA run OH BIST Ol SCRIPTURE. 11-") 
 
 permanent terminology for doctrinal pur] 
 ideas of Bubstance or thing, of personality, <>t" nat 
 are permanent ideas; we cannot get rid of them; 
 do better words could b I to express the 
 
 Bame facts; the same creeds have been found equally 
 dear to the heart of I S-reek and Roman and Teuton, in 
 tin- age of Greek philosophy, in the age of mediaeval 
 barbarism, among the scholastic philosophers, in the 
 modern nations Bince the reformation. In our own 
 country they have regained their ancient vain.' .since 
 the u seculum rationalisticum " of the Last century: 
 they sIk.w do of Losing their importance in the 
 
 mind of those who hold, or desire to teach, the truths 
 of the New Testament. 
 
 But we Deed always t«> distinguish the permanence, 
 from the adequacy, <>f our dogmatic Language. It is 
 
 as g I as human language can he but it is not 
 
 adequate. Human language never can i ade- 
 
 quately divine realities. A constant tendency 
 apologize for human Bpeech, a great element oi 
 nosticism, an awful sense of unfathomed depths 
 
 mm! the little that is made known, is ah\ 
 
 present to the minds of theologians who know what 
 they are ah.. in, in conceiving or i God. 
 
 •• We St. Paul, M in a minor, in terms 
 
 of a riddle '*;•* We know in part." "We are com- 
 pelled," complains St Hilary, "to attempt whs 
 unattainable, to climb where we cann '.. t«> 
 
 kk what we cannot utter; instead of the mere ado- 
 ration «»f faith, we are compelled t<> entrust the d 
 things of religion t.» the perils of human - »n." ' 
 
116 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Let me conclude by asking you to entertain three 
 considerations, calculated not to diminish, but to 
 restrain within just limits, our sense of the value of 
 the dogmatic decrees of the councils on the subject 
 of the person of Jesus Christ. 
 
 (1) The form of these dogmas, as distinct from 
 the creeds, is negative rather than positive. They 
 are intended to say " no " rather than " yes," to deny 
 rather than to teach. This is apparent from their 
 history. Certain interpretations of the old faith had 
 been suggested, calculated to undermine its founda- 
 tions, and the church met them with a negative. 
 Test-words, selected to embody these negations, were 
 adopted to guard the old faith, without adding to it, 
 by simply blocking off false lines of development or 
 explanation on this side or on that. An indirect 
 positive influence these negations undoubtedly had, 
 but it was indirect and unintended. The old sources 
 of positive information remained the same, the creed 
 to initiate and the scriptures to give further enlighten- 
 ment. Nothing in fact can exceed the urgency with 
 which the Fathers press upon all Christian people 
 the obligation of building themselves up in the 
 knowledge of the faith by intercourse with scripture. 
 This was a principle of great importance. Would 
 that it had been continuously borne in mind ! But 
 in fact the dogmatic decisions of the church, like 
 other good things, have been greatly misused. And 
 
cilklsr OF DOGMA THE CHRIST OP SCRIPT! 1:1:. 1 17 
 
 how? By being treated as sources of our positive 
 information about Christ, practically overriding the 
 ( rOSpel picture. 
 
 Thus the Gospels present us with ;t Christ, divine 
 and human, whose personality, if complex and diffi- 
 cult to analyze, yet presents a marvellous and im- 
 pressive unity. The four great dogmas arc our 
 guides in contemplating the picture, and the Gospels 
 respond to the anticipations which they raise, and till 
 up the meagre outline into a living whole. They 
 show us a Christ, really one with God and really 
 
 made man: Himself God, hut acting in love to OS 
 under conditions of growth and experience and limi- 
 tation and suffering and victory, which really belong 
 
 to the manhood which lie took — took, not as the 
 veil of I lis glory merely, but as the real sphere of His 
 action. But, take up a mediaeval or later dogmatic 
 treatise on the Incarnation, and follow the course of 
 the argument. It lays down Brst of all the funda- 
 mental dogmas, and then proceeds to argue that such 
 and such results must follow. As the manhood is 
 taken into personal union with the Godhead, so 
 man, Jesus Chrisl must have possessed, infused into 
 His manhood, all that it is capable of receiving, and 
 that from the first ; hut manhood is capable of enjoy- 
 ing the fulness of the beatific vision, the knowledge 
 of all things past, present, and future; therefore the 
 
 manh 1 of ( Shrist had all knowledge of past, present, 
 
 and future, and the fulness of the beatific vision; 
 
 therefore. He can never have he. -n ignorant e\eli in 
 
 His human mind. Hepan never have gro* u to know 
 
118 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 what He did not know before. He can never have 
 experienced any break in the vision of God. Athwart 
 the course of such abstract argumentation occur in- 
 terjected certain isolated texts of scripture : " Of 
 that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the 
 Son." "He grew in wisdom." He cried, "My God, 
 my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " Rapidly 
 they are explained away. Alternative "interpreta- 
 tions " are suggested, which in fact do not interpret, 
 but contradict ; and we are assured that our Lord 
 only seemed to grow in wisdom, but really had no 
 need for growth, or said He did not know, meaning 
 only that He would not tell, or cried out as if He 
 were desolate, while in fact He was never really 
 deprived of the consolations of the Father's presence. 
 Thus we are led on through a series of deductions, 
 drawn syllogistically from the abstract dogmas, con- 
 sidered as positive sources of information — the iso- 
 lated Bible texts being used only as illustrations, or 
 as supplying material to be explained away. This is 
 the misuse of dogma, not its use. The dogmas are 
 only limits, negatives which block false lines of de- 
 velopment, notice-boards which warn us off false 
 approaches, guiding us down the true road to the 
 figure in the Gospels, and leaving us to contemplate 
 it unimpeded and with the frankest gaze. 
 
 (2) In the idea of the Fathers of the councils it 
 was only necessity which justified their dogmatic 
 decisions : it was not supposed that the church was 
 better off for religious knowledge, in virtue of these 
 specific requirements, in advance of the old baptismal 
 
CHKIST OF DOC, MA THE CHRIST « •]>< 1; 1 1- 11 l: I . 1 l'.» 
 
 creed, or thai it was fche church's function to develop 
 them, to God's glory and man's good. It was simply 
 that an insidious form of misbelief appeared within 
 the church, calculated to undermine her Life, and 
 that circumstances facilitated, and prudence sug- 
 gested, a particular way of meeting the danger. A 
 new word, a new formula, like fche tytoot/ow?, was, as 
 such, an object of suspicion. We, with our experi- 
 ence, may shrink from calling these dogmatic decis- 
 ions "necessary evils," because we may feel, not only 
 that they haw acted as safeguards of true Christian 
 belief through dull and irreligious periods, but also 
 that the faith has really been better expressed in 
 their terms and in consequence better understood. 
 lint we shall not fall into tin- error <-t' supposing 
 that the test of a church's spiritual power, the test 
 of its vital development, is the amount of its dog- 
 matic requirement. It is very possible that a frame- 
 work <>f dogma was necessary for the church, but 
 that it i- a real <_ r <>od only within wit moderate 
 limits. ( )n the basis "fa moderate amount of central 
 dogma, it may be the discipline intrude.] for every 
 Christian, that he should grow according to the meas- 
 
 ttre of his Opportunity and rapacity into a fuller and 
 
 fuller perception of the meaning of the faith. If we 
 consider that in Bociety a Little government, a certain 
 amount of external enactment regulating life, is a 
 d. hut over-legislation is an evil, it is obvious that 
 a Bimilar reserve of theological Legislation may be 
 the ideal for the church. It maj have been desir- 
 able to guard dogmatically the central fcrutn 
 
120 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Christ's person, but undesirable, quite apart from 
 questions of truth or error, to do the same for the 
 dependent doctrines. All the church's positive 
 teaching need not be made matter of dogmatic re- 
 quirement. At least it is a fact, that the dogmas 
 which have the assent of the whole church and which 
 are imposed in the English Church, are few in num- 
 ber, and we can see in this the hand of providence. 
 
 (3) As concerns the method of the conciliar action, 
 I would ask you to note how the appeal of the 
 church is apparently less intellectual than that of 
 the different heretical teachers, but issues in a deeper, 
 more rational, position. 
 
 Arius appealed chiefly to logic : of a shallow sort 
 we feel, but still logic : as that " a son must be 
 younger than his father." Apollinarius appealed to 
 certain abstract conceptions of the divine unchange- 
 ableness, and to a current psychology of human 
 nature. Nestorius took his stand on an extreme doc- 
 trine of human liberty or indeterminateness. The 
 church in all cases made its appeal to tradition, 
 scripture, and the practical needs of redemption: 
 when she was satisfied as to the result of this three- 
 fold appeal, she spoke decisively, and left it to theo- 
 logians and philosophers afterwards to show the 
 reasonableness of her action. Her function was only 
 to guard a deposit. But in the result it is not hard 
 to see that the logic of Arius, or Apollinarius, or 
 Nestorius, was one-sided and very far from final, 
 while a far deeper philosophy underlies the via media 
 of the church. " The foolishness of God is wiser 
 than men." 
 
CHRIST OF DOGMA THE CHRIST OP BCRIPT1 1:1:. 121 
 
 This will become plainer as we go on, but I ask 
 you to notice before we Beparate thai the reproof 
 given to a hasty Logic in these ecclesiastical decisions 
 is specially wholesome in the sphere of the Incarna- 
 tion. St. Paul in the passage which I make my 
 text, as elsewhere, teaches us that the right way to 
 understand the action of God in the Incarnation is to 
 contemplate it morally. It is an act of moral self- 
 denial such as can be an example to us men in our 
 efforts at sympathy and self-sacrifice. "Let this 
 mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." 
 But after all, all su.li efforts on our part do more or 
 Less defy logical analysis. The power of sympathy 
 is a power of self-abandonment, or self-effacement. 
 which enables a man to abjure the platform of a 
 rightful superiority, and cuter into the conditions 
 of another person's experience, thinking with his 
 thoughts, seeing with his eye-, feeling as he ought to 
 feel, and bo raising him, as it were, from within. Of 
 such self-abandoning sympathy the Incarnation of 
 God is the prototype : it is more intelligible to the 
 heart than to the head: but this is exactly what is 
 
 true of all self-sacrifice and sympathy. Logic cai t 
 
 analyze the phrases, "self-surrender," "entering into 
 another's pain." yet they express realities. We can- 
 not u r, 't Ear with Logic, then, in understanding the 
 method of divine Love. Its value is negative rather 
 than positive. It is not the platform of the schools 
 on which we must take our stand for an effective 
 >nj it is not the abstract consideration of divine 
 attributes, to which we must trust for insight into 
 
122 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 the mystery, whether applied on the side of rationalism 
 or of dogmatism. We must approach the matter rather 
 with the moral conception of deliberate sympathy, such 
 as does not save de haut en has by acts of power from 
 its own vantage-ground, but comes down into another's 
 condition to lift him from below. " Let this mind be in 
 you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, pre-existing 
 in the characteristics of God, thought not equality 
 with God a prize to be clutched at, but emptied Him- 
 self, and took the characteristics of a servant, and 
 was made in the likeness of men : and being found 
 in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and be- 
 came obedient, unto death, even the death of the 
 cross. Wherefore God also highly exalted Him, and 
 bestowed upon Him the name that is above every 
 name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should 
 bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and 
 things under the earth ; and every tongue should 
 confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of 
 God the Father." 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 GOT BBYEALBD IN CHRIST. 
 
 A 'h any know the Father, - to whom- 
 
 weal him. — St. M \ 1 1 m \\ \. 
 ■<• Fathi r. — Bt. John \i\ . :». 
 
 M.wv passages in the apostolic writings form a 
 commentary oe these words of our Lord about Him- 
 self. "No man hath Been God al any time"; 
 St John, "God only begotten, which is in the bosom 
 of the Father, he hath declared him." 1 He is "the 
 image of God," or "the image of the invisible God," 
 St Paul. 8 He is " the express image of his bud- 
 Btance," writes the author of the Epistle to the H< 
 brews. 9 These words of our Lord and of His apos- 
 tolic interpreters convey the same impression. The 
 Son reveals the Father, the apparent Christ reveals 
 the onapparent God. II<- alone does this, or can do 
 this; and He can do it without any risk of mistake, 
 because !!•• is essentially the Father's image. We can 
 contemplate therefore the intelligible Lineamenl 
 the human character of Jesus, and in Him indeed 
 behold the ?ery God, "We beheld his glory,* 1 St, 
 John bears witness, "glory as of the only begotten 
 from tin- Father" ; " The glory of God in the 
 Jesus ( ihrist," saj - St Paul. 4 
 
 » St.. I-.ln. i. ia (B.V. DIM 
 
 . ..:. ). LB. John 1.14; 
 
124 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 I. 
 
 When the fathers of the council of Nicaea insisted 
 so strenuously on the doctrine of the one substance 
 of the Son and the Father — the doctrine, that is, 
 that the Son belongs to the Father's eternal nature, 
 and is not a mere subsequent creation of His will — 
 they were influenced by no consideration more seri- 
 ously than by the practical needs of redemption. 
 Christ is our salvation, because in being united to 
 Him, we are united to nothing less than God Him- 
 self. But a most important element of salvation is 
 revelation. Man in being united to God is to know 
 God, and here again everything depends upon the 
 truth about Christ's person. For the Christian reve- 
 lation is not a mere message about God, it is the 
 unveiling of God. We are to contemplate Christ, 
 that human character, so profound yet so intelligible, 
 its methods, its motives, its principles — and we are 
 to know that it is not the character of any mere 
 creature, but of God Himself. A creature can never 
 be complete. One quality belongs to one, another 
 to another ; no one occupies the whole ground of pos- 
 sible existence. If Christ is only a creature, His 
 qualities can only occupy a certain space in the area 
 of God's revelation of Himself. We have not got to 
 what is ultimate and all-embracing in getting to Him. 
 But if He is God, it makes all the difference ; in Him 
 dwells, not one quality of God, but " all the fulness 
 of the Godhead bodily." 1 His love is the ultimate 
 1 Col. ii. 9. 
 
GOD REVEALED IN CHRIST, L25 
 
 love. The relation which Love holds to justice or to 
 any other quality in Him, is the relation which it 
 holds in the ultimate reality: His aims are God's 
 
 aims: His will God's will: His victory God's vic- 
 tory. No differenl or more real power lies behind 
 Him, Here is the ultimate secret. This is, St. John 
 Bays, the genuine God, made intelligible and inter- 
 preted in the manhood of I [is Son. 1 
 
 Some thirty-three years ago, a great controversy 
 was originated in this pulpil by a Bampton lecturer, 
 who to.»k for his subject, "The limits of religious 
 thought." 8 Dean .Man-el held in little esteem the 
 pretensions of the Hegelian school in Germany to 
 criticise by the standard of rationality the content- of 
 divine revelation. Revelation, he held, was a fact. 
 We had evidence thai it had really been given, and 
 certificated by miracles. On this evidence all the 
 stress must be laid. Granted that it is cogent, we 
 must accepl the revelation as it has been given. We 
 
 have not the faculties necessary to criticise what God 
 
 ha- been pleased to tell as about Himself. "Nay 
 
 hut. O man. who art thoii that lvplie-t against God?" 
 
 Unfortunately Man-el did not confine himself to 
 re-emphasizing Butler's strong protest, as valuable 
 
 to-day as in the Last century, against the easy over- 
 estimate of the powers of the human mind to j:; 
 d priori of what is probable in a divine revelation. 
 
 lie went further, and exposed himself to the charge 
 
 ot denying that we have, OI can have, any real and 
 
 diiv.t knowledge of God Himself at all. u We oan- 
 
 1 1 St. John v. J'). ,. ,-ip,,. no* 
 
126 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 not know what God is," he seemed to say, "but only 
 what He chooses us to believe about Himself." Thus 
 we cannot, for example, argue against a certain doc- 
 trine of the atonement on the ground of its injustice 
 or hardness, because we do not know what justice or 
 goodness in God means. Human qualities are not 
 necessarily of the same sort as the divine. 
 
 This form of Christian apology produced an indig- 
 nant protest from Frederick Denison Maurice, and 
 drew from John Stuart Mill the passionate exclama- 
 tion : " I will call no being good who is not what I 
 mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures, 
 and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so 
 calling him, to hell I will go." a It was an exclama- 
 tion, not easy to accommodate to the philosophy of 
 the greatest pleasure, but it finds a response without 
 a doubt in the Christian conscience. For if anthropo- 
 morphism as applied to God is false, if God does not 
 exist in man's image, yet theomorphism, as applied to 
 man, is true ; man is made in God's image, and his 
 qualities are, not the measure of the divine, but their 
 counterpart and real expression. 
 
 Man was made in God's image. The significance 
 of this truth from our present point of view is, that in 
 that original constitution of manhood lies, as the 
 Fathers saw, the prophecy of the divine Incarnation 
 and the grounds of its possibility. God can express 
 Himself in His own image, He can express Himself 
 therefore in manhood, He can show Himself as man. 
 And conversely, in the occurrence of the Incarnation, 
 
 1 See Exam, of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy (Longmans, 1872), p. 129. 
 
GOD REVEALED IN CHRIST. L27 
 
 lies tin* Biipreme evidence of the real mora] Lik< i 
 of man to God. All along, through the < > 1» 1 T 
 ment, inspired teachers with growing spirituality of 
 conception, had been expressing God in terms of 
 manhood — taking the human Love of the mother for 
 her child, or of the husband for his adulterous wife, 
 to explain the divine love: and in the Incarnation all 
 this funis its justification. In the person of the Incar- 
 nate we Bee how true it has been all along that man i> in 
 God's image: for this is man, Jesus of Nazareth; His 
 qualities air human qualities, Love ami justice, self- 
 sacrifice and desire ami compassion; yet they air the 
 qualities of none other than the very God. So akin 
 
 arc (in,l ami man to one another that God can really 
 
 exist under conditions of manhood without ceasing t-» 
 be, and t-> reveal, God; and man can be taken t«» be 
 the organ of Godhead without one whit ceasing to be 
 human. Here in Christ Jesus, it is man's will, m 
 love, man's mind, which arc the instruments of God- 
 head, and the fulness of the Godhead which is reveal- 
 ing itself only seems to make these qualities more 
 intensely human. 
 
 II. 
 
 We have then in Jesus Chrisl a real knowledge of 
 
 God, expressed in term- of humanity. What then is 
 it in our knowledge of God which was brought to 
 Light, or ;it Least finally guaranteed, in Hi- incar- 
 nation ? 
 
 (1) In the firsl place Let OS rank I I 
 
128 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Of course this truth was not first intimated in the 
 Incarnation. It had been subject-matter of the 
 older revelation. And, though in fact it is doubtful 
 whether a clear sense of one personal God has ever 
 been arrived at by any race, except as an outcome 
 more or less direct of God's revelation of Himself to 
 Abraham, yet there are arguments which of them- 
 selves strongly suggest God's personality, and which 
 many modern philosophers, such as Lotze and Marti- 
 neau, have found irresistibly cogent. But in Christ 
 our sense of God's personality is raised at least to a 
 new level of certainty and intensity, and with it the 
 corresponding sense of personality in man as well. 
 
 Compare Christianity with a system based on an 
 opposite principle, and observe the contrast. To the 
 Buddhist personality is an evil, a hindrance : spiritual 
 progress lies in the gradual evacuation of conscious- 
 ness, of desire, in a word, of personality. With 
 Christ, the case is the opposite : " I am come," He 
 said, "that they may have life — full personal con- 
 scious life — and may have it abundantly." "Who- 
 soever shall lose his soul, or life, for my sake, the 
 same shall save it." J For the elimination of selfish- 
 ness is only to strengthen personality. So Christ 
 attends to, respects, develops, educates personality in 
 his little band of Apostles ; and that because to be- 
 come like Him, they must realize personality in its 
 depth, its fulness, its distinctiveness. In Him it was 
 no accident, nothing which He had assumed for a 
 time or of which He could rid Himself; it belonged 
 
 i St. John x. 10, St. Luke ix. 24. 
 
GOD KKVKALI.D IN CHRIST. L29 
 
 to His eternal nature; over against the Father in the 
 eternal world. He Btood person with person, a son 
 with His father. It was because He was eternally 
 persona] that He had been able to give personality 
 to a human nature. 1 Jes, as we gaze at the personal 
 Christ, incarnate God, we are sure that whatever else 
 God is, above and beyond what we understand by 
 personality — and we can depend upon it that Ho 
 is infinitely above and beyond what we can compre- 
 hend, — yet IK- is at Least personal; for He has mani- 
 fested Hia personality to us, and made it intelligible, 
 in a human nature, while on the other hand the hu- 
 man nature Loses not one whit of its humanity because 
 th<- personality which is acting in it is the personality 
 oi yery God. 
 
 c2) Secondly, we are taught by the [ncarnation 
 that the quality of the divine personality is love. 
 
 'I'll.- thoughl of the fatherhood of God, in that 
 moral Bense which implies His love, is so familiar, at 
 Least superficially, to US, that the Less thoughtful 
 
 among us are apt to assume it as something self- 
 evident; as if it were a matter of course apart from 
 Christ's revelation. But it does not require much 
 thoughl to enable us to perceive, or much bitter 
 experience, or much sympathy, to enable us to fed. 
 that the world apart from Christ gives us no adequate 
 assurance thai God is Love. The Psalmist indeed 
 argues, ** He that made the eye, shall He not » 
 and Robert Browning has taught us to add: M He 
 that created Love, shall He not Lo But, if Love 
 
130 the nrcAKKAn h v ebb son » 
 
 in man n:_ - I ve in God. whose offspring he is. 
 there is much on the other hand _ is j ise in 
 
 drawing such a conclusion. Xot only the inexorable. 
 
 rseless - I E physi 
 it, bat Is I tthatl a in humanity, as 
 
 . _ in hist : \ apj a s 
 
 feeble and helpk— his Lust, his itter- 
 
 aess, his i telty, his selfishness, his u:. :thi- 
 
 3S. That G Lis! is, of cc ins 5, .. I m rely 
 
 dsts such a thing a . world, 
 
 nor : hat it n s something in lod. It 
 
 ith it al^ the ssui that] re is th n - 
 
 : :eation. and the real:: : : the pur] se : 
 
 I ■■-. - :> in g L: that love exists in that sup: 
 
 1 1 . ■ ■ rsality E its 1 nge 
 all ei - diminishes nothing from its \ rticulaf 
 
 pplicatioo fcc sach individual. That 1: is tod's 
 mot: is rions; that! is oniveisal 
 
 in r:. _ ring Ly indivi tnal in a] 
 
 — it is this th I " 
 
 - . ' ise He has ta slated 1 
 
 tellig ments -ponding 
 
 human quality. Wc behold in Jesus love the motive. 
 _ . love inr 3 ' . Love 
 
 rious through death : and he that ha: - Him. 
 we know hath seen the Father: His I is the Father's 
 thing bel . thing 
 
 outside itt - . ... :hing below it to be too small 
 - :s the Chri>: 
 W c must observe that this : E the 
 
 of (t 
 
GOD ELBVEALED IN (HKlM. 1,1 
 
 made and published ia Independent of its originator, 
 ami would be iii do way affected if his personality 
 
 to fade into darkness or oblivion. For .1 
 Christ did not satisfy our minds with arguments, II • 
 did not solve objections, or show us why pain and 
 sacrifice are necessary throughout creation; nay. He 
 did not even declare God's Love asa dogma and prove 
 it by miracles. The Gospel lies in His person. He 
 took upon Himself all that tells against divine 1 
 nil that has ever wrung from men's hearts the bitter 
 words of unbelief, or the more chastened cry of agoniz- 
 ing inquiry, " My I rod, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
 me?" He took all this upon Himself, and as the man 
 of sorrows, made it, in His hitter passion and death 
 upon the cross, the very occasion for expressing the 
 depth of the divine self-sacrifice. Thus the satisfac- 
 tion that He gives us lies in His proving to us, out 
 of the very heart of all that might Beem to speak 
 inst Buch a conclusion, that behind all the groan- 
 ing and travailing of creation Lies the Love of God, 
 and beyond it all the victory of God : and the demon- 
 stration consists in the fa.-t that Jesus a- essential 
 Son of the Father reveals no other Love than God's, 
 and by His resurrection from the dead manifests that 
 Love triumphant through all seeming failure. If He 
 !i..t God, He manifested no more than any other 
 I man, namely, that there is such a thing 
 and self-sacrifice to be tinsl the Belfish 
 
 hery of Judas, and malii l • and 
 
 . and indifference of the .1 
 Lid ma rise from the dr. id we have Lost 
 
132 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 altogether the thrilling security which His life has 
 afforded to the weakest of the faithful, of final vic- 
 tory. Certainly, it is only because Jesus is God that 
 we have our Gospel for the world ; but grant that, 
 and love is, not the first word, but the last word, in 
 God's disclosure of Himself ; love is God's motive ; 
 love forgets no single individual ; love goes all lengths 
 of sacrifice ; love in the universe works on through 
 all failures to its victorious issue. 1 
 
 (3) Thirdly, we look again at the love of God as 
 Christ manifests it, and we notice that it is in no 
 isolation from those other qualities of God — His 
 justice, His truth — which belong, we may say, to 
 His earlier revelation of Himself. The love of God 
 is no mere benevolence which simply desires to make 
 man happy anyhow, in any condition. God's love 
 created man for fellowship with Himself. " The 
 glory of God," Irenseus grandly says, " is the living 
 man ; the life of man is the vision of God." 2 Thus, 
 as God's love created man for fellowship with Him- 
 self, so His love goes out in redemption to bring 
 men back, by boundless self-sacrifice, into that fellow- 
 ship, when it had been lost. " God was in Christ 
 reconciling the world unto Himself." U?ito Himself: 
 thus love goes out to call men back ; it goes out as a 
 summons, a claim, an invitation, to something high 
 and holy, even God's presence. This it is that makes 
 love awful. " The sinners in Zion," cries Isaiah, 
 " are afraid ; trembling hath surprised the godless 
 ones. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring 
 
 1 See app. note 35. 2 St. Iren. c. haer. iv. 20. 7. 
 
QOD BBVSALBD in 0HBI8T. 
 
 fire? wh<> among as BhaU dwell with i ting 
 
 burnings?" 1 This fire, this everlasting burning tiro 
 is nothing else than the divine holiness, which foi 
 men t-» tee! "they could not breathe in that fine 
 that pure Beverity of perfect Light." 
 
 Thus it is that Christ's Love, God's Love, contains 
 in itself, as it goes forth t>> redeem, the element of 
 . it \-, of judgment God will go all Lengths of 
 sacrifice to supply us with the motives ami means 
 eturn to Him. His mercy interposes with his jus- 
 tice, it interposes delays, it tries all expedients: "let 
 the barren t i^- tree alone this year also,' 1 it pleads, 
 
 M till I shall dig about it. ami dun-- it : ami if it hear 
 
 fruit thenceforth, well": hut at the Last issue jus- 
 tice must prevail, '"if not, thou Bhalt out it down." 1 
 Thus mercy, rejoicing against judgment, must prepare 
 for judgment at the Last; because in God then 
 perfect reality, unalterable truth. We can trust 
 Him utterly to give to all men in this life, or beyond 
 it, a ival chance of knowing God as He is, and of 
 accepting His love. Christ, in fact, has proved that 
 
 \\< wills all men to he Baved and come to the knowl- 
 
 of the truth, that He is infinitely considerate of 
 the id circumstances of individuals; hut on 
 
 the other hand Christ has proved, and we must take 
 
 • unt of it. that •• mercy ami truth meet together, 91 
 ami that u righteousness tiiin- again to judgment"; 
 that God deals in justice at the Last with the use that 
 each sou] hast mad.' of its opportunil 
 
 l Listen to the ( Ihrist of the ( lospel u I !■ (peaks 
 ; i . ■ n. 
 
134 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 plain words as to our unfitness, in the present condi- 
 tion of our nature, for His spiritual purposes. He 
 can not commit Himself to any man, because He 
 knows what is in man ; He demands conversion ; 
 He requires a new birth. He is indeed 'infinitely 
 encouraging to all who will make a start for good, 
 to the adulterous woman, to the penitent thief : He 
 is infinitely patient with slow and timorous progress 
 like that of Mcodemus or of his own Apostles: He 
 is royal-hearted in the recognition which He gives 
 to ignorant goodness like that of the heathen who 
 ministered unknowingly to Him in the least of His 
 brethren, or that of the man who was casting out 
 devils in His name, but followed not with the apos- 
 tolic company ; but, none the less, He is terrible in 
 His severity to those who are obstinately deaf to calls, 
 who are stereotyped in a routine of respectability 
 and satisfied with themselves as they are ; who are 
 outwardly professors of religion, but selfish and cov- 
 etous within. " Woe unto you," he cries, "scribes and 
 Pharisees, hypocrites, . . . how shall ye escape the 
 judgment of hell?" 1 Yes, He who sets such value 
 on human life, who sacrificed Himself so utterly for 
 it, shrinks not a whit from announcing the inex- 
 orable penalties of wilful sin, of the wilful repudiation 
 of the light; "this is the judgment, that the light 
 is come into the world, and men loved the darkness 
 rather than the light ; for their works were evil." 
 Men may repudiate an external message and be com- 
 paratively guiltless, because they may do it igno- 
 
 i St. Matt, xxiii. 20, 33. 
 
GOD REVEALED IN (111: 1ST. L86 
 
 rantlv, not knowing what they do J they may ■ 
 
 a word against the Sod of man " and be forgiven: 
 
 ltut there is an inner visitant to the heart of man, 
 
 there is a witness <>t' the Holy Ghost within, ami 
 
 there is a point where the deliberate repudiation of 
 this inner light becomes the blasphemy against the 
 Holy Ghost which passes the limits of forgive] 
 there is a sin which -shall not he forgiven, neither 
 
 in this world, nor in that which i> to (..mc."' Not 
 
 snivlv because God loses the willingness to forgive; 
 hm (must it m»t be?) because sin lias become the 
 ingrained and inextricable habit of the soul: the 
 man is "guilty of an eternal sin." [ 
 
 III. 
 
 Wc touch here upon a moral law. the law of moral 
 deterioration, the law that who will not. at last can- 
 not. It is part of that larger law, in accordance 
 with which all acts of will form habits, and habits 
 
 stereotype into character, and character becomes in- 
 delible; and the tact of its recognition by J< 
 Christ leads us to notice another element in His rev- 
 elation of the Father. 
 
 II. • is constantly calling attention to certain laws 
 in accordance with which God works in spiritual 
 matters. It is easy to give examples : "If ye forgive 
 men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also 
 forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their tres- 
 passes, neither w ill your heavenly Father forgive 3 our 
 
 l St. M:tC 9t Mark iii. 29. 
 
136 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 trespasses." " With what judgment ye judge, ye 
 shall be judged : and with what measure ye mete, it 
 shall be measured unto you." " Every one that ask- 
 eth receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him 
 that knocketh it shall be opened." " Whosoever 
 hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have abun- 
 dance : but whosoever hath not, from him shall be 
 taken away even that which he hath." " Except a 
 grain of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth 
 by itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth much fruit." 
 " He that loveth his life (or soul) loseth it ; and he 
 that hateth his life (or soul) in this world shall keep 
 it unto life eternal." * These are divine laws which 
 Christ enunciates. 
 
 Law prevails, we learn, as much in the spiritual as 
 in the physical world. This is nowhere more strik- 
 ingly illustrated than in our Lord's teaching about 
 prayer. Faith, we are led to believe, can obtain by 
 prayer the accomplishment of its desires, but it is the 
 faith which is in union with Jesus, that is to say in 
 deliberate harmony with the mind and method of the 
 Father. " If ye abide in me, and my words abide in 
 you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done 
 unto you." 2 
 
 Thus the very sequence of petitions in the Lord's 
 prayer contradicts as forcibly as possible the crude 
 notion that prayer is an arbitrary process, by which 
 we induce God to do what we happen to want, and 
 drag His action down to the level of our short-sighted 
 
 i St. Matt. vi. 14, 15; vii. 2, 8; xiii. 12; St. John xii. 25. 
 2 St. John xv. 7-10. 
 
(.(»i) ki;vi:au:i) in CHRIST. L87 
 
 desires. The very sequence of the petitiona foi 
 as first to exalt (i<»\'s glory — His name, or disclos- 
 ure of Himself — above man's Deed, and in make <>ur 
 first prayer, "Hallowed be Thy name"; then it lifts 
 as to the contemplation of a divine kingdom, yet t<> 
 ealized, ami tea ihes us to merge our petty wants 
 in the great purpose of the Father: "Thy kingdom 
 come." Next it overshadows us with the sense of a 
 divine will, the execution of which is the law of the 
 unseen world, and it forces us t«> find in submission 
 t<> this our true liberty and power: "Thy will be 
 done as in heaven, s. > on earth.' 1 Only at this point 
 air we allowed to express our <>wn nerd: and, even 
 so, it is our bare need and not our extravagant 
 wishes: "give us to-day our bread for the coming 
 day."' And because we cannot serve God, unless we 
 are at peace with Him, therefore we pray for forgive- 
 ness of our debts; Dot anyhow, but in accordance 
 
 with the law, that God deals with us as we deal with 
 
 our fellow men: "forgive us our debts, as we also 
 have forgiven our debtors." And because we depend 
 utterly upon the divine protection, therefore we con- 
 clude, "bring us n<»t into temptation, but deliver us 
 from the evil on.'." Surely the mere sequence "t' 
 these petitions makes it impossible to attribute any 
 arbitrary power t<» prayer, [ts power, we Learn, — 
 the power of oursonship — is not power t<» override 
 God's law. hut tu co-operate with it.it depends on 
 our intelligent co-operation with the divine method. 1 
 It was the enunciation of this truth, in tin' region 
 
 B api>. DOtC 
 
138 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 of natural philosophy, which has made men think 
 of Lord Bacon as the prophet of modern science. 
 " Nature," he said, " can only be controlled by being 
 obeyed." But the principle had already found rich 
 expression, in regard to the whole of God's universe, 
 in the spirit and teaching of Jesus Christ. The 
 truth that God works by law appears not only in 
 His words, but in all the circumstances of His ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 Thus His manifestation is the outcome of slow- 
 Avorking forces, " in the fulness of the time." 1 As mani- 
 fested, He is a miraculous person, yet, as was pointed 
 out, His miracles are not arbitrary portents, they are 
 the proper phenomena of His supernatural nature. 
 They themselves exhibit a law — a law of corre- 
 spondence with faith ; " according to their faith it is 
 done " to men, and " Jesus could do no mighty 
 works," where there was no belief. Moreover the 
 Christ being what He was, was introduced into the 
 world of law to set new forces at work in it, but as 
 part of the old system. In this sense too, He was 
 " born under the law." That is to say, He showed 
 Himself as He was, and then let circumstances take 
 their course with him. Thus the death of Christ was 
 not, as people sometimes seem to have imagined, 
 God's act, it was man's act : it was the crime by 
 which the sin of the world betrayed its true charac- 
 ter. Of God it is said in the matter that He spared 
 not His only Son. 2 He suffered all to go on, accord- 
 ing to the deep-working order of the world, even to 
 
 i Gal. iv. 4, Heb. i. 1, 2. 2 See app. note 37. 
 
GOD REVEALED IN CHRIST. 
 
 His death; and the Sod co-operating with the Father 
 exempted not Himself, evoked qo miraculous protec- 
 tion, but gave Himself as the Father gave Him. Nor 
 was this merely the hiding of God's power; it La the 
 method of His power, its constant method. 
 
 Thus what is true of Christ, is true of the church 
 which is to represent Him. There is nothing arbi- 
 trary or capricious about our Lord's method of pre- 
 paring for the church, by the choice and training of 
 His disciples; everywhere He respects the limits 
 which moral character sets to spiritual influence; 
 slowly, deliberately, the moral materials arc collected, 
 and adapted, for the spiritual fabric. Again all the 
 anticipations which our Lord raised in the minds of 
 His disciples as to the future method of the kingdom, 
 are in accordance with this respect for law. and corre- 
 spond with what has actually occurred since he left 
 
 tin- world. Idle church has been at work with a 
 
 Bupernatura] presence to rely upon, but hound ap 
 with natural processes of the world's order, as Leaven, 
 or salt, or seed operates in physical nature. 
 
 The same principle had already appealed in the 
 
 church <>f the Old Testament. As a whole it pre- 
 sents a striking example of gradual operation, accord- 
 ing to a law that can be traced. When Gnosticism, 
 emphasizing the imperfections of the old Testament 
 ami the contrast which it presents to the N 
 declared the Old Testament the work of another and 
 a hostile God, the Christian Church, with ;i splendidly 
 true Instinct, insisted upon the right conception of 
 
 God's gradual method. In the Old covenant, they 
 
140 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 said, things " had their origin and beginning, with us 
 their extension and completion." 1 
 
 Such is the " tranquil operation " of God in spirit- 
 ual matters, and it is akin to the physical develop- 
 ment. Thus Augustine, with other ancient teachers, 
 anticipates modern views by suggesting that nature, 
 as we now see it, represents a gradual evolution from 
 original germs. 2 Of course recent knowledge of 
 natural processes has greatly emphasized this concep- 
 tion ; slowly, we know, in the struggle for existence, 
 by tentative advances, through painfully-secured re- 
 sults, has the end been realized, and the devel- 
 oped product attained. There is harmony here, 
 wonderful harmony, between the spiritual and phys- 
 ical methods of God ; and the result of all we know 
 of God's working in nature and in Christ is thus to 
 modify some popular notions of the divine omnipo- 
 tence. In accurate theology God has been generally 
 regarded as inherent in nature as well as transcend- 
 ing it ; as working out a divine purpose in the whole 
 ordered system. The system, the laws, are regarded 
 as, in a certain sense, limiting Him, only because 
 they express His mind. God is limited by no force 
 external to Himself, but by His own being ; and the 
 laws of nature are, therefore, limits in His working, 
 only so far as they express something of that law of 
 perfect reason, that fundamental law, "against which," 
 says St. Augustine, " God can no more work than He 
 can work against Himself." 3 
 
 This conception of a self-limited God, a God whose 
 
 1 See app. note 38. 2 Cf. app. note 39. 3 See app. note 40. 
 
GOD REVEALED IN OHBIBT. 1 11 
 
 very being is law, has never vanished from the best 
 theology, but it has been seriously obscured in much 
 theology, and in popular conception. In part this 
 has been due to the spirit of western imperialism, 
 which Led men to conceive of God externally, as the 
 great unfettered monarch of all worlds. In part to 
 Calvinism with its doctrine of arbitrary and irrational 
 decrees. 1 In part again it has been due to Lutheran- 
 ism, with its theory of an unreal imputation of Bin 
 ami of merit: a theory which represents God's action 
 as Lawless and unaccountable. In part, as the inher- 
 itor of these earlier Bystems, to English eighteenth 
 century theology, with its thought of ;i remote God, 
 whose presence is Been in occasional interventions in 
 the order of nature. More than to all specified Bys- 
 tems, it has been due to tin- tendency always present 
 in the vulgar imagination, to see the Divine rather 
 in what is portentous and unaccountable than in what 
 is orderly ami tranquil; to think of power, not as 
 what works through law, but as what triumphs OVOT 
 
 it. Thus it is that God's omnipotence has been un- 
 derstood to mean, not His universal power in and 
 ovrall things which works patiently and unerringly 
 in the slow-moving process t<» the Ear-off event, but 
 rather the unfettered despot's freedom to do anything 
 anyhow. Thus it ha. not been without excuse supplied 
 by Christians, that Mr. Cotter Morison lias represented 
 the grace, which Christianity proclaims, as an arbitrary 
 or even demoralizing action of divine benevolence. 1 
 
 1 Bee app. note n. 
 See Mr. I . Morison S< n " Kogao Paul, 1887), pp. Bfl rr. 
 
142 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 But certainly such a representation is without ex- 
 cuse in the best theology. The action of Jesus 
 Christ before His ascension, and after it to the pres- 
 ent moment, is action by law and method, action 
 which is in direct continuity with the system of natu- 
 ral laws, physical and moral. Certainly we cannot 
 contemplate God in the person of Jesus Christ with- 
 out apprehending that the divine power works, and 
 must work, by law. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It is impossible for any person to disclose his mind 
 and will towards others, without at the same time 
 letting them see something of his inner self. Thus 
 it was, as we may say, in the process of revealing 
 God's mind externally towards man, that our Lord 
 gave us also that insight into His inner being which 
 is expressed in the doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
 It is important to notice that there is no moment 
 when Jesus Christ expressly reveals this doctrine. 
 It was overheard, rather than heard. It was simply, 
 that in the gradual process of intercourse with Him, 
 His disciples came to recognize Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost as included in their deepening and en- 
 larging thought of God. Christ was often speaking 
 of His relation as Son to the Father, nor did He ever 
 allow His disciples to confuse their Sonship with 
 His : He spoke of " my Father " and of " your 
 Father," never — except when dictating to them the 
 words of their prayer — of " our Father." His Son- 
 ship belonged to that transcendental being of His, 
 
«■■ 'D REVEALED IN CHRIST, 1 I'. 
 
 which in spite of all the dose human fellowship 
 
 which they enjoyed with Him, the disciples could 
 not tail to recognize and to acknowledge. In the 
 higher world He stood in the intimate relationship 
 of a son, an only son, to a father. Moreover He 
 spoke not only of the Father, but also of the Holy 
 Ghost as in a sense greater than Himself upon earth, 
 and as a person who, like Himself, could be blas- 
 phemed; plainly as in the fullest sense divine. In 
 His Last discourse, it appeared that the Holy Ghost 
 was to take His own place when He had gone. He 
 was to be His vicar and substitute in the hearts of 
 the Apostles, and in the church. It appeared also, 
 that though He was to be the divine person with 
 whom the disciples were to be in most Immediate 
 contact, yet He was third, not second, anion-- the 
 
 sacred Three, proceeding from, and sent from, the 
 Father and the Son. Moreover it became plain that 
 these divine Three were not distinct individuals, who 
 could act separately or apart; there appeared an in- 
 separable unity and " co-inherence " among Them. 
 Thus the coming of the Holy Ghost was not merely 
 to supply the ab Son, but to complete 
 
 His presence. In the coming of the Spirit the Son 
 too was to come; in the coming of the Son, also the 
 Father. "He will come unto you." •• I will come 
 unto you," M We will come unto von." are inter- 
 changeable phrases. 1 The process is not easy to 
 describe, but it came about that the Apostles learned 
 to think of Father, Son. and Holy Ghost, as included 
 
 1 St. John xiv. I 
 
144 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 in the being of God, and that without wavering for 
 a moment in their sense of the divine unity. The 
 name of the one God, as our Lord finally named it 
 in the formula of baptism, is the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 It is remarkable that the Apostles seem to have 
 experienced no intellectual difficulty in regard to 
 this Trinity in the Godhead. I suppose this is to 
 be accounted for, by the fact that difficulties in logic 
 do not trouble us at all where facts of experience are 
 in question. Thus we are often ludicrously at fault 
 in attempting to give a logical account of quite 
 familiar experiences, for example, of the inner rela- 
 tions of those three strangely independent elements 
 of our own spiritual being, will and reason and feel- 
 ing, 1 or of the relation of mind and body. But our 
 inability to explain facts logically goes no way at all 
 to alter our sense of their reality. Now the Apostles 
 lived in a vivid sense of experienced intercourse, first 
 with the Son, then with the Father through the Son, 
 later with the Holy Ghost, and with the Father and 
 the Son through the Holy Ghost. This vivid expe- 
 rience, outward and inward, made logical formulas 
 unnecessary. When the formula of the Trinity — 
 three Persons in one Substance — was developed in 
 the church later on, through the cross-questioning 
 of heresies, it was with many apologies for the inade- 
 quacy of human language, and with a deep sense of 
 the inscrutableness of God. The formula was simply 
 intended to express and guard the realities disclosed 
 1 See app. note 42. 
 
<;<>l» REVEALED IN 0HBI8T. 1 16 
 
 in the person of Jesus Christ, and great Btress was 
 Laid "ii the divine unity. The three Persona are not 
 separable individuals, bo that it could be argued that 
 what one of the sacred three does, another does not 
 do, as we commonly argue about persons amongst 
 ourselves, regarding each person as separate and 
 exclusive of others. God in three is inseparably one. 
 Thus if He creates, it is the Father through the Son 
 by the Holy Ghost; it' He redeems, it is the Father 
 who is the fount of redemption through the Son, by 
 the Holy Ghost; if the Spirit comes, He brings with 
 Him in His coming the Son and the Father, for in 
 eternal subordination and order, the three are one 
 inseparable God. 
 
 I BUppOSe we Bhould almost all of US admit that 
 
 whatever we can know certainly of the being of God 
 must be known by God's disclosure of Himself. We 
 cannot by searching find out (rod. On tin- other 
 hand if man is made in God's image, if man's reason 
 represents the divine reason, we must expect that 
 
 even mysteries will he rational. Thus St. Tin 'mas 
 
 declares that we cannot d priori prove tin- doctrine 
 
 of tin- Trinity, hut that it is rational, in the B 
 
 that once posited, it is found to be in conformity 
 with reason. 1 The right claim for reason, in respect 
 to mysteries, seems to me admirably expressed in 
 the following proposition of Hermann Lotze: "If 
 reason," he Bays, M is not of it-. 'if capable of finding 
 tin- highesl truth, hut on the contrary stands in i 
 of a revelation, still, reason must be able to onder- 
 
 1 Bt Thorn. hq. Sumtna ThtoL p. I. Qa. 81 id 9 
 
146 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 stand the revealed truth, at least so far as to recog- 
 nize in it the satisfying and convincing conclusion 
 of those upward-soaring trains of thought which 
 reason itself began, led by its own needs, but was 
 not able to bring to an end." 1 
 
 The doctrine of the Trinity then is, I assert, not 
 discoverable by reason, but agreeable to reason. It 
 corresponds to upward-soaring trains of thought 
 which reason itself originates, but is not able to bring 
 to a conclusion. For the reasons which lead us to 
 believe in God at all, lead us to think of Him as an 
 eternal and spiritual being. Now the life of Spirit, 
 the highest life we know, is made up of the action of 
 will and reason and love. In God then, we imagine, 
 is a perfect and eternal life, of will and reason and 
 love. But must not this be a life of relationships? 
 Most surely love is only conceivable as a personal 
 relationship of a lover and a loved. If God is eter- 
 nal love, there must be an eternal object for His 
 love. Again, the life of reason is a relationship of 
 the subject which thinks to the object thought, and 
 an eternally perfect mind postulates an eternal object 
 for its contemplation. Once more the life of will 
 means the passage of will into effect : there is no sat- 
 isfaction to will except in production ; an eternally 
 living and satisfied will postulates an eternally ade- 
 quate product. Thus it is that our upward-soaring 
 trains of thought lead us to postulate over against 
 God in His eternal being, also an eternal expression 
 of that being, which shall be both an object to His 
 
 1 Microcosmus (Eng. trans.) ii. p. GGO. 
 
GOD REVEALED IN CHRIST. 1 IT 
 
 thought and a satisfaction to His will and a i 
 to Hi^ love, and this La St. John's doctrine of the 
 I. joe, the eternal expression of God's being in fellow- 
 ship with Himself: "The Word was with God, and 
 the Word was God." 
 
 The d priori considerations which suggest trinity, 
 as distinct from duality, in Godj arc apt to appear 
 fanciful and unreal at first sight; more bo perhaps 
 than on further consideration they prove themselves 
 to he. But it is enough, surely, it' we can be ration- 
 ally satisfied thai God cannot be a monotonous unity, 
 that the one life of God must contain within itself 
 distinctions of a personal sort, [f this La the verdict 
 of reason, we, knowing how little way reason can go 
 
 in a priori anticipations, should be justly called 
 
 rationalistic if we refuse to accept, as in fact dis- 
 closed in ( Shrist, ( rod's triune being. 1 
 
 Thus the Christian, taught of Christ, lifts up his 
 
 mind in reverent awe, and yet in confidence, to catch 
 
 some glimpse of the eternal Being. Back then, 
 behind all the forms of life, all the laws and subordi- 
 nations of parts and manifold relationships and pro- 
 cesses, physical and spiritual, which characterize this 
 complex universe, his mind penetrates to an eternal 
 Being in whom Lies the explanation of all this created 
 world, an eternal productiveness, an eternal law, an 
 eternal subordination, an eternal process, an eternal 
 relationship of will and thought and Love. He 
 beholds by faith God, self-contained, self-complete, as 
 the Father moves forever forth in the begettin 
 1 Bm ipp. note 
 
148 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 the Son, and the Father and the Son in the procession 
 of the Spirit. There lies an eternal fellowship, in 
 which the Father finds in the Son, His adequate 
 word or utterance, the satisfying expression of His 
 being, and object of His thought and will and love ; 
 in which the Son eternally receives and communicates 
 the fulness of the divine life ; in which the Spirit, the 
 life of the Father and the Son, is the product and joy 
 of both, and the bond of communion of the one with 
 the other. 
 
 That this high doctrine is in fact rational is made 
 perhaps most evident by carrying the war into the 
 enemy's country. Let me then briefly endeavour to 
 substantiate the position that this Christian doctrine 
 of God alone makes permanently possible a rational 
 theism, by holding together the extremes of panthe- 
 ism and deism at a middle point of balance. 
 
 Pantheism gives noble expression to the truth of 
 God's presence in all things, but it cannot satisfy the 
 religious consciousness : it cannot give it escape from 
 the limitations of the world, or guarantee personal 
 immortality, or (what is most important) give any 
 adequate interpretation to sin, or supply any ade- 
 quate remedy for it. On the other hand unitarian 
 deism, with its eternal uni-personal God, distinct 
 from the world, is involved in insuperable difficulties. 
 How can any conception be formed of a God, really 
 alive, with a life of will and reason and love, yet in 
 blank monotonous solitude, without product or object 
 or response ? The difficulty is so great, that it would 
 seem as if unitarianism must almost inevitably tend 
 
(,< >i> REVEALED in CHRIST. 1 l'j 
 
 bo pass either into pantheism, which makes the world 
 m necessary to God as God La to the world; 01 
 m with Coleridge, and Maurice, and Eiutton, into 
 Christian theology. 1 
 
 For Christian theology is the harmony of pantheism 
 and deism. On the one hand, Christianity belii 
 all that the Pantheist believes of God's presence in 
 all things. " In him " we believe - we live and m 
 and arc " : " in him all things have their coherence." - 
 All the beanty of the world, all its truth, all its ^ r ood- 
 0688, are but so many modes under which God is 
 manifested, of whose glory nature is the veil, of 
 whose word it is the expression, whose law and reason 
 it embodies. But God is not exhausted in the world, 
 nor dependent Upon it; He exists eternally in His 
 
 triune being, self-sufficing, self-subsistent. Hi- Spirit 
 
 is moving in the world and His Word is sustaining 
 ami governing it, hut before creation and beyond it, 
 tin- Spirit and the Word dwelt in the bosom of God. 
 
 (i»-d is not only in nature as its life, hut He tran- 
 
 scends il as it- Creator, its Lord. — in its moral 
 
 aspect — its Judge. So it is that Christianity enjoys 
 
 the riches of pantheism without its inherent weakness 
 
 on the moral side, without making God dependent on 
 
 the world, as the world is on God. On the other 
 
 hand. Christianity converts an unintelligible deism 
 
 into a rational theism. It ean explain how God 
 
 became a Creator in time, because it knows how 
 
 creation had its eternal analogue in the uncreated 
 
 nature; it was God's nature eternally to produce, to 
 
 1 1. I loL i. 17. 
 
150 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 communicate itself, to live. It can explain how God 
 can be eternally alive and yet in complete independ- 
 ence of the world which He created, because God's 
 unique eternal being is no solitary and monotonous 
 existence ; it includes in itself the fulness of fellow- 
 ship, the society of Father and Son and Spirit. 
 
 It is a splendid heritage, a magnificent possession, 
 that of faith in God, as it is bestowed upon the 
 Christian. To believe in God is to move about the 
 world — increasingly as we realize God's presence 
 better — in the spirit of a worshipper. For the spirit 
 of worship is derived from the recognition of God 
 in all things and all things in God. God is in all 
 things. There is no creature so small, but represents 
 something of His goodness. He is disclosed in all 
 the grades and kinds of life : under the divers modes 
 of beauty, and truth, and goodness, each with its own 
 intrinsic value : through the ministries of artist and 
 thinker, labourer, craftsman, statesman, reformer, 
 priest. He is living in the life of nature and of man. 
 One and unchanged He is revealed in all varieties of 
 loveliness, all fragments and elements of knowledge, 
 all traits of worthy character. Thus the Christian 
 touches all things with a loving reverence, for within 
 them God is hidden. And because wherever He is, 
 He is to be adored, therefore to the believer in God 
 all joy in what is beautiful, all satisfaction in ascer- 
 tained truth, as all delight in human fellowship, is 
 
GOD REVEALED IN OHBIBT. 151 
 
 for ever passing back into worship of Him, whose 
 
 ace it is that touches with glory all desii 
 things, thai is, in their fundamental nature and true 
 application, all things thai arc "Holy, holy, holy, 
 
 is the L<>r<l of hosts: the whole earth is full of II. 
 glory." 1 
 
 Worship, I Bay, is the recognition of God in all 
 things, and also all things in God. For no created 
 thing adds to His essential good. All things that 
 are, do hut represent in a lower form what exists 
 eternally in God. "By faith we understand that the 
 worlds have been framed by the word of G 
 that what is seen hath aot been made out of things 
 that do appear." 3 Not out of things that do appear 
 have the worlds been framed, but they do represent 
 unapparent and eternal realities, for the whole uni- 
 verse is the expression in gradual evolution of what 
 existed beyond time in the divine mind. "What has 
 come into being," Bays St. John, "was life in Him."* 
 So that if all created things should pass into the 
 nothingness out of which they Bprang, there would 
 bono 1"- sential good. They but express im- 
 
 perfectly a perfect archetype. To gee all things in 
 God, thru. La the crown of worship. We shall he- 
 hold through eternal ages more and more of God, 
 not only in His perfected creatures, but in Himself. 
 In endless progress of felicity without weariness we 
 
 Bhall Bee further and further, on and up, into the 
 depths of beauty and holiness and truth in JbSUS, 
 
 incarnate and glorified, and in the triune God; ami 
 
 1 b. vi.:i. ■ Qeb. ri. •'">• ' Bt.John 
 
152 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OE GOD. 
 
 as we see God we shall adore, not for the sake of 
 anything we get from Him, but for the sake of His 
 own supreme worthiness. " We praise Thee, we 
 bless Thee, we worship Thee, we glorify Thee, we 
 give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory." Blessed 
 indeed are the pure in heart, for no other reason than 
 that they shall see God. 
 
 The Christian then, as believing in God, finds this 
 earth a temple for adoration, and looks forward to 
 entering the inner shrine. He sees God in all things 
 and all things in God. And because in one-half of 
 his nature, he is thus beholding God, so in that part 
 of his nature which he turns towards men, and in 
 view of the world's vicissitudes he is as one who " is 
 not afraid of any evil tidings, for his heart standeth 
 fast and believeth in the Lord." Men in their wilful- 
 ness, though never in mere ignorance, may destroy 
 themselves : they may make it impossible that they 
 should individually attain the end for which God 
 created them ; but they cannot destroy God's work. 
 The world about us with its lawlessness, its disunions, 
 its jarrings, seems sometimes as if it could attain to no 
 great end ; like a restless sea of many waters, aim- 
 less, barren, unprogressive. But there is purpose in 
 it. The tossing sea we shall behold one day shot with 
 the fires of the divine judgment, as St. John beheld 
 it, " a sea of glass mingled with fire " ; and beyond 
 the judgment again, as the sea of glass clear as crys- 
 tal which mirrors in its calm surface, the throne of 
 God before which it is spread. "For though the 
 waves toss themselves they shall not prevail." All 
 
GOD REVEALED I \ 0HBI8T. 158 
 
 things move on to the divine event. The nation 
 the earth Bhall walk in the Light of the holy city, and 
 the kings of the earth shall bring their glory ami 
 honour into it. All things in heaven and earth, and 
 under the earth, shall bow and adore Jesus, the heir 
 of the whole world's movement and fruitfulm 
 
 Thus the goal of all things is unity, subordination, 
 worship. 
 
 "The four living creatures," who with their wings 
 and eyes Bymbolize the manifold forces and vital 
 powers of nature, "rest not day and night, saying 
 Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, 
 which was and which is, and which is coming. And 
 when the Living creatures shall give -lory and honour 
 and thanks to him that sitteth on the throne, that 
 liveth for ever and ever : the four and twenty elders 
 
 — that is, the representatives of redeemed humanity 
 
 — >hall fall down before him that sitteth on the 
 throne, and shall worship him that liveth for ever 
 and ever, and shall cast their crowns before the 
 throne, laying ^ Worthy art thou, our Lord and our 
 God, to receive the glory and the honour and the 
 power, for thou didst create all things, and because 
 of thy will, they were and wen- created.' 1 ' 
 
 1 Krv. xv. 2 : iv. 6; .\.\i. M \ It, ML 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 MAN REVEALED IN CHRIST. 
 
 Wherefore it behoved him in all things to be made like unto his 
 brethren. . . . For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, 
 he is able to succour them that are tempted. — Hebrews ii. 17, 10. 
 
 Jesus Christ is not only the revelation of God- 
 head, He is also the revelation of manhood. " As 
 He shows God to man,'' says Irenseus, " so He exhib- 
 its man to God." l He exhibits man to God, and to 
 himself. For over against all false and meagre ideals 
 of man's capacity and destiny, He represents the 
 great reality ; He is the Son of man. 
 
 I. 
 
 The dogmatic safeguards of this revelation of man- 
 hood in the person of Jesus Christ the church has 
 abundantly provided on three distinct occasions. First 
 when she condemned, in Apollinarius, all attempts to 
 curtail our Lord's complete humanity, or to secure 
 His sinlessness by denying to Him the reality of hu- 
 man spirit. Secondly, when she condemned in Euty- 
 ches the false reverence which would merge His 
 humanity in His Godhead, and affirmed that He is 
 "of oue substance " with us in His manhood as with 
 
 1 Sren. c. haer. iv. 20. 7. 
 154 
 
MAN REVEALED IN < ill; 1st. [66 
 
 God in His Godhead. Lastly when, against the 
 Monothelites of the seventh century, Bhe repudiated 
 renewed attempts to deny in Christ the real action 
 of human faculties, and asserted as certain truth that 
 in the person of Jesus Christ is to be found unim- 
 paired the distinctive action of human will, the dis- 
 tinct operation of the properly human energi 
 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, is truly and com- 
 pletely man, and He acts as man through the e\er- 
 of distinctive human faculties : this is the rh inch's 
 
 dogma. Nothing perhaps shows more plainly the hand 
 of God in these ecclesiastical decisions than the fact 
 
 that they were framed with such emphasis on the 
 human nature of Jesus, in an age when the tendency 
 of catholic thought was certainly not humanitarian. 
 
 But though anti-humanitarian tendencii not 
 
 allowed t<> impair the formal doctrine of the church, 
 they have more or less dimmed the apprehension of 
 its meaning at more than one epoch. In part this 
 
 has come about, because the exigencies of theological 
 
 controversy in the period of the later ecumenical 
 
 councils overclouded, not in the best minds, hut in 
 
 many of the most active and representative minds, 
 
 that vivid realization of Christianity as a way of life 
 
 for man — "theway"* — and of Christ a- "the liv- 
 ing law of righteousness," 8 which characterized early 
 times. In part, because mediaeval theology viewed 
 the [ncarnation metaphysically rather than ethically, 
 
 and treated it l.y the aid of Byllogismfl rather than of 
 
 • ady of the ( rospel records. In pari hc- 
 
 1 Acts ioc. L'; xxii. 1. - I.;i.-t;uit ins. Di\ m. ffUfft. iv. '2.1 ; cf. iv. 17. 
 
156 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 cause with the Reformation, when controversial inter- 
 est reappeared in absorbing power, discussions about 
 justification, predestination, and the atonement were 
 allowed a disproportionate share of attention. The 
 late Dean of St. Paul's describes thus the theological 
 tendencies in this country at the period immediately 
 previous to the Oxford movement. " Evangelical 
 theology had dwelt upon the work of Christ and laid 
 comparatively little stress on His example, or the 
 picture left us of His personality and life. People 
 who can recall the popular teaching which was spoken 
 of then as ; sound ' and ' faithful ' and i preaching 
 Christ,' can remember how the Epistles were ran- 
 sacked for texts to prove the sufficiency of scripture 
 or the right of private judgment, or the distinction 
 between justification and sanctification, while the Gos- 
 pel narrative was imperfectly studied and was felt to 
 be much less interesting." * 
 
 In different ways then it has come about that the 
 reality of our Lord's human example, and therefore 
 the true meaning of His manhood, have not been so 
 much in view in the Christian Church as, to judge 
 from the New Testament, they should have been, in 
 their bearing on the life of individuals and of society. 
 We need again and again to go back to the considera- 
 tion of the historical Jesus. The dogmatic decisions 
 of the Church Catholic afford us guidance and warning 
 in the undertaking: they are notice-boards to warn us 
 off false lines of approach to Him, but they are not, 
 as has already been explained, meant to be anything 
 
 1 Church, The Oxford Movement (Macmillan, 1891), pp. 167-8. 
 
MAN REVEALED IN CHRIST. L57 
 
 more. To till up the dogmatic outline into a living 
 whole, to know the meaning of the Incarnation, ami 
 the conditions of the humanity of the Son of God, 
 we must go back to scrutinize the figure in the 
 els. 
 
 II. 
 
 The conditions of our Lord's early childhood are 
 veiled from us. Nothing is told as about His educa- 
 tion, nor are we given any glimpse of Him at the 
 period when men learn most from those outside them, 
 but He grew so truly as a human child that Joseph 
 ami His mother had Dot been led to expert from 
 Him conduct incompatible with childhood, when they 
 took Him up with them to the temple in His thir- 
 teenth year. This must mean that He was taught as 
 the young are taught ; and in the temple courts Ih- 
 
 impressed the doctors SS a child of marvellous in- 
 sight and intelligence. Not but what, even then, 
 
 there was present to Him the consciousness of His 
 unique Sonship. "Wist ye Dot," He said to His 
 parents, "that I must be about my Father's busi- 
 P" 1 but that consciousness of divine Sonship 
 did not interfere with His properly human growth. 
 "The child grew and waxed strong/' says St. Luke, 
 "becoming full of wisdom, and the favour of God 
 was upon him." Again, "Jesus advanced in wisdom 
 and stature, and in favour with God and men;" 2 — 
 the phrase being borrowed from the record of Samuel's 
 childhood, with the specifications added, "in wisdom 
 
 I8t Lukr ii. ■!'.». I.ukr ii. In. ;,j , ,f. 1 Sam. . 
 
158 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 and stature." There was a real growth in mental 
 apprehension and spiritual capacity, as in bodily 
 stature. 
 
 The divine Sonship is impressively asserted at the 
 baptism in the river Jordan. Again, Jesus Christ 
 manifests His consciousness of it in His relation to 
 John the Baptist; and henceforth throughout our 
 Lord's ministerial life, it is not possible for one who 
 accepts, even generally, the historical character of 
 the Synoptic Gospels and of St. John's, to doubt that 
 He knew His eternal pre-existence and Sonship : but 
 the consciousness is not allowed to interfere with the 
 really human development of life. He receives as 
 man the unction of the Holy Ghost ; He was led as 
 man "of the Spirit into the wilderness," and hun- 
 gered, and was subjected as man to real temptations 
 of Satan, such as made their appeal to properly human 
 faculties, and were met by the free employment of 
 human will. He was " in all points tempted like as 
 we are, apart from sin." 1 When He goes out to 
 exercise His ministry, He bases His authority on the 
 unction of the Spirit according to Isaiah's prophecy. 
 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," He reads, "be- 
 cause He anointed me to preach." 2 " God," com- 
 ments St. Peter, "anointed Jesus of Nazareth with 
 the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about 
 doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of 
 the devil; for God was with him." 3 Thus if His 
 miraculous power appears as the appropriate endow- 
 ment of His person, it was still a gift of God to Him 
 
 i Heb. iv. 15. 2 st. Luke iv. 18. 3 Acts x. 38. 
 
MAN EtEVBALHD IN OHBIBT. 150 
 
 as man. k - The power of the Lord was with Him to 
 lieal," says the evangelist: M by the Spirit of God" 
 lit- Himself declared, lie cast out devils: 1 and St. 
 John, in recording the words of Jesus before the 
 raising of Lazarus, would teach us to see at Least 
 in some of His miracles, what is suggested also else- 
 where by our Lord's gestures, a power dependent on 
 the exercise of prayer. " Father, I thank thee that 
 thou didst hear m 
 
 Once more, while as very Son Jesus knows the 
 Father as He is known of Him, and reveals Him to 
 whom He will, He does not appear to teach out of an 
 absolute divine omniscience, but rather as conditioned 
 by human nature. It is, of course, beyond question 
 that (»nr Lord's Consciousness, not only towards God 
 
 but towards the world, was extraordinary. Thus He 
 frequently exhibits a supernatural knowledge, in- 
 sight, and foresight. He saw Nathanael under the 
 fig-tree, ami knew the incident in the life of the 
 Samaritan woman, and told Peter how he would find 
 
 the piece <»t" money in the fish's mouth, and the disci- 
 ples how they would find the colt tied up in the vil- 
 lage, and the man bearing a pitcher of water to take 
 
 them to the upper chamber. He discerned - from the 
 inning " the heart of .Ju<la>. : and prophesied the 
 
 denial of Peter, and had in view Hi> own passion, 
 death, and resurrect i< .11 the third day. I > 1 1 1 all such 
 supernatural illumination is, if of higher quality, yet 
 
 1 st. Lake v. 17 ; Bt Matt xii. B, 
 
 - BtJohn xi. 11 ; St. M;itt. xiv. 19; Bt M ek \ii. 81 
 3 St. Join vi. 6ft. 
 
160 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 analogous to that vouchsafed to prophets and apos- 
 tles. It is not necessarily Divine consciousness. And 
 it coincides in our Lord with apparent limitations of 
 knowledge. The evidence for this we may group 
 under four heads. 
 
 1. There are attributed to our Lord constantly 
 human experiences which seem inconsistent with 
 practical omniscience. Thus he expresses surprise at 
 the conduct of His parents, and the unbelief of men, 
 and the barrenness of the fig-tree, and the slowness 
 of His disciples' faith. 1 He expresses surprise on 
 many occasions, and therefore, we must believe, 
 really felt it, as on other occasions He asks for in- 
 formation and receives it. 2 It is in agreement with 
 this, that as St. Luke especially teaches us, 3 He 
 lived in the constant exercise of prayer to God, 
 which is the characteristic utterance of human faith 
 and trust, that human faith and trust of which the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews sees in Jesus the supreme 
 example. 4 
 
 This reality of human faith becomes more obvious 
 as the anxieties and terrors of the passion close in 
 upon Him. He shows us then the spectacle of true 
 man, weighted with a crushing burden, the dread of a 
 catastrophe awful and unfathomed. It was only be- 
 cause the future was not clear that He could pray : 
 " O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away 
 
 1 St. Luke ii. 4!); St. Mark vi. 6, xi. 13, iv. 40, vii. 18, viii. 21, xiv. 37. 
 
 2 St. Luke viii. 30; St. Mark vi. 38, viii. 5, ix. 21; St. John xi. 34. 
 8 St. Luke iii. 21, v. 16, vi. 12, ix. 18, 28, xxii. 32, 42, x. 21. 
 
 4 Heb. ii. 13, " I will put my trust in him ": xii. 2, " the captain of 
 our faith," i.e. leader in the life of faith; see Westcott in loc. 
 
MAN BEVEAIiBD IN CHBIST. 1 « Jl 
 
 from me." 1 Boldly simple is the language of the 
 inspired commentator on this scene of the agony: 
 "Christ,'' l' L " says, "in the days of his flesh, having 
 offered up prayers and supplications with Btrong cry- 
 ing and tears unto him that was able to Bave him from 
 death, ami having been heard for his godly tear, though 
 he was a s,.n. j ei learned obedience by the things which 
 he suffered." No Language Less than this would corre- 
 Bpond with the historical narrative, but it is Language 
 which implies very Btrongly the exercise of human 
 faith in our Lord's case; nor is it possible that lie 
 could have cried with real meaning upon the en 
 "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 
 unless He had really entered into the experience 
 which originally prompted that cry of the Psalmist, 
 
 into the trial of the soul from whom God hides His 
 
 fare, the trial of the righteous man forsaken. 
 
 •J. Though our Lord knew BO well, and told so 
 plainly, the moral conditions of the great judgment 
 to come, and discerned so (dearly its particular appli- 
 cation in tin- destruction of Jerusalem, yet He ex- 
 pressly declared, as St. Matthew as well as St. Mark 
 
 assures US, that of the day and the hour of His second 
 
 coming, no one knew except the Father, not even 
 the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son; 1 — 
 
 and we cannot hold this declaration apart from the 
 
 other indications that arc given us of a Limited human 
 consciousnec , 
 
 3. A similar impression is left on our mind by the 
 
 1 st. Mitt. xxvi. aa 
 
 .St. Mark rflL 
 
162 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Gospel of St. John. Unmistakably is our Lord there 
 put before us as the eternal Son of the Father incar- 
 nate, but it also appears that the Son of the Father 
 is living and teaching under human conditions : He 
 speaks the words of God, St. John tells us, because 
 God "giveth not the Spirit by measure," that is, 
 because of the complete endowment of His manhood. 
 He Himself says, that He accomplishes "what the 
 Father taught Him " : that He can do only " what 
 He sees the Father doing " : that the Father makes 
 to Him a progressive revelation, " He shall show 
 Him greater works than these " : that the Father 
 " gave Him " the divine " Name," that is, the posi- 
 tive revelation of Himself, to communicate to the 
 Apostles : that He has made known to them "all things 
 that He had heard of the Father," or " the words 
 which the Father had given Him." J The idea is 
 thus irresistibly suggested of a message of definite 
 content made over to our Lord to impart. Now, 
 even though we bear in mind to the fullest extent 
 the eternal subordination and receptivity of the Son, 
 it still remains plain that words such as have been 
 quoted express Him as receiving and speaking under 
 the limitations of a properly human state. 
 
 4. Lastly, there is the argument from silence, coin- 
 cident with these indications. Our Lord exhibits 
 insight and foresight of prophetic quality. He ex- 
 hibits towards all facts of physical nature the recep- 
 tiveness of a perfect sonship, so that, for example, 
 the laws of natural waste and growth are pointed 
 
 I St. John iii. 34, viii. 28, v. 19, 20, xvii. 11, 8, xv. 15. 
 
MAN REVEALED IN CHBIST. L63 
 
 out by Him with consummate accuracy in the parable 
 of the sower. Bui He never enlarges our stock of 
 natural knowledge, physical or historical, out of the 
 divine omniscience. 
 
 The recognition <>t* these phenomena of our Lord's 
 life Leads as to the conclusion that up to the time of 
 His death He lived and taught, He thought and was 
 inspired and was tempted, as true and proper man, 
 under the limitations of consciousness which alone 
 make possible a really human experience. Of this 
 part of our heritage we must not allow ourselves to 
 be robbed, by being "wise above that which is writ- 
 ten." The evidences that our Lord really lived 
 under human limitations are as plain as the evidences 
 
 that in and under the properly human nature. He 
 
 who spoke and worked, and suffered, was the Son of 
 
 (Jod, one with the Father. But thru, you will .say, 
 how are the phenomena to be reconciled in one con- 
 ception? how can we imagine the consistency of the 
 ( rodhead with the manhood? 
 
 III. 
 
 Before we approach the consideration of this ques- 
 tion. Lei us determine at any rate to be true to the 
 fads w bich the ( rospels supply, even though in doing 
 so we have to part company, more or Less, with two 
 much opposed classes of theologians. 
 
 I have already spoken of the method of the scho- 
 lastic and Later dogmatic theologians of whom no 
 more capable representative is to be found than the 
 
164 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 learned Jesuit De Lugo. 1 He of course accepts all 
 the decrees of the general councils, and the few de- 
 cisions which have been given by popes, on the sub- 
 ject of the Incarnation. And he has in mind all the 
 opinions of the theologians, on each point that comes 
 under review. These decrees, decisions and opinions 
 form the material on which he works, and out of them 
 he elaborates a conception of Christ's person, coherent 
 indeed and exact enough to satisfy any mind, but 
 strangely unlike the picture in the Gospels. It is a 
 picture of a human Christ, who, if He was as far as 
 His body is concerned in a condition of growth, was 
 as regards His soul and intellect, from the first mo- 
 ment and throughout His life, in full enjoyment of 
 the beatific vision. Externally a wayfarer, a "via- 
 tor," inwardly He was throughout a "comprehensor," 
 He had already attained. Thus, from the first in- 
 stant of its existence, His humanity possessed at least 
 perfect actual knowledge of all reality past, present, 
 and future, in virtue of its union with the Divine 
 Word; and over and above this, an infused knowl- 
 edge, covering for practical purposes the same range, 
 so that it is stated to be a matter almost of indiffer- 
 ence whether He be supposed to have acquired 
 knowledge gradually or at a bound, and in fact such 
 acquisition of knowledge loses all reality when His 
 manhood was by other means fully equipped with all 
 possible knowledge from the first. It is denied that 
 He used the discursive reason, or was ever subject to 
 privation of knowledge, or was in a condition of 
 
 1 See app. note 45. 
 
MAN BEVEALED IN < HKIST. 165 
 
 uncertainty, it is denied that lie ran strictly be 
 called "the servant of God" even as man. in spite 
 
 of the direct use of that expression in the Acta of 
 the Apostles. He is Bpoken of at the institution of 
 the eucharist as offering sacrifice to His own God- 
 head. 
 
 Now on cadi of these points the position of De 
 Lugo stands in inure or less striking contradiction 
 to what the New Testament would lead us to believe 
 to be true. Yet one finds, one is almost irritated to 
 find, that these positions arc regarded as only state- 
 ments of what was true in fact; it being admitted. 
 for example, that it was possible in the abstract, for 
 the humanity of Christ to have contracted even 
 actual error, where such error would not have af- 
 fected the purpose of His mission, if the divine 
 power had allowed it to err. These positions then 
 
 are Supposed to he only statements of what was true 
 
 in fact: they are mostly admitted at the last resort 
 
 to be ma --of faith." Yet in spite of this d priori 
 freedom in abstract possibility, and this comparative 
 
 Liberty in the region of dogma, the bctfl of the his- 
 torical Gospels arc never really examined at all. All 
 
 that we have given to us is an a priori pietuie of 
 
 what an Incarnation may he thought to have in- 
 volved: which yet, in the re-ion of the later western 
 
 theology, bo preoccupies the mind, as in great meas- 
 ure to deprive it of cm i tact with the historical Christ. 
 Surely we have a warning here against d priori 
 methods; Burely we are justified in feeling that those 
 
 who give the highest meaning to the inspiration of 
 
THE nSGABKAXEON OF THE SOX OF GOD. 
 
 holy scripture as a doctrine, may be least at | - I 
 
 attention to what it actually says. 
 
 But there are others, belonging I very modern 
 ways of thought. wL us that Christ, because 
 
 He was man, must have been at least peccable or 
 liable to siu. and fallible or liable to make mistakes. 
 Now something will be said in the next lecture in 
 
 g .:d to the position that our Lord actually t 
 mined Himself to an er: ;t in regard to the 
 
 authorship of the 110th Psalm. Assuming for the 
 moment, that our Lord's allusion to the Old Testa- 
 ment in this case, fts in others, affords no ground for 
 attributing to Him erroneous teaching: assuming 
 this, and looking at the matter in general, must we 
 not admit that the idea of a fallible or pec c 
 Christ, in the s of those terms, has the 
 
 same abstract ch ras the doctrine of the later 
 
 dogmatists. Pk iself face to face with the 
 
 Christ of the Gospels : let His words, His claim. 
 His tone, make upon you their natural impressi 
 v ou will not. 1 believe, find that 11 How 
 
 think Him is vither liable to sin, or lial 
 to mislead. He never fears sin. or hints that He 
 might be found inadequate : mendons 
 
 He bore : He does not let us think of Him as gi 
 
 g better or as ling /.provement, though He 
 
 b a ■.'..rough each imp stage I manhood 
 
 com; as. He chall g - Briticism, He sj 
 
 : man. the deliverer 
 who b a _ I g . - hie g 
 
 a in no relation to sin. but as the discerner. 
 
man i:i:yi:alki> in CHB 167 
 
 the conqueror, the j it, in all its forms and to 
 
 the end of time. In the same way, whenever and 
 whomsoeyei He teaches, it is in the hich 
 
 could only be morally justifiable in the 
 
 taught without risk of mistake: chimin;.; by Hia 
 own inherent right the submission oi the oonsci< 
 and will and intellect of men. '•Heaven and earth," 
 II said, ** shall pass away, but my shall not 
 
 - away." ■ M L .*" Bai L His A] sties, 1 at 
 
 the openness and security with which He bj 
 
 ce I lis passion, discerning their fa 
 tying their doubts, u now know we that thou km* 
 all things, and needest not that any man Bhould 
 
 : by this we believe that thou ca 
 < 
 
 Indeed, when men fallibility in our L 
 
 ability in His character, it is as much 
 in the teeth of the Gospel i - when on 
 
 other hand they deny Him limitation of knowle 
 or the reality of i human, no d, in the daj 
 
 His flesh. We will be true to ti. '.. then, at all 
 
 n this, let oa approach the ques- 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ajh we look at the history in the ( 
 
 Is in the 
 
 ind man I' .• ad a truly human 
 
 ■ 81 
 
168 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 life of joy and sorrow, sympathy and antagonism, 
 trial and victory, faith and prayer. These two lives, 
 as we think of them, apart, are in strongly marked 
 contrast, but they are not incompatible. We find 
 something analogous to them in the case of a prophet 
 like Jeremiah. In his case, too, there is the life of 
 divinely-given certainty in insight and foresight, 
 based upon the divine word communicated and the 
 vision of God vouchsafed: and, side by side with 
 it, the life of intense personal trial and dismay. 
 Here again the lives are contrasted as we think of 
 them separately : — of Jeremiah with God's words in 
 his mouth, set over the nations and over the king- 
 doms, and of Jeremiah, the man of sorrows and com- 
 plaints, crying " O Lord, Thou hast deceived me, 
 and I was deceived. Thou art stronger than I and 
 hast prevailed : I am become a laughing-stock all the 
 day, every one mocketh me." But the two lives fade 
 into one another in the record, and present the pic- 
 ture of the one person. In the case of our Lord the 
 eternal Sonship necessarily gave to His teaching a 
 personal tone, unmistakably distinct from that of 
 any of the prophets. But the analogy of the prophets 
 is sufficient to show us that the plenary authority of 
 our Lord's teaching, and, on the other hand, the 
 limitations of consciousness exhibited in His experi- 
 ence of human trial, are not incompatible elements, 
 arbitrarily put into juxtaposition, any more than 
 parallel phenomena in the case of God's lower mes- 
 sengers. 
 
 They are not in themselves incompatible elements, 
 
MAN KEVEALED IN CHRIST. 1G9 
 
 but our perception of their unity, that is, our power 
 of interpreting the Incarnation, will depend chiefly 
 on our having clearly in view, its motive, and its 
 method. 
 
 A divine motive caused the Incarnation. It was a 
 deliberate act of God "propter nos homines et propter 
 nostram salutem " : it was a "means devised" for 
 our recovery and for our consummation, a means, 
 therefore, directed and adapted in the divine wisdom, 
 to serve its purpose. That purpose included on the 
 one side a clearer revelation of God's mind and beine 
 to man in terms intelligible to him, and on the other 
 hand, the exhibition of the true ideal of human 
 nature. Now for the first part of the purpose, for 
 the unveiling of the divine character, what was nec- 
 essary was that the humanity should reflect, without 
 refracting, the divine Being whose organ it was made. 
 It could not be too pure a channel, too infallible a 
 voice, provided it was really human and fitted to 
 man. Thus in fact, in becoming incarnate, the Son 
 of God retained and expressed His essential relation 
 to the Father; he received, therefore, as eternally, so 
 in the days of His flesh, the consciousness of His own 
 and of His Father's being, and the power to reveal 
 that which He knew. " No man," He said, " knoweth 
 the Son save the Father; neither knoweth any man 
 the Father" (not, knew but knoweth') "save the Son, 
 and he to whomsoever tic Son willeth to reveal 
 Him." Limited moreover, as we shall have occasion 
 to remark, as is His disclosure of the unseen world, 
 what He does disclose is in the tone of one who 
 
170 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 speaks " that lie doth know, and testifies that he hath 
 seen " : for example, " I say unto you, that in heaven 
 the angels of the little ones do always behold the 
 face of my Father which is in heaven." " In my 
 Father's house are many mansions ; if it were not 
 so I would have told you." * Plainly the continu- 
 ous personality of the Son carried with it a continu- 
 ous consciousness, which if the human nature was 
 allowed to subject to limitation, it was not allowed 
 to deface or to distort. What He teaches, He teaches 
 so that we can depend upon it to the uttermost, and 
 the fact is explained by the motive of the Incarnation. 
 
 On the other hand, our Lord is to exhibit a true 
 example of manhood — tried, progressive, perfected. 
 For this purpose it was necessary that He should be 
 without the exercise of such divine prerogatives as 
 would have made human experience or progress im- 
 possible. He could not, as far as we can see, abiding 
 in the exercise of an absolute consciousness, have 
 grown in knowledge, or have prayed, " Father, if it be 
 possible," or cried, " My God, my God, why " — He 
 could not, that is, have passed through those very 
 experiences, which have brought him closest to us in 
 our spiritual trials. 
 
 So far the facts of the Incarnation are accounted 
 for by the divine motive which underlay it ; but they 
 are interpreted further by the divine method or prin- 
 ciple of action as St. Paul unfolds it to us. He de- 
 scribes it as a self-emptying. 2 Christ Jesus pre-existed, 
 
 1 St. Matt, xviii. 10 ; St. John xiv. 2. 
 
 2 Phil. ii. 5-11 ; see Lightfoot in loc. 
 
man i;i;vkali:i) in CHRIST. 171 
 
 he declares, in the form of God. The word " form" 
 transferred from physical shape to spiritual type, de- 
 scribes — as St. Paul uses it. alone or in composition, 
 with onifornS accuracy — the permanent character- 
 istics of a thing. Jesus Christ then, in his pre-exist- 
 ent state, was living in the permanent characteristics 
 of the life of God. In such a life it was 1 1 is right to 
 remain. It belonged to him. But He regarded not 
 His prerogatives, as a man regards a prize He must 
 dutch at. For love of us He abjured the preroga- 
 tives of equality with God. My an act of deliberate 
 self-abnegation, He so emptied Himself as to assume 
 the permanent characteristics of the human or servile 
 life: He took the form of a servant. Not only so, 
 but He was made in outward appearance like other 
 men and was found in fashion as a man, that is, in 
 the transitory quality of our mortality. The " form,' 1 
 the "likeness," the "fashion" of manhood, he took 
 them all. Thus, remaining in unchanged personality, 
 He abandoned certain prerogatives of the divine mode 
 of existence in order to assume the human. 
 
 Again St. Paul describes the [ncarnation as a" self - 
 ; jary." 1 The metaphor suggests a man of wealth 
 who deliberately abandons the prerogatives of posses- 
 sion to enter upon the experience of poverty, not be- 
 cause he thinks it a better state, but in order to help 
 others up through real fellowship with their experi- 
 ence to a life of weal. u Ye know the grace of our 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ, that, though lie was rich, yet for 
 your Bakes he beggared himself, that ye through his 
 
 1 2 Cor. viii. '.». 
 
 
172 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 poverty might be rich." This is how St. Paul inter- 
 prets our Lord's coming down from heaven, and it is 
 manifest that it expresses something very much more 
 than the mere addition of a manhood to his Godhead. 
 In a certain aspect indeed the Incarnation is the 
 folding round the Godhead of the veil of the human- 
 ity, to hide its glory, but it is much more than this. 
 It is a ceasing to exercise certain natural prerogatives 
 of the divine existence ; it is a coming to exist for love 
 of us under conditions of being not natural to the Son of 
 God. 
 
 The act, which on the part of the Son is thus repre- 
 sented as an abandoning of what He possessed, is on 
 the part of the Father also represented as a real sur- 
 render, a real giving-up of the Son, as a father among 
 us might give up his son to be a missionary : " So God 
 loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." 
 " He gave him up for us." 1 
 
 We must dwell, more than we are apt to do, on the 
 principle or method of divine action thus exhibited 
 to us. What is revealed is, that for our sakes, the 
 Son of God abandoned His own prerogatives in God, 
 in order as man to merit and win, by gradual and 
 painful effort, a glory which in right might have been 
 His all along, the glory which He had with the 
 Father before the world was. Of the results of this 
 self-emptying we can only judge by the record in the 
 Gospels. That our Lord could not lose His personal- 
 ity, or essential relation to the Father, is indeed cer- 
 tain d friori and is confirmed in the record. The 
 
 1 St. John iii. 1G ; Rom. viii. 32 ; 1 St. John iv. 9. 
 
MAN REVEALED IN < HUIST. 173 
 
 ^personality is, then, throughout the same; but in 
 regard to the divine attributes, what He retained in 
 exercise and what He abandoned — whether He aban- 
 doned only the manifest glory, or also, for example, 
 the exercise of the divine omniscience — we could 
 hardly form any judgment a priori ; but the record 
 seems to assure us that our Lord in His mortal life 
 was not habitually living in the exercise of omni- 
 science. 
 
 Is then such a self-emptying intelligible? It is 
 easy to see that it involves no dishonouring of the 
 eternal Son, no attribution to Him of failing powers. 
 f "It was not," says St. Leo, "the failure of power, but 
 the condescension of pity." 1 There was conscious 
 voluntariness in all our Lord's self-abnegation; "I 
 have power to lav down my life." He said, "and I 
 have power to take it again": "Thinkest thou that 
 I cannot beseech my Father, and He shall even now 
 send me more than twelve legions of angels." 2 This 
 same deliberateness belongs, we must suppose, to the 
 limitation of consciousness under which our Lord is 
 
 found. And God declares His almighty power mosl 
 chiefly in such an act of voluntary self-limitation for 
 the purposes of sympathy. It is physical power 
 
 which makefl itself fell only in self-assertion and press- 
 ure; it is the higher power of love which La shown 
 in self-effacement. 1 The power to think one's self 
 into another's thoughts, to look through another's 
 eyes, t<> feel with another's feeling, t«» merge one's 
 
 1 St. Leo, Wp. xxviii 91 Job n v. ts : st. Mat. ncrl 
 
 8 See tpfk imt.' 16. 
 
174 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 self in another's interests, — this is the higher power, 
 the power of love, and we owe it to the Incarnation 
 that we know God to possess and to use, not only the 
 power to vindicate Himself, but the power also of 
 self -li nutation. 
 
 " But," it may be asked, " is such a process as that 
 of abjuring the exercise of consciousness really think- 
 able ? " In a measure it is, because it is realized in all 
 sympathy. There are two ways of helping others. 
 We may help them from the secure platform of a 
 superior position ; we may give them information 
 from the vantage-ground of superior knowledge in 
 the form which that knowledge naturally takes. 
 But we may help them also by the method of sym- 
 pathy, and this means a real entrance into the condi- 
 tions of another's consciousness. By this method 
 the grown teacher accommodates himself to the 
 child's mind, the educated to the mind of the savage ; 
 and thus, mind acts upon mind by the way of force 
 infusing itself from within, rather than of alien in- 
 formation conveyed simply from without. In such 
 action there is involved a real abandonment of the 
 prerogatives which belong to a superior state of con- 
 sciousness, and those will most easily understand this 
 who have been at most deliberate pains to cultivate 
 the life of sympathy. Beyond this we can readily 
 conceive that the attributes and powers of God must 
 be more wholly, than is the case with us, under the 
 control of the will. They must be less mechanical 
 and more voluntary. God cannot act against the 
 perfect law of reason, but what the divine love and 
 
MAN REVEALED IN 0HBI8T. 175 
 
 reason demand, that the divine will can make pos- 
 sible. 
 
 But after all, we shall not if we are wise, expect 
 to understand the whole matter. It has been well 
 
 said that W W6 must all he agnostics, if We only put 
 
 our agnosticism in the right place." We do know 
 God really; our own best methods teach us really 
 the methods of God; but not adequately, not com- 
 pletely. The methods of God arc of the same kind, 
 but inconceivably more intense and more Ear-reaching. 
 Thus, if our own deliberate arts of sympathy have in 
 th<-ni something analogous to the act of God in incar- 
 nation, they do not reach all the way to the explana- 
 tion of it; for sacrifice ourselves as we may we cannot 
 enter into a new state of being, or pass through 
 any transition comparable to that involved in the in- 
 carnation of the Son of God. It musl have involved 
 an act of self-limitation greater than we can fathom, 
 for the eternal to begin to think and act and speak 
 
 under conditions of humanity. 
 
 Thus tar, however, we can .see our way. The In- 
 carnation involves both the self-e\prcssion. and the 
 
 self-limitation, of God, God can express Himself in 
 
 true nianh I because manli 1 is truly and origi- 
 nally made in God's image; and on the other hand 
 
 God can limit Himself by the conditions of manhood, 
 
 because the Godhead contains in itself eternally the 
 
 prototy] f human self-sacrifice and self-limitation, 
 
 for God is love. 
 
176 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Let me state in other terms the result we have ar- 
 rived at. We conceive that in the Incarnation the 
 eternal Son really so assumed our manhood in its 
 completeness in the womb of the blessed Virgin, as 
 to be to it its centre of personality, and to use all its 
 faculties as His own in every stage of their develop- 
 ment. We conceive that He thus assumed our man- 
 hood, in part in order to make through it a revelation 
 of the character and being of God, such as should be 
 both true and intelligible to us, as expressed in the 
 language of our own nature : in part also, in order to 
 set the example of a true human life in its relation 
 both towards God and towards man. We conceive 
 further that, in order to this true human example, 
 the eternal Son so far restrained the natural action 
 of the divine being as, in St. Cyril's phrase, " to suffer 
 the measures of our manhood to prevail over Him " : 1 
 so that He passed through all stages of a human de- 
 velopment, willing with a human will, perceiving 
 with human perceptions, feeling with human feelings, 
 receiving, and depending upon, the illuminating and 
 consecrating unction of the Holy Ghost; and thus 
 fathoming to their depths the experiences which can 
 come upon man in accordance with God's will. 
 
 In forming such a conception as this, we must nec- 
 essarily set many questions aside which we cannot 
 answer. We make no pretence — God forbid that we 
 
 1 St. Cyril, Quod unus Christus, ed. Pusey, vol. vii. pt. I. p. 399. 
 
MAN REVEALED IN CHBIST. 177 
 
 should — to exhaust the depths of a divine mystery. 1 
 But so far as we go we seem to be moving within the 
 
 lines of dogma and doing justice to all the intimations 
 of scripture. Throughout the Incarnation the per- 
 bod of the Son is unchanged; and since the [ncarna- 
 tion, He is at every moment and in every act both 
 God and man; but the relation of the two natures is 
 ( lilt, rent at different epochs. Before His resurrec- 
 tion. He, very God, is acting under conditions of 
 manhood; since His glorification lie, very man, is 
 Living under conditions of Godhead. First the God- 
 head exhibits itself under conditions of manhood, 
 and then the manhood is glorified under conditions 
 of ( rodhead. 
 
 in so conceiving of our Lord in His Incarnation, 
 we are as I have said, well within the limits of those 
 prescribed dogmas which were intended as restraints 
 on error, rather than as sources of information. Fur- 
 ther than this, we receive a great deal of sanction 
 
 from the best early theologians, 8 from St. Irenseus to 
 Theodoret, and from some of the best theologians 
 of the Anglican Church since the Reformation. On 
 
 the other hand, it is true that many of the Fathers, 
 beginning with Hilary and Augustine, and almost all 
 
 mediaeval theologians, decline to allow in our Lord's 
 
 humanity any such limitation of consciousness as the 
 
 New Testament seems to postulate. In viem of such 
 fact there are three considerations which should not 
 he omitted. 
 
 In the fust place, it was much easier Intellectually 
 
 1 Bee app. note it. • tpp. note IS. 
 
178 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 for them, than it is for us, to explain away the plain 
 meaning of words, as in other books, so equally in 
 the New Testament. Exact interpretation is, more 
 or less, a growth of recent times, which brings with 
 it corresponding responsibilities. If mediaeval writers 
 surpass us in subtlety of theological perception, we 
 have better opportunities than they, of understanding 
 what the writers of scripture actually meant. 
 
 Secondly, it was easier morally for churchmen 
 of past ages than it is for us, to suggest that when 
 our Lord said, " He did not know " ; He meant 
 that He knew but would not tell. The indignant 
 protest of Theocloret against such an interpretation 
 would find an echo in almost every modern con- 
 science. 1 
 
 Thirdly, there were causes, which have not been 
 sufficiently taken into account, tending to make medi- 
 aeval theologians depreciate the real significance of 
 our Lord's truly human condition. Of these, not the 
 least considerable was the almost apostolic authority 
 attributed to the writer who was believed to be 
 Dionysius the Areopagite, the convert of St. Paul; 
 but who was in fact a fifth or sixth century writer, 
 of unmistakably monophysite tendency, in whom the 
 Incarnation was viewed almost exclusively as a the- 
 ophany. Thus it was said of St. Thomas Aquinas, 
 with not more than an exaggeration of truth, that 
 " he drank almost his whole theological doctrine out 
 of the most pure wells of Dionysius." 2 
 
 1 See app. note 49. 
 
 2 See Westcott's Relir,. Thought in the West (Macmillan, 1891), 
 p. 152 ff. 
 
MAN REVEALED IN CUBIST. 179 
 
 In view of such considerations it is no exaggeration 
 to Bay that the real pressure of the problem we have 
 been considering in this Lecture, etical, moral, 
 
 and theological, was not felt by mediaeval writers as 
 we cannot fail to feel it. Thus in asking men to fall 
 back upon the church's formal decisions about our 
 Lord's person and upon the text of the New Testa- 
 ment, and t<> reconsider, on this basis, the moral and 
 human meaning of the Incarnation, we arc not asking 
 them to re-open a problem which can be represented 
 as either dogmatically decided or fairly considered. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Jesus Christ then is the Son of man: and as we 
 approach to accept from Him the standard of our 
 manhood, we arc struck both ^y His Likeness, and by 
 His unlikeness, to ourselves. Let as devote the con- 
 cluding portion of this lecture to considering three 
 respects in which Jesus, because His humanity is 
 perfect, presents features of unlikeness t'> other men. 
 
 (1) In the first place in Him humanity is sinless. 
 He i> represented to as in the wilderness as being 
 assailed by the three great typical temptations before 
 which our race has succumbed: by the lust of the 
 flesh in its mdsl subtle form: by worldliness in the 
 form calculated to make the most brilliant appeal to 
 the imagination; and hv pride in the form which 
 
 spiritual and powerful minds haw found most M'duc- 
 
 tivr. in every form temptation was rejected, not 
 
 because He had not real human faculties to feel its 
 
180 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 force, but because His faculties acted simply under 
 the control of a will, which followed unhesitatingly 
 the movement of the Holy Spirit, in other words, 
 which existed only to do the Father's will. And 
 this representative victory summarizes His whole 
 human life in its moral aspect. " The prince of 
 this world came and had nothing in him." He was 
 in all points tempted as we are, apart from sin ; that 
 is, so far as a sinless nature can be tempted, so far as 
 one can be effectively assailed who has not, as we 
 have, the traitor within the camp. 
 
 To say that He was sinless is to say that He was 
 free. Moral freedom — in the sense in which scrip- 
 ture and the higher moralists use the term ; in the 
 sense in which Shakespeare speaks of " hot passion " 
 as opposed to " the free determination 'twixt right 
 and wrong " — means not an indeterminate power to 
 choose this or that, to do good or bad, but the power 
 to vindicate the mastery of will and to realize the 
 rational law of our being. "That man has true 
 freedom," said St. Leo, " whose flesh is controlled by 
 the judgment of his mind, and whose mind is directed 
 by the government of God." 1 Such was the liberty 
 of manhood in Jesus Christ. He did not sin, because 
 none of His faculties were disordered, there was no 
 loose or ungoverned movement in His nature, no 
 movement save under the control of His will. He 
 could not sin, because sin being what it is, rebellion 
 against God, and He being what He was, the Father's 
 Son in manhood, the human will which was His 
 
 1 S. Leo, Serm. xxxix. 2 ; cf. xlii. 2. 
 
MAN REVEALED IN CHRIST. 181 
 
 instrument of moral action, could not choose to sin. 
 It is right, as St. Augustine and St. Anselm assure 
 us, 1 to say that Christ could have refused obedience 
 if He had willed ; what was impossible was that He 
 should will to sin. 
 
 The summary proof, then, that sin is not according 
 to man's true nature, that it is rebellion and not 
 nature, lies in the fact that in Christ, the true man, 
 sin had no place. He viewed sin in no other way 
 than as the disease which He came to remedy, the 
 havoc of the intruder whom He came to expel. He 
 is " the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the 
 world." And we look forward, through Him, to a 
 liberty like His : to a blessed time, when acts of 
 resistance in the power of the divine Spirit shall have 
 accumulated into habits, and habits shall have become 
 fixed as character, and the liberty of the blessed shall 
 be ours : which is, the inability any longer to find 
 attraction in what is not of God. 
 
 (2) In Jesus Christ humanity was perfect. We 
 have no reason to think that man was originally 
 created perfect. 2 Irenaeus and Clement expressly 
 deny it. We believe that when the body of man was 
 first made the dwelling-place of a self-conscious, free 
 personality, man might have developed on the Lines 
 of God's intention, not without effort and struggle, 
 but without rebellion and under no curse. But in 
 any case, all the process of development of all human 
 faculties Lay before him. He was imperfect, and only 
 adapted to develop freely. But in Christ, humanity 
 
 1 See app. note 50. 2 See app. note 51. 
 
182 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 is not only free from taint, but, in the moral and 
 spiritual region, also at the goal of development. In 
 Him first we see man completely in the image of 
 God, realizing all that was in the divine idea for man. 
 He was perfect child, according to the measure of 
 childhood, boy according to boyhood's measure, man 
 according to man's standard ; and He was perfected 
 at last according to the final destiny of manhood in 
 eternal glory. That which without Him could have 
 been no more than a hope of immortality, a dim 
 expectation of final perfecting, becomes in Him a 
 realized certainty. He has " shed the light on life 
 and immortality." 2 We behold Jesus, not only the 
 captain of our faith, but its consummator in glory. 
 
 (3) Jesus Christ is the catholic man. In a sense 
 all the greatest men have over-stepped the boundaries 
 
 of their time. 
 
 " The truly great 
 Have all one age, and from one visible space 
 Shed influence. They both in power and act, 
 Are permanent and time is not with them, 
 Save as it worketh for them, they in it." 
 
 But in a unique sense, the manhood of Jesus is catho- 
 lic ; because it is exempt, not from the limitations 
 which belong to manhood, but from the limitations 
 which make our manhood narrow and isolated, merely 
 local or national. Born a man, and a Jew, in a 
 carpenter's family, He can be equally claimed by both 
 sexes, by all classes, by all men of all nations. This 
 is apparent, in part, in the broad appeal which Jesus 
 
 1 2 Tim. i. 10. 
 
MAN REVEALED IN CHRIST. 183 
 
 makes to man as man, in His teaching and in His 
 institutions. We observe that while He explicitly 
 and unhesitatingly Legislated in regard to marriage, 
 
 which is an institution purely human and catholic, 
 He refused to express any judgment, which could 
 have been held to sanction merely national customs, 
 such as tin- Jewish law <>f inheritance. 1 He would 
 not put the new wine into the old bottles. Again. 
 He converted the Jewish Passover into a catholic 
 sacrament with symbols common to all men. Once 
 more He used the scriptures, as all men may use 
 them. " When we compare," says Dr. Edersheim, 
 "the long discussions of the Rabbis on the letter and 
 law of scripture with His references to the word of 
 God, it seems as if it were quite another book which 
 was being handled." - 
 
 But this rich truth of our Lord's catholic manhood 
 has Only been gradually apparent in the history of 
 the world. Each race has its special aptitudes, its 
 "glory and honour";* and as the glory and honour of 
 
 ea<h nation has beeD brought within the light of 
 "the holy city," — the versatility and intellect of the 
 
 Greeks, the majestic discipline of the Romans, the 
 strong Individuality of the Teutons — each in turn 
 has beeo able to find its tine ideal in Jesus of Naza- 
 reth, not a- a dream of the imagination, hut as ;i fact 
 of observation, and has marvelled how those thai 
 
 were in Christ before them could he blind to the 
 
 l 8eeLa4 ham, Part r Paatorwfci p. i"i. 
 
 ■ Bdenbeim, /eiui tfc Mttrtah (Longmans, ISM), Lp.284. 
 
 »Rcv. xxi. 26. 
 
184 THE ESCAE NATION OF THE SOX OF GOD. 
 
 presence in Him of what they so especially value. 
 Thus it is only gradually that the true moral ideal of 
 Christianity is apprehended. Xo doubt, for example, 
 many early Christians had an imperfect perception of 
 the obligation of truthfulness, but when Augustine 
 vigorously asserted it to be a part of Christian 
 morality, he asserted what is undoubtedly true. 
 Christ did lift all conversation to the level of abso- 
 lute truthfulness, to the level formerly held only by 
 statements under oath: i4 Let your yea be yea, and 
 your nay nay." We in our time, to take only one 
 more example, have learnt to give great prominence 
 to the virtue of considerateness. The rough and 
 summary classifications of men in groups, the equally 
 rough and summary condemnations of them, the 
 inconsiderate treatment of heretics and even of 
 speculators, these facts in church history strike us as 
 painful and unworthy. Considerateness, we say. is 
 a Christian virtue. ;; Let your considerateness be 
 known unto all men." * We look back to our Lord, 
 and are astonished that any can have failed to see 
 His intense respect for individuality. His freedom 
 from fanaticism, in a word His considerateness. Cer- 
 tainly, it is there. Only lest we should be arrogant, 
 we need to remember that other ages and other 
 races have caught more readily in Him what we 
 ignore — His antagonism to pride or to the selfish 
 ■rtion of property. — and that the whole is not 
 yet told. Only altogether, all ages, all races, both 
 sexes, can we grow up in one body, " into the per- 
 
 i Phil. iv. 5. 
 
MAN KEVEALED IN CHRIST. 1 -.', 
 
 feet man " ; only a really catholic society can be u the 
 fulness of Him that iilleth all in all." 1 Thus we 
 doubt Dot that, when the day comes which Bhall see 
 the existence of really national churches in India 
 and China and Japan, the tranquillity and inward- 
 3 of the Hindu, the pertinacity and patience of 
 the Chinaman, the brightness and amiability of the 
 Japanese, will each in turn receive their fresh con- 
 secration in Christ, and bring out new and unsus- 
 pected aspects of the Christian life, finding fresh 
 irees in Him in whom is "neither Jew nor 
 Greek, neither male nor female, barbarian, Scythian, 
 bond nor free, but Christ all in all." - 
 
 We contemplate Jesus Christ, the Son of man, in 
 the sinlessness, the perfection, the breadth of His 
 manhood, and in Him we find the justification of 
 our highest hopes for man. There is much in human 
 nature to disgust us, to dishearten, to dismay. M We 
 see not our tokens." - There is none that doeth 
 good." We Bay in our haste, - All men are liars." 
 •• What is man." we civ out to God, "that thou art 
 mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest 
 him?" In very truth we do not see a satisfa< 
 manhood about us. nor do we find it within OS. But 
 -. bom, growing, living, dying. Buffering, 
 glorified; and in Him we find what ifl both the con- 
 demnation of what v. .nee of what 
 we may be. A- x m of man. lie claims and 61 
 <»ver ua a legitimate authority, the authority of ac- 
 knowledged perfection: as Son of man He shov. a 
 
 I Bph.tr. 18; LS 2 Ga l. iii. 28; Col. iii. 11. 
 
186 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 what human nature is to be, individually and socially, 
 and supplies us with the motives and the means for 
 making the idea real. The consideration of these func- 
 tions of the Son of man as authority, example, new 
 life, will occupy us in the two remaining lectures. It 
 is enough for us to recognize at this point in how 
 large and full a sense Jesus Christ is really man, 
 made in all points like His brethren, sin apart ; and 
 to confess, with a full assurance of conviction, that 
 the clue to progress, social and individual, lies with 
 those, and only those, who in simplest loyalty, with 
 calmest deliberation and completest courage, take 
 His teaching to guide them and His character to 
 mould them — " Looking unto Jesus." 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 CHRIST OUR MASTER. 
 
 All authority hath he, » gitx n unto me in haw, n and on earth. 
 [i< therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them 
 into tlic name of the Father and of the Son "/" / of th* Holy 
 Ohost: teaching them to observe nil things whatsoever I com- 
 manded you: and to, I am with you all tht days, even unto the 
 end of the world.— St. Matthew xxviii. 18. 
 
 There is no subject more in dispute at present in 
 
 religious circles than the reality, the function, tin- 
 seat, of authority in religion. Now neither as to the 
 reality of religious authority nor as to its Beat in 
 the first instance can any Christian be in doubt. 
 .1 l lirist is the summary authority in religion. 
 
 He is this because He reveals God, as being Hia very 
 image, and every revelation of God must come upon 
 men with authority, as from above ; He is this, again, 
 because He is perfect man, and therefore exercises 
 over humanity the control which is always exercised 
 by ackimu Ledged perfection. 
 
 Our Lord's method as a teacher, aa it La exhibited 
 to us in the Gospels, is unmistakably the method of 
 authority. u Verily," He said, •• I Bay unto you." 
 
 187 
 
188 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 11 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words 
 shall not pass away." " He taught as one having 
 authority, and not as the scribes." It is obvious to 
 contrast this method, in harmony as it is with that of 
 all God's prophets, with the method of Greek teach- 
 ers such as Socrates and Plato. 
 
 Socrates was content to stimulate thought by ques- 
 tions. His object was not so much to inculcate a 
 positive system as to make men exact and critical in 
 their understanding and their speech. He believed, 
 strangely as it seems to us, that right action would 
 follow almost necessarily on right thought. He was 
 ready to go anywhere where the argument led him. 
 Plato, by a process now of Socratic criticism, now of 
 positive construction, made it his aim to erect an edi- 
 fice of life and thought on a basis purely rational ; 
 and appears to us to have attained after all, so far as 
 the positive attempt was concerned, such a very mod- 
 erate measure of success. 
 
 God forbid that we should depreciate these methods. 
 When the average carelessness of men in thought and 
 speech is forced upon our notice, not least in the 
 religious world of to-day, we are tempted to echo the 
 cry, " Oh, for one hour of Socrates ! " to question our 
 teachers in public places as to the meaning of their 
 words. Further, we notice that when our Lord used 
 argument, it is occasionally in the Socratic manner. 
 Once more, if St. Paul is an inspired Apostle, the 
 method of dialectic is certainly justified in Christian 
 theology. We must not, then, depreciate the method 
 of argument, but we must recognize that it is not the 
 
CHRIST OUB MASTER. 1 B9 
 
 j of the Christian system ; it is not the primary 
 method of Christianity. It will avail to prepare the 
 way for religion, to formulate it. to defend it, to keep 
 it true to type : but it will not establish it in the first 
 instance, or propagate it in the world. Religion g 
 out from the lips of Christ and of all who represent 
 Christ as a word of God, appealing t" men because 
 they believe in Cod and have ears t<> hear; a word of 
 
 God to he first of all received in faith. "This is the 
 work of God, that ye believe on him whom lie hath 
 sent." ! 
 
 It is not, then, open to question that the Christian 
 religion — whether as imparted by a teaching church, 
 
 or as contained in a volume of inspired writings, or 
 esented in, what lies behind both these subordi- 
 nate instruments, the person of Jesus Christ Ilin. 
 — the Christian religion is an authoritative word of 
 God, and Christians are men under authority. U A 
 prince." says Bishop Audi. -wo. on Christmas day, as 
 he comments on the prophecy of Isaiah, 8 "so is Jesus 
 styled, -horn' and l given' to establish a 'govern- 
 ment,' that none imagine they shall live like liber- 
 tinea under Him, every man believe and live as he 
 List. It is Christ not Belial that is born to-day, II" 
 bringeth a government with Him: they that be Hi^ 
 must live in subjection under a government : else 
 neither in child Qor Son, in birth aor gift, have they 
 any interest" 
 
 John vi. 9a 
 
 V • (| . S.-rm. ii. < >n K ix. »',. 
 
190 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 II. 
 
 Authority in religion obviously implies some con- 
 siderable discipline of private judgment, that is, of 
 the uncontrolled opinion or inclination of the indi- 
 vidual. In part this belongs to all reasonable edu- 
 cation, and ought not to present any difficulty to us 
 in connection with religion. It is not intended that 
 each generation or each individual should start afresh 
 in life, and exercise the unassisted intellect or im- 
 agination, de novo, on the matter of human sensation 
 and experience and thought. The heritage of the 
 past, the truth at which mankind has already arrived, 
 is to be first of all received, as a communicated doc- 
 trine which is to mould the mind of the generation 
 that is rising, and is to be assimilated with the rever- 
 ence due to the "testimony of the elders." Only out 
 of such submission to be taught, such subjection to 
 an external lesson to be received and assimilated, can 
 any right originality have its origin. So philosophers 
 have been at pains to assure us, from Plato and 
 Aristotle down to Hegel and Goethe. 
 
 And in the things of God authority has necessarily 
 a more permanent place than in the affairs of men. 
 In religion, even when a man has got to the level of 
 his fellow-men — when he has learnt what they can 
 teach him, and as " a spiritual man " is " judged of 
 none " — still at this level he is hardly less than 
 before under authority. For " God is in heaven and 
 man upon earth," man has never discovered Him 
 
CHBIBT OUB MASTER. 1!»1 
 
 aright or found out His true being; at every stage 
 man's knowledge of God has come through God's 
 disclosure of Himself. Whether by the "categorical 
 imperative" which appeals to the will through the 
 conscience, or by the word of God through the 
 prophet, or by the mission of the Son, but always by 
 the way of revelation from above, has the real knowl- 
 edge of God been gained. Tims the oldest and the 
 wisest of men must still remain in an attitude of ac- 
 ceptance, of adoration, of faith : faith which, however 
 sure it is of its rationality — though it cry through 
 the lips of St. Anselm, "having begun by believing I 
 have grown into understanding," — yet never ceases 
 to be faith; faith which, in the case of a Christian, 
 rests unceasingly <>n the person of Jesus, the very 
 reason and word of the Father. 
 
 Partly then because it is an educational system, 
 partly because it is a revelation of the most high 
 God, Christianity is authoritative; but, granted this, 
 we are only at the beginning of our inquiry, for 
 authority is of different types. Broadly we may dis- 
 tinguish two. the despotic ami the fatherly. The 
 
 aim <»f despotic authority is to produce unquestion- 
 ing obedience, at Least in thai department of Life to 
 which it applies— and it is worth noticing that it 
 can he content with part of a life more easily than 
 parental authority. The aim, I say. of despotic author- 
 ity is to produce in the intellect simple acceptance, 
 and in the conduct unquestioning obedience. It works 
 therefore through explicit commands and dogmas, 
 which cannot in fart l..- too explicit, or Leave too little 
 
192 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 to the imagination and thought of the subject. If 
 the end is simply to produce obedient servants, the 
 directions cannot be too clear or too exact. But pa- 
 rental authority works by other means. Its end is to 
 produce conformity of character, sympathy of mind, 
 intelligent co-operation in action. It is never satisfied 
 with blind obedience. For this very reason, it de- 
 lights in the stimulus of half-disclosures, in directions 
 which arrest attention and suggest inquiry, but leave 
 much to be done in the mind of their recipients. For 
 education in sonship, it is easily possible for informa- 
 tion to be too full, and directions too explicit, be- 
 cause such fulness and explicitness may tend to 
 suppress rather than to stimulate, and secure blind 
 obedience rather than co-operation. 
 
 Now the authority of the Mosaic law, or rather of 
 those portions of it which St. Paul treats as charac- 
 teristic of the whole, is of the despotic sort. It con- 
 sists of directions, moral and ritual, explicit, exact, 
 calculated to secure scrupulous obedience and that is 
 all. But the higher authority of our Lord is charac- 
 terized by being more moderate, not in respect of the 
 thoroughness of the claim made, but in the mode of 
 its presentation. The discipline of the Old Testa- 
 ment is that of the master, the authority of the New 
 that of the father. No doubt there must always be 
 place and occasion in Christianity for blind obedience. 
 There are moments in all lives, and not only in 
 crushed and ruined lives, when men must be content 
 to be slaves that they may become sons ; as there was 
 place even in our Lord's life, for the characteristic 
 
CHRIST OUB KA8TER. 198 
 
 Old Testament virtue of euXaftei'a:' 1 " I Ft- was heard 
 far his godly fear." Bui the characteristic note of 
 the New Testament authority is that of the father 
 over tlif son, and for this wit reason it is moderate. 
 This moderation is noticeable both in its range and 
 iii its method. 
 
 We might have imagined antecedently that God's 
 completer revelation of Himself, which belongs to 
 the New Testament, would have been characterized 
 by the wide area over which it ranged ; that there 
 would have been a letting loose of the divine omni- 
 science; that the multitude of the disclosures would 
 have been in proportion to the power exhibited, and 
 the benefit received. But the actual method of the 
 [ncarnation contradicts such a supposition. However 
 our Lord's Bilence is to be interpreted at any rate it 
 
 did not fall within the scope of His Mission to reveal 
 
 His omniscience by disclosures in the region of 
 natural knowledge, or His eternity by information 
 about history, otherwise inaccessible, in the past or in 
 the future He came neither to make a display of 
 omniscience nor to relieve us from the effort of 
 acquiring knowledge. Moreover, within the spiritual 
 on how reserved are His communications. What 
 
 i> given is primarily the disclosure of ( rod'fl mind and 
 
 will towards men. Even His triune being is rather 
 overheard, than heard ;i^ a distinct and Beparate 
 announcement. About the life beyond the grave, 
 while the thoughts of men are rectified, spiritualized 
 ami moralized, very little positive information is 
 neb Synonynu of tin X. T. (7th ed. HacmHlan, 1871 1, p. 161 
 
194 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 given. The old metaphors of " Abraham's bosom," 
 " the unquenchable fire,'' " the undying worm," the 
 names Hades, Gehenna, Heaven, are filled with new 
 moral meaning, but supplemented by hardly any dis- 
 closure to satisfy the imagination or curiosity. Once 
 again, however the belief in good and bad spirits had 
 come to take its place in the Jewish creed, that belief 
 is accepted and used by our Lord in positive teaching 
 with such explicitness and emphasis that there is, I 
 think, no room for a Christian to doubt — as why in 
 reason should he doubt? — that such spirits really 
 exist and exercise influence in the life of nature and 
 man. But again, how little information is given. If, 
 as St. Paul says, we Christians who live in the light 
 of revelation, yet see " in a mirror, darkly," " know 
 in part and prophesy in part " — this is a direct conse- 
 quence of the limits set by the divine wisdom upon 
 our Lord's prophetic office. 1 
 
 The reserve which is noticeable in the content, is 
 noticeable also in the method, of our Lord's communi- 
 cations. One of the most observant and suggestive 
 of recent writers about the Gospels, Dr. Latham, says, 
 "Among the great teachers of the world there is 
 hardly one whose chosen pupils have received so few 
 tenets in a formulated shape, as those of Christ " ; 2 
 and if Dr. Martineau is exaggerating when he says, 
 that " The sublimest things which he told the people 
 he assumed that they in their secret hearts must 
 know " ; 3 even the exaggeration is suggestive of the 
 
 1 See on the above paragraph app. note 52. 
 
 2 Pastor Pastonim, pp. 271-2. s Seat of Authority, p. 322. 
 
OHBIST OUB MASTKi:. 195 
 
 truth. Obviously our Lord knew that revelation 
 might be too full, too explicit in answers to ques- 
 tions) too easily intelligible ; and that because such 
 fuliu-ss, explicitness, and plainness, would not leave 
 niLMi enough to do for themselves. 
 
 Our Lord, then, trained His disciples to do a great 
 deal for themselves in the way of spiritual effort in 
 apprehending truth. Thus, when He finally elic- 
 ited from St. Peter the confession of His own name 
 
 — "Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God," 
 
 — lie elicited, as the utterance of the disciple's own 
 .slowly formed conviction, what He might have dic- 
 tated from out>ide. We have further evidence of our 
 Lord's refusal to do too much for His disciples, in 
 His use of paradoxes. The Mosaic law says exactly 
 what it means, you have only to take it and obey it: 
 but the Sermon on the Mount sets a man thinking: 
 
 it perplexes, it almost baffles; it is only by patient 
 
 effort to appreciate its spirit, that it can be reduced 
 
 to practice. The game is true of the parables which 
 
 our Lord used t" teach the people. They stimulate 
 
 thought, they BUggest principles, they arrest the 
 attention, but they do not give men spiritual infor- 
 mation in th>- easiest and most direct form. Our 
 
 Lord then taught, and especially taught I lis disciples, 
 
 SO as to train their characters and .stimulate their 
 
 intelligences: he worked t<> make them intelligent 
 sons and friends, not obedient slaves. He would have 
 them set ends above means, and principles above ordi- 
 nances : as when he said that M the sabbath was made 
 for man, and not man for the sabbath." And His 
 
196 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 own ordinances, such as baptism and the eucharist, 
 are Christian sacraments and not Jewish laws — ■ the 
 sacraments of sons and not the ordinances of servants 
 — - because they carry with them their own justifica- 
 tion, because they convey a declared and intelligible 
 grace. They are obligatory, but as food is obliga- 
 tory ; for to know their secret is to desire their use, 
 as a son desires food and fellowship in his father's 
 household. 
 
 There is then an ideal of paternal authority, the 
 authority which exists to develop sonship ; and this 
 is the authority of Christ. St. Augustine describes 
 well the character of authority as thus conceived, 
 when he says, that " authority is prior to reason in 
 order of time, but reason is prior to authority in 
 essence." 2 In other words, all legitimate authority 
 represents the higher reason, educating the develop- 
 ment of the lower. Legitimate religious authority 
 represents the reason of God, educating the reason 
 of man and communicating itself to it. Now man is 
 made in God's image : he is in his fundamental capac- 
 ity a son of God, and he becomes so in fact, and fully, 
 through union with Christ. Therefore in the truth 
 of God, as Christ presents it to him, he can recognize 
 his own better reason : to use Plato's beautiful expres- 
 sion, he can salute it by force of instinct as some- 
 thing akin to himself, before he can give intellectual 
 account of it. 2 He begins by accepting it on faith, 
 and in obedience, but the very thing that he accepts 
 quickens and satisfies his faculties, and he grows 
 
 i S. Aug. de ord. ii. 9 (2G). 2 Republic, 402 A. 
 
OHBIST OUB mastki:. 1 * *T 
 
 from faith to intuition, from Love to knowledge, till 
 as tlif developed '-spiritual man" he "judges all 
 things," till by the "unction of the Holy One' 1 lie 
 ••knows all things," 1 and what was once an external 
 "mould of doctrine" has become the ineradicable 
 conviction of his own mind. 
 
 We may then characterize Christian authority in 
 two respects; first, that as a higher sort of reason, it 
 stimulates and develops in each of its subjects not 
 conscience only — though it appeals first to con- 
 science, ami the way of conversion is the true begin- 
 ning of enlightenment — nor only the faculties of 
 
 obedience and worship, but also the faculty of reason 
 and free judgment. While developing human reason 
 
 into the image of the divine it also frees it and satis- 
 fies it on its own Level. It is above our reason, not 
 below it. Thus, so far as history enters into the 
 
 things of faith, and with history the occasion for 
 
 criticism and investigation, authority must he able 
 to pivsmt its historical credentials in a shape which 
 corresponds to the requirements of reason. Its his- 
 torical supports musl l»e as satisfactory as historical 
 supports can he. It must encourage its votaries to 
 test all things. It musl set qo premium on credulity : 
 it must make do virtue of mental blindness, as if the 
 refusal to investigate were in any way connected 
 with reverence and faith. It is the test of Christian- 
 ity's Legitimate tenure, that it can encourage free 
 inquiry into its title-deeds. 
 Secondly, as Christian authority educates men for 
 
 : i Oar. ii. 15: t Bt John 11 
 
198 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 sonship, so it is not satisfied with bare acceptance of 
 dogmas and obedience to rules. It is not satisfied 
 that one or two of the Christian community should 
 do the positive work of religion for the rest. It de- 
 sires to see the whole community an organized body 
 in active co-operation, a royal priesthood in conse- 
 crated service. It is because it thus desires to enlist 
 all men, and the whole man, in positive service, that 
 the best kind of authority refuses to do too much for 
 men, refuses to be too explicit, too complete, too clear, 
 lest it should dwarf instead of stimulating their 
 higher faculties. 
 
 III. 
 
 At this point, then, I cannot but ask you whether 
 the mind of the Church of England does not give a 
 very fair expression of the Christian ideal of author- 
 ity. Our church would have each of its members 
 educated, through childhood and youth, in a cate- 
 chism which contains the creed as a summary of the- 
 ology, the Lord's prayer as the type of prayer, the 
 ten commandments with their explanation as a rule 
 of duty, the teaching about the sacraments as a law 
 of church membership. This preliminary instruction 
 would be somewhat supplemented by the services 
 intended for everybody's use. Here is a dogmatic 
 basis for education, clear and distinct up to a certain 
 point, but leaving a great deal for the individual 
 churchman to do. He is to grow into a clearer appre- 
 hension of what he has been taught by familiarity 
 with the scriptures ; on points left doubtful in the 
 
OHEIST (in; MASTER, L99 
 
 explicit formulas he is to form his own judgment 
 with the help of such information as ( rod puts within 
 
 hifl reach. Thus his relation to Christian truth is 
 gradually to become that of personal conviction and 
 enlightenment, not of mere passive acceptance. 
 
 There are some who would destroy this ideal by 
 removing the basis of obligatory fundamental dogma. 
 This would be equivalent to destroying altogether 
 the ideal of a church, as a society based upon an 
 authoritative message. There are many more who, 
 nominally accepting the ideal, in fact ignore it. 
 Perhaps there is no part of the church which has 
 sinned as the English Church has Binned, in the 
 neglect of definite religious teaching. Nor can one 
 wh<> desires her welfare aim at any thing better than 
 the recovery and promotion of simple dogmatic teach- 
 ing, based on the catechism and appealing to scrip- 
 ture, not least among the youth of the educated classes. 
 
 Our ideal, we admit, has been grievously neglected; 
 but where it is put in practice, witli its dogmatic 
 teaching, its scriptural appeal, its encouragement of 
 
 inquiry, may we not maintain that it is truer to the 
 
 type of our Lord's method than a system which does 
 much more by authoritative dogma and leaves much 
 
 for the individual to do lor himself? It is 
 untrue to say that such a Bystem as ours is inappli- 
 cable to the poor. Ami in fact it is not the poor who 
 complain of Anglicanism on the score of indefinite- 
 oe68. Their complaints, expressed or unexpressed, 
 an- of a different sort. Those who resent the incom- 
 pleteness of the dogmatic teaching of the English 
 
200 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Church and contrast it with the dogmatic system of 
 Rome are in fact men and women whose opportunities 
 of education are much greater, but who disapprove that 
 so much should be left for them to do for themselves. 
 
 For there is another dogmatic system with which 
 the Church of Rome is identified, the ideal of which 
 is very different from what I have been describing. 
 It aims at being as explicit and complete in dogmatic 
 instruction as possible. It rejoices simply in clear 
 and definite answers to all questions. The " perad- 
 venture " of an Augustine as to a purgatory for the 
 imperfect after death — non redargue*, he says, quia 
 forsitan verum est 1 — has become a positive teaching 
 about purgatory, full of exact information. This 
 system leaves the individual churchman simply to 
 accept what the church teaches, and to practise what 
 the church enjoins, and so to secure his everlasting sal- 
 vation. Now it is plain that such a peremptory and 
 complete system of dogma may by its very clearness 
 and explicitness represent a lower level of discipline 
 than our Lord intended for His disciples. It is not 
 in fact at all agreeable to the method which He and 
 His Apostles actualty pursued, while by its very exist' 
 ence it makes far more difficult of execution the truer 
 ideal, attracting men as a short and eas}^ method of 
 solving difficulties, just at the time when perhaps 
 they most need the more troublesome discipline. 
 
 But the Roman system not only does not encourage 
 personal investigation, it positively discourages it. It 
 regards the free appeal to history or scripture in ver- 
 
 1 See app. note 53. 
 
CHRIST OUB MASTER. 201 
 
 ification of church dogmas as a mark of distrust ; it 
 calls it rationalism or implied heresy. 1 And that for 
 a plain reason. Some of the special dogmas of Rome 
 are below reason rather than above it. at the point 
 where the things of faith come into the area of his- 
 torical inquiry. For the Roman Church is formally 
 tied to the old catholic position that there can be no 
 new doctrines in the church. " First of all/' wrote 
 Cardinal Newman, many years after he joined the 
 Roman Church, " ex abundanti cautela" — that is as 
 something almost too obvious to need stating — 
 ery Catholic holds that the Christian dogmas 
 were in the church from the time of the Apostles: 
 that they were ever in their substance what they are 
 now/'- lint this is exactly what is not tine, for in- 
 stance, <>(' the immaculate conception of the mother 
 of our L«>rd: of the treasury of merits to be dispensed 
 in indulgences: of the papal infallibility. If there is 
 such a thing as history, it bears unmistakable witness 
 that those beliefs were not in substance part of the 
 original Christian faith. Again, the Roman Catho- 
 lic celebrates with the dignity which belongs only to 
 the greatest festivals the assumption to heaven of the 
 body of Mary, hut this supposed event has nothing 
 which can he called respectable historical evidence to 
 support it. It is thus because of the Bubstanci 
 some of her d gmas and beliefs, that the Roman 
 Church is by her very principles forced t<» put a cer- 
 tain premium upon credulity : to make the refusal t<« 
 
 further, Roman Catholic Claims, pp. 19 14, 58 f. 
 
 • fcpp. IK.!.' .".». 
 
202 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 inquire a mark of reverence, and to pursue towards 
 the critical reason the same lines as orientalists of old 
 pursued toward the physical flesh — to cast it out as 
 evil. 
 
 I am not concerned here to be controversial, but 
 only to maintain that the Anglican ideal of authority 
 represents satisfactorily enough the method of our 
 Lord, in respect of that very thing which is often 
 imputed to it as an objection ; namely, that it leaves 
 so much for the individual to do for himself, and lays 
 so much stress on historical verification, if not by every 
 individual, at least in the society as a whole. I may 
 add that this ideal represents also the method of the 
 early church. Certainly, among Christians of the 
 first four centuries, in the church of Irenaeus and 
 Origen, in the church represented by the catechetical 
 lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem or Gregory of Nyssa, 
 there was a requirement made on the intelligence 
 and patience of the individual, at least as great as 
 that made by the English Church even in its present 
 condition. And it needs to be remembered, that in 
 appealing across the ages to the church of the first 
 centuries we are not appealing merely to a church 
 which is primitive, but to one which existed under 
 intellectual conditions comparatively like our own. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But if such be the character of Christian authority, 
 where does it reside ? 
 
 In discussing the nature of the authority exercised 
 
CHRIST OUB MASTER. 203 
 
 by Christ, and to be exercised in His name, I have 
 already used words which imply iliat that author- 
 ity is outwardly represented to us at the present 
 time by two instrumentalities, the church and the 
 Bible. The Christian is first to be brought under 
 instruction by the church, and then is to deepen, 
 develop, verify, purge his faith by the Btudy of scrip- 
 ture. This is commonly recognized as the Anglican 
 view, — "the church to teach, the Bible to [trove," — 
 and it is, I may say, unquestionably the view of the 
 ancient church. 1 It does not fall within the scope 
 of this lecture to enlarge upon it or to vindicate it, 
 but 1 may endeavour to bring out some of its meaning 
 and show its relation to the authority of our Lord. 
 
 The Christian authority is simply Jesus Christ; 
 but for the external knowledge of our Lord, the 
 knowledge of what He taught and was, we an- depend- 
 ent, by His deliberate intention, upon the witness of 
 His Apostles. Now the testimony of the Apostles 
 holds good for us simply on its natural basis as testi- 
 mony, because, a- I have had occasion to point out, 
 they were Buch good w i t nesses, morally and intellect- 
 ually, and because we have such strong grounds for 
 believing that their testimony remains to us in the 
 Testament narratives. Nor do we Deed ani thing 
 else than their evidence, fairly estimated, to justify 
 our own belief in Jesus Christ ortosuggesl toothers 
 the grounds for believing. 
 
 But when men have one- become believers in 
 Jesus Christ, as the incarnate Son of God, they will 
 
 1 See lect. iv. aj>j». n<.- 
 
204: THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 recognize in the Apostles something more than wit- 
 nesses, namely, witnesses qualified for a unique func- 
 tion by a special inspiration. St. John records how 
 in His last discourse our Lord promised them that 
 the Holy Ghost whom the Father would send in His 
 name should teach them all things and bring all 
 things to their remembrance whatsoever He said to 
 them. This special gift of the Holy Ghost was to 
 qualify the Apostles as witnesses of Jesus. He was 
 to lead them into all the truth, He was to take of 
 what belonged to Jesus, and declare it to them. 1 
 u This section " in St. John's Gospel, says Dr. West- 
 cott, " marks the position of the Apostles with regard 
 to revelation as unique ; and so also by implication 
 the office of the apostolic writings as a record of their 
 teaching." Christians believe then that the Apostles 
 were specially enlightened to present to us without 
 distortion the person and teaching of our Lord, and 
 familiarity with their writings through nineteen 
 Christian centuries has confirmed the belief. We 
 cannot as a matter of historical inquiry go behind the 
 Apostles, for our Lord wrote nothing Himself ; as a 
 matter of faith we do not need to go behind it. In 
 the apostolic teaching, then, we find the ultimate 
 court of appeal in respect of " the faith once delivered 
 to the saints." He that heareth them, heareth Him. 
 How then are we to be taught by the Apostles ? 
 You answer, " By reading the New Testament." 
 Undoubtedly, but not primarily. The books of the 
 New Testament bear upon the face of them the evi- 
 
 1 St. John xiv. 26 ; xvi. 13, 14, and Westcott in loo. 
 
GHBIST OUB MASTER. 205 
 
 dence thai they were not meant for primary instruc- 
 tion ; they were addressed to men who were already 
 Christians, that is to Bay, men who as members of a 
 
 definite society, the church or the churches, had 
 already received oral instruction. 1 It is matter of 
 historical fact that the Christian teaching was not 
 
 first of all written down, but was originally committed 
 to a confederation of societies as a M tradition " which 
 they were to hold, or, as it was afterwards called, a 
 rule of faith : and ever since that day, through all 
 vicissitudes, this society or group of societies has 
 been in tin- world teaching the Christian creed. The 
 primary depositary of the Christian tradition, then, is 
 the Christian Church. It has been and it is, "the 
 pillar and ground of the truth." 2 
 
 lint the tradition of a society, however powerful 
 a factor it is in human life, is not, as every one 
 knows, trustworthy unless it can be checked. Thus 
 the Christian tradition, instead of being miraculously 
 exempted from the ordinary tendencies of i tradition, 
 
 VTBS provided with checks, partly in its own earlier 
 
 records, hut especially in the New Testament. Thus 
 the New Testament is not the primary instrument of 
 teaching, but it is the criterion of teaching. u Do 
 imt believe me simply," Bays St. Cyril <>f Jerusalem, 
 speaking even to his catechumens, M unless you re- 
 ceive the proof of what I say from Holy Scriptun 
 This view of the Christian Church as the teaching 
 
 Lake L 4; lCor.xi.2S, xt. 3; 0*1.1.6-8; Bat. r. 13; Jaaei 
 
 i. 19 [R. v. ] ; 2 Peter i. 13, iii. l ; i John ii. 30; Jade •'••. 
 2 1 Tim. iii. 16. » Cyr. Bierot. Oat iv. 17. 
 
206 THE IXCAENATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 body, with the New Testament as the constant cri- 
 terion of its teaching, is a view which makes a power- 
 ful appeal to our imagination and our mind. On the 
 one hand there is the great catholic society, intended 
 to exist among all nations but to be confined to none 
 and dependent upon none. This is an incomparable 
 instrument for maintaining and propagating religion, 
 calculated to take hold of what is richest and noblest 
 in human nature. On the other hand, in the origi- 
 nal scriptures there is a safeguard provided against 
 the tendency of all religious traditions to deteriora- 
 tion and narrowness. For developments in propor- 
 tion to their power tend to become one-sided; but 
 the Catholic faith is not meant to become one-sided 
 or narrowed as it passes down the ages. Here then 
 should come in the counteracting force of scripture. 
 As there is to be a perpetual development out of the 
 apostolic teaching in response to new requirements, 
 so there is to be a perpetual return upon it, a perpet- 
 ual reversion to type. The familiarity of all Chris- 
 tians with the apostolic pattern — the original and 
 inspired type of Christian doctrine, and the record of 
 our Lord's life — is meant to prevent either the 
 stereotyping of one-sided traditions or the erection of 
 current opinions into articles of faith. The church 
 is perpetually to teach ; the New Testament is per- 
 petually to prove, to verify, to correct the teaching. 
 This is the ideal. It is an ideal which, sadly enough 
 we admit, cannot be applied by us to-day in its per- 
 fection. The divisions of Christendom on the one 
 side, and on the other side the habitual neglect of 
 
CHRIST OUB MASTER. 207 
 
 scripture as a criterion of doctrine In many [tarts of 
 tin' church and at many periods of her history, have 
 marred the presentation of Christian authority in 
 the world. But in Bpite of hindrances, both elements 
 in the authority are still real. Every one of us can 
 put himself to school with the church's creed and tra- 
 ditional teaching, more or less perfectly according to 
 his opportunities and means of education ; and gain- 
 ing thus what Athanasius calls his "point of view," 
 he can £o, in the mind of the catholic society, to the 
 
 .study of the New Testament, and so grow into the 
 
 more perfect knowledge of Him in whom are hid 
 k - all the treasures uf wisdom." 
 
 V. 
 
 Botli the New Testament and the church represent 
 to us in different ways that original authority with 
 
 which our Lord endued His Apostles. -All author- 
 ity hath been given unto inc." He said to them, 
 
 "Go \c therefore and make disciples of all the na- 
 tions, baptizing them in the mime of the Father, and 
 of tie- Son, and of tin' Holy Ghost, teaching them to 
 observe all things whatsoever I commanded you; 
 
 and lo, I am with you all the days." In this and 
 
 parallel commissions lie the title-deeds of the author- 
 ity both of the chinch and of the New T.-tanicnt. 
 
 lint there is another pari of the Bible, namely the 
 Old Testament, which already existed in our Lord's 
 day, and which He is found to have treated as already 
 
 possessing divine authority. 
 
208 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Our Lord primarily used the Old Testament as 
 God's word to the Jews. Thus He brings out its 
 witness against Sadducean rationalism. " Ye do 
 err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of 
 God." a He brings out its witness, again, against 
 the spurious orthodoxy and false expectations of the 
 Pharisees. 
 
 " The Psalms of Solomon," which appear to be the 
 work of a Pharisee, writing some fifty years before 
 our Lord's birth, give us probably a good idea of the 
 Messianic expectation which was held by the religious 
 world of our Lord's day. If the picture of the Mes- 
 siah, given in these psalms, is compared with the 
 ideal of the canonical books, especially of Isaiah, it is 
 found to have lost two important elements. First, it 
 has lost the divine element. The Messiah is David's 
 son, and apparently he is nothing more. We are 
 never reminded of the " Wonderful counsellor, 
 Mighty God, Everlasting Father," of the first part 
 of Isaiah. Secondly, the idea of the second part of 
 Isaiah, the idea of the suffering servant of Jehovah 
 redeeming God's people through his sacrifice, has 
 altogether vanished and left no trace. There is no 
 other image presented than that of the victorious 
 king who shall expel the Roman intruders and over- 
 throw the Sadducean sinners. 2 From this lower 
 ideal then, which had its hold not only on His oppo- 
 nents, but also on His disciples, our Lord makes His 
 
 i St. Matt. xxii. 29. 
 
 2 See Ryle and James, The Psalms of Solomon (Camb., 1891), pp. 
 lii-lix. 
 
CHRIST OUR MASTKi:. -<»«"» 
 
 appeal to the Old Testament Scriptures with their 
 witness to a higher righteousness, to a diviner king, 
 to a suffering redeemer. u Ought not the Christ to 
 have Buffered these things and to enter into his 
 glory? And beginning from Moses and from ail 
 the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scrip- 
 tures the things concerning himself." * 
 
 Thus if our Lord claimed to supersede, he claimed 
 also in the fullest sense to fulfil, the Old Testament 
 ideal. k> Ve search the scriptures," He said, "be- 
 cause ye think that in them ye have eternal lit'.' and 
 these an- they which hear witness of me." a That 
 our Lord thus recognized in the Old Testament a 
 special authority and inspiration there can be no 
 doubt. He contrasts the law. as "the word of God," 
 
 with the traditions and commandments of men. He 
 
 declares that no jot or tittle of it is to pass away 
 unaccomplished. 8 Again, the revelation of the Old 
 Testament is recognized in all the chief stages of its 
 development, the original revelation of man's creation, 
 
 tin; revelation t<> Abraham, the giving of the law by 
 
 Moses, the teaching of prophets and of psalmists. 
 All is regarded as the divine preparation for Himself. 
 "Your father Abraham rejoiced t<> Bee my day": 
 •• Moses wrote of me": "these air the words which 
 
 I spake unto VOU, while I was yd with yOU, how that 
 
 all things must Deeds be fulfilled which arc written 
 
 in the law of MoseS, ami the prophets ami the psalms, 
 
 concerning me. Then opened he their mind that 
 
 i St. Lake wiv. 96, - St. John 
 
 » St. M;irk Mi. l.;, Bt Matt v. IS. 
 
210 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 they might understand the scriptures." * His own 
 language is full of Old Testament allusions. In His 
 temptation, in His prophecy of the last things, on the 
 cross, He appropriates again and again the language 
 of righteous Israel. He declares that the messianic 
 forecast must be fulfilled in Himself. " How then," 
 He asks, " should the scripture be fulfilled that thus 
 it must be?" 2 At least on one occasion He is believed 
 by the evangelist to have deliberately acted so as to 
 fulfil a detail in the picture given in the Old Testa- 
 ment. 3 
 
 I have said that our Lord used the Old Testament 
 primarily as God's word to the Jews, so that he 
 regards its primary function as ended with the fulfill- 
 ing of Israel's vocation. " The law and the prophets 
 were until John : from that time the gospel of the 
 kingdom of God is preached." 4 But the function of 
 the older scriptures was not exhausted towards the 
 Jews. The Apostle of the Gentiles still commends 
 them to us as " given by inspiration of God " and 
 "written for our admonition upon whom the ends of 
 the world are come." 5 For us they stand not as 
 adding anything to what is revealed in Christ, but, 
 in part, as giving in adequate perfection some ele- 
 ments of the perfect religion — as the psalms express 
 for ever the relation of the soul to God, and the 
 prophets, the eternal principles in the divine govern- 
 ment of the world — in part, as showing us the stages 
 
 i St. Matt. xix. 4-8; St. John viii. 56, v. 46 ; St. Luke xxiv. 44, 45. 
 
 2 St. Matt. xxvi. 54. 3 St. John xix. 28. 
 
 4 St. Luke xvi. 16; St. Matt. xi. 13. 
 
 6 2 Tim. iii. 16 ; 1 Cor. x. 11 ; cf. Rom. xv. 4. 
 
CHRIST OUR MASTER. 211 
 
 and elements through which and out of which the 
 complete fabric of divine truth was reared. Nor do 
 I think thai any one who starts from the platform of 
 
 belief in Christ ran fail to see in the Old Testament 
 a Bpecial action of divine inspiration, a divine move- 
 ment towards the Incarnation, a divine preparation 
 for the Christ. 
 
 Bnt it has been usual to go beyond this, and to 
 assert that the authority of our Lord binds as to the 
 acceptance of the Jewish tradition in regard to the 
 authorship and literary character of different portions 
 of the Old Testament — for example, that the 086 by 
 OUT Lord of stieh a phrase as " Mns.s wrote of me " 
 binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch 
 as a whole, and that His reference to the flood, or to 
 
 Jonah's three days' entombment in the fish's belly, 
 binds ns to receive these narratives BS simple history. 
 
 To this argument I do not think that we need yield. 1 
 The lessons inculcated by our Lord can be shown to 
 inhere in the narratives even if we cannot be BUre of 
 their exact authorship or literary character. That 
 special assistance of the Holy Ghost, which we call 
 inspiration, may have been given to a Jewish writer 
 in any literary undertaking which the conscience of 
 bis age would have approved, as Hi^ assistance ^^i- 
 tainly was given to Jewish agents in imperfect tonus 
 of moral action: and what the divine Spirit could 
 inspire, Jesus, in that same Spirit, could recognize 
 and use. Further, He must have alluded to the 
 books of the Old Testament by their recognized 
 
 i Mundi, Prof, to 10th <••!., pp. \i.\. IT. 
 
212 THE INCAENATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 names, — the names by which men always will refer 
 to them when they are speaking ordinary human 
 language ; just as men will always speak of the 
 poetry of Homer even if the composite origin of the 
 Iliad and the Odyssey comes to be universally recog- 
 nized. 
 
 There is however one reference by our Lord to the 
 Old Testament which raises a special difficulty, and 
 about this I propose to say something in detail, 
 because of the important lesson which seems to 
 emerge out of it: — the argument from Psalm ex. 
 To show the Pharisees the inadequacy of the idea of 
 the Messiah as " the son of David," our Lord argues 
 with them on the assumption of the Davidic author- 
 ship of this psalm. " The Lord said unto my Lord." 
 Now if the inspired David himself calls the Messiah 
 " Lord," how can it be right to describe him as his 
 son ? 1 This argument certainly in some sense de- 
 pends upon David's personal authorship. Well then, 
 it is urged, can it be reverent to hesitate in accepting 
 this on the authority of Jesus Christ, when all you 
 have to set against it is a literary probability ? Let 
 it be said at once that we could not, consistently 
 with faith, hesitate to accept anything on any sub- 
 ject that our Lord meant to teach us. But on the 
 one hand there are reasons which draw us back from 
 accepting the conclusion that He did in fact mean to 
 teach us the authorship of a psalm ; and on the other 
 hand there is another reasonable and indeed illu- 
 minating interpretation to be given to His words. 
 
 1 St. Mark xii. 35-37. See app. note 55. 
 
CHRIST OUB MA8TSB. 218 
 
 On the one hand, then, an increasing number of 
 Old Testament students find the Jewish tradition by 
 itself a quite inadequate ground on which to assign 
 any writing to a particular date and author; while 
 this psalm, judged by itself as a piece of literature, 
 presents all the appearance of being not written by 
 a king, but, like the 45th, a psalm in which a king is 
 addressed, under the customary title of - my lord." 
 There is therefore no reason for assigning this psalm 
 t<> king David as its author, unless we suppose that 
 our Lord interposes to support, with an infallible 
 guarantee, the Jewish tradition. But such an inter- 
 position would be a unique phenomenon in His reve- 
 lation. And if we do not ourselves feel any difficulty 
 
 about the matter, it is surely right that we Bhould he 
 
 very loth to ask mm. who do fed the difficulty, to 
 
 accept a- matter of revelation, what seems to them 
 an improbable Literary theory. Sucb a demand lays 
 a heavy burden on consciences specially sensitive to 
 the claims of truth. There are critical positions in 
 regard to New Testament books which are intimately 
 bound up with our Christian faith, but they Btand 
 
 upon their own critical merits. They are matters of 
 
 evidence, not of faith. 
 
 On the Other hand there is an interpretation — I 
 think, a natural interpretation — of our Lord's words 
 
 which involves no difficulty of the kind we have 
 been considering. 
 
 Whenever our Lord teaches, it is with plenary 
 authority. M He whom God hath senl Bpeaketfa the 
 words of God." But at times II'' does something 
 
214 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 besides teaching, He asks men questions such as will 
 lead them to examine themselves closely in the light 
 of their own principles. It is not difficult to select 
 examples : "If I by Beelzebub cast out devils," he 
 challenges the Jews, " by whom do your sons cast 
 them out?" 1 Here it is not necessary to say that 
 any positive truth is being taught as to Jewish exor- 
 cisms, but an appeal is made to our Lord's adversa- 
 ries to be fair and just in view of their ordinary 
 assumptions. Again, "Why callest thou me good? 
 there is none good but one, that is God." 2 Our 
 Lord is not here really disclaiming, as He appears to 
 disclaim, identity in moral goodness with God, but 
 He is leading a young man to cross-question himself 
 as to the meaning of his words, to ask himself what 
 reason he had to address our Lord with a title of 
 deference. It is probable that our Lord was using a 
 similar method in His appeal to the Jews about 
 Psalm ex. On the face of it, the argument suggests 
 that the Messiah could not be David's son, — "if 
 David calleth him Lord, how is he his son?" — but 
 in fact its purpose is not to prove or disprove any- 
 thing, to affirm or to deny anything, but simply to 
 press upon the Pharisees an argument which their 
 habitual assumptions ought to have suggested to 
 them: to confront them with just that question, 
 which they, with their principles, ought to have been 
 asking themselves. 
 
 It is easier to conceive of our Lord using this sort 
 of argument, if we accept the position maintained in 
 
 i St. Matt. xii. 27. 2 St. Mark x. 18. 
 
CHRIST OUK MASTER. 215 
 
 the last Lecture — -thai He, the very God, habitually 
 
 spoke, in His incarnate life OD earth, under the limi- 
 tations of a properly human consciousness. Though 
 speaking habitually under such limitations, our Lord 
 never yielded Himself up to fallible human reason- 
 ings. As He taught only the divine word, so only 
 upon that did He repose. He knew that human rea- 
 soning could never generate religious certitude. lie 
 let Peter know that "flesh and blood" had not 
 revealed to him the truth about Himself, but His 
 Father in heaven. And Peter learnt the lesson. 
 Many years later he wrote, "If any man speak," 
 that is as a religious teacher, "let it be as speaking 
 oracles of God." l lint though human reasonings 
 cannot attain the highest certitude, they have yet a 
 great function in human life, and high responsibilities 
 arc attached to them. Thus though our Lord lives 
 as man and as teacher in the higher region of the 
 divine word. He still can stimulate and take an 
 
 interest in the "reasonings of men."* He can feel 
 indignation at wrong arguments, and careless thought, 
 
 and shallow self-deerpt ion. 
 
 Now it seems to me that we have got here to ;i 
 
 very important principle: that, if I am interpreting 
 rightly our Lord's argument with the Pharisees, it 
 
 shows ik the Son of man fulfilling an important 
 
 function towards human life, which we have been 
 inclined to overlook. 
 
 The critical ;md argumentative methods of men 
 change considerably from age to age, from nation to 
 
 i 1 St. PoteX iv. 11. 
 
216 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 nation. Consequently they cannot form part of the 
 substance of a catholic religion. Christian apolo- 
 getics have never the permanence of the universality 
 of the creeds. But criticism and argument have 
 their value in relation to divine truth, and their 
 responsibilities. Our Lord then does not bring to 
 bear on men's intellectual equipment in any genera- 
 tion the divine omniscience so as to crush it, any 
 more than He did upon the Pharisees. But He does 
 bring to bear upon it the moral claim that it should 
 be used rightly, honestly, and impartially. He does 
 teach us, by His question to the Pharisees, that He 
 expects of us all that Socrates expected of his con- 
 temporaries, while He supplies us with a great deal 
 more than Socrates could ever supply. 
 
 For our Lord does not only, or chiefly, question. 
 He teaches with infallible certainty the words of 
 God, which redeem and strengthen, illuminate and 
 satisfy, human life. 
 
 We all remember the pathetic words of Simmias in 
 the argument with Socrates about the immortality of 
 the soul. " I dare say," he says, " that you, Socrates, 
 feel as I do how very hard and almost impossible is 
 the attainment of any certainty about questions such 
 as these in the present life. And yet I should deem 
 him a coward who did not prove what is said about 
 them to the uttermost, or whose heart failed him 
 before he had examined them on every side. For he 
 should persevere until he has attained one of two 
 things : either he should discover or learn the truth 
 about them ; or if this is impossible I would have 
 
CHRIST OUR MASTER. JIT 
 
 him take the besl and most irrefragable of human 
 notions, and Lei this be the raft upon which he sails 
 
 through life — not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot 
 find some word of God which will more surely and 
 safely carry him." ' "Some word of God": it has come 
 to us : crowning the Legitimate efforts, supplying the 
 inevitable deficiencies, of human reasonings; satis- 
 lying all the deepest aspirations of the heart and 
 conscience. It has come to us, and not as a mere 
 Bpoken message, hut as an incarnate person, at first 
 to attract, to alarm, to subdue as; afterwards, when 
 we arc His servants, to guide, to discipline, to en- 
 lighten, to enrich US, till that which is perfect is 
 come, and that which is in part has been done away. 
 
 In this generation \cvy many of us feel, like Sini- 
 
 mias, the unsatisfactoriness of human reasonings, when 
 
 we are not sure of the faith. We feel their unsatis- 
 Eactoriness, even while we make it our custom — 
 
 •• With others whom a like disquietude 
 At the like crisis of their lives now keeps 
 Restless, with them to question to and fro 
 And t<> debate the evil of the world, 
 As though we l"»r«> no portion of that ill, 
 As though with subtle phrases we could spin 
 A woof to screen us from life's undelighi : 
 
 metimes prolonging Car into the night 
 Such talk, a- loth to separate, and find 
 
 Bacfa in hi- solitude how v;iin ;uv words, 
 When that which is opposed to them is mon-." 
 
 Through such a frame <>f mind — if we are sincerely 
 
 honest in our reasonings, if we anxiously rid ourselves 
 
 i Plato. Phaedo 86 0, i». 
 
218 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 of vanity, if morally we hold fast to Jesus Christ, — 
 through such a frame of mind we may hope to pass 
 to the recognition of the divine Word, coming down 
 upon our manhood, to rebuke and to satisfy it, — to 
 crown its fallible reasonings. 4w Lord," we shall cry, 
 "to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of 
 eternal life." 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 CHRIST OUB EXAMPLE AND NEW LIFE. 
 
 this Mystery OMOflj 
 
 : irh'<m >- 
 ituj every min in all wttdow^ th<it 
 in (JkriaL—Q .' W 
 
 I. 
 
 Our Lord, as Son of man, set the standard of 
 
 human life: bat He did this by exhibiting a specific 
 
 moral character, a character involving certain mural 
 
 prii. "her than by the enunciation of rules of 
 
 Luct. What I rules of conduct He did Lay 
 
 down, have to be infc principle rather 
 
 than in their letter. Tl. washing I: 
 
 • and wi] :n with the towel, 1 1 
 
 Hifl disciples do as He had done: for if He, their 
 
 I and M 1 their feet, they ought 
 
 Bui raid 
 
 that an ilfilmeni of this 
 
 — Buch the B >man 
 
 < aurch "ii Maundy Thursday — if it 
 in { 
 
 • lohn xiii. IS 
 
220 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 value, yet goes a very little way in real obedience to 
 our Lord's command. It need not involve practically 
 anything of that spirit of humility and willing ser- 
 vice which is what our Lord was intending to incul- 
 cate. 
 
 The rules of life then which our Lord lays down 
 must not be merely obeyed in the letter : the mean- 
 ing or principle which lies behind them has to be 
 grasped and reapplied in each fresh set of circum- 
 stances. It is because our Lord thus puts principles 
 above rules, and the spirit of life above its practices, 
 that the example which He sets is a universal exam- 
 ple, and His teaching is valid for all time and in all 
 states of society. But there is a great danger which 
 attaches to this highest sort of obedience — obedience, 
 as we call it, by a very familiar misapplication of a 
 phrase of St. Paul's, " in the spirit and not in the 
 letter." x The danger is that the spirit of a precept 
 shall be taken to mean something vague and unex- 
 acting. It was not surely without a purpose that our 
 Lord gave His injunctions so detailed and definite a 
 form. He meant that the moral principle is to be 
 translated into outward action just in those details 
 of life where it becomes exacting. To apply a pre- 
 cept under changed circumstances — for example, the 
 precept as to washing one another's feet — ought not 
 to mean to give it an application less public, less act- 
 ual, less troublesome than its original application. 
 For the publicity, the definiteness, the troublesome- 
 ness, belong to the principle of the action. They 
 
 1 See. app. note 56. 
 
CHRIST OUB EXAMPLE AND NEW LIFE, 221 
 
 contribute to Its mora] value. Yet in fact, what has 
 been called obedience to "the spirit of our Lord's 
 
 words," has sadly often meant no obedience at all: 
 
 s<> that generations of Christians have lived as if lie 
 never said to His disciples generally, " If any man 
 
 WOnld go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, 
 
 let him have thy cloke also"; or "It is easier for a 
 
 came] t<> go through the eye of a needle, than for 
 a rich man to enter into tin- kingdom of God " ; or to 
 One, "If thou wouldst he perfect, go, sell that thou 
 hast, and give to the po<»r, and thou shalt have treas- 
 ure in heaven: and come follow me"; or to some, 
 i% There are eunuchs which made themselves eunuchs 
 for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to 
 receive it let him receive it." ' 
 
 It is in fact the spirit, and principle of our Lord's 
 life and words, ami not merely a particular applica- 
 tion of thfin, which lays upon us so exacting a claim. 
 Let any one who would be a sincere disciple contem- 
 plate Steadily the moral character expressed in the 
 
 words of Jesus Christ and exhibited in His actions, 
 and though he cannot hut l>e attracted by Him who 
 spake as never man .spake, he deeds must also he filled 
 with a great dread, on account of the tremendous 
 
 standard which is there before him. Let nie ask you 
 
 to have th<' courage and the faith to pursue with me 
 
 for a while the line of thought here opened OUt to 08. 
 For instance, the whole life of JeSUfi ( Ihrist Was one 
 
 continuous act of obedience. Ii was, " Lo I come to 
 
 do thy will. () God." Mui such persistent and genu- 
 
 M:itt. v. |0, xi.x. 2ft, 21, Ii, 
 
222 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 ine obedience to God occupies but a very little part 
 of most human lives. We men, and more particu- 
 larly we Englishmen, have transferred the virtue of 
 independence out of its proper region — the region 
 of human opinion, where it has legitimate exercise — 
 into that region where it is simply the principle of all 
 sin, the region of our relation to God. We keep God 
 at arm's length ; we let religion be an occasional re- 
 straint on conduct, rather than its constant and dom- 
 inant motive. But we look to Jesus ; and in Him, 
 the Son of man, we see a manhood which was never 
 allowed to retain the initiative to action within it- 
 self, but found its perfection, its liberty, its glory, in 
 obedience and in obedience only, so that each opening 
 sphere of life was only one new scene in which to 
 learn more of what it meant to obey. " He learned 
 obedience " ; " He was obedient unto death." Set 
 then the standard of our Lord's life in this respect, 
 over against our current ideas of human independ- 
 ence, and, I say, it makes us tremble. It is easy to 
 deepen this impression. We may go on to contrast 
 the self-restraint of the Son of man — in whom no 
 human passion or appetite was allowed to act, except 
 under the control of the will, which in its turn waited 
 unintermittently upon the movement of the Spirit — 
 with our habitual glorification of what is merely im- 
 pulsive and undisciplined in word and action. Or we 
 may think of those thirty years of silent preparation 
 for the divine work, by the side of our careless and 
 rapid acceptance of the highest and holiest trusts, our 
 light-hearted confidence in improvised solutions of 
 
CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE AND NEW LIFE. 223 
 
 unconsidered difficulties. Side by side with our 
 shrinking from pain, passing as it too often does 
 
 from a legitimate instinct into an allowed habit of 
 self-indulgence, we may set His considerate bearing 
 of the burdens of others, His willing acceptance of 
 pain. Side by side with our pride we may set His 
 meekness ; by our selfishness, careless or calculating, 
 His calculated and deliberate self-sacrifice. Ecce 
 In niio! we cry. But truly if this is the Son of man, 
 if this manhood is the only satisfactory manhood, if 
 " by this man God will judge the world in righteous- 
 ness," l we have, most of us, not appreciated at all 
 adequately the amount of deliberate self-discipline 
 and inward recreation, which must be necessary to 
 bridge the gulf between what we are and what we 
 are to be. 
 
 II. 
 
 But as soon as we deliberately contemplate the 
 moral standard which Jesus Christ sets up for human 
 life, the thought is sure to rise in our minds: is it 
 possible that a standard of devotion, of purity, of 
 thoughtfulness, of sacrifice such as this, can appeal 
 to any but a few men or women in any society or any 
 age? The answer to tins question is not a simple 
 one. We know that on the whole, and in the long 
 run, nothing does appeal to every man's conscience 
 like the life and teaching of a thorough Christian, and 
 nothing does exercise so permanent or widespreading 
 an influence. But so far as it is true that the Chris- 
 
 1 Acts xvii. .'H. 
 
224 THE INCARNATION OF THE SOX OF GOD. 
 
 tian standard, on account of its very loftiness, appeals 
 only to the few, the most earnest, men, the contin- 
 gency is one which Jesus Christ be} T ond all question 
 had steadily in view. " Narrow is the gate and 
 straitened is the way," He said, "that leadeth unto 
 life, and few be they that are finding it." 
 
 The standard of Mohammedanism, by contrast to 
 Christianity, may be described as a standard deliber- 
 ately adapted to the average moral level of the men 
 to whom it was meant to appeal. " If one had to 
 express in a short compass," says a very discerning 
 writer, 1 " the character of its remarkable founder as 
 a teacher, it would be that that great man had no 
 faith in human nature. There are two things which 
 he thought man could do and would do for the glory 
 of God, transact religious forms and fight ; and upon 
 these two points he was severe ; but within the 
 sphere of common practical life, where man's great 
 trial lies, his code exhibits the disdainful laxity of a 
 legislator, who accommodates his rule to the recipient, 
 and shows his estimate of the recipient by the accom- 
 modation which he adopts. . . . The writer of the 
 Koran does indeed, if any discerner of hearts ever 
 did, take the measure of mankind " : that is, the 
 measure of men, on the average, whom he came in 
 contact with, and he legislates accordingly. "Hu- 
 man nature is weak," he said. 
 
 It is this spirit of moral accommodation which has 
 made Mohammedanism at once so successful anions: 
 its votaries, in securing conformity to its rules and 
 
 * Mozley On Miracles (Longmans, 3rd ed. 1872), pp. 140-1. 
 
CHRIST OUB EXAMPLE AND NKW LIFE. 225 
 
 also bo destitute of really progressive power. I 
 method of Christ is in Btriking opposition. He, 
 before Mohammed, said, -The flesh La weak"; but 
 from the Btarting-point of this acknowledgement Be 
 proceeds bya quite different path. No book exhibits 
 bo profound a contempt for majorities, bo Btartling a 
 refusal to consider the conditions of success on the 
 average, as the New Testament. Jesus Christ makes 
 His appeal to the best: upon the selected disciples 
 He spends His efforts: for them He [trays: them He 
 trains in His own school as the nucleus of a redeemed 
 humanity, to act upon the world as u salt " or M light," 
 or as a " city set upon a lull": 1 — that is, as a body 
 . the savour or appearance of which is distinct, 
 emphatic, unmistakable. So the Christian Church 
 in the world is t<> be a body coherent, based upon dis- 
 tinctive principles, exhibiting a striking and emphatic 
 ideal. It is t<» be in the world and not of it: making 
 its impression by its very distinctiveness: "that men 
 might by the good works which they should behold, 
 glorify God," it* not in days of worldliness and : 
 perity, vet at least "in the day of visitation." 
 
 Now if, witli this intention of the founder of our 
 religion in our minds, we look back over the history 
 of Christianity, we cannot but perceive that nothing 
 has been really more fatal to its influence, than the 
 false methods of diffusion to which the Christian 
 (lunch basso frequently abandoned itself. I i 
 in the first place, t«> Buch wholesale conversions of 
 
 that t'» which Prankish Christianity owed 
 i St. ■• 16 l i'. ■■ i U. n. u. 
 
226 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 its origin : conversions such as led to a Christianity 
 in which catholic orthodoxy and ritual practices 
 were combined with a morality which, at least in cer- 
 tain aspects, was frankly pagan. I refer, secondly, 
 to the tendency which has exhibited itself nowhere 
 perhaps more conspicuously than within the area of 
 the special influence of the Jesuits, but from which 
 those who have been most opposed to that great soci- 
 ety have been by no means free — the tendency to 
 transfer the strain of Christian obligation from the 
 life to be lived, to the creed to be believed : to make 
 dogmatic orthodoxy or submission to ecclesiastical 
 authority the " one thing needful," and granted that, 
 to rest content with the very least degree of moral 
 effort, as if submission to the church could compen- 
 sate for it. Now there is no doubt that if we take 
 mankind generally within our view, we must recog- 
 nize that intellectual submission and ritual conformity 
 are very much more easily obtained than moral effort. 
 But in the New Testament, if Christianity appears 
 as a religion making a definite demand upon the 
 intellect, as well as a definite claim upon the life, the 
 latter is unmistakably the more severe and the more 
 prominent. It is assumed throughout that he that 
 "willeth to do God's will," he who makes up his 
 mind to moral self-committal, shall "know of the 
 doctrine " : it is assumed that the difficulty of being 
 a Christian is practically over, when the will is right, 
 and the courage of self-committal won. In the Bible 
 the antithesis to faith is not reason but sight — that 
 is, the vision limited by the world, the worldly and 
 
CHRIST mi: KX AMPLE AND NEW LIFE. 221 
 
 Belfish temper. Now by contrast to this I do 1 1 « » i 
 
 tliink it is possible to contemplate the Christian 
 
 Church of the middle ages <>r of modem times, with- 
 out Beeing what great Deed there has frequently been 
 t<» redress the balance. The theological and moral 
 claims have shown a tendency to change places, and, 
 in consequence, a very imperfect representation has 
 been given of the claim of Jesus, or of the claim of 
 Christianity before it became the nominal religion of 
 the world, upon the lives and consciences of nun. 
 
 There is one more false principle of diffusion which 
 I must notice : it is that Identification of the church 
 with the nation which was the outcome of the Refor- 
 mation as it took place in England, and which in its 
 best form is represented in the ecclesiastical theory of 
 Booker. 1 I say, it is found in Hooker in its best 
 form, but still in a form which we can now perceive, 
 in the light of experience, to have been profoundly 
 dangerous. For, however noble is the idea of a 
 "Christian nation" the church has no right to com- 
 mit itself to the state, <>n the assumption that the 
 
 state has committed itself to the church. The assump- 
 tion is unwarranted, and the identification of church 
 
 ami state which is grounded upon it, results in an 
 
 almost inevitable confusion between the province of 
 
 civil older and civil obligation, and the province of 
 
 spiritual authority and spiritual obligation. What 
 
 the state sanctions, is assumed to be the sufficient 
 
 rule for the Christian : and what the state sanctions 
 
 must in the long run, ;i- is increasingly manifest, 
 
 .'. /•../. u. riU.ee. i. v. I 
 
228 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 represent the judgment of the majority, or the wishes 
 of " the average man." Thus it has come about that 
 it is difficult — to one at all familiar with the lan- 
 guage of the New Testament incredibly difficult — to 
 persuade English people that there is a law, and a social 
 law, binding upon Christians, which is not the least 
 abrogated because the law of the state, representing the 
 will of the majority, may have come to ignore it; 
 that in order to live as Christians they have to look 
 beyond what is generally expedient, or what appears 
 to be practicable in state policy, up to the law which 
 came forth from the lips of Jesus Christ. " Every 
 one which heareth these words of mine, and doeth 
 them, shall be likened unto a wise man, which built 
 his house upon the rock." Why, it is assumed in 
 every page of the New Testament that a Christian 
 can think of nothing less than of taking his rule of 
 life from the standard of the world about him ! 
 
 The disastrous results of a diffusion of Christianity 
 at the cost of its intensity, is very apparent to those 
 of us who are greatly interested in the social prob- 
 lems of the present moment. The remedies proposed 
 for the evils of society have generally a more or less 
 " socialistic " character. Now by socialism is com- 
 monly meant a certain political theory as to the func- 
 tion of the state in controlling the freedom of individual 
 citizens in the acquisition and employment of wealth. 
 With the group of proposals which come under this 
 head of state socialism, I am not here at all concerned. 
 T may, however, confess myself to be among those 
 who would somewhat jealously set limits to the j>ater- 
 
OHBIST OT7B EXAMPLE AND NEW LIFE. 229 
 
 nal supervision of the democratic state. Bui there is 
 another sort of socialism! \\ holly voluntary, or depend- 
 ent only upon spiritual sanctions, which the doc- 
 trine of the Incarnation seems, beyond all question, 
 to bring with it. There exists what can rightly be 
 called a Christian socialism, by the very fact that 
 the law of brotherhood is the law of Christ. It is 
 quite beyond all question that according to the 
 intention of Christ, the Christian Church should at 
 all times represent a body living not only by a 
 certain rule of faith, but also by a certain moral 
 law, which puts the sternest restraints on the spirit 
 of competition, on the acquisition of wealth, on 
 selfish aggrandizement; which bids every man, in 
 the simplest sense, love his neighbour as himself, 
 which enjoins the bearing one another's burdens, as 
 the only fulfilling of the law of Christ. It is difficult 
 to imagine that a New Testament Christian could have 
 doubted that lie had to carry his religion into all the 
 affairs of life, or could have been in the least sur- 
 prised if his religion involved his being poorer than 
 one of his non-Christian neighbours who was not 
 bound by the obligations of the church. How is it 
 
 then that we have reached a condition of things when 
 m. 'H cannot only utter, as multitudes of men always 
 have done, the maxims of worldliness and seliish- 
 Des8, bm utter these maxims without any sense that, 
 by simply giving expression to them, they are repudi- 
 ating ( Ihristianity, as Ear as words go, quite as really as 
 if they were denying the Christian creed, or as if in 
 tin- old days of persecution, they had offered incense to 
 the divinity of the Etonian emperor? 
 
230 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OP GOD. 
 
 What I am complaining of, what I want you to 
 complain of, with a persistence and a conviction which 
 shall make our complaint fruitful of reform, is — not 
 that commercial and social selfishness exists in the 
 world, or even that it appears to dominate in society : 
 but that its profound antagonism to the spirit of 
 Christ is not recognized, that there is not amongst us, 
 anything that can be called an adequate conception 
 of what Christian morality means. The prophetic 
 function of the church, as it seems to me, at the pres- 
 ent moment, is not so much, in the first instance, to 
 expand Christian influence as to concentrate it : to 
 see to it that all men, whatsoever be their own con- 
 victions and practices, shall at least acknowledge 
 what it is that a Christian must believe, and how it is 
 that a Christian must live and act at all the points 
 where he touches human life. 
 
 There must be produced a clear acknowledgment 
 of what it is that a Christian must believe. We must 
 strive to purge from all accretions the current pre- 
 sentation of the Christian creed, and to rid it of all 
 that can bring it into conflict with the legitimate 
 claims of reason, or seem to limit the freedom of 
 inquiry or of criticism. We must so preach our creed, 
 as to " commend ourselves to every man's conscience 
 in the si<xht of God." But when we have done our 
 best to effect this, the Christian creed will stand out, 
 as in past history and in scripture, so in the preach- 
 ing of to-day, as a distinctive intellectual position, 
 in regard to which a man may be in one of many 
 different attitudes, but the general meaning of which 
 
OHBIST OUB EXAMPLE AND Ni;w LITE. 281 
 
 he can hardly fail to apprehend. Iii tlif same way we 
 must have all men acknowledge how it is that a 
 Christian must live. We want the Christian moral 
 law, the law of purity, of brotherhood, of sacrifice, t<> 
 be as intelligibly presented ami as clearly understood, 
 
 as tliu dogmas of the Christian creed We want it 
 
 worked out with adequate knowledge in its bearing 
 on the various departments of human life. In a word, 
 we want a fresh and Luminous presentation of the 
 Christian moral code and some adequate guarantee 
 that one who is deliberately, persistently, and in overt 
 act. repudiating its plainest obligations shall cease to 
 belong to the Christian body. kW Do not ye," writes 
 St. Paul to the Corinthian Church, M judge them that 
 are within, whereas them that are without God judg- 
 eth? Put away the wicked man from among your- 
 selves." 1 
 
 For Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and 
 forever. The claim which tie made on the contem- 
 poraries of His life on earth, is the claim which lie 
 makes on His disciples to-day. Many will come to 
 Him at the last day — so we cannot hut paraphrase 
 
 Hi- own words — with manifold pleas and excuses 
 derived fi<»in the maxims of what is called the Chris- 
 tian world: "Lord, we never denied the Christian 
 
 creed: nay, we had a zeal for orthodoxy, for church- 
 man-hip. for Bible distribution, hut of course in our 
 business we did as every one else did: we sold in the 
 dearest and bough! in tin- cheapest market : we did 
 not, of course, we did not, entertain any other con- 
 
 1 Bet :i|T- n " 1 '' "'"• 
 
232 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 sideration, when we were investing our money, ex- 
 cept whether the investments were safe : we never 
 imagined that we could love our neighbours as our- 
 selves in the competition of business, or that we 
 could carry into commercial transactions the sort of 
 strict righteousness that we knew to be obligatory in 
 private life. Lord, in all these matters we went by 
 commonly accepted standards : we never thought 
 much about Christianity as a brotherhood." Then 
 will He protest unto them, "Did I not say to thee 
 and to thee, in that written word wherein thou didst 
 profess to have eternal life : ' A man's life consisteth 
 not in the abundance of the things that he possess- 
 eth'? Did not I warn thee, 'How hardly shall they 
 that have riches enter into the kingdom of God ' ? 
 Did I not bid thee seek first the kingdom of God and 
 His righteousness? Did I not tell thee that except 
 a man, in spirit or will at least, forsook all that he 
 had, unless he took up his cross and followed Me, 
 he could not be My disciple? Not every one that 
 saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the king- 
 dom of heaven, but he that doeth, that hath done, the 
 will of My Father." 
 
 Brethren, you may depend upon it that you cannot 
 be Christians by mere tradition or mere respectability. 
 You will have to choose to be Christians. Let the 
 figure of Christ, our Master, personal and living as 
 of old, be before your eyes. He lays upon you a 
 claim of service : varying as His vocations are vari- 
 ous, as your faculties are various ; as clergy and 
 laity, Apostles and disciples, married and celibate, 
 
CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE AND NEW LIFE, 233 
 
 saint and penitent, have their place in His kingdom: 
 but upon all of yon He lays the same claim of ser- 
 vice, of purity, of sacrifice, of brotherhood. He will 
 make His yoke easy and His burden light, in mani- 
 fold ways, as His consolations are manifold, but in 
 proportion as you take His yoke and accept His bur- 
 den with thorough loyalty. If you will to be His disci- 
 ple, He will enrich your life, He will purge it of its 
 pollution, He will conquer your lusts, He will en- 
 lighten your mind, He will deepen in you all that 
 is generous and rich and brotherly and true and just. 
 He will make your life worth having, yea, increas- 
 ingly worth Laving, as you gain in experience of His 
 power and His love, even to the end. He will touch 
 your sufferings and your labours with the glory of 
 His sympathy ; He will deepen your hopes for your- 
 selves and others with the security of an eternal pros- 
 pect. At the last He will purify and perfect and 
 welcome you. Only do not make the fatal mistake of 
 imagining that your life is Christian anyhow, or that 
 it can be Christian by any other process than by 
 your deliberate and courageous acceptance of the 
 law of Christ, because you desire to be His disciple. 
 
 III. 
 
 So far the position has been maintained that 
 Christianity must be identified with a positive and 
 
 exacting moral standard: that the church exists as 
 
 "the pillar and ground of the truth," because she is 
 to witness, aoi only t<» definite theological positions, 
 
234 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 but also to a definite moral ideal, which is, as well, a 
 moral claim upon the members of her communion. 
 
 Now I think no one can read the Gospels with any 
 seriousness, or the records of the apostolic church, 
 without acknowledging the truth of what has been 
 said. Further than this, no one can study the history 
 of the Christian Church from the apostolic days to 
 our own, without acknowledging that the leavening, 
 transforming power of Christianity on individuals 
 and on societies has been due mainly to the Saints — 
 that is, to those who have made the ideal standard 
 the real standard which it has been their supreme 
 aim to follow. So far as the average standard of 
 society has been raised, it is mainly the saints who 
 have raised it : and conversely it has been found true 
 that " when the best men stop trying, the world 
 sinks back like lead." All this is indubitable. Still, 
 with that mixture of humility and laziness which 
 characterizes so many of us, a man may look seriously 
 at a Christian preacher and ask : " do you really 
 mean that I in my ordinary life in the world, I with 
 my coarse, common-place temptations, I with my 
 way to make in the world as it is, I with my antece- 
 dents, my surroundings, and my prospects, am to set 
 myself up to imitate Jesus Christ or forfeit the title 
 to the name of Christian? Is the imitation of Jesus 
 really practicable ? " 
 
 It is when we are in the frame of mind which this 
 questioning represents that we need to consider 
 steadily a certain prominent aspect of Christianity ; 
 an aspect which makes it, in spite of its apparent 
 
CHRIST OU: KXAMI'I.H AND NKW I.1FK. 2 
 
 hardness, pre-eminently the religion of hope for all 
 who have the courage to begin to try to Berve Jesus 
 Christ and the patience to make fresh beginnings 
 after renewed failur 
 
 The Christian Church upholds B moral ideal, and 
 thus teaches men the true end of human life, but her 
 
 special characteristic is rather that she supplies the 
 means, than that Bhe Buggests the end. Philosophers 
 
 on the whole have been not iinsuccessfu] iii proclaim- 
 ing the ideal of lite: they have shown their weak- 
 ness in providing means for realizing it. Here is the 
 Strength of the Christian Church. She is a great 
 system of means to the moral end, the "means " that 
 "God devised that his banished should not be ex- 
 pelled from him.*' 
 
 If we look higher still, we do indeed behold our 
 Lord setting an example: hut we observe also that 
 there is something which He appraises higher than 
 this function of example. Had this been His highest 
 work, it would, beyond a doubt, have been expedient 
 for us, if possible, that He should not have gone 
 
 away. As it was. it was "expedient M that His dis- 
 ciples should lose His visible example that they might 
 
 gain a greater gift — the gift of the Spirit. "If I 
 go n"t away the Paraclete will qo( come onto you ; 
 but if I go, I will send him unto you." 1 In met the 
 Paraclete did come at Pentecost, and in virtue of His 
 coming the church became a body Instinct with a new 
 
 life, and Christianity a thing "not in word, but in 
 
 power." 
 
 1 St. John xvi. 7. 
 
236 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Thus if we examine the writings not of St. Paul 
 and St. John only, but of St. Peter and St. James, 
 we find the thought expressed everywhere in the 
 New Testament that Christians have been born 
 again ; that what distinguishes them from other men 
 is the possession, over and above the ordinary human 
 faculties and powers, of a special power, a special 
 life, derived from a definite act of God upon them by 
 which they became the subjects of a new birth. St. 
 Paul and St. John further explain this new birth. 1 
 It is the coming of the Spirit into a man's life which 
 constitutes it : but the coining of the Spirit in a par- 
 ticular manner, namely to introduce Christ. The 
 persons of the Holy Trinity are not, as was said, 
 separable individuals. 2 They involve each the others; 
 the coming of each is the coming of the others. Thus 
 the coming of the Spirit must have involved the 
 coining of the Son. But the speciality of the Pen- 
 tecostal gift appears to be the coining of the Holy 
 Spirit out of the uplifted and glorified Manhood of 
 the incarnate Son. The Spirit is the life-giver, but 
 the life with which He works in the church is the 
 life of the Incarnate, the life of Jesus. 3 We watch 
 the perfect life of Jesus as our example : we behold 
 Him and accept Him as the perfect sacrifice : we con- 
 template Him raised up, beyond example and beyond 
 sacrifice, into the glory of the Father, " separated 
 from sinners and made higher than the heavens," 
 spiritualized and glorified — but not dehumanized. 
 In the glory of the Father He is still the Son of 
 
 1 See app. note 58. 2 See above, pp. 144-5. 3 See app. note 59. 
 
CHRIST on: EXAMPLE and Ni:\v I. in:. 237 
 
 man. Ajb Son of man He has sent down His Spirit 
 upon the church and that Spirit <1<h-s not merely 
 supply (he absence, hut accomplishes the inward 
 presence of the incarnate Christ. For this primarily 
 the church exists: to be the Spirit-bearing body, and 
 that is to be thf bearer of Christ, the great "Chris- 
 topher," perpetuating, in a new, but not Less real 
 way. the presence of the Son of man in the world. 
 
 In the second of these Lectures, the difficulty was 
 raised. 1 that if the Christ represents the emergence of 
 a new sort of life int « » the world of experience, as 
 organic life emerged out of the heart of inorganic, or 
 
 rational out of the heart of what was only physical, 
 
 — then the u Christ-life " ought to have been per- 
 petuated, and become a permanent element of expe- 
 rience. It was pointed out in partial solution of this 
 difficulty that in one sense tie- uniqueness of the 
 Christ is a necessary condition of His existence, that 
 there cannot be more than one incarnate Son of God: 
 
 hut it is also true that what was realized once for all 
 
 in Jesus, i> perpetuated in the world. The church 
 is tin- body of Christ. It is the extension and per- 
 petuation of the Incarnation in the world. It is this, 
 because it embodies the same principle, and lives by 
 
 Mile life. 
 
 The church embodies the same principle as the 
 
 •• Word mad.' flesh," that IS, the CXpreSSiOD and com- 
 munication of the spiritual and the divine through 
 what is materia] and human. It is a human and 
 
 material society. Ii- Bacraments are visible instru- 
 
238 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 merits : its unity is that of a visible organization 
 bound into one at least by the link of an apostolic 
 succession and an historical continuity. But this 
 visible, material, human society exists to receive, to 
 embody and to communicate a spiritual life. And 
 this life is none other than the life of the Incar- 
 nate. The church exists to perpetuate in every age 
 the life of Jesus, the union of manhood with God- 
 head. 
 
 No doubt this does not always appear upon the 
 surface, for the church has a majority of unworthy 
 members. As I suppose the true English character 
 is to be judged of, not by all Englishmen, but by the 
 best Englishmen, so the Christian character is to be 
 seen in genuine Christians. But the genuine Chris- 
 tians are the justification in every age of the church's 
 existence. In every age there are those of whose 
 life no other account can be given and who could 
 give no other account of their own life, than that it 
 " is hid with Christ in God." It is this truth of 
 Christ living in His members by His Spirit, that I 
 would have you consider. The Incarnation did not 
 end in Christ our head : it passed on to the incorpo- 
 ration of us His members. Thus " when Christ who 
 is our life shall appear, we also shall appear with Him 
 in glory." 
 
 Looking at the matter not historically or specula- 
 tively but personally — what is it for me to be a 
 Christian ? It is to know that my spiritual life is not 
 an isolated thing, drawing simply upon its own re- 
 sources. God the Holy Spirit has entered at definite 
 
0HBD3T OVB EXAMPLE AND Ni-:w LIFE. 239 
 
 momenta of baptism and confirmation, by definite 
 of God, into my innermost being. He dwells within 
 the temple of my body; and by dwelling there He 
 links my life on to the great system of the redeemed 
 humanity. I am a "member incorporate in the mys- 
 tical body of Christ, which lb the blessed company of 
 all faithful people.' 1 And every temptation, every 
 need, every Buffering, every disappointment, is meant 
 
 to drive nie more inward and upward to realize and 
 
 to draw upon the bidden resources of my new life — 
 which is "Christ in me the hope of glory." 
 
 IV. 
 
 The point upon which I am insisting is that if our 
 Lord is our example and our sacrifice, He is also, by 
 the infusion of His Spirit our present inward life, 
 "the life of our life": that if the church exists to 
 
 uphold a moral standard, she exists also as a body 
 
 ensouled by a Spirit who makes that standard practi- 
 cable: Or, in other words, that the one end of Chris- 
 tianity is not the proclamation, hut the fulfilling, of 
 the law. "God," Bays St. Paul, "sending his own 
 Son in the likeness of sinful flesh ami as an offering 
 for -iu, condemned -in in the flesh: that the require- 
 ment of the law might be fulfilled in as who walk 
 not after the flesh, but after the spirit. . . . For ye 
 
 are not in the flesh hut in the spirit, if *>,, be that the 
 Spirit of (Jod dwelleth in you. Hut if any man hath 
 not the Spirit of Christ, he i^ QOne of his. And if 
 Christ is in you . . . the spirit is life because of 
 
240 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 righteousness." 1 This doctrine of the inward Christ, 
 " Christ in us the hope of glory," is a doctrine of 
 which the New Testament is full. Mystical as it is, 
 and transcending, as it does, our faculties of intel- 
 lectual analysis, it has been ridiculed, as fit only for 
 enthusiasts, in a rationalistic age such as the last 
 century ; but every revival of vital Christianity brings 
 it to the front again, and roots it anew in the con- 
 sciousness of serious and devout Christians, though 
 they be " plain men " and unimpassioned. It will 
 become real to each man in turn, as he meditates and 
 acts upon it : and in it he will find the explanation 
 of three very commonly felt difficulties. 
 
 (1) First, let us attend to the difficulty which is 
 raised about the example of our Lord — how can the 
 sinless Jesus be an example for us sinners ? When 
 the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says that our 
 Lord was " in all points tempted like as we are, with 
 the exception of sin," or " apart from sin " 2 he is 
 stating that humanity in our Lord was really exposed 
 to all the trials which can come upon man from out- 
 side, and tempted by all external solicitations ; but 
 that temptation in His case was unaccompanied by 
 one condition with which we are familiar — His 
 nature was without sin. But after all this exception 
 is so considerable as to appear at first sight to destroy 
 the value of His example ; for it is the presence of 
 sin within — the tyranny of passions, the disorder of 
 faculties, the inward taint and weakness — which 
 
 i Rom. viii. 3-10. 
 
 2 Heb. iv. 15, xu>pi? a^ap™'*?. See Westcott in loc. 
 
CHRIST OTJB EXAMPLE and m;\v liii:. I'll 
 
 gives temptatioD in our case its chief power. We 
 Bhould Dot bo much fear the outward foe, we feel, 
 
 were it QOt for the traitor within tin- camp. D 
 
 Dot Christ then by His very Binlessness, still more 
 
 His impeccability, fail in the conditions of a profit- 
 able example ' 
 
 This difficulty, perhaps, like many others, Deeds 
 only to l)i- pressed further to suggest its own solution. 
 F<u after all the limits to the power of mere example 
 are very soon reached. Mere example acts most power- 
 fully where men arc living close together and under 
 like conditions, as among the members of the same 
 college or school or profession, in the same house- 
 hold, in the relationship of friends. Its p«»wer is 
 weakened rapidly by anything that separates one 
 man from another in conditions of life. Thus, the 
 sobriety of a clergyman Is not, so far, a powerful 
 example to the Labouring man. or the temperance of 
 an Italian or of a Mohammedan to an Englishman, or 
 the patience of the aged to the young, or the feats of 
 ancient heroes t<> modern readers. Once more, when- 
 ever we feel the touch of genius, we reaeh a limit t<» 
 the power .»f example. M What man has done, man 
 • •an do," is, in fact, a m;i\ini of wry limited applica- 
 bility. Quite apart then from the question of impec- 
 cability or even of Binlessness, the mere examp] 
 Jesus Christ, a- a character in ancient history, would 
 lie singularly destitute of encouragement to us in our 
 temptations to-day, if He was only our example. For 
 al the Lowest He would stand as a .supreme moral 
 genius, like a Julius ( Ssssax or a Shakespeare in other 
 
242 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 regions of life ; and we should feel that it would be 
 as fallacious to conclude that we could live as Christ 
 had lived, as it would be to conclude that we could 
 write a tragedy like " Hamlet," or model our career 
 upon the pattern set us by the founder of the Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 But in fact Jesus Christ is a great deal more to us 
 than a remote and external figure in history. He is 
 a still living person in the closest possible relation 
 to us. He is a person who while human, has yet, 
 in virtue of His Godhead, access into the innermost 
 parts of our being, into the very roots of our person- 
 ality ; and He has become, even in His manhood, 
 " quickening spirit." 1 Alive in heaven, He is thus 
 also alive in us, dwelling in us, by the Spirit which 
 He hath given us. He is moulding us inwardly 
 and gradually, in this life and beyond it, into 
 the likeness of that example, which at the first He 
 set outwardly before us. We look to His example, 
 we contemplate the pattern of life which stands for- 
 ever before our eyes in the pages of the Gospels : and 
 we know that the moral forces which were at work 
 in that life to exempt it from sin, to overcome Satan, 
 to win the flawless moral victory, are all without 
 exception, and without deterioration, at work in our 
 life to-day. For His Spirit is made our Spirit: His 
 life is poured into ours. We look at Him in history 
 to know what Ave must become : we draw upon His 
 present Spirit in order to its realization. 
 
 (2) In this truth of the inward Christ, let us see 
 
 1 See app. note 60. 
 
CHBIST OUB EXAMPLE and Ni:\V LIFE. 243 
 
 the explanation of a doctrine which often bewilders 
 us. the imputation to as "t" Christ's merits. To 
 impute the merits of one person to another, external 
 
 to him and independent of him, would always be an 
 arbitrary and immoral act. But on the other hand 
 we are none of us isolated individuals. To take true 
 account of any one, Ave must look at him not merely 
 in himself, but in the light of those larger forces of 
 race, of family, of association, which are at work in 
 him. Fathers and mothers, friends and kinsmen, 
 interpret to us those upon whom their influence 
 passes, and make us think of them with more or less 
 of hope than they, taken by themselves, would kindle. 
 "Looking at the mother," wrote George Eliot of Mrs. 
 Garth, "you might hope that the daughter would 
 become like her — which is a prospective advantage 
 equal to a dowry — the mother too often standing 
 behind the daughter like a malignant prophecy,! 
 ' such as I am, she will shortly be.' " George Eliot, 
 you sec. imputes hy anticipation to the daughter the 
 merits of the mother, because her life is. so to speak. 
 
 of the same piece. Now, by new birth and spiritual 
 union, our life is of the same piece with the life of 
 
 Jesus. Thus He, our elder brother, stands behind 
 as, I lis people, as a prophecy of all good. Thus God 
 accepts us. deals with us, u in the beloved": rating us 
 
 at something of His value, imputing to us His merits, 
 because in fact, except We be reprobate-. He Himself 
 is the most powerful and real force at work in us. 
 So it is that in imputing to as the merits of His Son, 
 
 the Father is only dealing with us according to I lis 
 
244 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 constant and most righteous method. For He deals 
 with us and He loves us, as St. Augustine says, not 
 as we are, but as we are becoming, " non quales 
 sumus, sed quales futuri sumus." a 
 
 In the light of this principle you can understand 
 why it is that our sins can be forgiven us " in the 
 name of Jesus " ; why the sacrament of our incorpo- 
 ration into Christ is also the sacrament of plenary 
 absolution, and we can profess our belief "in one 
 baptism for the remission of sins." For consider: 
 God, who is truth, deals with us according to reality. 
 He must deal with things at the last resort as they 
 are. He cannot reckon what does belong to us, as 
 if it did not. Thus at the last He can only " not 
 impute " our sins to us, if they no longer belong to 
 our transformed characters ; as Saul the persecutor's 
 " kicking against the pricks" belongs no longer to 
 Paul the Apostle, " the slave of Jesus Christ." We 
 can be absolved then, at the last great acquittal, only 
 because, by discipline in this world or beyond it, we 
 have actually had our sins purged out of us. Here 
 in this world in order at any moment to be the sub- 
 jects of forgiveness, we must really repent, which 
 means that we really abjure our sins and separate 
 ourselves from them in will and intention. Not the 
 best of us however can hope to be completely freed 
 from sin except very slowly and gradually. But God 
 deals with us — this is the great truth — by antici- 
 pation, by anticipation of all that is to come about in 
 us, " non quales sumus, sed quales futuri sumus " ; 
 
 i S. Aug. de Trin. 1. 10 (21). 
 
0HBI8T OXJB EXAMPLE AND Ni:\v LIFE. 245 
 
 accepting oa m Chritt, forgiving us in Christ, and 
 thus Betting us free from the burden of our past Bins, 
 as often as, being really members of Christ, we do 
 really in the sincerity of a good will, unite ourselves 
 
 to 1 1 i 111 and claim to he His servants. Only it' we 
 
 repudiate our Lor d, if we "crucify the Son of God 
 
 afresh and put him to an open shame," do we stand 
 once again in our nakedness, so that Grod must judge 
 us and deal with us not as in Christ's righteousness 
 and better than we seem, but as the children of dark- 
 ness and the subjects of judgment. 
 
 (3) This truth of the immanence of Jesus Christ 
 by the Spirit in the heart of the believer, gives us the 
 right position for appreciating the functions of faith 
 within the area of the Christian life. Faith, in the 
 documents of the New Testament, addressed as they 
 were to men who had mostly passed into the Chris- 
 tian Church from Judaism or heathenism, is fre- 
 quently sp«»ken of as that initial act by which a man 
 hecanie a ( 'hristian. " Received ye the Holy Ghost," 
 asks St. Paul, "by the work of the law or by the 
 hearing of faith'/" 1 This initial act of faith by 
 which men first accepted the offer of (hid made to 
 them in Christ Jesus, was intellectually the recogni- 
 tion that "JeSUS i> the hold'":- morally the com- 
 mittal of the life to Him for pardon, for peace, for 
 • nmieiit. This initial justifying faith is itself the 
 
 gift of God, for " no man can Bay, Jesus is Lord, but 
 
 in the Holy (ihost." :{ — but it also Leads the way to 
 
 further gifts. " We have had Our access 1»\ faith into 
 
 i QaL iii. -. ■ Bom. \. '.'. I I or. riL •''•• 
 
246 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 this grace wherein we stand," says St. Paul again ; * 
 access by faith into grace. The believer is baptized, 
 in the "bath of regeneration," "into Jesus Christ." 2 
 He is sealed, by the laying on of hands, with the 
 gift of the Holy Ghost, to dwell personally within 
 the temple of his body. He is fed with the royal 
 food of the body and blood of Christ. 3 Henceforth 
 faith has no further need to ask for airy completer 
 bestowal of divine gifts. Ail that can be given, has 
 been already received. Thus all through the New 
 Testament the language is avoided which would sug- 
 gest that Christians have need to ask for the supply 
 of the Spirit. They are men who possess the gift 
 and only need to use it. " Quench not the Spirit," 
 "grieve not the Spirit," "ye did receive the Spirit," 
 k * the Spirit of God dwelleth in you," " stir up the 
 gift that is in you." This is the language used, some- 
 times even to very imperfect Christians at Corinth 
 and elsewhere. 4 Faith then, in those who are already 
 Christians, enters upon a new function — that of real- 
 izing and appropriating the truth and grace which 
 has been already won. Intellectually faith is to med- 
 itate upon the sacred Name which has been invoked 
 upon the life : morally it is to draw upon and use by 
 repeated acts of the will the vast resources of power 
 which have been put at its disposal in the indwelling 
 of Christ. So by a gradual process of appropriation 
 " Christ " is to be " formed within " : the Christian 
 
 i Rom. v. 2. 2 Tit. iii. 5 : cf. Rom. vi. 3. 
 
 3 Acts viii. 17, 18, xix. 6. 1 Cor. vi. 19. x. 16. 
 
 4 1 Thess. v. lit. Eph. iv. 30, Gal. iii. 2, 1 Cor. vi. 19, 2 Tim. i. 6. 
 
CHRIST OUB EXAMPLE AND m:w LIFE. 247 
 
 La i" grow up, in tlit- fellowship of the one body, into 
 M tlic perfect man.' 1 
 
 If we would consent to consider this mattei anew 
 and appreciate this correlation o£ th which is 
 
 communicated in sacraments, with the faith which 
 appropriates and uses it, we should not only read 
 more intelligently the language of the New T< 
 ment, but we should also be less ready to suppose 
 that the Catholic insistence upon sacraments, is in 
 any necessary contradiction to the Evangelical insist- 
 ance upon the Deed of a converted will, and of a faith 
 which is something much more than passive ortho- 
 doxy. Successful life in any stage of nature's devel- 
 opment appears to «•< >n^i^t in a vigorous appropriation 
 by a certain organism of what is supplied to it by its 
 outward environment. When Jesus came t<» heal 
 men's bodies, His physical cures exhibited this same 
 law of correspondence. It was the virtue or power 
 which went out from Him which was the instrument 
 of healing, but it was the function of faith to appro- 
 priate and use it. According to men's faith, so was 
 it done t<> them. These, our Lord's miracles of heal- 
 ing, were but symbols of His spiritual action. Still 
 our spiritual recovery is to he through our vigorous 
 appropriation, by the activity of faith, of gifts com- 
 municatee! from without. Through the sacraments 
 God bestows the gifts: through them is secured our 
 
 spiritual contact with Christ. 1 But this outward 
 
 supply of grace, independently of any action on our 
 •. is but the challenge to faith to claim and appro- 
 
 :ipl>. ii": 
 
248 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 priate its rich heritage. True, positive apostasy may 
 forfeit the gift altogether. Short of that, the gift re- 
 mains, but its effect on us is wholly dependent on the 
 faith of intellect and will, which realizes it and uses it. 
 Why do we grow so little in grace ? It is, because 
 we do not use our intellect to meditate upon the 
 forces of the unseen world amidst which we live, or 
 our will to draw upon them. In the moment of 
 temptation we fight, sadly often, in our own powers, 
 and we fail. We know that we are weak, and sin 
 and Satan are strong, and we know the truth. But 
 there is a third power stronger than either our weak- 
 ness or the forces of evil, which we commonly forget, 
 and which will never disclose itself except in our 
 using of it. We must stir up the gift within us. 
 Within us we have the Spirit of power, the Spirit of 
 Jesus, the life of Jesus. It remains to us to appeal 
 to it ; in constant acts of faith to draw upon it and 
 to use it. Thus it will become to each of us as much 
 a truth of experience as it was to St. Paul, and no 
 vague language of metaphor, that "it is no longer 
 merely I that live, but Christ that liveth in me." 
 
 V. 
 
 I have come to the end of my task. My point of 
 departure was that Christianity, whether we accept 
 it or not, is in fact the religion based upon faith in 
 the person of Jesus Christ, considered as the Son of 
 God incarnate. 1 I endeavoured to make it plain that 
 
 1 Lecture J 
 
OHBIST on: EXAMPLE AND NEW LIFK. 249 
 
 thia Bupernatural Person is do unnatural phenome- 
 non, but is iii wit truth the consummation of na- 
 ture's order, or the rectification of it. bo far as sin, 
 which is unnatural, has thrown it into disorder. 1 I 
 endeavoured to satisfy you that no Legitimate criti- 
 cism can impair the witness of history to the miracu- 
 lous personality and strictly divine claim of Jesus of 
 Nazareth.- Next it was my task to vindicate the 
 Catholic creeds, as simply interpreting and guarding 
 the record of Christ's person, divine and human, 
 
 which the New Testament gives. 8 After that, using 
 tin- creeds as our guides in dwelling on the evangeli- 
 cal records, hut never as substitutes for that record. 
 I endeavoured to Lead you to dwell upon the person 
 of Jesus, God in manhood. We considered together 
 what is the revelation of God, given us there in the 
 intelligible terms of our humanity ; 4 and what is the 
 revelation of manhood, which we owe to His self- 
 Bacrifice, who emptied Himself of divine prerogatives, 
 that He might truly live as Son of man.'' Finally, 
 omitting, for lack of space, all consideration of Bis 
 atoning sacrifice, we have dwelt upon the chief re- 
 maining functions of this Son of man. a- the spiritual 
 authority over humanity;' as erecting by His out- 
 ward example its moral standard: as being its inward 
 reereator by spiritual communication of His own 
 life.' 
 
 I have done my task. I have borne my wit n 
 And jei it is not mine, hut the witn< mething 
 
 Lecture n. - Lecture iii. ■'■ Lecture ir. ' Lecturer. 
 6 Lec-tun: vi. ■ Lecture vii. 7 Lecture rill. 
 
250 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 in comparison of which any single preacher is indeed 
 nothing. It is the witness of that great movement 
 of the redeemed humanity that links us in spiritual 
 communion across the ages with the first Apostles. 
 They first received the witness and set to their seals 
 to the offer of God — " set to their seals that God 
 was true." Generation after generation has handed 
 down the offer to us. Amidst the fires of persecution 
 in days when the world was hostile to the profession 
 of Christ's name ; in the not less searching discipline 
 of the days since the world has endeavoured to evac- 
 uate the name of Christ of its meaning, by itself 
 professing it ; still the faithful Christians of each 
 age have "set to their seals" to the document of 
 God's offer. And now in your turn it is presented 
 to you. There is, I think, no responsibility which 
 weighs upon us more heavily as we pass from youth 
 to manhood, from the position of children to that of 
 parents, from the seat of the taught to the chair of 
 the teacher, than the responsibility for handing on 
 unimpaired to the generation beyond us, this best 
 heritage of our human life — the heritage of religious 
 faith and practice and worship. The deepest prayer 
 we pray is that nothing of religious truth or life may 
 prove to have been impaired or lost in its passage 
 through us. To you, then, brethren, to you more 
 particularly before whom life yet lies in opening 
 promise, the document of God's offer in Jesus Christ 
 is once again presented. It is black with the signa- 
 tures, it is red with the seals, of those who, in the 
 generations that are passed or passing away, have 
 
CHBIST OUB EXAMPLE AND Ni:\v LIFE. 251 
 
 given in their assent "that God is true," and have 
 handed on to you the results of their faithful witi 
 You cannot evade your responsibilities j you must at 
 tlic Last issue confess or deny; you must Bign or 
 repudiate. Summon then to your aid every heavenly 
 power to assist you in the great surrender which 
 they make who, having steadily in view all that is 
 
 involved in faith in Jesus Christ, "set to their seals " 
 for time and for eternity " that God is true." 
 
APPENDED NOTES. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Note 1. See p. 1. 
 
 This it the true God (1 St. John, v. 20). The word "this" 
 probably refers to k * liini that is true," i.e. the Father, rather 
 than to "his Son Jesus Christ": but (as this passage among 
 others makes plain) to know the Son is, according to St. John, 
 identical with knowing the Father, bo inseparable is their essen- 
 tial unity, and to he in the Son is to be in the Father: see 
 Westcott, Epistles of St. John, in he. 
 
 X'TE 2. See p. 3. 
 
 Exaggerated devotion to Mary. The passage from St. Alfonso, 
 G dfaria, at the beginning, is as follows: — 1 
 
 "Kings, then, should be employed principally in works of 
 mercy, bat not so as to forget to execute justice (when : 
 
 lilty. Not so with Mary, who, though a iiueen, 
 
 i- not a queen of justice, intent on punishing malefactors, but 
 a queen of mercy, win. seeks only to obtain mercy and pardon 
 for sinners. Hence the Church wishes that we expressly call 
 her the Queen of mercy. John Gerson, the great Chancellor 
 of Paris, commenting on the words of David M these two things 
 
 » The translation li tii.it «.f the Dublin ronton of 1866, rol. i. p. BO, 
 lint the passage was selected originally from the Italian edition reoentlj 
 
 published in Koine. 
 
 263 
 
254 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 have I heard, that power belongeth to God, and mercy to Thee, 
 O Lord " (Ps. lxi. 12), said that the Lord has divided his king- 
 dom which consisted in justice and mercy : the kingdom of jus- 
 tice he has reserved to himself, and the kingdom of mercy he 
 has, in a certain manner, given to Mary, ordaining that all the 
 mercies which he dispenses to men should pass through her 
 hands and be dispensed as she pleases. Behold the words of 
 Gerson : " Regnum Dei consistit in potestate et misericordia, 
 potestate Deo remanente; cessit quodammodo misericordiae pars 
 Matri regnanti." This is confirmed by St. Thomas, in his pref- 
 ace to the Canonical Epistles, where he says that the holy Vir- 
 gin, when she conceived in her womb and brought forth the 
 Divine Word, obtained the half of the kingdom of God, by 
 becoming the queen of mercy, as Jesus Christ is king of justice: 
 " Quando filium Dei in utero concepit, et postmodum peperit, 
 dimidiam partem regni Dei impetravit, ut ipsa sit regina miseri- 
 cordiae, ut Christus est rex iustitiae." 
 
 "The Eternal Father has constituted Jesus Christ king of 
 justice, and has, therefore, made Him universal judge of the 
 world : hence the prophet has said * Give to the king thy judg- 
 ment, O God, and to the king's son thy justice' (Ps. lxxi. 2). 
 On this passage a learned interpreter has said : ' O Lord, thou 
 hast given justice to thy son, because thou hast given thy 
 mercy to the mother of the king.' Hence St. Bonaventura says : 
 ' O God, give thy judgment to the king and thy mercy to the 
 mother.' Ernest, Archbishop of Prague, likewise says that the 
 Eternal Father has given to the Son the office of judging and of 
 inflicting punishment, and to the mother, the office of compas- 
 sionating and relieving the miserable : ' Pater omne judicium 
 dedit filio et omne officium misericordiae dedit matri.' " 
 
 It will be observed that the passage which I have quoted in 
 the text of the lecture, is a citation from St. Thomas, but as it 
 perhaps hardly represents St. Thomas fairly, taken as it is out of 
 its context, I thought it better to make St. Alfonso simply re- 
 sponsible for it. The original in St. Thomas Praef, in Sept. 
 Epp. Cath. is a comment on Esther v. 3 : " So Esther drew near 
 and touched the top of the sceptre. Then said the king unto her, 
 
NOTES 2, 3. 
 
 "What wilt thou, queen Esther? and what is thy request? it 
 shall be given thee, even to the half of the kingdom." "Sum- 
 mitatem aim virgae rirgo beata tetigit, qnando alium !>• i in 
 utero concepit el postmodum peperit, et sie dimidiam partem 
 Dei impetrarit, ut ipsa Bit regina miserioordiae cuius 
 tilius est rai iu>titiae." The other quotations I have not 
 verified 
 
 The opening chapter of The Glories of Mary strikes the key* 
 not.- of the whole book. And I do not think it is open to doubt 
 thai it is a book profoundly representative of current Roman 
 devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Alfonso de' Ldguori, who died 
 in L787, was finally canonized in 18:J!J and declared a " Doctor 
 of the Church " in 1871. 
 
 Note 3. See p. 8. 
 
 The place of Mohammed and of the Koran in Islam. The 
 articles of Prof. Wellhausen and Prof. Noldeke in the En 
 paedia Britannica (s. v. Mohammedanism) will Buffioe to illustrate 
 the statements in the text. "The personality of the Prophet," 
 Prof. Wellhausen (p. 548), -had given an altogether new 
 impulse to a [monotheistic] movement already in existence; 
 that was all. To found a new religion was in no sense Mo- 
 hammed's intention ; what he Bough.1 was to secure among his 
 people the recognition of the old and the true. He preached it 
 to the Aral's as Moses had before him preached to the Jews, 
 and J. -ii- to Christian- [i. e. as Mohammed imagined J< 
 
 it was all one ami the same religion as written in the heavenly 
 
 book." 
 
 The monotheistic movement, prior to Mohammed, Prof. 
 Wellhausen describes as "the religion <>f Abraham." 
 
 Again Prof. Noldeke (pp. 597 If.) writes: "The Koran is 
 the foundation of [slam . . . To the faith of the Moslen 
 R m is the word of God, and Mich also i- the claim which the 
 
 hook it-. -If advance For except in Stir. 1 . . . the Speaker 
 
 throughout is ( rod. 
 "The rationale of revelation is explained in the Koran itself 
 
256 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 as follows : — in heaven is the original text (' the mother of the 
 book,' < a concealed book,' a well-guarded tablet '). By a 
 process of ' sending down ' one piece after another was com- 
 municated to the prophet. The mediator was an angel, who is 
 called sometimes the ' Spirit,' sometimes the ' Holy Spirit,' 
 and at a later time ' Gabriel.' The angel dictates the revela- 
 tion to the Prophet, who repeats it after him, and afterwards 
 proclaims it to the world . . . Mohammed's transcendental idea 
 of God as a Being exalted altogether above the world, ex- 
 cludes the thought of direct intercourse between the prophet 
 and God." 
 
 I am only concerned to justify the positions — which would 
 not be disputed — that Mohammed did not claim to be more 
 than a prophet and that the importance of his personality in his 
 theological system is simply that he is supposed to certificate 
 the reality of the revelations which the Koran contains. The 
 sources of the Koran, and the moral estimate which we must 
 form of Mohammed's character and work, are questions which 
 fall outside the scope of this note, but students cannot make 
 a better beginning of inquiry than with the articles quoted 
 above. 
 
 Note 4. See p. 9. 
 
 The place of Gautama in Buddhism. The quotation in the 
 text will be found in The Sacred Books of the East, ed. Max 
 Miiller, vol. xi. pp. 37-38. In Encycl. Brit. art. Buddhism, p. 
 432, Gautama is quoted as speaking thus, just before his death : 
 " O Subhadra ! I do not speak to you of things I have not 
 experienced. Since I was twenty-nine years old till now I have 
 striven after pure and perfect wisdom, and following the good 
 path have found Nirvana." " When I have passed away and 
 am no longer with you, do not think that the Buddha has left you 
 and is not still in your midst. You have my words, my explan- 
 ations of the deep things of truth, the laws I have laid down 
 for the society ; let them be your guide ; the Buddha has not 
 left you." 
 
NOTES . 267 
 
 On the meaning of Nirvana I cannot do better than refer 
 to this admirable article (T. W". Rhys Davids); see p. 
 "When Nirvana has been described in glowing terms as the 
 happy seat; the excellent eternal place of bliss, where there is 
 no more death, neither decay; the end of Buffering; the home 
 of peace ... it has been supposed by Borne European scholars 
 to mean a blissful state, in which the bou! (!) still exists in an 
 everlasting trance. There can however now be no longer any 
 doubt on the point. Buddhism does not acknowledge the 
 existence of a soul as a thing distinct from the parts and powers 
 of man which arc dissolved at death, ami the Nirvana of Bud- 
 dhism is simply extinction." 
 
 Professor Max Miiller asserts Btrongly that Nirvana means 
 simply extinction and that " Buddhism, therefore, if tested by 
 
 it< own canonical books cannot he freed from the char. 
 Nihilism." Chips from a German Workshop, i. pp. 289 284. 
 1 1 is argument against this having represented Buddha's own 
 mind, l"- chiefly h priori, see /. c. pp. 234-235, pp. 285 
 
 f., and 7 Parables <>f Buddhagasha, pp. xxxix n. Surely he 
 geratea tic desire for immortality, at an alternative to 
 extinction, in men in general, especially orientals. 
 
 But what would be admitted by Professor Max Muller is 
 quite sufficient for all the purposes of my argument. The 
 existence of one who has attained Parinirvana is not a practical 
 existence, such as would admit of persona] conscious relations 
 of the Buddha to his disciples, parallel to those of tin- risen 
 
 Jesus to His Church. Nor are such relations possible in a 
 religion without a God. 
 
 Noii ;.. See p. 18. 
 
 Aui DeUt ant I, mm) nmi boflUt. Dr. L.itlnm. PaStOT PaStOTUm 
 
 (Cambrid . pp. 278 EL, has called the attention of 
 
 students again to the way in which Jesus Christ trained His 
 disciples to trust Himself with an absolute trust -—first in His 
 then in Ili^ temporary absences, finally ondei 
 
258 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 ditions of His spiritual presence, when He had passed into the 
 unseen world. 
 
 The argument to the Divinity of Christ from His claim, has 
 been recently put afresh, as part of a personal experience, in 
 An Appeal to Unitarians, by " A Convert from Unitarianism " 
 (Longmans. 1890), pp. 41-51. "If it is not superhuman 
 authority that speaks to us here, it is surely superhuman arro- 
 gance." It has, however, been chiefly brought home to men's 
 minds, in recent times, by Pere Lacordaire (Jesus Christ, Conf . 
 1) and Dr. Liddon. 
 
 Dr. Liddon did not himself know, and I cannot ascertain, the 
 source of the epigrammatic summary of the argument "aut 
 Deus aut homo non bonus." In substance the argument ap- 
 pears from early days : e. g. in Victorinus Afer, writing against 
 Candidus the Arian : "haec dicens Deus fuit, si mentitus non 
 est : si autem mentitus est, non opus Dei omnimodis perfec- 
 tum." Be. Gener. i. p. 1020 C (Migne). 
 
 Note 6. See p. 25. 
 
 Pharisaic Ebionites. This was a sect of Judaic Christians 
 mentioned by Irenaeus (c. Haer. i. 26, 2), who retained the char- 
 acteristics of St. Paul's opponents in Galatia, " who were cir- 
 cumcised and persevered in observing the law and maintaining 
 a Jewish mode of life." To them, Tertullian tells us, Jesus 
 was " nothing more than a Solomon or a Jonah " (de Car. Chr. 
 18). He was a man naturally born, but pre-eminently justified 
 by his unique observance of the law, and, therefore, made the 
 Christ of God (Hippolytus, Ref. haer. vii. 31). Earlier than 
 this definitely heretical sect, we find traces of an " untheological" 
 Jewish Christianity, such as appears in the Teaching of the 
 Tivelve Apostles, and would be exemplified probably by the 
 Jewish Christians, to whom the Epistle to the Hebrews was 
 written, to lift them into a fuller perception of the meaning of 
 the Incarnation (Heb. vi. 1, 2). Earlier still, we have the 
 Judaizers of the Epistle to the Galatians, who loved their old 
 
NOTES : 259 
 
 Jewish, more than their new Christian, privileges, and failed to 
 grasp the greatness of the change involved in the coming of the 
 Christ. The point here insisted apon is simply thai this "on- 
 theological" Christianity was unimportant, anpi e and 
 barren, as Church history bears witness, cf. Stanton, Jewish and 
 Chr. Messiah (Clark, Edin. 1886), pp. 166-7. The view that 
 Ebionites represented the Christianity of the original 
 Apostles is considered Lect. iv. p. 91, and app. note B. 
 
 Note 7. See p. 27. 
 
 The need of a clear moral ideal. See Natural Religion, l>y the 
 author of Ecce Homo (Macmillan, 1891 ). p. 128. " Look, then, 
 how the English people treal their children. Try and discover 
 from the way they train them, from the education they give 
 them, what they wish them to l>e. They have ceased, almost 
 consciously ceased, to have any idea] at all. Traces may still 
 served of an old ideal not quite forgotten : here and there 
 a rague notion of instilling hardihood, a really decided wish to 
 teach frankness and honesty, and, in a large class, also good 
 manners; hut these after all are negative virtues. What do 
 they wish their children to aim at? What pursuits do they 
 desire for them? Except that when they grow up they are to 
 
 make or have a livelihood, and take a satisfactory position in 
 
 Bociety, and in the meanwhile that it would be hard for them 
 not to enjoy themselves heartily, st parents would be puzzled 
 
 . what they wish for their children. And, whatever they 
 wish, they wish bo languidly that they entrust the realization of 
 it almost entirely to strangers, being them- they say — 
 
 and, indeed, the Philistine or irreligious person always is — 
 much engaged. The parent, from sheer embarrassment and 
 want of an ideal, has in a manner abdicated, and it has her,, me 
 t apart a special class for the cultivation of 
 parental ;• d duties. The modern schoolmaster should 
 
 change bis name, for he baa become a kind of standing or pro- 
 
 nal parent." 
 
260 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 This sense of the need of a definite moral standard, whether 
 in the education of children, or in society as a whole, is no 
 doubt one of the most powerful motives appealing to men, who 
 are not Christians in positive belief, to keep within the area of 
 the Christian Church, and pay homage to its moral power. 
 
 "We find men also, who do not call themselves Christians, like 
 John Stuart Mill, acknowledging the moral authority of Jesus 
 Christ on more personal grounds. See Three Essays on Theism 
 (Longmans, 1874), p. 255: "Religion cannot be said to have 
 made a bad choice in pitching on this man as the ideal repre- 
 sentative and guide of humanity; nor even now would it be 
 easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the 
 rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to 
 endeavour so to live that Christ would approve our life." Dr. 
 Pusey's comment on this is, "If men would set this before 
 themselves, there would be fewer unbelievers." {University 
 Sermons, 1864-1879, " God and human independence," p. 10, 
 note 1.) 
 
 In my lecture, however, I was thinking chiefly of men who 
 would go further than this — of men, and they are not a few, 
 who call themselves Christians and proclaim the moral sove- 
 reignty of Christ, while all the while they deprecate theology. 
 
 LECTUEE II. 
 
 Note 8. See p. 32. 
 
 The common ground of Science and Christianity in a belief in 
 Nature. Cf. Natural Religion, pp. 22, 23. " Nature, according 
 to all systems of Christian theology, is God's ordinance. 
 Whether with Science you stop short at Nature, or with Chris- 
 tianity believe in a God who is the author of Nature, in either 
 case Nature is divine, for it is either God or the work of God. 
 This whole domain is common to science and theology. When 
 theology says, Let us give up the wisdom of men and listen to 
 the voice of God, and when science says, Let us give up human 
 
NOTES 7-0. 261 
 
 authority and hollow h priori knowledge and let us listen to 
 Nature, they are agreed to the whole extenl of the narrower 
 proposition, i. e. theology ought to admit all thai science 
 though science admits only ■ part of what theology - 
 Theology cannot say the laws of Nature are not divine: all it 
 can say is, they arc not the most important of the divine laws. 
 
 Perhaps nut. but they gain an importance from the fact that 
 they are laws upon which all can agree. Making the largest 
 allowance for discoveries about which science may be too confi- 
 dent, there remains a va>t mass of natural knowledge which no 
 one questions. This to the Christian is so much knowledge 
 about God, ami he ought to exult quite as much as the man of 
 science in the rigorous method by which it has been separated 
 from the human prejudice ami hasty ingenuity and delusive 
 rhetoric or poetry, which might have adulterated it. By this 
 means we have been enabled to hear a voice which is unmis- 
 takably ( rod's." 
 
 See also p. 10. " Thus the religious view and the scientific 
 view of the Universe, which are thought to be so opposite, 
 ■ in this important point. Both protest earnestly against 
 human wisdom. Both wait for a message which is to come to 
 them from without. Religion Bays, 'bet man be silent, and 
 listen when God speaks.' Science says, 'Let us interrogate 
 Nature, and let us be sure that the answer we get is really 
 Nature's, and not a mere echo of our own voice.' Now whether 
 or not religion and science agree in what they recommend, it is 
 evident that they agree in what they denounce. They agree in 
 
 denouncing that pride of the human intellect which sup p os e s it 
 knows everything, which is dc4 passive enough in the pre* 
 
 of reality, but deceives itself with pompous words instead of 
 
 things, and with flattering eloquence instead "i" sober truth." 
 
 Nou o, See p. 3 b 
 
 Mind from tltc paint of view of merely physical science. The 
 following extract from an Address in Medicine by J. Hughlings 
 >n, M.l».. On "'" Comparatw Study of D A 
 
262 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 vous System (see The British Medical Journal, Aug. 17, 1889, p. 
 358), contains a valuable statement. " Function is a physi- 
 ological term, and it is, I submit, improper to speak of states 
 of consciousness as being ' functions of the brain ' ; we can 
 only say that states of consciousness attend functions of the 
 brain, of those parts of it, at least, which are the highest cere- 
 bral centres. We can only affirm concomitance, and why imma- 
 terial processes always go along with the material processes of 
 
 our brains is, as yet at any rate, inexplicable Here is 
 
 an express repudiation of any intention on my part to attempt 
 to explain psychical states by anatomico-physiological states. 
 It is not the mind, but the physical basis of mind, which is a 
 product of evolution ; it is the organ of mind, not the mind, 
 which, being an evolution out of the rest of the body, is repre- 
 sentative of it. When tracing an evolutionary ascent from the 
 muscles of the hand to the highest cerebral centres, nothing was 
 said even remotely implying that the most complex, etc., repre- 
 sentation of these muscles became, or became part of, ideas ; 
 it was only said that this most complex, etc., representation 
 was part of the physical basis of those ideas. I know of no 
 evolutionist of repute who has attempted the marvellous feat of 
 ' getting the mind out of the body.' For my part, I am con- 
 tent, with ' getting ' the organ of mind out of the rest of the 
 body." 
 
 Note 10. See p. 35. 
 
 Theistic arguments. For the arguments summarized in the 
 lecture, I may give the following references. 
 
 (1) For the metaphysical argument, see T. H. Green, Prole- 
 gomena to Ethics (Clar. Press, 1883), Book I. Chapter i. 
 
 (2) For the "argument from design," as affected by Dar- 
 winism, see J. Le Conte, Evolution and its Relation to Religious 
 Thought (Chapman & Hall, 1888), Part III., or Aubrey Moore, 
 Science and the Faith (Kegan Paul, 1889), Introduction. 
 
 (3) For the " argument from beauty," see Mozley, University 
 Sermons (Longmans, 187G), Serm. 6. 
 
BOTES 18. 268 
 
 (1 > For the ethical argument, see Martineau, Type* of Ethical 
 Theory (Clar. Press, L886), Pari II. Bk. II. Branch I. 
 
 (."») For the personality of God, Bee Loire, Microcosmus | I 
 brans., Clark, Edinburgh, 1886), Booh IX. Cap. I: also Beth, 
 //• lianism and Personality (Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1887), pp. 
 214-224. 
 
 Cf. also, in tlu's* 1 lectures, p. 117. 
 
 Tin' recenl anonymous work, The Riddle* of the Sphinx 
 (Swan Bonnenschein, 1891), contains, it seems to me, a great 
 deal of fresh and valuable thought on subjects (1) and (5), 
 This can be adopted without reference to some strange conclu- 
 sions at which the book arrives. 
 
 Note 11. See p. 30. 
 
 Moral life supernatural. I am anxious not to appear t<» 
 assume anything in this connection as to the circumstai 
 under which the moral life was developed. I would only asserl 
 that, considered a- a developed product, it cannot be explained 
 by what li.-s below it. 1 do doI want more than would, accord- 
 ing t<> Dr. Hughlings Jackson (see above, Note 9), be granted 
 me by all ''evolutionists of repute' 1 in regard to mental phe- 
 nomena generally. 
 
 Noi ■ L2. Sir p. ii. 
 
 Mr. Darwin** account of his own mind. See Lift and Letters of 
 Charles Darwin (Murray, l s ^7). vol. i. p. loo. 
 ■• I have -aid that in our respecl my mind has changed during 
 
 tin- Last tw'-nty or thirty years. Up t«. tli-- age of thirty, or 
 
 beyond it, poetry of many kind-, Midi as the work- of .Milton, 
 
 Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me 
 great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight 
 in Shakespeare, especially in tin- historical plays. I have also 
 said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, ami music 
 _ht. But now f..r many yean I cannot endure 
 to read a lii f poetry. I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, 
 
 and found it SO intolerably dull that it nauseated me. 1 have 
 
264 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 also almost lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally 
 sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work 
 on, instead of giving me pleasure. I retain some taste for fine 
 scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it 
 formerly did. On the other hand, novels which are works of 
 the imagination, though not of a very high order, have been for 
 years a wonderful relief and pleasure to me, and I often bless 
 all novelists. A surprising number have been read aloud to me, 
 and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end un- 
 happily — against which a law ought to be passed. A novel, 
 according to my taste, does not come into the first class unless 
 it contains some person whom one can thoroughly love, and if 
 a pretty woman all the better. 
 
 "This curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic 
 tastes is all the odder, as books on history, biographies, and 
 travels (independently of any scientific facts which they may 
 contain), and essays on all sorts of subjects interest me as much 
 as ever they did. My mind seems to have become a kind of 
 machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of 
 facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part 
 of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot 
 conceive. A man with a mind more highly organized or better 
 constituted than mine, would not, I suppose, have thus suffered ; 
 and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to 
 read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every 
 week ; for perhaps tho parts of my brain now atrophied would 
 thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these 
 tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to 
 the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by 
 enfeebling the emotional part of our nature." 
 
 Note 13. See p. 44. 
 
 The unity of "nature" and "grace" in the best Theology. 
 Hoping to find another opportunity of illustrating at greater 
 length the statements of the text, I would content myself here 
 with the following references. 
 
notes is-14. 265 
 
 The doctrine of the New Testament will be found chiefly in 
 St. John's Gospel i. 1-11 (of. the oommentariea of Godet ot 
 Weetoott), st. Paul's Epistle to the Colossiansi. L8-20 (ci 
 Lightfoofa commentary), and the Epistle to the Efebn 
 l-.i (cf. Westcott's commentary). 
 
 ()n the teaching of tin- Fathers the following references will 
 be found to justify the statementfl of the text. (1) St. Athana- 
 rius, I>> Tnearn. 11: st. Gregory of Nyssa, Catech. Magna 26. 
 Cf. Bnmboldt, Cosmos (Eng. trans. Longman and Murray, L848) 
 ii. pp. 26-80; Mgr. Landriot, Le Christ <le la tradition (Paris, 
 1--) i. pp. L91 ff. 
 
 (2) St. Greg. Thaumat. Panegyr. 8; St. Athan. C. Gentes 
 \ ; St. Greg. Nyss, Catech, Mag. 28. On law in miracles 
 see St. Augustine, C. Faust, xxvi. 3 ; Macarius Magnes, Apo- 
 critica iii. 26. 
 
 (8) St. Justin, Apol. i. 46; St. Iren&US, iv. 6. 5, 7 ; Origeu 
 in Psalm xi. 6*. 
 
 Note 14. See p. 49. 
 
 The rationale of miracles. The former part of the argument 
 in the text, pp. 45-46, will he found stated by II. S. Holland in 
 Christ or Ecclesiastes (Longmans, L888) Sermon 8. st. Augus- 
 tine'i language, referred to in the last note, is well known. 
 
 •• We may, without incongruity, Bay that God does in a man- 
 ner contrary to nature what he does contrary to nature i 
 know it. For what we mean by 'nature' is this well-known 
 and customary order, and it is when God does enythingoon* 
 trary to tips thai His actions are called miracles or wonders. 
 Bui as for that supreme law of nature, which is beyond the 
 perception of men, either because they are impious or bees 
 
 they are still \\<-ak in knowledge — against this God no v 
 
 acts than He acts against Himself. And God's spiritual and 
 rational creatures, amongst whom are men, the more they 
 become participators in that immutable law and light, the more 
 
 Clearly theyean Bee what ran happen and what cannot; and 
 
 the further off, on the other hand, they are [from that divine 
 
266 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 law and light], so much the more are they astonished at what 
 they are not accustomed to, in proportion as they are blind to 
 what is coming." 
 
 If we add to the thought here expressed the additional 
 thought, which we find both in St. Athanasius and St. Augus- 
 tine, that the miracles or exceptional actions of God are to be 
 accounted for by man's blindness to Him in His normal 
 method, and are thus condescensions to human sin and weak- 
 ness, we have before us the best ancient rationale of miracles. 
 
 Archbishop Trench, in the introductory essay to his work on 
 Miracles, gives an admirable view of the various theories on the 
 subject, held at different times in the Christian Church. 
 
 Note 15. See p. 58. 
 Prof. Huxley on scientific objections to Christianity. 
 
 Prof. Huxley has kindly allowed me to quote the following 
 words from a private letter addressed by him to the late Dean 
 of Wells, April 27, 1877. "I have not the slightest objection to 
 offer a priori to all the propositions in the three creeds. The 
 mysteries of the Church are child's play compared with the 
 mysteries of nature. The doctrine of the Trinity is not more 
 puzzling than the necessary antinomies of physical speculation ; 
 virgin procreation and resuscitation from apparent death are 
 ordinary phenomena for the naturalist. It would be a great 
 error therefore to suppose that the Agnostic rejects Theology 
 because of its puzzles and wonders. He rejects it simply 
 because in his judgment there would be no evidence sufficient 
 to warrant the theological propositions, even if they related to 
 the commonest and most obvious every-day propositions." 
 
 This last sentence seems to me so strongly opposed to the 
 facts of the case that one cannot but believe that, if scientific 
 men generally adopt Prof. Huxley's line, the opposition to 
 the Christian religion on the side of science may be greatly 
 reduced. 
 
NOTES 14-17. 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Note 16. See p. GO. 
 
 Hume's "Canon." See his Essays (edd. Green ami Grose: 
 Longmans, 1875), vol. ii. p. 94. M The plain conseqnen 
 
 (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), ' Ti. 
 testimony is sufficient t>> establish a miracle, unless the testi- 
 mony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more mi- 
 raculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish : And 
 even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, 
 ami the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that 
 degree of force, whicli remains, after deducting the inferior.' 
 When any one tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, 
 I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable 
 that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that 
 the fart, which he relates, should really have happened. I 
 weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the 
 superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and 
 always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testi- 
 mony w.mld be more miraculous than the event which i 
 Lates, then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my 
 belief or opinion." 
 
 I ought to state that in the imaginary case whicli I have 
 . fn»m Mary Barton the evidence for the mermaid is not 
 exactly the that Cor the flying-fish. 
 
 X«.n 17. Bee ]». 61. 
 
 .1 priori tendencies m Dr. Martineau and Card, Newsnan* 
 The refera >urse : — 
 
 (1) To Dr. Martiucau's Seat of Authority in R 
 mans, L890), the latter part of which (b. i\.) is a criticism of 
 
 the Gospel narrative. 
 
268 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 (2) To Card. Newman's Two Essays on Biblical and on 
 Ecclesiastical Miracles (Longmans, 1885). I must add that my 
 lecture was written, and perhaps preached, before the appear- 
 ance of Dr. Abbott's Philomythus, with the tone and spirit of 
 which one cannot but disclaim sympathy. 
 
 Note 18. See p. 64. 
 
 The Witness of St. Paul's Epistles. M. Renan called the 
 epistles named in the text " undisputed and indisputable." In 
 the lecture, as delivered, they were described as "practically 
 undisputed." They 1 ive, however, been recently disputed, 
 with utterly perverse and untenable arguments, by a school of 
 writers headed by Loman in Holland and Steck in Switzer- 
 land. 
 
 The witness of these Epistles, as summarized in the text, will 
 be found in the following passages : — Rom. i. 7, 1 Cor. i. 3, 
 2 Cor. xiii. 14 etc. (the co-ordination of Christ with the Father), 
 Rom. x. 9-14 (Christ, as Lord, = the Jehovah of the O. T. : cf. 
 1 Cor. i. 2), Rom. ix. 5 (Christ called "God over all": for 
 Pfleiderer's statement on this subject see his Hibbert Lectures, 
 Williams & Norgate, 1885, p. 55), 1 Cor. viii. 6 (Christ in crea- 
 tion), 1 Cor. x. 4 (Christ with the Jews in the wilderness), Rom. 
 viii. 3, Gal. iv. 4 (God's own Son, incarnate), 1 Cor. xv. 47 (from 
 heaven), 2 Cor. viii. 9 (by self-beggary), Rom. i. 3-4 (disclosing 
 His Godhead through His manhood). Cf. Prof. Sanday's What 
 the first Christians thought about Christ (Oxford House Papers, 
 series 1 : Longmans, 1890). 
 
 St. Paul's appeal to an earlier narrative is in 1 Cor. xi. 23, 
 xv. 3. For the record of appearances (1 Cor. xv. 5-7), cf. St. 
 Luke xxiv. 34-36, St. Matt, xxviii. 1G-20, Acts i. 14 (where 
 James is already among the disciples), Acts i. 6—11. It must 
 be remembered that St. Luke's Gospel and the Acts constitute 
 two parts of the same work. This makes it, I think, absurd to 
 suggest that the " forty days " mentioned in Acts i. 3 are 
 excluded in St. Luke xxiv. 
 
NOTES 17-l'I. 269 
 
 Note L9. See p. 78. 
 
 Synoptic Gospels. In one lecture it lb impossible to do more 
 than touch Qpoo the criticism of these books. Among the most 
 
 Buggestive n nt contributiona to the Bubject, I may refer to 
 
 Dr. Paul Ewald's I><i.< Havptproblem des Evangelienrfragi (Leip- 
 
 L890), .Mr. Wright's Th\ Composition of tht Four Q 
 (Macmillan, 1890), Dr. Sanday in Expositor, 1891, -fan. -May. 
 The external evidence for the Gospels has been admirably re- 
 stated for the genera] reader by Dr. Dale, Th Living Christ and 
 th< Four Gospels (Hodder & Stonghton, 1 190). 
 
 It is hardly necessary to mention D Salmon's Introduction 
 tn tht New Testament (Murray, 1st edit L885), or Bp. Lightfoot's 
 Essays on " Supernatural Religion " (Macmillan, 1889). 
 
 I believe thai in taking St. Mark's Gospel, or the main sub- 
 stance of St. Mark's Gospel, as the Btarting-point, I am doing 
 what will commend itself to almosi all inquirers. 
 
 It is important to emphasize, at this point, that the evidential 
 : the Gospels, as merely historical documents, is to be kept 
 distinct from the (logically) subsequent use of them in the 
 Church (see pp. 188-9) as inspired records. 
 
 Note 20. See p. 71. 
 
 St, John* G The reference in the text is to Archdeacon 
 
 Watkins' Bampton I (Murray, 1890), on "Modern 
 
 Criticism considered in its relation to the Fourth Gospel." In 
 the introductions to Prof. Godet'sand 1 >r. Westcott's comnienta. 
 ries on St. John's Gospel, and in Prof. Sanday's Authorship and 
 1! lorical Character of (hi Fourth Gospel (Macmillan. L872), the 
 Btudent will find all reasonable doubts as t<> its authorship set 
 ;it rest. 
 
 \<>i i 21. See p. 76. 
 
 Tht "Logos." In regard to this ides it must do! be forgotten 
 that. a> found in Borne <>t' the fathei Justin and the 
 
 andrians, it has much closer Affinities to Greek philosophy than 
 
 it has in - s t. John. 
 
270 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Note 22. See p. 78. 
 
 Our Lord's discourses in St. John. Dr. Plummer (Camb. G. 
 T. for Schools, St. John, 1882, p. 100, as cited by Watkins) gives 
 the following interesting extract from a letter written by Car- 
 dinal Newman on July 15, 1878 : — 
 
 " Every one w T rites in his own style. St. John gives our 
 Lord's meaning in his own way. At that time the third person 
 was not so commonly used in history as now. When a reporter 
 gives one of Gladstone's speeches in the newspaper, if he uses 
 the first person, I understand not only the matter, but the style, 
 the words, to be Gladstone's : when the third, I consider the 
 style, etc., to be the reporter's own. But in ancient times this 
 distinction was not made. Thucydides uses the dramatic 
 method, yet Spartan and Athenian speak in Thucydidean Greek. 
 And so every clause of our Lord's speeches in St. John may be 
 in St. John's Greek ; yet every clause may contain the matter 
 which our Lord spoke in Aramaic. Again, St. John might and 
 did select or condense (as being inspired for that purpose) the 
 matter of our Lord's discourses, as that with Nicodemus, and 
 thereby the wording might be St. John's, though the matter 
 might still be our Lord's." 
 
 Note 23. See p. 82. 
 
 The apostles as witnesses. Dr. Latham (Pastor Pastorum, pp. 
 241 ff\), describes their qualifications with admirable freshness 
 and truth. 
 
 It must be remembered that each apostle was in a peculiar 
 sense a witness of the resurrection of Jesus. On this event the 
 chief stress was laid (Acts i. 3, 22, 1 Cor. xv. 5, 8). This may 
 in part account for the fragmentariness and independence of the 
 various accounts we have of the appearances. The summary in 
 1 Cor. xv. 5-7 is the nearest approach to a central record of 
 them. The " I received " in ver. 3 probably means that this was 
 the account of the appearances given to St. Paul at his con- 
 version, by those who were in Christ before him. 
 
NOTES 22 24. 271 
 
 N-.u. 24. See p. 
 
 The narratives of the Nativity and Infancy* A full defence 
 of these narratives mil be found in Godet's commentary on 8t 
 Luke's Gospel. Great Btresa has recently been laid on resem- 
 blances, real and Bupposed, between the "birth-stories" of 
 Jesus Christ and of Buddha. In regard to Buch resemblances, 
 it may be remarked that 
 
 ( 1 ) VYe may Bet aside as contrary to all the evidence any idea 
 of Buddhist influence on the Gospel narrative. 
 
 (•_') We may set aside as unsupported by evidence the idea of 
 a Christian influence on later Buddhist tradition. This Leaves 
 us in tin- position of regarding the Christian and the Buddhist 
 narratives as independent growths. 
 
 (3) It may be remarked that no claim to an historical charac- 
 ter can be put in, on ground of evidence, for the Buddhist 
 miracles, nor can the Buddhist scriptures be put in any sort of 
 competition as historical documents with our Gospels. The 
 question, therefore, is simply whether the resemblance of the 
 Buddhist legend to our Gospels indicates so strong a human 
 tendency to imagine a certain class of incidents under certain 
 circumstances as to invalidate On historical evidence for the actual 
 occurrence of such incidents in any case. 
 
 The solution of this question depends on (a) the Btrength of 
 tie- historical evidence in the particular case ; (6) the closeness 
 of the resemblance in the Buddhist legend. As to {<>) I believe 
 that dose and unprejudiced Btudy will give an increasing con- 
 fidence in the trustworthiness of the Gospels and their freedom 
 from mere legend. As to (b) I believe that tin 1 widespread 
 
 impression of reserablai is due to Buch works as 1% Light of 
 
 -works which the Germans would describe as tende\ 
 — and not to a Btudy of the Buddhist hooks which have 1.. -en 
 ' 1 1 . - . l for us. Resemblances exist, no doubt — in some 
 remarkable resemblances — hut not resemblances which 
 
 Create any serious obstacle to tie- historical character of OUT 
 
 Christian records. Thesubjecl is dealt with at length, and, as 
 
 it :n- to tne, with fairness, in Kellogg's Light <>/ Asia ami 
 
 Light of the \Y>>ri>l (Macmillan, 1886), <■<■. ii-iv. 
 
272 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Note 25. See p. 89. 
 
 The relation of dogynas to original Christianity. On the 
 ancient and Anglican idea I may refer to what is said at 
 greater length in Roman Catholic Claims (3rd ed. Longmans, 
 1890), cc. iii, iv : also to an interesting letter of Cardinal New- 
 man, written to R. H. Froude in 1835. See Life and Corre- 
 spondence, by Anne Mozley (Longmans, 1891), ii. pp. 126-7. 
 " The more I read of Athanasius, Theodoret, etc., the more I see 
 the ancients do make the Scriptures the basis of their belief. 
 The only question is would they have done so in another point 
 beside the OeoXoyta which happened in the early ages to be in 
 discussion ? I incline to say the creed is the faith necessary to 
 salvation as well as to Church communion, and to maintain 
 that Scripture according to the Fathers is the authentic record 
 and document of this faith ..... Now this OeoXoyta, I say, the 
 Fathers do certainly rest on Scripture as upon two tables of 
 stone. I am surprised more and more to see how entirely they 
 fall into Hawkins' theory even, in set words, that Scripture 
 proves and the Church teaches." 
 
 In regard to the more recent Roman idea, of which Card. 
 Frauzelin may be taken as chief exponent (see De Divin. Tradit. 
 et Script., ed. 3, Rome, 1882, and cf. li. C. Claims, p. 58), it 
 must be remarked that no doctrine of development is of any 
 assistance to the Roman position which does not cover an 
 actual increase in positive revelation. The early Church did not 
 know anything of, e. g., the immaculate conception of Mary. 
 But this positive increase in revelation is firmly and finally 
 repudiated by Newman. See Tracts Theol. and Eccl. (Picker- 
 ing, 1874), p. 287, written as a Roman Catholic. " First of all, 
 and in as few words as possible, and ex dbundanti cauteld: — 
 Every Catholic holds that the Christian dogmas were in the 
 Church from the time of the apostles; that they were ever in 
 
ffOTE 26, 273 
 
 their Bubstance what they are now; that they existed 1 
 the formulas were publicly adopted, in which as time wenl on 
 they were defined and recorded." With this cf . Lord Acton's 
 word-, Engl. Hist. Review, Oct 1890, p. 723. "Just then after 
 sixteen years Bpent in the Church of Rome, Newman was 
 
 inclined to guard and narrow his theory He though! 
 
 that a divine <>f the Becond century on Beeing the Roman cate- 
 chism would have recognized his own belief in it without Bur- 
 prise, a- soon as lie understood its meaning. 1I«' once wrote, 
 1 It I have Baid more than this I think I have not worked out 
 my meaning, and was confused — whether the minute facts of 
 history will bear me out in this view I leave to others to deter- 
 mine.' " 
 
 The third view mentioned in the lecture is that of the late 
 
 Dr. Hat.-h. Hibbert Lectures, 1888, "The influence of Greek 
 
 ideas and usages upon the Christian Church " ( Williams & Nbr- 
 
 . L890). The fundamental fault of this work is noticed on 
 
 pp. !<!', loo. The same criticism is made in an admirable 
 
 r of the work in the Church Quarterly Review, July, 1891, 
 
 -i) u% and by Professor Sanday in <'<>nt< m/>. Review, May, 
 
 L891, pp. 688-690. I cannot but think that the criticisms ;it 
 
 the .-n.l of this latter article go far to invalidate the praise with 
 
 which it begins. Dr. Hatch's work seems almost always to 
 
 have this fatal tlaw, when he is dealing with Christian Bubjects, 
 
 that he omits the central and positive evidence in favour of 
 what is externa], suggestive, and subsidiary. Thus his Hibbert 
 !.• • ires are in fact little more than an abstract consideration 
 of howwe might have imagined the development of Christian 
 theology to have taken place, if tie- New Testament and the 
 Bub-apostolic writers had perished. There i- however one sen- 
 tence in Dr. Hatch's work which <h»c> describe admirably the 
 
 • [ p. 'Jo? : the italics are mine) : » \\V may sum 
 
 up the result of the influence of <, nception of 
 
 God in Hi- relation t.. the material universe, by saying that 
 it found a reasoned basis for Hebrew monotheism. // helped 
 Christian communities <<> b< 'mil conviction 
 
 t/uit which tli> >/ /tin/ ed as " spiritual revelation," 
 
274 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Note 26. See p. 91. 
 
 The theology of the New Testament. In my third lecture I 
 argued at first simply from the central epistles of St. Paul (1, 2 
 Cor., Rom., Gal.) and the Gospel of St. Mark. These are suffi- 
 cient to show that the theological conception of the person of 
 Christ, as the incarnate Son of God, is the original conception. 
 It is of course assumed by certain writers that St. Paul is the 
 parent of the distinctively Christian theology, and that the orig- 
 inal Christianity is better represented by Ebionism. This view 
 is contrary to the evidence. 
 
 (1) The evidence of St. Paul's central epistles shows (see 
 above, p. 66) that on the person of Christ there was no con- 
 troversy between him and the Judaizers. 
 
 (2) St. Mark's Gospel, in which the doctrine of divine Sonship 
 appears (see above, p. 72), is connected historically not with 
 St. Paul, but with St. Peter. The same doctrine appears also 
 in the discourses common to St. Matthew and St. Luke ; see 
 St. Matt. xi. 27, St. Luke x. 22. 
 
 (3) The epistle of St. James, which is most certainly inde- 
 pendent of St. Paul, identifies Christ " the Lord " with the 
 Jehovah of the Old Testament in a manner which involves the 
 theology of the eternal Sonship. The identification is apparent 
 in v. 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15; see also ii. 1 ; and compare iv. 12, 
 where the " one lawgiver and judge " is God, with v. 9, etc., 
 where "the judge" is Jesus Christ. 
 
 (4) The evidence, external and internal, refers the fourth 
 Gospel to St. John, and renders its doctrine of the Incarnation 
 of the Son independent of St. Paul. 
 
 (5) There is no book less " Pauline " than the Apocalypse, 
 but also no book in which Jesus Christ, the Son of God (ii. 18 ; 
 cf. ii. 28, iii. 5), is more plainly conceived of as God : see esp. 
 («) i. 8, where He that "is to come" is Christ, as in verse 7, 
 and He is also the Alpha and the Omega (xxii. 12, 13). (b) 
 v. 9-13, where the lamb is worshipped as God. (c) xxii. 1 
 (cf. iii. 1), where the lamb is with the Father the source of the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
btote _<•■. 275 
 
 The language in the New Testament, whiob is most bus- 
 ceptible of an Bbionite interpretation <>f the highest sort, is that 
 of tli«' early speeches in 1 1 1 « - Acts taken by themselves. But the 
 supporters of the view which is being combated are precluded 
 from appealing to these, by the fact that the rudimentary 
 character of the theology in these speeches is the best possible 
 testimony to the trustworthiness of St Luke's materials, and 
 his accuracy in the use of them. Indirect ly this augments the 
 trustworthiness of his Gospel material, in which Christ proclaims 
 Himself the Son of God (x. 22, x x ii. 70). More directly it 
 augments the historical trustworthiness of the Acts ; and if the 
 \ tfl is historical, then (a) there was no theological opposition 
 between St. Paul and the older apostles : ( 1 • ) st . Stephen had 
 learnt to worship Christ as Lord before St Paul's conversion 
 
 (vii. 59, 80j cf. i. -1 and 1 ('<>r. i. 3). The only conclusion, 
 
 then, that can Legitimately be drawn from these speeches (which 
 are in no way incompatible with the fullest doctrine of the 
 [ncarnation), is that the Christian Church immediately after 
 Pentecost was simply intent (-ir pp. ihJ-7) upon demonstrating 
 that Jesus was the Christ 
 ()n the development of Christian theology between the 
 
 apostles and Athanasius, I may refer to a summary history by 
 the Rev. A. Robertson, which is forthcoming in Nicem ami 
 l' l-Nieem Library, ser. ii. vol. iv. proleg. cap. ii. ji '■'> (2). 
 In Bub-apostolic days the rich theology <»f [gnatius, the the* 
 
 lement (whose trinitarian formula, ad Cor. " ,s . certified 
 by the recovery of the end of his epistle, sheds light on the rest 
 of hi- language), and the unmistakable, if confused, incarnation 
 doctrine of Hennas, hold the ground against the anonymous 
 and uncertified documents of an Bbionite or seini-Ebionite char- 
 acter. Moreover, the strong appeal of all Church theologians, 
 
 iin-t humanitarianism or gnosticism to apostolic traditions, 
 must never he forgotten. 'Phis appeal can he in large measure 
 verified and justified. It i< Btriking to notice how Origen, in 
 his most speculative work, the Dt Principiit, begins with the 
 statement of tradition. See Dr. B es, 1887, 
 
 "The Christian Platonista of Alexandria" (Clar. Press), pp. 
 
276 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 152 ff. " We have already seen what Origen regarded as the 
 proper task of the Christian philosopher. Tradition, embodying 
 the teaching of the apostles, has handed down certain facts, cer- 
 tain usages, which are to be received without dispute, but does 
 not attempt to explain the why or the whence. It is the office of 
 the sanctified reason to define, to articulate, to co-ordinate, even 
 to expand, and generally to adapt to human needs the faith 
 once delivered to the Church. What, then, is the utterance of 
 tradition ? It tells us that there is one God who created all 
 things out of nothing, who is just and good, the author of the 
 Old as of the New Testament, the Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ: that Jesus Christ was begotten of the Father before 
 every creature, that through Him all things were made, that 
 He is God and Man, born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin 
 Mary, that He did truly suffer, rise again, and ascend into 
 heaven : that the Holy Ghost is associated in honour and dignity 
 with the Father and the Son, that it is He who inspired the 
 saints both of the old and of the new dispensation : that there 
 will be a resurrection of the dead, when the body which is sown 
 in corruption will rise in incorruption, and that in the world to 
 come the souls of men will inherit eternal life or suffer eternal 
 punishment according to their works : that every reasonable 
 soul is a free agent, plotted against by evil spirits, comforted by 
 good angels, but in no way constrained : that the Scriptures 
 were written by the agency of the Spirit of God, that they have 
 two senses, the plain and the hidden, whereof the latter can be 
 known only to those to whom is given the grace of the Holy 
 Spirit in the word of wisdom and knowledge." 
 
 Note 27. See p. 94. 
 
 Subapostolic writers. See Dorner, Doctrine of the Person of 
 Christ (Eng. trans. Clark's Libr.), div. i. vol. i. p. 92. " There 
 is undeniably a very significant distinction between the written 
 productions of the apostolic age and those of the age im- 
 mediately following ; and it is hardly possible to represent the 
 
NOT I -J7T 
 
 relation of the one to the other more erroneously, than when 
 the apostolic age is called, in a dogmatical respect, a germ 
 and ;i beginning, while the age of the Apostolic Fathers is 
 regarded a> the fruitful unfolding of thai germ. It is true that, 
 to s certain extent, on one side such an advance was to 
 expected in the later age; for this is according to the law of 
 history, lint it" we try each of these ages by the Btandard of 
 1 bxistian knowledge, we shall find beyond all doubt u 
 serious falling off in the age following thai of the apostles. 
 What was in the earlier age the actual spiritual >n of 
 
 the distinguished men whom the Lord chose, trained, and 
 equipped, was tar from being all retained by the succeeding 
 much less was a higher stage of Christian knowledge at- 
 tained. Such a retrogression, following times of unusual 
 spiritual deration and expansion, is quite in accordance with 
 the laws of historical development, as we see in other ea 
 
 Note 28. See p. 96. 
 
 Thr formula of Chalcedon. The following is the most im- 
 portant passage : — 
 
 •• Wherefore, after the example of the holy Fathers, we all 
 with one voice confess our Lord Jesus Christ one and the same 
 Son, the same perfeel in Godhead, the Bame perfed in man] 
 very God and very Man, the same consisting of a reasoi 
 soul and a body, of one Bubstance with the Father aa touching 
 the Godhead, the same of one Bubstance with ns as touching 
 
 the tnanli 1. Like us in all things, Bin ••\< > -'pt : begotten of the 
 
 Father before the worlds as touching the Godhead, the 
 in th.->.- last days, for ns and fur our salvation, born of the 
 \ in Mary, tin- Mother of God, as touching t In- manhood, one 
 and tin- Bame Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowl- 
 
 ! of two natures, without confusion, without convei 
 without division, never to be separated, (do aVpemtc, 
 
 », u\<i)puTTn)s) \ the distiuctiou of natures being in no 
 
 wise di aw.i\ because of the union, 1-ut rather the characb r- 
 
 iatic property of each nature being preserved, and concurring 
 
278 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 into one Person and one subsistence, not as if Christ were 
 parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son 
 and only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ ; even as the 
 Prophets from the beginning spake concerning Him, and our 
 Lord Jesus Christ hath instructed us, and the symbol of the 
 Fathers hath handed down to us." 
 
 Note 29. See p. 96. 
 
 Theological confusion in period of councils. Cf. Holland's On 
 Behalf of Belief '(Longmans, 1889), " The building of the Spirit." 
 He quotes St. Hilary : " We determine creeds by the year, or by 
 the month ; and then we change our determination ; and then 
 we prohibit our changes ; and then we anathematize our pro- 
 hibitions." St. Hilary is speaking of the authorities in the 
 Church. For more quotations see R. C. Claims, p. xii. and 
 pp. 49 if. 
 
 Note 30. See p. 97. 
 
 The Via Media. This is expounded in the admirable little 
 treatise ascribed to Boetius, con. Eat. et Nest, praef . and c. 7 ; cf . 
 Greg. Nyss. Cat. Mag. c. 3, where the action of the Church is 
 described as uniting the good in opposite heresies, while oppos- 
 ing each in turn. See further, R. C. Claims, ch. 1. 
 
 Note 31. See p. 106. 
 
 Dogmatic passages in the N. T. These passages, Phil. ii. 
 5-11, Col. i. 15-18, Heb. i. 1-3, St. John i. 1-18, 1 St. John i. 
 1-3, ii. 22, 23, have received full explanation, the two first from 
 Dr. Lightfoot, the rest from Dr. Westcott, in their commentaries. 
 See also the phrase of the Ep. to Titus, " Our great God and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ," ii. 13 ; cf. ii. 10, iii. 4, 6. 
 
 St. Basil {de Spirit. Sanct. iii. 5) hits the mark when he 
 describes the language of the New Testament, by contrast to 
 the controversial language of his time, as untechnical — ct7rA^ 
 kcu a.T(.xyo\6yqTOs tov Trvev/JLaTOs StSacrKaXta. 
 
NOTES 28-34. 279 
 
 Note 82. See p. 108. 
 
 Christ's permanent manhood. The permanence of our Lord's 
 manhood, in body and soul, is do doubt b mysterious subject 
 It is very necessary not to conceive grossly of "the BpirituaJ 
 body"; and St. Paul's language, 1 Cor. xv. 85 ft'., is sufficient 
 safeguard againsl this error. Ou the other hand. St John cer- 
 tainly asserts that Christ is "to come in the flesh/' 2 St. .John 
 7 j ct VYestcott in loe. and Acts i. 11. St. Paul certainly teaches 
 the resurrection of the body, and makes our Lord's glorified 
 body the prototype, 1 Cor. xv. 23. The Epistle to the Hel 
 
 implies the permanence of our Lord's manhood, cf. vii. 28 
 -viii. 4, x. 19-21. 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 X- > 1 1 33. See p. 126. 
 
 ManseVs Bampton Lectures. These lectures, and the contro- 
 versy raised by them, are only referred to in order to empha- 
 sise a positive principle involved in the Incarnation — that 
 human qualities really can and do express those of God. Man- 
 sel's language did undoubtedly appear to obscure this principle. 
 Hence the controversy of which 1 endeavour to gather the fruit 
 
 without entering into it- exact merits. 
 
 X..H ;i. See p. 129. 
 
 Christ's humanity personal or impersonal f The truth which 
 the phrase "Christ's impersonal manhood" is intended to guard, 
 i- that the humanity which our Lord assumed had n«> iu<l> /» ml* nt 
 
 personality. It found it- personality in tin- Sonwhoassui I 
 
 it. p.ut ss assumed by Sim it was most truly personal. 
 Petavius, <i> Ineam. iii. cc L2 (§j l 7). 18, v, <•<•. B 7: and De 
 
 1/ U r. Ineam. dispp. \. and xiii. 
 
280 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Note 35. See p. 132. 
 
 God's love revealed first in Christ. Cf. Robert Browning, The 
 Ring and the Book, iv. p. 60 : — 
 
 " Conjecture of the worker by the work: 
 Is there strength there ? Enough : intelligence ? 
 Ample : but goodness in a like degree ? 
 Not to the human eye in the present state, 
 An isoscele deficient in the base. 
 "What lacks, then, of perfection fit for God 
 But just the instance which this tale supplies 
 Of love without a limit ? So is strength, 
 So is intelligence ; let love be so, 
 Unlimited in its self-sacrifice, 
 Then is the tale true and God shows complete. 
 Beyond the tale, I reach into the dark, 
 Feel what I cannot see, and still faith stands." 
 
 Note 36. See p. 137. 
 
 Prayer in accordance with law. Cf. in Gerhard, Meditationes 
 Sacrae, med. 25 : " Placet Deo oratio, sed debito modo insti- 
 tuta; qui ergo exaudiri desiderat, is oret sapienter, ardenter, 
 humiliter, fideliter, perseveranter et confidenter. Oret sapien- 
 ter, ut scilicet, oret ea, quae divinae gloriae et proximorum saluti 
 serviunt. Onmipotens est Deus, ergo non statuas ei in pre- 
 cibus modum : sapientissimus est, ergo non praescribas ordinem : 
 non temere prorumpant, sed fidem praeeuntem sequantur, fides 
 autem respicit verbum : quae ergo absolute Deus in verbo pro- 
 mittit, absolute ores ; quae cum conditione promittit, ut tempo- 
 ralia, ea itidem cum conditione ores ; quae nullo modo promittit, 
 ea etiam nullo modo ores ; saepe Deus dat iratus, quod negat 
 propitius. Sequere ergo Christum, qui suam voluntatern plene 
 Deo resignat." 
 
 Note 37. See p. 138. 
 
 The death of Christ not God's act. Cf. Acts ii. 22-21 : " Jesus 
 of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto you by mighty works 
 
NOTES 81 281 
 
 Mid wooden and signs, which God <li«l by him in the midst of 
 you, even as ye yourselves know; him, being delivered up by 
 the determinate counsel And foreknowledge of God, ye by the 
 hands oi lawless men (or 'men without the law') did crucify 
 and Blay: whom God raised up." Here, as elsewhere in the 
 New Testament, the manifestation of the Christ and the raising 
 up of the Christ from the dead are assigned directly to God. 
 (>u the other hand, the crucifixion of the Christ is man's act, 
 which God foresees, bears with an<l works through to His own 
 ends. 
 
 It is to put this in other words, to say (with St Anselm, Cur 
 Deus Homo, i. 9) that God willed, primarily, the obedience of 
 the Christ: and in a secondary sense the death of the Christ, 
 because under the Binful conditions of the world, obedience led 
 to death. "Potest enimdici quia praecepit iUimori Pater cum 
 hoc praecepit unde incurrit mortem." 
 
 Note 38. See p. 140. 
 
 God? $ gradual method in the 0. T. The quotation is from St. 
 [renaens e. Haer. iv. 13. I. Cf. 13. 1 : "omnia liaec non con- 
 trarietatem ft dissolutionem praeteritorum continent . . . Bed 
 plenitudinem «-t extensionem." Further quotations will !><■ 
 
 found in Lux Mnn</t, Essay viii., "The Holy spirit and Inspira- 
 tion," pp. 829-31. 
 
 X - . 1 1 89. See p. 11". 
 
 Sfc. Augustine on Evolution. ><■■■ !>■ Gen. ad lift. v. 28 (11, 
 16): M Consideremus ergo cuiuslibet arboria pulchritudinem in 
 robore, rami-, frondibus, pomis : haec Bpecies non utique re] 
 tanta ac talis est exorta, sed quo etiam ordine uovimus. Bur- 
 rexit enim a radios, quam terras primnm germeu infixit ; atque 
 inde omnia ilia formata <-t distincta creverunt. Porro illud 
 germen ex semine: in semine ergo ilia omnia fin-runt primitus, 
 mm mole oorporeae magnitudinis, Bed \i potentiaque causali . . . 
 Sicut aut-'in in ipso grano invisibiliter erant omnia Bimul quae 
 p -l- tempore in arborem Burgerent : its ipse mundtu cogitandus 
 
282 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 est. cum Deus simul omnia creavit, habuisse simul omnia quae 
 in illo et cum illo facta sunt, quando factus est dies ; non solum 
 caelum cum sole et luna et sideribus, quorum species manet 
 motu rotabili, et terrain et abyssos . . . ; sed etiam ilia quae 
 aqua et terra produxit potentialiter atque causaliter, prius 
 quam per temporum moras ita exorirentur, quomodo nobis jam 
 nota sunt in eis operibus, quae Deus usque nunc operatur." 
 
 Xote 40. See p. 140. 
 
 God self-limited. The quotation is given at length in App. 
 note 14 to lect. ii. Christian thought grasped from the first this 
 conception of God as not " infinite " in the sense of indetermi- 
 nate, but self-limited ; see the ancient unknown teacher already 
 quoted by St. Irena?us in the second century (con. Haer. iv. 4. 
 2) : " Bene qui dixit ipsum immensum Patrein in Filio men- 
 suratum ; mensura enim Patris Filius, quoniam et capit eum." 
 Hardly anything has done more harm in theology than the 
 neglect of this thought in loose ideas of the divine u infinity." 
 
 Xote 41. See p. 141. 
 
 Arbitrary decrees attributed to God. This attribution has of 
 course been justified by reference to St. Paul's argument in 
 Rom. ix. But St. Paul is there asserting the divine absolute- 
 ness, not as against man's moral freedom and responsibility. 
 but as against the immoral and irresponsible claim of the Jew 
 that God had committed Himself to his race. God's freedom 
 is asserted by St. Paul as against any claim on man's part 
 either (1) to determine his vocation, or (2) to retain his voca- 
 tion where he fails to show the correspondence of faith. Thus 
 he is in fact proving that God's elections are not arbitrary 
 from the moral point of view (as the Jew would have them to 
 be), but in accordance with the moral law of correspondence. 
 I have endeavoured to draw out the continuous argument of 
 Romans ix-xi. at length in Stadia Biblica (Clar. Press, 1891), 
 vol. iii. pp. 37 ff. 
 
Norn ■ 288 
 
 X..11 r_'. See p. ill. 
 
 The tkra in man's spirit. Plato in frying to describe 
 
 th'- elements of man's nature under a figure i> driven to 
 a trinitarian formula, Republic ix. 588 i»: ovwurrc avra tli h 
 
 Tfjia "nra. The Christian fathers commonly use the human 
 trinity in various ways as an image or figure of the divine, 
 1 1 \ ■ ■ . M w- 1-1- See Lux Aftimft, I. ■ ■ i 
 Tii.- ose of this analogy by the Fathers Bhows at least that they 
 diil not wish ns to think of the three divine Persons as separate 
 
 individuals. 
 
 X.m !::. S.M- ].. 117. 
 
 GocVi triune being disclosed in Christ I should wish to lay 
 great stress on the fact that the existence of the Trinity in God 
 becomes a truth of human experience, if the claim of our Lord 
 to oneness with God is admitted. It is, in the lighl of Hi^ per- 
 sonality and language, no men- speculation in metaphysics, any 
 more than, e. g., the very •• metaphysical " statements of scientific 
 men as to the luminiferous ether. 
 
 NToi i 1 L See p. 1 19. 
 
 Uniiarianism untenable. This has l n recently exemplified 
 
 again in the Appeal to Unitarians (the work referred to in app. 
 note Son p. 288), pp. 77 if. I>r. slartineau himself ; 
 that the existence of God postulates an eternal « 
 M obj< iuthoritu, p. 82), but this object he con- 
 
 ceives to be space, or space and matter. 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 \nu l& See p. 164. 
 
 Johannes De lAtgo, S, /., Disputatioi x ! ■<'<"'- 
 
 Dominica (Lugd. se disp. xviiL-xxL on the sub- 
 
 ject of the ki. :' Christ; disp. xxviii. on the 1 1 
 
284 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 "servus Dei"; disp. xxxiv. sec. ii. § 47, on Christ sacrificing to 
 Himself as God. (There is no doubt a sense in which this 
 phrase expresses the truth. But it leaves out of sight, like so 
 much in the same school of theology, that the divine Son was 
 personally acting under conditions of manhood.) 
 
 Note 46. See p. 173. 
 
 Divine power shown most chiefly in self-humiliation. Cf. Greg. 
 Nyss. Cat. Mag. 24 : irputTov [x\v ovv to tyjv 7ravTO$vvap.ov cpvaiv 
 7rpos to Taireivov Trjs dv0po)7r6TY]TO<s KaTafirjvai lo~xvo~ai, irXuova. 
 T7)v airoha^iv ttjs Swa/xecos l\u rj to. fxeydXa re kcu V7rep(pvr) twv 
 6a.vfjL(xTu>v. to /xev yap /xe'ya tl koli vif/rjXbv i$epyaaOrjvaL 7rapa Trjs 
 Betas Swap.eoos, Kara cfivatv 7rco? ecrri Kat SlkoXovOov. . . . rf 8e irpos 
 Tcnravov kolOoSos 7reptovcrta rts Zctti Trjs 8wap.ea)s, ovBev h> Tot? 
 7rapa <f)vo-iv KwAvop-evr;?. Hilar. Pict. de Trin. xi. 48 : " quod 
 autem se ipsum intra se vacuefaciens continuit, detrimentum 
 non attulit potestati ; cum intra hanc exinanientis se humilita- 
 tem, virtute tamen omnis exinanitae intra se usus sit potestatis." 
 
 Note 47. See p. 177. 
 
 The conception of the Incarnation. Our Lord is commonly 
 represented, as living during His life on earth in the habitual 
 exercise of a double consciousness, as acting and speaking now 
 as God and now as man. It is true of course that as being God 
 in manhood He possessed at every moment the divine, as well as 
 the human, consciousness and nature. But in great meas- 
 ure, the self-sacrifice of the Incarnation seems to have lain in 
 His refraining from the exercise of what He possessed, or from 
 the divine mode of action, that He might live under conditions 
 of a true manhood : cf . Westcott, Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 66. 
 " The two natures were inseparably united in the unity of His 
 Person. In all things He acts personally : and, as far as is 
 revealed to us, the greatest works during His earthly life are 
 wrought by the help of the Father through the energy of a 
 humanity enabled to do all things in fellowship with God." 
 
NOTES L6-48, 286 
 
 It is not enough to recognize that our Lord was ignorant 
 ,,[' a divine secret, in respect of His human nature, nnle 
 recognize also thai II-' was bo truly acting under condition! <>t 
 human nature as Himself t«» be ignorant M The Sou " did not 
 
 know. 
 
 Thifl involves no change in Cod because it was simply an 
 
 externa] exhibition of an eternal capacity for self-sacrifice in 
 
 tii<' being of God. 
 
 But, it may !>.■ asked, in what relation does this self-emptying 
 stand to the cosmic functions of the Son, '• in whom all things 
 
 consist," who u bears along all things by the word of his power *' 
 
 (Col. i. 18, Heb. i. :i)? 
 
 To this question, it seems to me, we can give hut a very 
 hesitating and partial answer. On the one hand we cannol bul 
 recognize with theologians from St. Athanasiua (</'■ Tnearn. 17) 
 to Dr. Westcott (/. e. p. 426) that the work of the Son in 
 nature " was in no way interrupted by the Incarnation." On 
 the other hand, the Lncarnation is represented as involving an 
 act of self-sacrifice on the part of the Father in surrendering 
 the Son (see above p. 159), and it is described as a "coming 
 down from heaven "on the part of the Son. (In St. John 
 iii. 13, the words u which is in heaven " are, we must remember, 
 very doubtful ). It seems that the matter of real importance 
 
 is that we should be boldly faithful to the language of the N''W 
 
 I tament, and not attempt to u describe, beyond the scriptures, 
 tie- measure or the manner "of the divine condescension ( A than. 
 e. Apollinar. ii. ad fin.). The [ncarnate Son was penonaUw, 
 within t/i>- tphere <>/ t/t>- Incarnation, accepting the limitation <>t 
 humanity. Bee Bruce, Humiliation qf( 'hritt (Clark, Kd. :;, 1 - 
 pp. L87-101. 
 
 No ik 48. Seep. 177. 
 
 '/' / ' ■■',. ft <m (If \uman XgnOTO ChritL The support 
 
 which the Fathers give to tin- new maintained in the text is 
 twofold. (1) Many recognize a real ignorance in our Lord in 
 respect of His humanity. (2) Some give great reality to the 
 idea <>f the self-limitation of the Bon. Thus Lrenaeui recognizes 
 
286 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 an occasional " quiescence " of the Divine Word to allow of the 
 human trials of the Incarnate {con. Haer. iii. 19. 3). Origen 
 speaks of a self-humiliation of the Son to a " divine folly," i. e. 
 to a human mode of wisdom (Horn, in Ierem 8. 8). Others, as 
 St. Cyril and St. Hilary, supply us with admirable formulas for 
 the " self-emptying," though without applying it to the limita- 
 tion of knowledge. 
 
 But the study of the Fathers on this subject forces upon one 
 the conviction that they were not facing the question exactly as 
 it presents itself to us. 
 
 I must be content for the moment to refer to the quotations 
 from the Fathers given by Mr. Swayne in his Enquiry into 
 the Nature of our Lord's Knowledge as Man (with a preface by 
 the Bp. of Salisbury; Longmans, 1891). 
 
 Note 49. See p. 178. 
 
 The protest of Theodoret. See Repr. xii. capp. Cyril, in anath. 
 iv. : " If He knew the day, and, wishing to conceal it, said He 
 was ignorant, see what blasphemy is the result. Truth tells 
 a lie." 
 
 Note 50. See p. 181. 
 
 Christ could have sinned, if He had willed. So St. Augustine, 
 Op. Imperf. c. Jul. iv. 48 : " Christus hanc cupiditatem vitiorum 
 et sentire posset, si haberet ; et habere, si vellet ; sed absit ut 
 vellet." Cf. Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, ii. 10 : " Possumus igitur 
 dicere de Christo quia potuit mentiri, si subaudiatur, si vellet." 
 [Boethius] c. Eut. et Nest. c. 8. 
 
 Note 51. See p. 181. 
 
 Man not originally perfect. In answer to the question whether 
 Adam was formed perfect or imperfect [reAeios rj aTeXrjs], Clem- 
 ent replies : " They shall learn from us that he was not perfect 
 in respect of his creation, but in a fit condition to receive virtue." 
 Clem. Alex. Strom, vi. 12. 96 ; cf. Iren. c. Haer. iv. 38. 
 
NOTES 48-53. 287 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 Note 52. See p. 192. 
 
 We know in part and prophesy in part. The commentary of 
 Estiua on these words (1 Cor. xiii. 9) is noteworthy: 
 
 "Itaque Bensns esse videtur: Donura scientiae ac prophetiae 
 oobis datur <>b imperfectionem huius saeculi, quia per scientiara 
 homines spiritualium rudes ac rebus sensibilibus dediti ab ipsis 
 sensibilibus ad capienda fidei mysteria reluti manii ducendi 
 sunt, per donum autem prophetiae de reconditis Bcriptararam 
 sensibas instituendi Quorum aeutrum agetur futuro saeculo, 
 nl»i perfectaerunt omnia. . . . Consequens item est, etiam Chris- 
 tum Dominion, in hoc vita conversantem, cognovisse et prophetasse 
 ex parte, sensu videlicet iam explicate** 
 
 That our Lord is content to use popular language, by way 
 of metaphor, without criticism or correction, is nowhere more 
 apparent than when lie speaks of the unclean spirits "passing 
 through waterless places, seeking rest" (St. Matt xii. -13; cf. 
 Tobit viii. 3). But to regard our Lord's language about angels 
 and devils as not more than metaphorical, is only possible on 
 principles which might equally be used to evacuate all His lan- 
 guage of meaning. 
 
 Note 63. See p. 200. 
 
 St. .1 uguxtine on Purgatory. See De Civ. Dei, xxi. 26. 4 : 
 "Posl istius sane corporis mortem, donee ad ilium veniatur, 
 qui post resurrectionem corporum futurus esl damnationis e1 
 remunerationis ultimua dies, si hoc temporis iotervallo spiritus 
 defunctorum ejusmodi ignem dicuntur perpeti, quern Don 
 Bentianl till qui non habuerunl bales mores et amores in hujus 
 corporis vita, nt eorum Ligna, foenum, Btipula consumatur; alii 
 rero Bentiant qui ejusmodi Becum aedificia portarerunt, Bire ibi 
 taiitiini. sire el bic ef Lbi, Bire ideo lii*- ol non ibi, saecularia, 
 < main vi> ;i damuatione renialiaconcremantera ignem transitoriae 
 tribulationis invenianl ; Don redarguo, quia forsitan reran est." 
 
288 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Note 54. See p. 201. 
 
 No new doctrines in the Church. For Card. Newman's final 
 mind on this subject see above, app. note 25, p. 272. It is 
 worth while calling attention to the language used in the 
 formal " Declaration of the Catholic Bishops, the Vicars apostolic 
 and their coadjutors in Great Britain " in 1826. (London, 
 Keating & Brown, 1826.) See sec. ii. p. 7. " On the spiritual 
 authority of the apostles and their successors, who were divinely 
 commissioned to promulgate and teach the law of Christ to all 
 nations; and on the uniform and universal testimony, belief, 
 and practice of all Christian Churches from the beginning, the 
 certitude of the Catholic is grounded, that all the doctrines 
 which he believes, as articles of Catholic faith, and all the sacred 
 precepts and rites, which he observes, as the ordinances of Christ, 
 were really revealed and instituted by Almighty God ; and are 
 the same as were originally delivered by Christ to His apostles, 
 and by them promulgated over all nations." This is simply 
 the old Catholic rule of faith, and to bring recent Roman dog- 
 mas under it is simply to play fast and loose with history. 
 
 Note 55. See p. 212. 
 
 Our Lord's argument from Ps. ex. It may prevent unnecessary 
 controversy if I explain — 
 
 (1) That there is no question being raised as to the existence 
 in the Old Testament of that doctrine of a Divine Messiah, to 
 which our Lord was recalling the Pharisees : see above, pp. 192, 
 193. 
 
 (2) That no support is being given to the view which 
 ascribes the bulk of the psalms to the period after the Captivity, 
 and no objection being raised to the very early date of Ps. ex. 
 
 (3) That the view is not being maintained that the psalm was 
 written in David's name by a later poet — a view to which the 
 phrase in Mark xii. 37, "David himself," would be an objection. 
 
 (4) That it is not denied that to ascribe the psalm to David 
 
NOTES 64-66. 289 
 
 is the most obvious conclusion from our Lord's words. But the 
 most obvious conclusion from our Lord's words is not always 
 tin- truest. Our Lord does not teach in such a way as best to 
 save us trouble: see above, pp. 180-1. hi particular the most 
 obvious interpretation of Mark x. 18 — that which makes our 
 Lord repudiate identity in moral goodness with God — is ool 
 the truest. Single passages must be interpreted in harmony 
 with the whole. 
 
 (o) That if I am challenged to show why the principle of 
 interpretation here admitted might not be used to "explain 
 away " any part of our Lord's teaching, I should reply: (a) a 
 question, such as our Lord is here asking, can never be treated 
 as if it were on a level with a positive statement; (b) the drift 
 of the question, here as in Mark x. IS, contains within itself the 
 warning against converting it into a positive proposition. For 
 the positive proposition (of which opponents of the Gospels 
 have availed themselves) would be, that Jesus Christ is not the 
 Son of David. 
 
 LECTUEE VIII. 
 
 Note 56. See p. 220. 
 
 " The spirit" and the "letter." Language is constantly u-^ed 
 which would imply that by " the letter" St. Paul means what 
 is exact or "literal," and by "the spirit *' what is indefinite or 
 metaphorical. Bui this is not the ease. St. Paul means by 
 "the letter" what is merely external, whether the moral enact- 
 ment CJ Cor. iii. 6) or the ritual ordinance ( Rom. ii. 29). With 
 
 "the spirit'* he always associates the idea of vital and divine 
 
 power. The contrasi therefore of "spirit" to -"letter" is that 
 
 immunicated power to mere powerless information (2 Cor. 
 
 iii. '!) or of true divine life to mere ritual conformity (Rom. ii. 
 
 29). In fact whatever is filled with the life of <;<>d or mani- 
 fests His action, is spiritual, be if never so material (see 1 Cor. 
 x. 3, 1). Nor is there any connection between the spiritual, as 
 
 St. Paul uses the word, and the metaphorical. 
 
290 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Note 57. See p. 231. 
 
 Excommunication. It is inseparable from the idea of a 
 Church's healthy action that she should be exercising "the 
 power of the keys," the power of including and excluding, by 
 formal and free discipline, doctrinal and moral. That this 
 power needs to be exercised with consideration and liberality is 
 of course true : it is also true that due checks upon its exercise 
 need to be provided, because like every other power it may be 
 misused. But its liability to misuse is no excuse for a church- 
 man acquiescing in its practical disuse. 
 
 Note 58. See p. 236. 
 
 The new birth. This doctrine is expressed most explicitly in 
 St. John's Gospel iii. 3-13 (cf. i. 13) and in his first Epistle, 
 iii. 9, v. 1, 4, 18. But it is expressed also by St. Paul, Tit. iii. 
 9, and interpreted by all his teaching as to the bestowal of 
 the Spirit on Christians. It is found also in St. James (i. 18) 
 and in St. Peter (1 Pet. i. 3, 23 ; cf. 2 Pet. i. 4). 
 
 Note 59. See p. 236. 
 
 The spirit conveying to us the life of Christ. Cf. the Rev. H. 
 C. G. Moule, Principal of Ridley Hall, Veni Creator (Hodder & 
 Stoughton, 1890), pp. 39 f. : — 
 
 " The Spirit, as our Communion creed confesses, is the Life- 
 giver, the Maker-alive (to Zcoottolov). But what is the life 
 which He gives, with which He works ? I listen, and I hear 
 another voice, which is yet as if also His, and it says, " I am the 
 Life." "The Life eternal is in the Son." "He that hath the 
 Son hath the Life." I read these words in the light of what 
 we have recollected now of the Holy Spirit's work on and in 
 the Holy Son of Man : and I thus see in them a remembrance 
 that what the Spirit does in His free and all-powerful work in 
 the soul which He quickens into second life is, above all things, 
 
NOT I 291 
 
 to bring it into con tad with the Son. lie roots it, He grafts 
 it. II-' embodies it into the Sod. He dealt bo with it that there 
 is a continuity wholly spiritual indeed but none the less mosi 
 real, unfigurative, and efficacious, between the Had and the 
 limb, between the branch and the Root, tie effect* an influx 
 into the regenerate man of the blessed virtues of the nature of 
 the Second Adam, an infusion of the exalted life of Jesus ( Ihrist, 
 through an open duct, living, and divine, into the man who 
 is born again into Him the incarnate and glorified Son of 
 
 Cod." 
 
 It i-. I think, worth while to quote a brilliant statement of 
 
 this doctrine of the " inward Christ " from a rare and littl.--i.-ad 
 work of William Law, The Spirit of Prayer (7th edit. London, 
 177:1). pp. 1--1. 
 
 "One would wonder how any persons, that believe the g 
 mystery of our redemption, who adore tin- depths of the divine 
 
 g Lness, in that the Son of God, the second Person in the 
 
 Trinity, became a man Himself, in order to make it possible for 
 man by a birth from Him t.> tin into the kingdom of 
 
 God, should ye( seek to, and contend for, not a real, but a 
 figurative Bense of a new birth of Jesus Christ. I> there any 
 thing more inconsistent than this? Or can any thing Btrike 
 more directly at the heart of the whole nature of our redemp- 
 tion? God became man, took upon Him a birth from fallen 
 nature. Bui why was this done? Or wherein lies the adorable 
 depth of this mystery? How does all this manifest the infinity 
 ..f the divine love towards man? It is because nothing less 
 
 than this mysterious Incarnation (which astonishes ai. 
 COUld Open a way, or begin a possibility, for fallen man to be 
 
 born again from above, and made again a partaker of the divine 
 nature, it was because man was become so dead to the king- 
 dom of heaven, that there was no help for him through all 
 nature. Now when all nature Btood round about Adam as 
 
 unable to help him. a- he was to help himself, and all of them 
 
 unable t<> help him. for this reason, because that which he had 
 
 i^ the life and light of heaven, how glorious, how adorable 
 
 i- that mystery which enables us to say, that when man lay thus 
 
292 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 incapable of any relief from all power and possibilities of nature, 
 that then the Son, the Word of God, entered by a birth into 
 this fallen nature, that by this mysterious Incarnation all the 
 fallen nature might be born again of Him according to the 
 Spirit, in the same reality as they were born of Adam according 
 to the flesh ! Look at this mystery in this true light, in this 
 plain sense of scripture, and then you must be forced to fall 
 down before it, in adoration of it. For all that is great and 
 astonishing in the goodness of God, all that is glorious and 
 happy with regard to man, is manifestly contained in it. But 
 tell me, I pray, what becomes of this, what is there left in any 
 part of the mystery, if this new birth, for the sake of which God 
 became man, is not really a new birth in the thing itself, is not, 
 as the Scripture affirms, a real birth of the Son and Spirit of 
 God in the soul, but something or other, this or that, which the 
 critics say, may be called a new birth by a certain figure of 
 speech ? Is not this to give up all our redemption at once, and 
 a turning all the mysteries of our salvation into mere empty 
 unmeaning terms of speech ? 
 
 " ' I am the vine, ye are the branches.' Here Christ, our 
 second Adam, uses this similitude to teach us, that the new 
 birth that we are to have from Him is real, in the most strict 
 and literal sense of the words, and that there is the same near- 
 ness of relation betwixt Him and His true disciples that there is 
 betwixt the vine and its branches, that He does all that in us 
 and for us which the vine does to its branches. Now the life 
 of the vine must be really derived into the branches, they cannot 
 be branches till the birth of the vine is brought forth in them. 
 And therefore as sure as the birth of the vine must be brought 
 forth in the branches, so sure is it that we must be born again 
 of our second Adam ; and that unless the life of the Holy Jesus 
 be in us by a birth from Him, we are as dead to Him and the 
 Kingdom of God as the branch is dead to the vine, from which 
 it is broken off. 
 
 " Again our Blessed Saviour says, Without Me ye can do 
 nothing. This is the only sense in which we can be said to be 
 without Christ ; when He is no longer in us, as the principle 
 
NOTE 60. 
 
 of a heavenly life, we are then without Him, and bo can do 
 nothing, thai is, nothing that is good or holy. A Christ not in 
 
 us, is the Bame thing as a Christ lint ours. 
 
 "It is the language ol Scripture, that 4 Christ in us' is oni 
 'hope of -lory,' that Christ formed in us, living, growing, and 
 raising His own life and Bpirit in us, is our only salvation. And 
 
 ind I all this is plain from the nature of the thing; for 
 
 the serpent, Bin, death, and hell, are all essentially within us, 
 the very growth of our nature, must not our redemption be 
 equally inward, an inward essential death to this Btate of our 
 Bonis, and an inward growth of a contrary life within us? It" 
 Adam was only an outward person, if his whole nature was not 
 our nature, born in us, and derived from him into US, it would 
 be nonsense to say that his fall is our fall. So, in like manner, 
 if Christ, our second Adam, was only an outward person, it' He 
 entered not as deeply into our nature as the first Adam does, if 
 we have not as really from Him a new inward spiritual man, as 
 we have outward flesh and blood from Adam, what ground 
 could there be to say that our righteousness is from Him, as 
 our sin is from Adam? 
 
 " Let no one here think to charge me with disregard to the 
 Holy Jesus, who was born of the Virgin Mary, or with Betting 
 up an inward saviour in opposition to that outward Christ, 
 whose history is recorded iii the Gospel. No: it is with the 
 utmost fulness of faith and assurance, that I ascribe all our 
 redemption to that blessed and mysterious Person that was then 
 
 born of the Virgin Mary and will assert no inward redemption, 
 
 but what wholly proceeds from and is effected by that Li£ 
 ing Redeemer, who died on the cross for our redemption. 
 
 u Was I to say, that a plant or vegetable must have the lit".-, 
 light, and rirtues of tip' sun incorporated in it, that it has no 
 benefit from the sun, till the BUD IS thus inwardly forming, 
 generating, quickening, ami raising up a life of the sun's virtues 
 
 in it. would this be Betting up an inward sun in opposition to 
 
 the outward one? Could any thing be more ridiculous than 
 
 SUCb a eh i For i> not all that i- here Said of an inward 
 
 sun in til.- vegetable, bo much said of power and virtue derived 
 
294 THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 from the sun in the firmament? So, in like manner, all that is 
 said of an inward Christ, inwardly formed, and generated in 
 the root of the soul, is only so much said of an inward life, 
 brought forth by the power and efficacy of that blessed Christ 
 that was born of the Virgin Mary." 
 
 Note 60. See p. 242. 
 
 The glorified Christ " quickening spirit" cf. app. note 32, p. 279. 
 The phrase is applied by St. Paul to the Christ in His entire 
 person (1 Cor. xv. 45), when he is emphasizing the permanence 
 of His humanity, in body and spirit. Adam became a living 
 soul at his creation : Christ became life-giving spirit at His res- 
 urrection. It is natural to connect these words (jrvevfjua. £wo- 
 ttoiovv) with those of our Lord, as recorded by St. John vi. 63 
 (jrvevixa Kal £0077), and to interpret our Lord's words thus : " The 
 things that I have been speaking to you of (to. prj/xaTa a eya> 
 \e\d\r}Ka v/xlv), that is, My flesh and blood, the flesh and blood 
 of My ascended manhood (see ver. 62), are not to be mere flesh, 
 are not to be what you understand by flesh at all, but are to be 
 spirit and life." There is I think no doubt that pyj/mara XaXeiv 
 could mean "to speak about things ": cf. St. Luke ii. 15-17; 
 there prj/xa means in one case the word uttered, and in the other 
 case the thing effected; and for AaXetv cf. St. John iii. 11. 
 This interpretation is in harmony with that of St. Cyril and of 
 St. Augustine in loc. 
 
 Note 61. See p. 247. 
 
 The connection of grace ivith sacraments. We cannot avoid 
 asking the question : In what relation to this grace do those 
 stand who are outside the action of the sacraments ? The an- 
 swer to this question, so far as we can give it, lies in the recog- 
 nition that, according to the old saying, " God is not tied to His 
 sacraments." While, on the one hand, we have no right to 
 expect His grace if we neglect the appointed means for its 
 bestowal, on the other hand we have no right to limit His power 
 
NOTES 50-61. 295 
 
 to bestow where Be sees moral worthiness in this life or beyond 
 it. It will Btrike many as Borprising tliat the great Jesuit writer 
 De Lugo should recognize, as fully as be does, Christ's relation 
 in grace to all men; see Dt Myst. Incarru disp. wii. ^ 1. IF-- 
 is, he Bays, the head of all men, by a certain "influxus": u in- 
 fluit in infideles per rocationesad (idem el ad alia j>ia oj 
 Thus "infideles" are in a certain sense members of Christ, Le. 
 ••cum roluntarie cooperantur cogitationi datae per Christum ad 
 aliquam hoiiestam operationem." 
 
 ••phy by J. S. 
 
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