/ C5 . a O If torn tl|? Slibrarg of Ifqueatli^Ji bu I?tttt tn tl|0 Slibrarg of Prittrrton Sljfolngtral g>?mt«ar^ %5 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT I* THE / ANCIENT FAITH MODERN LIGHT A SERIES OF ESSAYS / BY / / T. VINCENT TYMMS, EDWARD MEDLEY, ALFRED ^CAVE, SAMUEL G. '^GREEN, R. VAUGHAN^PRYCE, SAMUEL"^NEWTH, JOSEPH '^PARKER, WILLIAM '^BROCK, J. GUINNESS "^ROGERS, and the late HENRY ROBERT'^REYNOLDS EDINBURGH T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET XS97 PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TORONTO: THE WILLARD TRACT DEPOSITORY PREFACE The following Essays, by members of a society of ministers accustomed to meet for free and brotherly conference, are intended to reassert, from a modern point of view, great fundamental verities of the Christian Faith, and to indicate some of their varied applications. To distinguish between the permanent and the tran- sient in Religion is one of the gravest and hardest tasks of the theologian. In every age there is a " removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken maj- remain." Too often, indeed, in the eager desire for pro- gress, the distinction is missed ; and in the criticism of human theories and systems the Divine thought that underlies them is left out of sight. To avoid this error has been the great aim of the Essayists, whose long experi- ence as Christian teachers, with much close observation of the thoughts and tendencies of the time, has led them to cling with ever-increasing confidence to the truths which are unchanging and essential. No complete survey of theological truth has been attempted ; nor has it lain within the writers' scope to discuss those forms of modern criticism which arc thought vi PREFACE by some to have weakened the very foundations of the Ancient Faith. Considerable light, it is gratefully acknow- ledged, has been thrown, in the course of such criticism, on the Sacred Records ; while there has undoubtedly been much that is conjectural and extravagant, and is already proving to be ephemeral. But, apart from all this, there are grounds of sure belief on which the Christian apologist may rest, changing, it may be, in some respects his line of defence, but confident in the ever-abiding Truth. Considerable space has been devoted in this volume to the practical applications of Christianity in social, domestic, and public life. These also are of growing importance. On the philosophic side, it is more than ever needful to show the connection of the Ancient Faith with all that is sound and true in modern psychology and ethics ; and amid the pressing questions of our day, going down to the very roots of the social order, all who can set forth the influence of Theology on human affairs, and vindicate the place of Christian teaching among the forces which regulate Society, will render valuable service alike to the Churches and the People. The several writers, although thus actuated by a common purpose, and in full agreement regarding essential truth, are in details independent of one another. No one, save the Editor, has seen, prior to publication, any Essay but his own ; and no editorial alterations whatever have been made. Each writer has no doubt given utterance to views which others would have expressed differently, or from which they might dissent; but it was thought that the end in view would best be served by leaving the entire responsibility of the Essays with their several authors. PREFACE vii The Essay, or Fragment, placed at the end of the volume requires no apology for its incompleteness. Its author, the beloved and lamented Henry ROBERT Rkv- NOLDS, was the friend of all who have co-operated in this volume, and was for some years a member of their society. He took the keenest interest in the project ; and one of his last works on earth was to lay the foundation, in this paper, of an extended Essay on the Personality and Work of the Holy Spirit. His associates are grateful for the permission to lay before the readers of this volume these latest fruits of so richly endowed a mind, and so beautiful and devoted a life. CONTENTS I'AGE 1 CHRISTIAN THEISM By T. Vincent Tvmms, D.D. Principal of Raivdon College^ Leeds I. Scope of this Essay defined. Christian Theism compared with Hebrew and other Theistic systems ... 3 II. Hebrew Theism reviewed — 1. Some open questions of Old Testament criticism set aside as irrelevant to the discussion ... 4 2. The primary thought of Hebrew Theology ; God the sole Author of the Cosmos 5 No reasoned theory of unity in the Old Testament . 5 The cosmogony of Gen. i. the logical basis of Mono- theism, which excludes Henotheism : it provides for personal, and therefore ethical relations between God and man .....••• 5 3. Hebrew Theism essentially anthropomorphic . . 7 This not a literary time-mark, but persistent in the latest documents 8 Anthropomorphic expressions common in ancient and modern philosophy and science ; but more signifi- cant in the language of Theists ; their effect on the mind depends on our conception of man . . y The language of the Old Testament, when analysed, yields the constituents of personality ... 10 God regarded in the Old Testament as in ceaseless and varied relations with men . . • • ' ' God Invisible and Inscrutable, yet not Unknowable because self-revealed . . • • • • ' - 4. Hebrew Theism included a doctrine of divine revelation . . • • ■ • '-' CONTENTS Doctrine of angelic representation .... 13 Theophanies of the Old Testament representative only 14 5. Hebrew Theism included a doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Origin of this name. Its place in the doctrine of Revelation 17 6. The crowning glory of Hebrew Theism ; its ethical idea of God and His relations with men . . 18 The God of the Old Testament not wrathful, but gracious ......... 20 Significance of the fact that love is the fundamental demand of the law ....... 22 God's declared Name, the hope of the penitent and contrite .22 HI. New Testament Theism — 1. The Unity of God : a doctrine to which Christianity is pledged ........ 23 Ecclesiastical creeds not authoritative ... 24 One God or no God 25 Modern objections to Theism based on the difficulty of combining the doctrines of Divine Personality and Divine Unity 25 Unitarianism not a haven of intellectual simplicity . 25 Witness of Agnosticism and Pantheism ... 26 Dr. Martineau's Theistic Theory examined. Its failure shown. Its admissions constitute a renun- ciation of ancient objections to Trinitarianism . 27 2. John's doctrine of the Logos : the unsolved problems of Hebrew and modern philosophical Theism corre- spond : John's doctrine a solution of both . . 33 Agreement of the New Testament with the Old regarding the Invisibility and Inscrutability of God ; the correlative doctrine ; revelation in Christ 34 The Incarnation not a solitary and exceptional event 35 God's self-expression must be eternal .... 36 John's doctrine of the Logos interpreted ... 36 The innermost secrets of the Godhead unsearchable . 38 Finite connotations of language not contradictions of the Infinite in relation to Space, Time, Force, or a Personal God ........ 39 John's doctrine of the Logos, as an eternal self- expression of God, solves the philosophical problem of Divine Personality 39 Also supplements the O.T. doctrine of Revelation . 39 CONTENTS I'AGR Man's cravinjj for some objective form universal : idolatry its historical manifestation, but no proof of its unworthincss . 40 The true evil of idolatry ...... 42 The worship of Christ, as the image or self-expression of God, not idolatrous 42 A Divine Word the only conceivable link between the Infinite and the Finite 42 The Holy Spirit : necessary incompleteness of an objective revelation 43 Its difficulties not mitigated, but increased by great- ness .......... 45 These difficulties interpret Christ's language about the Holy Spirit 45 God not only transcendent, but immanent; the Logos God's self-expression ; the Holy Spirit God's self- impartation ; inspiration the complement of Reve- lation 48 Ethical Problems ; as inherited by Christianity from Judaism 49 These problems not raised by Greek philosophy . 49 Ethical problems presuppose a Personal God who has power to please Himself; His character, not His power, is in question 5' Paul's distinction between Lcnu as an eternal order, and laws as partial and temporary expressions of it 52 Change of educational discipline does not import a change of purpose or \\ill ; the removal of legal obligations indispensable to man's highest ethical development ........ 53 Forgiveness reconcilable with an eternal order, because an essential part and not a breach of it ; conditioned by repentance 53 Christian Theism treats the invisible spiritual realm as real and of primary importance ; thoughts and states of mind, therefore, more important than actions ......... 54 Repentance recognised by God as a new mind, involving new relations with the universal order . 55 Forgiveness does not involve immediate or total i-emoval of consequences ; Christ teaches, not only the righteousness of mercy, but the mercifulness of severity .......•• 5^ Christ God's self-expression in death as in life . . 56 The Cross the living synthesis of law and forgiveness 57 xil CONTENTS PAGE Note A. The Higher Criticism 58 Note B. Anthropomorphism in the Psalter . . . 61 Note C. Anthropomorphism in recent Science . . 61 Note D. The Meaning of Logos 62 II THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLE By Edward Medley, B.A. Professor of Apologetics, Regenfs Park College, London. The permanent significance of the Bil)le questioned : criticism not to be deprecated ...... 67 I. The Bible has been significant in the past .... 69 Evidenced by — 1. The indebtedness of later Scripture writers to the earlier ....... 69 2. The value of Old Testament to religious in- quirers after Septuagint Version made . . 70 3. The place the Bible occupied in Roman, Mediaeval times, and in the Renaissance . 72 4. The place it at present fills in life and thought of the world ....... 74 Summary of present position ..... 75 II. The Bible will continue to be significant .... 76 From the past can the future be foretold ? The sug- gestion that the growing knowledge of the mode of the composition of the books of Scripture lessens the value of them ....... 76 The grounds for believing that the Bible will continue to be significant — 1. Its literary beauty ....... 77 Exemplified by the Creation story, the lives of the patriarchs, the prophets, the Psalms, the Gospels, the Pauline Epistles ...... 78 Need for the consideration of this aspect of the Bible 82 2. Its historical value ..".... S3 Man desires to know the origin of things, and the Bible is essentially a book of origins ; it gives an account of the origin and growth of Monotheistic Judaism and of Christianity ..... 84 CONTENTS xiii I'AGK 3. Its moral value ..... . . 90 The worth of moral teaching outside the Bible, yet Bible morality supreme . . . . 91 Mistaken view concerning it ; the remedy ; the Dible to speak for itself, and to be considered as a whole 92 It is the record of a gradual moral enlightenment ; this illustrated by the history of the Jews . . 9: Such graduated teaching looks for a consummation ; this the New Testament supplies ; it contains the ultimate morality ....... 94 Contrast between New Testament morals and the schemes of moralists. It teaches not only by pre- cept, but by the presentation of a perfect human life 95 Jesus Christ the incarnation of a perfect morality ; unaffected by drift of His time .... 96 Said to be a mythical creation, but in fact He differs absolutely from traditional, mediaeval, theological Christs 97 4. Its spiritual value 98 Man a spiritual being; his desire for God and for for- giveness. The Bible supremely a book ministering to the spiritual in man, all else subordinate to this . 98 It contains a progressive revelation of God as Redeemer — the whole to be judged by its end . 99 The Creation story again ; the education of the Jewish people ; the Psalter ; the Law. The Old Testament lacks finality loi The final revelation ; God and man one in Jesus Christ ; the place of the Cross. The Acts and the Epistles 102 Something further needed before finally aftirming permanent significance of the Bible. This sup- plied by the fact that the record has been the means of setting up a personal relation between men and Christ, repeating the experiences of the Gospels; its seal in changed lives . . . .103 The Bible is involved in the deepest life of man ; it is more than literature, history, morals ; it is the record of the movements of God in the redemption of mankind ; as such it cannot cease to be signi- ficant until man ceases to be what he is . . . 105 Note. Theories of Inspiration unnecessary . .105 XIV CONTENTS III THE BIBLE VIEW OF SIN By Alfred Cave, B.A., D.D. Principal of Hack7iey College^ Lofidon The subject one of ceaseless interest and importance . To be considered under several heads, viz. — . . . . I. The problems with which any doctrine of sin deals — Preliminary definitions — of sin, and of evil, physical, moral, and spiritual ....... Problems of physical evil numerous .... And of moral evil And of spiritual evil Various non-Biblical solutions of problem of evil during human history, viz.- — 1. The Demonic solution ..... 2. The Dualistic solution ..... 3. The Pessimist solution 4. The Retributive solution .... The Biblical solution clearer, more detailed, and more consistent than the ethnic The Biblical doctrine of evil a doctrine of sin . II. According to the Bible, evil is contingent, not necessary For the Bible has very distinct teaching as to the primi tive sinless state of man ...... Seeing that the Bible doctrine of man is — 1. Monogenic ....... 2. Dichotomic ....... 3. A doctrine of man's creation in the divine image 4. A doctrine of man's conditional mortality 5. A doctrine of ceqiiale teuipej-aiiuntmn 6. A doctrine of man's capacity for infinite progress 7. A doctrine of necessary probation . 8. A doctrine of progress by uninterrupted com- munion with God 9. A doctrine of parentage . .... III. According to the Bible, the origin of sin in man has a clear history — in the story of the Fall ..... The essential features of which as told in Genesis are — 1. Man was created innocent ..... 2. Innocence could only become holiness by the exercise of choice ...... 3. Choice involves alternatives ..... 4. Alternatives were presented by an express divine command ........ PAGE 109 109 109 no no 1 1 r 113 113 114 115 115 115 116 116 117 117 117 118 118 119 120 121 122 123 CONTENTS XV PAGE 5. In free exercise of choice, man disobeyed the com- mand, and sin began 123 This story of (Genesis a postulate of whole Dible . . 124 This story eminently consistent with itself and with human experience . . . . . . . , .125 IV. According- to the Bible, the Adamic consequences of sin were as follows, namely, that — 1. Mortality was no longer conditional . , .126 2. The cequale te}nperai/tcfitu»i ce^std . . . 127 3. Growth became retrogressive from the divine image 127 V. According to the Bible, the generic consequences of sin show themselves in a peccatinn originis . As is testified to by the patriarchal records And the Levitical law ..... And the Psalmists and Prophets . And the words of Jesus .... And of Paul and John ..... 128 129 129 132 132 133 VI. According to the Bible, the generic consequences of sin more carefully studied are — 1. Universal depravity 135 2. Universal sin . . . . . . . .136 3. Universal guilt 137 4. Universal punishment (which is nothing but death) 138 Death being the evolving effects of God's withdrawal from man . . . . . . . . . 13S And, more at length, being 1. Loss of balance . . . . . . • '39 2. Depravity and disease • '39 3. Decease . . . . . . . . • '39 4. The consequents of decease 141 VII. According to the Bible, the personal consequences of sin are graded, viz., as in 1. The stage prior to moral consciousness . . .142 2. The stage of moral consciousness .... J42 3. The stage of Christianised consciousness . . 144 4. The stage of sin against the Holy Ghost . . 146 This supreme stage of sin showing 1. The supreme guilt '4^ 2. The supreme death, which is the supreme spiritual loss, and what is connoted thereby . . .148 VIII. The light thrown by the doctrine of sin upon the problem of redemption '49 XVI CONTENTS IV DEITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST By Samuel G. Green, B.A., D.D. London I. Introduction — Direction of modern thought to our Lord's earthly Hfe ......... The sense of His Deity not thereby impaired, but en- hanced .......... Illustration from the teachings of the Apostle John 157 158 158 II. The fact of our Lord's Deity established — 1. From the records of His life . Christ as portrayed in the Synoptics His self-assertion .... Testimony of the Fourth Gospel . 2. From His living power in the Church Apostolic representations : " In Christ ' Christ in the individual soul . Annals of Christian work : Missions Inefficiency of Unitarianism Quotations from Dr. Channing and Mrs. Hum phry Ward .... 3. From the direct testimony of Scripture Proof-texts, how far valuable Criticisms : Old Testament . New Testament III. The belief stated- Attempts at theory .... Unconscious heresies of devout minds Early history of the Church Definitions, not explanations Chalcedon .... The Athanasian Creed The Westminster Confession . Heresies arising from attempted explanations : Arian ism, Nestorianism, Apollinarianism . IV. Inductions from the Gospel history — Our conclusions must be conditioned by facts Preconceived notions of divine humanity Scripture statements of a Hmitation Paul's statement of Kcnosis .... Kenosis a mark of omnipotence Distinct features of our Lord's history — I. His miracles ...... 159 159 160 161 161 161 163 163 163 164 165 165 166 167 167 168 168 168 169 169 170 170 171 172 172 174 CONTENTS XVU Often wrought by comjiiuiiicated energy Assertions of His own power . :. His knowledge ..... Increase in wisdom .... Dorner's theory of progressive incarnation Information sought on ordinary matters Knowledge, absolute and acquired . Our Lord's emotions of surprise, etc. Contrast with His divine insight His claim as a Revcaler of truth Disclosure of spiritual realities The day and hour of judgment Knowledge here complete and infallible Testimony to O.T. Scripture Perfection through discipline . This the greatest mystery Sorrow and temptation Testimony of the Epistle to the Hebrews Note on Heb. ii. lo (Prof S. W. Green, iM.A., of Regent's Park College) Perfection through suffering The temptation of Christ 174 174 175 '75 176 177 177 178 178 179 179 179 180 180 181 181 i8r 182 182 183 184 V, Principles of Incarnation — " Kenotic theories" : how far admissible Man akin to the Divine ..... Our Lord the Son of Man .... Incarnate Holiness and Love .... Was the Incarnation the result of sin ? . Conditioned by sin, and culminating in sacrifice More than a simple revelation of God Incarnation and Atonement .... .85 186 186 187 188 189 189 189 V THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST By R. Vaughan Prvck, M.A., LL.I3. Principal of New College, Lotnlon Acceptance of Christian doctrine often hindered by mode of statement ; extreme views on one side leading to extreme views on the other. The object of the Essay to gather from the New Testament, and especially from the sayings of Christ, the Doctrine of the Vicarious Sacrifice . . • '93 b CONTENTS The scriptural facts may be grouped under the following heads : — I. A mysterious efficacy is assigned to the death of Christ. Reasons why Christ did not speak much about His death; showing the significance of what He did say. His own testimony both clear and sufficient to the mysterious virtue of His death. Evidence of this . 195 II. Wherein lies this efficacy.'' 1. His death was not necessary in order to win the love of God for us : it is the expression of that love 198 2. The efficacy of His death {ovc^A, firstly^ in this, that by it there is remission of sin. Salvation from sin intimately connected with the work the expected Messiah was to accomplish. Christ Himself testifies that His blood was shed in order to this . . . . . . .198 3. This efficacy found, secondly^ in this, that only through His death could the new life, of which He is the source, pass into us. This mysterious fact not obscurely hinted at. Men must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have life in them . 200 4. This efficacy seen, thirdly^ in His mysterious con- flict with the powers of darkness. This conflict the meaning of the temptation : renewed in Gethsemane ; completed on the Cross. The conflict referred to in the Epistles, especially in that to the Colossians, and not found alone in the Gospels. A threefold efficacy, therefore, is assigned in the Gospels to the death of Christ. So far certain ideas frequently associated with the work of Christ have not appeared . . 202 III. Exposition of certain terms throwing light on the method of salvation — I. The term Propitiation. Certain views of the meaning of the term are derived from the heathen conception of what it implied, and not from the Christian revelation, where alone light should be sought. The penal theory of Christ's atonement noticed 206 Christ speaks of a new covenant in His blood. He becomes surety for mankind in a covenant of grace. The nature of this covenant — the second Adam vicariously "died unto sin once for all" on man's behalf, thus presenting Him- CONTENTS xix I'AGE self an acceptable oblation to God, and be- coming man's surety, at once pledging him, and aiding him, to a like death 208 The doctrine of mystical union with Christ is at the root of the doctrine of Propitiation as thus under- stood. Significance of this . . . .211 The subject viewed in the light of other apostolic statements ; as in 2 Cor. v. — where, inter alia, the expression "made to be sin" is considered, and in Gal. iii. 13 212 2. The term Reconciliation. Not simply of man to God. The " wrath of God " considered. This a fact, and this affected by the propitiatory sacrifice 216 3. The term Redemption. The idea of compensation foreign to the scriptural idea, the term having in Scripture a sacrificial and not a commercial reference. While, however, there is no ransom paid to anyone, His blood was the price of His victory in the mysterious conflict with evil . . 217 IV. History of the doctrine, so far as to indicate the elements that came later into the Christian creed . . . 218 Augustine and Athanasius taught substantially what has been presented in this Essay ; laying stress on the mystical union of Christ and humanity, and on the vicarious dying unto sin on behalf of humanity . . 219 Anselm fixed his thought on sin rather than on its effects. The notion of a debt which must be paid : which Christ paid for humanity . . . . . .221 Luther and Calvin departed further from the simplicity of Scripture ; introducing ideas drawn from criminal courts, and other fictions 222 Concluding remarks 224 VI NEW TESTAMENT WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES By Samuel Newth, M.A., D.D. Lafe Principal of New College, London Introduction— Language of the New Testament on "Churches" and " The Church " -9 XX CONTENTS I. A Church a company of Christian men and women express- ing their union with Christ, and therefore with one another 230 II. No formal direction in N.T for the constitution of a Church 231 Contrast between Christianity and O.T. law . . 232 Liberty a note of the gospel 233 III. New Testament models — 1. The earliest Church : its constitution. Four leading principles signified by the gift of the Holy Spirit . 236 (a) God's truth to be made known to all men . . 237 (d) Blessings of the gospel open to all ... 238 (c) Primary obligation on Christ's servants to make known the truth 238 (d) This not the function of a special class . . 238 2. First election of Church officers ..... 240 "The Seven." Distinction from subsequent deacon- ships . . . . . . . . .241 3. Formation of Churches in different centres . . 241 Comparative withdrawal of the apostles from the scene ......... 242 4. First appearance of " Elders "..... 244 No record of their appointment or special functions . 245 5. Intercommunion of Churches ..... 246 Appeal from Antioch to Jerusalem .... 247 The so-called " Council of Jerusalem," a meeting of the whole Church in that city .... 247 6. Two orders of ministers in the Churches . . . 249 Elders called also "Bishops" or "Overseers," and "Deacons" 249 Their character and qualifications defined rather than their functions . . . . . . . .250 7. No record of further developments . . . .251 (rt) Special missions, as of Timothy and Titus . . 252 (d) No permanent authority conferred . . . 252 ["Angels of the Churches" in Asia] . . . 253 8. Inferences from the above — Church organisation a growth ..... 254 Institutions subservient to needs .... 254 No data for fixed or permanent organisations . 254 IV. Leading principles embodied in N.T. Church life — I. Deference to be paid to the ecclesia .... 255 The whole Church consulted ; in the election of an apostle, the appointment of the Seven, the dis- cussion of Peter's work at Cxsarea . . . 256 CONTENTS 2. Teaching addressed to the Churches directly, not mediately .... . . Addresses of the Epistles ..... 3. References to Church officials occasional and slight 4. Discipline to be exercised by the Church collectively 5. Special relationship of the apostles to the Churches Messengers ; Evangelists ; Witnesses All believers are "successors of the apostles" as servants of Christ ...... None are their successors in their distinctive office 256 257 257 258 259 259 261 261 V. Application to the Churches of the present day — 1. Organisation subject to the well-being of a Church . 262 Hence possible and permissible varieties . . . 262 2. This freedom subject to conditions .... 264 (a) No human mediator between God and the soul . 264 All believers a priesthood under Christ the High Priest 265 (i) The word of God, as made known in Scripture, the supreme standard of appeal . . . 265 (c) Every Christian bound to study the divine word for himself 266 The Holy Spirit the one authoritative interpreter in direct communication with each soul . . 267 Meaning of the phrase " The Bible, and the Bible only, the religion of Protestants "... 267 These conditions forbid (a) priestly claims, (d) State supremacy, and (c) papal assumption . 268 (d) The co-operation of Churches in the service of Christ is obligatory -69 Every barrier to such co-operation should be removed Note A. Church life of many types -7° Note B. Growmg life demands a fuller organisation . . .271 \TI THE NEW CITIZENSHIP By Joseph Pakklr, D.D. Mtm's/er of the City Temple, London Old subjects may be affected by new conditions . . • -275 Citizenship, or State-life, is distinctly one of those subjects . .275 The " State " has undergone a very marked evolution . • .276 xxii CONTENTS PAGE The evolution has created new opportunities and consequently new responsibilities ......... 276 The " State," as known in Great Britain, has pushed beyond its old narrow and mechanical limits 277 The " State " of to-day defined 277 The " State " now claims to be more than military — more than commercial — more than disciplinary — it claims to be bene- ficent in the largest and most active sense .... 277 This is the critical point 279 What is beneficence ? 280 Is it mechanical, or spiritual .'' Is it superficial, or profound? . 280 Ought such a " State" — thus evolved and defined — to elect and support a religious institution called the Church, or a Church, or a«_y Church ? If not, why not ? .... 280 Assuming that a State can be religious — or even ought to be religious — does it follow that a State must also be ecclesi- astical ? 281 The difference between a State being ecclesiastical and being religious . . . . . . . . . . .281 It being assumed that a People or State, as such, may be religious, what can the organised political "Ctesar" do to express and confirm his religiousness .'' . . . . .281 Some things he must not do ....... . 282 Some things which his very religiousness will forbid him to do . 285 The Evangelical Faith, herein known as the Ancient Faith, believes not only in individuality but also in " nations " ; it is charged by its Author to " teach all nations " . . . . 289 Nor is the Ancient Faith only national ; it is international and cosmopolitan; — it is divinely charged to subdue the "world" to Christ ........... 293 The Ancient Faith claims to be the exponent and guardian of true Socialism .......... 293 What is the socialism of Christ ? 293 The " State " is not an invention of Atheism .... 294 Providence must not be banished from the State that it may be adored in the Church 294 Nor must " State " be narrowed down to " politics "... 294 The Ancient Faith is, first of all, a religion of individualism . 294 Its motto is one by one, man by man, brought under the dominion of Christ, — after that, and as a necessity of that, it proceeds to families, neighbourhoods, nations 295 Its keynote is personal regeneration. The Ancient Faith at work. How it works ; how it begins ; in what temper it operates 296 Forecast of the coming century 298 CONTENTS xxiii PACE In bringing these suggestions and purposes to bear, the Ancient Faith must be largely indebted to earnest preaching for exposi- tion and popular acceptance ....... 300 Along this line preachers will find living and truly original themes 302 A living picture ; the proletarian's appeal 306 Where is evangelism needed most ?...... 307 Controversies and speculations hushed l^y the spirit of charity . 309 Note. — The State Church conception is, if certain fundamental assumptions are ignored, simply ideal in nobleness: the counter-con- ception at once lessens and increases its own influence by its intense spirituality, — its contention being that Church and Nation are not synonymous, but that the Church is that particular or specialised portion of the Nation which has been brought into living personal experience of the law and love of God as revealed in the person and priesthood of His Incarnate Son. It is not enough to dismiss this conception as metaphysical, because (i) in all things the metaphysical is the per- manently real ; and (2) if what is metaphysical is on that account to be discarded, the whole Christian conception of the Godhead can no longer be retained. Controversy as between opposing communions cannot be settled apart from an accepted and final definition of the term Church. This paper is a contribution towards that definition. VIII CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD By William Brock Minister of the Baptist Church, Hampstcad Subject— How best to present Christian truth to the English child of the present day I. Some existing facts which prompt the inquiry— 1. Church teaching .... 2. Agnostic teaching 3. The tendency of laissez-faire 4. The Nonconformist position 5. The demand of the child himself 3'4 314 315 316 317 II. Some recent changes which influence the inquiry— 1. Decline of authority in matters of belief 2. Criticism and its eflTect on the conception of the Bible .... 3. Growth of humanitarian sentiment . . • -325 4. Fainter sense of the supernatural . . • • 3-7 ■;->-> XXIV CONTENTS III. Some positive conclusions to which the inquiry may lead — 1. The nature of the child ...... 329 Signs of a fall and of an origin .... 329 The darker side — early indications of " lawlessness " 330 The brighter side — capacities and dispositions needing to be developed ..... 331 Nature and necessity of conversion, and reality of the new birth ....... 333 2. The child's thoughts of God and the unseen world . 334 Imaginations of heaven 334 Impressions regarding Satanic influence . . . 335 First idea of God, that of a Providence, leading to that of a Father ....... 335 The sovereignty of Fatherhood. Omniscience of God 336 The majesty of the Creator, seen in His works, and exalting the idea of Fatherhood .... 337 3. The child and our Lord Jesus Christ .... 339 The study to be approached on the historical side . 339 Christ becomes His own interpreter — Beauty of His example ..... 341 Simplicity and power of His teaching . . 342 Proves Himself the Divine Saviour . . . 343 The living Christ. The communion of the Holy Spirit 343 4. The child and the Church 344 The Church a spiritual body. Youth no dis- qualification for membership. Personal faith necessary ........ 345 Reality of church-membership ; the positive value of the Congregational principle . . . 346 The Church as " the household of faith " . . 347 as the training ground for service . 348 as the school of sacred learning . . 349 Conclusion 350 IX THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS By J. Guinness Rogers, B.A., D.D. Minister of the Congrci^ational CJiurcJi, Claphavi The preacher the object of constant criticism This inevitable from the nature of his claim 353 353 CONTENTS XXV Faithfulness to be maintained at the risk of unpopularity Yet wise methods to be adopted for winning souls: "All things to all men "...... His duty to use and improve all his talents . But to guard against false estimates of success Dangers of popularity and notoriety . His only claim that of a " Servant of God " . Contrast with the claims of other teachers . Paul on Mars' Hill His only power that of a Divine message Preaching to his intellectual superiors The "foolishness of the preaching" mighty His great message already given to man He has but to expound and enforce it The spiritual " expert " . . . . His task rather exhortation than instruction . Difiference from preaching in early times . Novelty of Paul's message .... His reasonings and appeals a model . Preaching and other callings .... Professionalism and the world-spirit to be shunned Wealth and fame best sought elsewhere Disinterestedness demanded even by the worldly The Apostle Paul the type of the true minister His words disclose the man himself . His passionate earnestness : Festiis . His absolute sincerity His independence of extrinsic qualification Courage and independence in the pulpit Criticisms and taunts .... Temptations to the surrender of freedom Loftiness of the preacher's ideal He is no mere lecturer or student Nor Church functionary or official The Divine call Signs of the call : the " heavenly vision" An "ambassador for God" (Mr. Ruskin) Different classes of ambassadors Simply to obey God's commission The message to be unfettered by human creeds The Preacher and novelties of the day Novelties in speculation Novelties in method .... Messenger, not representative Functions of the press and the pulpit . Their essential distinction . Journalism : its special work PAGB 354 355 355 356 356 357 357 358 359 359 359 360 360 360 360 361 361 362 362 362 363 364 365 365 365 365 367 368 368 369 369 369 370 370 370 371 m 374 375 376 376 376 376 m 378 379 XXVI CONTENTS The preacher in relation to public cjuestions Mistaken parallel with the Jewish prophets Unsuitable topics for the pulpit : disappointed hearers The preacher's one mission : to lead souls to God Influences of the day Increase of knowledge unaccompanied by faith Competition with literature Sceptical fashions of the times . The fiction of the day .... Lawlessness, sensuality, disguised paganism Preaching not a spent force .... Shown by the eager appeal to ministers to questions ...... The anti-Christian spirit of the times The name of " Puritan " scorned Greatness of the work, and assurance of final victory take up public PAGE 380 383 383 383 384 386 389 390 390 391 391 391 APPENDIX THE WITNESS TO THE SPIRIT By Henry Robert Reynolds, B.A., D.D. Late Principal of Chcshunt College Witness of "the Spirit and our spirits": Can these be dis- tinguished ......... For some, the fact is sufficient, without further analysis But thought leads to the fundamental idea of God as Spirit . Analogue in our own nature Testimony of Scripture : Spirit the great expression for the Almighty Father, Son, Lord, King : differentiations of this conception " Father," the most comprehensive of these .... Father and Son, an eternal relation Infinite Subject and Object The Spirit in the Cosmos : " God " and " Word" . The Spirit the self-consciousness of God : the Father and the Son The Spirit of God as set forth in the Old Testament . His indwelling in the Universe Preparations and presages of redeeming work . God drawing near to man in manifold ways The Incarnation, as wrought by the Spirit .... Consciousness of the God-man, imaged in our own : Temples of the Holy Spirit The life of the Spirit in man 395 396 396 396 397 397 398 398 398 398 399 399 400 400 401 401 402 403 CONTENTS xxvu The double life within us .... . Operations of the Spirit beneath our consciousness Progressive unveilings : "Comings of the Lord" Witness to the co-action of the Spirit with our spirits Testimony of observation ..... Phenomena disclosing Divine will and purpose In the workings of intellect . In the achievements of genius In the grace given to elect souls All three are forms of revelation Testimony of experience ; the inward witness * * * * PAGE 403 404 404 405 405 405 405 406 407 Index 409 CHRISTIAN THEISM By T. VINCENT TYMMS Christian Theism I Christian Theism differs fundamentally from all other forms of Theistic Theory or Faith. It is not merely Theism as interpreted by Christ's teachings ; nor is it Theism with Christ added to the God whom non-Christians worship. It is a faith which cherishes an idea of God to which not only Christ's words but His personality have contributed elements which in the estimation of Christian thinkers render Theism more satisfying, both to the intellect and to the heart. To many, Christianity appears to be, not an enrichment, but a corruption of Theism. Modern Jews are inclined to claim Christ as a national prophet, and some revere Him as the crowning glory of Israel ; but they abhor His worship as idolatry, and cleave to their own ancient religion as the only historical exponent of Monotheism, and one which they exult in as divinely predestined to be the conquering creed of the world. There are other Theists who reject Judaism as an his- torical religion, because in their judgment its great truths are mixed up with national prejudices and idle traditions and myths ; but after eliminating these elements, they agree with Jews in their belief in a personal God, and in their refusal to regard Christ as more than a man of prophetic genius, and the heroic founder of a sect which has chiefly erred in exalting Him to a scat on the throne of God. An adequate treatment of the theme thus presented 4 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT would involve a comparative study of all Theistic Theories, but such a gigantic task immeasurably exceeds the compass of an Essay, My less ambitious effort must be to exhibit some of the more salient points of agreement and of differ- ence between Old Testament and New Testament Theism ; and to point out the higher beauty and reasonableness of Christian Theism, and its greater credibility in the search- ing light of modern philosophy. II I. In attempting this task it becomes necessary to state what we understand to be the Old Testament idea of God. At the outset a grave difficulty looms threateningly across our path. We are assured with no small claims to authority that the Old Testament contains no single and persistent doctrine of God. Happily, however, we are not obliged to discuss the question thus raised. It is one of extreme in- terest, and deserves all the labour and time which modern scholarship is expending upon it. The antiquity of ethical Monotheism, and its true relation to the Henotheism and Polytheism which undoubtedly prevailed among the Hebrew people before their Eastern captivity, must be decided on critical grounds ; but the decision has no effect on my present purpose, which is, not to trace the history of ethical Monotheism to its source, but to compare it in its highest and purest form with Christianity, which I regard as its con- summation and crown. Without prejudice, therefore, to any critical opinions respecting the authorship, date, or inspiration of our documentary sources, we may range over the whole area of Hebrew literature, and, taking the highest thoughts of God we can discover, may say, " Here is Hebrew Theism. This is the religion which Christ found at His coming, and on which He exerted so stupendous an influence, that He turned it from a national cultus into a religion which has. CHRISTIAN THEISM 5 its disciples in every race ; and has translated the oracles of Israel into almost every language spoken among men." ^ 2. The primary thought of Hebrew Theism is that God is the sole author of the Cosmos ; and it is this which constitutes it a true Monotheism. Henotheism permits the worship of only one national God, but it does not deny that there may be other gods to whom foreigners owe equal fealty. It has not reached the conception of a cosmos or universal order, and consequently does not gather up all causality and authority into one sole God. By a severe, and perhaps unwarranted, treatment of language, Henotheism may be attributed to some of the writers of the Old Testa- ment ; and without question multitudes of Israelites failed to attain a broader faith ; while in the face of the clearest teaching, multitudes sank into the meanest idolatry, and deserved the scathing contempt of the prophets as wor- shippers of many despicable deities. But for centuries before the coming of Christ the conception of a divinely-ordered cosmos was clearly a ruling idea among thinking Hebrews, and it finds frequent and sublime expression in their writings. Whatever its age, the opening chapter of Genesis ex- hibits the logical basis of this Monotheism. " In the begin- ning God made the heavens and the earth." Neither here nor elsewhere is there any trace of a reasoned theory of Unity such as we find in early Greek speculation. The writer has not groped his way from the Many to the One ; and his language is neither scientific nor philosophical. He gives us a faith, not a theory ; nor an account of facts ascertained by search and set in order by reflection on their significance. His aim is distinctly theological and his style poetic. He boldly describes the process of creation as one before whose eyes the slow development of ages passed in vision. His composition has the sublime simplicity of a mind which beholds God's work with childlike wonder, rather than the 1 Cf. Note A, p. 58. 6 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT speculative audacity of a philosopher who presumes to ex- plain the universe to his fellows. He writes for men and women who have looked on the sun and moon and stars, on the sea and on the dry land, and have marvelled at the riches of life in air and earth and water ; who have also looked within, and been awed by the mystery of conscious being, each individual life gliding from an unremembered source towards an unforeseen bourne, — a trembling traveller on a road hidden before and behind by darkling mist. Whence came I and my fathers ? Whence came this world and all its marvels ? To these inquiries the answer of the poetic seer is summed up in one word — " God." This cosmogony is specially significant for the student of Hebrew Theism, because of the place in nature to which it assigns man, and the basis it provides for personal and therefore ethical relations between God and man. It offers no account of God's nature and attributes, but it represents Him as a Person who first conceives an ideal Cosmos, and then by an effortless volition calls its material counterpart into existence. " God said," implies the existence of an Eternal Mind which is not imprisoned in itself like the God of Aristotle, but active because living, rich in thought as the universe is rich in its realised expressions, and also capable of effecting wise designs without work or handicraft, but simply by the energy of will as betokened by the human analogy of a spoken command. Everything which is ex- panded in the beautiful poem in praise of " Wisdom " in Prov. viii. lies implicitly in Gen. i., and the whole history of ethical religion has a worthy basis in the declaration that man was made in the " image " and " after the likeness " of this personal God. If we ask what the writer meant by these words " image " and " likeness," it becomes clear that they are not intended to convey the gross idea that God wears a shape of which man's body is an imitation. The word " likeness " seems to CHRISTIAN THEISM 7 have been added to obviate a materialistic interpretation of " image " ; and the definition of man's business in life as the acquisition of dominion over the earth, with all its living occupants, makes it plain that intelligent lordship is the chief point of resemblance between man and his Maker. If this interpretation required support it might be found in the following chapter, which contains a second account of man's creation. This is commonly accepted as more ancient, and more strongly anthropomorphic than the former ; but while using vividly picturesque language, it draws a marked distinction between the human body which was formed of the dust, or material substance of the soil, and the " life " breathed into it by God. Thus both narratives represent man as in some unique sense a partaker of the divine nature. He is a member of the physical cosmos, and is of the earth earthy, and destined to return to the dust whence he was taken and by whose products he is nourished ; but he has also received an effluence from God, and is akin to Him in a sense which is true of no other creature upon the earth. Like God, he has a mind which can think, and can express his thoughts in words and actions. He can therefore hold intercourse with his Maker, if He will con- descend to communicate with His offspring in ways adapted to their faculties. He can converse with his fellows, thought answering to thought ; and this converse in which he reveals himself, and receives a revelation from others, indicates at least the possibility of that rational intercourse with the Creator which is the essential condition of religion as under- stood by Christian Theism. 3. This brings before us a second but equally fundamental characteristic of Hebrew Theism, viz., that it was essentially anthropomorphic. It is a strange mistake to suppose that this is a time-mark, peculiar to an early stage of religious thought and literary expression. I have declined to discuss the chronology of the Hebrew Scriptures ; but without break- 8 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT ing this self-imposed rule am free, and indeed obliged, to offer one observation by way of calling attention to an indis- putable truism. No analysis of documents and no theories of compilation will avail to relieve late writers from the re- proach of anthropomorphism at the expense of less cultured predecessors. Criticism may, and no doubt does, discover evidences of late editorial work, but it cannot reverse the process and throw back a more modern author's faults on an old-fashioned but long deceased reviser ! But those vivid pictorial phrases which are found in the most antique portions of Genesis may be matched, not only in the latest canonical books of the Old Testament, but in those of a much more recent date, e.g. " The Book of Wisdom," which was written in Greek, and is one of the most philosophical and Hellenised works produced by Hebrew thinkers before the Christian era, and is held by some to be a product of Alexandrian thought in the apostolic age. In this book, written for men who were not unacquainted with the teach- ings of Greek philosophy, we find again the oldest imagery, and even a revival of what is called " the old mythological conception of the world as the work of God's hands, and of an arbitrary omnipotence," which was supposed to have been " cut away at a blow " ^ several centuries before by the author of Prov. viii. Thus we read, "Thy almighty hand, that made the world of formless matter, lacked not means to send among them a multitude of bears," etc. (xi. 17). " God shall laugh them to scorn. . . . He shall rend them, and cast them down headlong. . . . He shall shake them from the foundation " (iv. 18, 19). "Thou canst show Thy great strength at all times when Thou wilt ; and who may with- stand the power of Thine arm ? . . . Thou canst do all things, and winkest at the sins of men, that they may repent" (xi. 21-23). These are but samples of a multi- tude of passages which might be quoted, but they are ^ CheynQ, Job atid Solotnon, p. 161. CHRISTIAN THEISM 9 sufficient to prove that neither the jealous care of Jewish Tahnudists nor the searching discrimination of Christian critics can relieve us of any difficulty, or deprive us of any advantage which may spring from anthropomorphic termin- ology as a characteristic of Hebrew Theism, not only in its most primitive form, but in its most matured developments.^ Having thus assisted to fasten the reproach of anthro- pomorphism upon Hebrew Theists, I hasten to affirm that if this ponderous word can be justly esteemed a reproach, it is one which has been incurred, not only by Judaism, but by many distinguished philosophers. Thus Plato, who is supposed to have been destitute of the modern conception of personality, found himself compelled to employ an anthropom.orphic vocabulary when describing the emergence of the phenomenal universe from abstract ideas. The Stoics used it freely in writing of the universal Reason. Agnostic exponents of physical science are so habituated to its use that even trees and climbing plants are credited with purpose and method in their strife for survival, while molecules, " Forces " and " Laws," appear as conscious agents in the writings of materialistic evolutionists. Can this be because, like Gen. i., these works have been con- descendingly written " for an untutored age"? In view of these literary phenomena we need not pity the ancient believers in a " Living God," because their religious rever- ence found no release from the inexorable law which makes all language analogical; — and which even compels Euclid to describe the ideal " points " and " lines " of pure mathematics by terms which imply some occupancy of space ; terms which have to be elaborately deprived of their common signifi- cance by arbitrary definitions before they can be used in elementary propositions. So obstinate, however, is the "original sin" of human language, that these definitions are violated in the printed figures which exhibit problems to ' .See Note B, p. 6i. lO THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the eye, and in the demonstrations which discuss them as forms which can be produced by the human hand ! ^ This defensive comparison is not intended to mask the fact that anthropomorphic expressions in the Old Testa- ment mean more than they do in many other cases. They cannot be interpreted by mere freedom of expression ; but evidently imply, and were intended to imply, that God is a Person. Their authors speak of Him in terms derived from man's knowledge of himself, because they believe that man was made in His likeness. We have not the advantage of being acquainted with any superhuman persons, or they might supply us with more dignified forms of speech. Some may think it wiser to speak of the Eternal Being in abstract terms, and for safety may deal only in negations ; but nothing impersonal can express personality, and thus anthro- pomorphic language is the only form of speech in which Theism can utter its thoughts. It is important to remember that the feelings excited by such language must necessarily differ according to the estimate we have formed of man's origin, nature, and destiny. If we dwell chiefly upon man's anatomical resemblance to the lower animals, and ignore or deny those spiritual faculties which distinguish him from anthropoid apes, we shall have a very mean idea of God as a sort of anthropoid deity ; — a being who stands about as much above us as our nearest earthly kinsfolk stand, or once stood, below. But in propor- tion as we recognise the true glory of man's self-conscious, rational, and volitional nature, we shall feel that the highest, and indeed only tolerable ideal of man's Creator and Lord, is that of a being who is not less, but more than men ; and therefore cannot lack those essential elements of personality which give man his place of royalty in the universe. When the anthropomorphic expressions of the Old Testament have been duly analysed, they yield these essen- ^ See Note C, p. 6i. CHRISTIAN THEISM I I tial constituents of Personality. It is not suggested that Hebrew Theists ever found or even sought for a philosophical definition of Personality. Had they done this they would have been in advance of the greatest thinkers of Greece, for the problem which still occasions perplexity was scarcely apprehended as a problem until forced upon attention by controversy respecting the Person of Christ. But while, in common with all ancient writers, they had no abstract doctrine of Personality, whether human or div^ine, their idea of God's nature though exceedingly simple, and held without any consciousness of the metaphysical problems involved, nevertheless answered to the most satisfactory modern idea of Personality. Throughout the Old Testa- ment it is assumed, as in Gen. i., that God is a self-conscious Being : that He possesses what we call Thought to designate the essential faculty of Mind ; that He knows Himself and views His creation as other than Himself; that, like men. He has feelings, — likes and dislikes, with power of choice among objects ; and will or self-determination, which may be influenced by external objects and occurrences, but is not controlled by them, nor even by subjective desires. It is assumed that God thus possesses that spontaneity which enables Him to move without being moved, and so to become the only conceivable First Cause of the Cosmos. It is always assumed also that God is like man in this: that He distinguishes between right and wrong in the relations of rational beings ; and that He rules His own actions in accordance with those eternal principles which human science may or may not discover or verify, but which arc as necessary and unalterable as the truths of mathematics in another sphere. In strict accordance with these fundamental and per- sistent assumptions, God is always regarded in the Old Testament as holding the most varied and ceaseless rela- tions with men. Modern Judaism in its most cultured 12 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT type is rather a philosophy than a faith, and probably owes more to Spinoza than to the prophets ; but the Hebrew Theism we are dealing with never evaporated into a pantheistic mist, and never congealed into an icy Deism which hides God in an abyss beneath a mechanical universe in which He has no part. For the prophets and their dis- ciples He was not merely the First Cause, but the perpetual upholder and governor of nature, and above all the interested Friend and Master of man. To them He was never a passionless spectator of the human tragedy, but always an ardent sympathiser with men of good intent, a succourer of all who served Him, and a Hearer of all suppliant souls. They called Him by many names which described His various relations. He was The Strong One, The Righteous One; He was King, Lawgiver, Judge, Saviour, Kinsman, Father, and Friend, He was a Potter fashioning men and nations, while leaving them free to sin, free to repent, and free even to defy. He was the Shepherd, the Vineyard Keeper. He was everything that man could need, every- thing and more than all that man could think of as desirable and good. Always active in thought and work among the striving peoples, always aiming at a final good for the world, always faithful, compassionate, and merciful ; yet always changeless in His hatred of falsity, cruelty, oppression, and lustfulness in men. Of all the relations with the Cosmos thus lightly sketched, the ethical were the most supremely important ; but before speaking of these it may be well to emphasise three other characteristics of Hebrew Theism which affect the mode in which these relations were held to be maintained. However paradoxical it may appear to some minds, it is certainly a fact that although God was worshipped as a Personal Being in closest intercourse with men. He was CHRISTIAN THEISM 13 quite as positively regarded as Invisible, i.e. without a shape discernible by the senses, and Inscrutable, i.e. unsearchable by the human intellect. Opinions may differ as to the antiquity of either or both of these beliefs, but no one questions that they were held and guarded with extreme jealousy for many generations before the Christian era. Whether such views can or cannot be reasonably reconciled with a belief in Revelation and Inspiration, the fact remains that they were firmly held together. The vacant Holy of Holies, in which no figurative emblem of God was hidden behind the shrouding veil, was a symbol to the later Jews, if not to their remote ancestors, of God's invisible presence in the Cosmos ; yet it was also a symbol of the truth that He could commune with men. Man was unable by searching to find out God as he might find hidden treasure ; nor could he ascend to the " secret of the Lord " by an effort of speculative thought. Yet God had revealed Himself to men. He was the Inscrutable but not the Unknowable; He was the Invisible but not the absent, or the absolute God of dialectics. 4. In close connection with this idea of God as Invisible and Inscrutable, yet in close relations with man, we find a most striking characteristic of Hebrew Theism in the doctrine of Angelic Representation. The Old Testament contains no explanatory account of mediating messengers between heaven and earth ; but it speaks familiarly of their existence, and assumes the prevalence of belief in their activity. They appear in many narratives as rational beings, with intellectual faculties similar to man's, capable of appearing in a man- like form, and of speaking to men in their own language. Their office is described in their generic name, which signifies a messenger, and they move in space unimpeded by gross material bodies. Modern science has no negative 14 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT to pronounce against the possibility or probability of their existence as travelling servants of Omnipotence. A dis- tinguished savant has argued with much force that their hypothetical acceptance would fill a great gap in his scientific theory of the universe. Even the doctrine of evolution favours the probability that such beings will hereafter be evolved, if they have not already been pro- duced. I am not anxious, however, to vindicate the Hebrew belief, and only wish at present to note its theological significance, as offering a partial explanation of divine revelation to men ; and even this I refer to mainly in order to point out how very partial is the explanation it supplies. Closely examined, the so-called Theophanies of the Old Testament seem reducible to divine appearances only in a representative sense. E.g. one of Abraham's three mysterious visitants is spoken of in the same narrative as a man and as an angel, and yet again is identified with God, and speaks with divine authority to the patriarch.^ These are either absurd discrepancies which stamp the author as below the intellectual level of an Arabian story- teller, or they prove that the narrator meant to indicate an angelic being who at least for the occasion wore a manlike form, and who spoke with authority as the plenipotentiary of God. This was the interpretation adopted by all those among the later Rabbins who did not, like Philo, refine the historical narrative into an allegory. Their elaborated angelology was puerile and preposterous ; but they were acute critics, and were not without scriptural data for their belief that there is one highest creature, fitly called " the Angel of the Face," because allowed an altogether unique privilege of access to God's presence. They also held that this representative was always present as an inter- mediary whenever God was said to have appeared to men. The most significant passages in support of this view ^ Gen. xviii. 2, 16, 23, 26, xix. i, 29. CHRISTIAN THEISM I5 occur in what are supposed to be among the most ancient portions of the Hexateuch. In Ex. xxiii. 20, God is intro- duced as speaking thus to Moses : " Behold, I send an Angel before thee to keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Take ye heed of him, and hearken unto his voice, provoke him not ; for he will not pardon your transgression : for My name is in him." In Ex. xxxiii. 12-23, where God is said to be speaking with him " as a man speaketh unto his friend," Moses pleads that he is still ignorant of God's " ways," and therefore does not know Him. Hence he entreats that God will reveal Himself more perfectly. Thus in the midst of a supposed " Theo- phany" the human servant cries out for a still unattained vision of God, exclaiming, " I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory." In response, the Invisible One declares, " Thou canst not see My face : for there shall no man see Me and live " ; but He makes this promise, " I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee." I shall have occasion hereafter to call attention to the deeper theological teaching which ensues as the fulfilment of this promise, but wish to call attention here to the fact that an angelic representative is so identified with God, that the power to deal with human transgression is imputed to him, and his attendance upon Israel is treated as equivalent to the divine presence. The denial that God can be seen is ^vX into the lips of one who was " face to face " with Moses ; and the voice which promises to declare, and subsequently does declare, the name of the Lord, is therefore evidently the voice of the being in whom God's name is affirmed to be resident. Thus the Theophany is entirely representative ; and, apart from its declaration of God's ethical nature, the deepest thought of the narrative, even if we regard it as mythological poetry, or the account of some entranced seer's vision, is that God can only be revealed to men by some chosen finite agent. 1 6 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT The doctrine of angels thus illustrated, relieved the Hebrews who accepted it of a great difficulty by estab- lishing a living channel of communication between man and the unseen world ; but obviously it only removed the mystery of God's primary revelation of Himself to an invisible region, and left the higher philosophical problem untouched. Manifestly the most exalted angel could only receive by revelation that knowledge of God's nature which qualified him to act and speak in His name. He might excel man in enlightenment as the sun excels a taper, but he could have no light until illumined from the eternal source of light in the divine self-knowledge. How, then, did revelation pass from the Divine Sender to the angelic messenger? Here Hebrew Theism was confronted with a problem which it was powerless to solve. Even a human mind cannot be searched by another mind similar to itself. Every self-conscious thinker, though he be but a child, is utterly unknowable until he gives expression to his thoughts. The revelation of an unseen mind is, indeed, a fact of hourly experience, and familiarity conceals its mysteriousness from multitudes ; but as soon as we begin to reflect upon the human analogy, we are compelled to acknowledge that neither man nor angel could " know the things of God " unless it pleased God to reveal His invisible thought by presenting some intelligible signs which correspond to human speech. Thus Hebrew Theism in its highest de- velopments left a great gulf between God and man. It affirmed God as an Eternal and Invisible Person, the Author and Active Ruler of the Cosmos. It affirmed the fact of revelation. It described God as speaking, and assigned to His word creative energy. It affirmed that wisdom came forth out of His mouth, and reached men as rivers of instruction in law and prophecy ; it held that God was revealed representatively by messengers from heaven ; but how the things of God's self-knowledge were, or conceiv- CHRISTIAN THEISM I 7 ably could be, first transmitted to a made and finite mind, Hebrew Theism either feared to ask or totally failed to answer. 5. In close connection with this problem, but without pretension to be esteemed its solution, we find another characteristic of Hebrew Theism in its doctrine of the Spirit of God. The name was derived from the wind, or breath, which mysteriously blows from an unseen source in the heavens, and is essential to the life of plants and animals, including man. It is not easy to define what was meant by this expression. The Cosmogonist of Gen. i. speaks of this wind or spirit as brooding upon the face of the waters, and apparently intends to suggest that this "brooding" originated the order and life which followed. The author o of Gen. ii., though using another word, speaks of God as breathing into man's nostrils as a means of imparting a human soul to a body already created from the dust. Some- times this Spirit appears to be an impartation of energy which increases a man's active powers, but has no moral or intel- lectual effect. Sometimes it seems to be a poetic name for a reviving, refreshing, or sustaining influence which can be poured out like rain upon the parched earth ; sometimes it comforts, sometimes it troubles ; but in either case it stimu- lates the emotional nature as a penalty or as a boon. Sometimes it exalts the intellectual powers, and lifts men above their normal level of thought and utterance ; freeing them from material restrictions, and enabling them to hold fellowship with angelic guests, and to receive communica- tions, reaching them through various media, from above. But the highest form in which the Spirit of God appears in the Old Testament is that in which personality is attri- buted ; and this personality is distinctly regarded as the actual and active presence of God. As compared with accounts of external and representative manifestations, many allusions to the Spirit exhibit a belief that Invisibility 1 8 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT does not mean absence, nor Inscrutability imply human nescience. God was thought of as one who revealed Himself occasionally by representatives, and commonly by objective symbols of thought, in nature, in the law and by the prophets, but as always nigh at hand, and always acquainted with the secret thoughts of men. He was thought of as specially approachable in the Temple at appointed seasons, and for sacrificial worship ; but as always and everywhere near to lowly and contrite hearts, and closer than any outward form to such as thirsted for His presence. His Spirit could never be escaped by guilty fugitives whom it saw and judged, and awaited in the uttermost parts of the earth, and even in the grave. As a friendly helper, guide, and inspiring guest this Spirit might be given or withdrawn at will ; but withdrawal never meant absence, but only a penal deprivation of inward comfort and sanctifying aid ; and giving meant God's own bestowment of His favour and love. In all cases the Spirit of the Lord appears in the Old Testament as either God's invisible energy or as the invisible God acting to create ; to impart life ; to sustain and enrich the life already given. It is specially spoken of as given to strengthen and quicken man in body, soul, or spirit ; to exalt the mental faculties so that men are enabled to see and understand what must otherwise remain unknown ; to impel and enable utterance and action in a fashion otherwise im- possible : but it never appears to do away with the necessity for the objective presentation of truth. 6. We come now to that characteristic of Hebrew Theism which is its unique and crowning glory as an ancient faith, namely, that it is essentially ethical in its idea of God and His relations with man. Ethical Monotheism has its necessary basis in the doctrine of man's creation in God's likeness. The relation thus set up necessarily yields the idea of moral obligation. Given CHRISTIAN THEISM 1 9 two persons similar to ourselves in powers of thought, desire, choice, and volition, and the necessity for the golden rule is given also. We are so constituted that we cannot even think of the Creator without forming some opinion of what He ought to do and ought not to do. These opinions may- vary, and may often be absurd and profane, but the Old Testament recognises that their existence is inevitable in rational beings. God is commonly represented by the pro- phets as making His appeal to them, and as stooping to reason with men as One who desires to be rightly judged and understood. The chief motive and spring of divine revelation is constantly set before us as the yearning of a righteous God to be truly known, and therefore trusted and obeyed by His people. Perhaps the richest and most fundamental passage in the Old Testament as an expression of ethical Monotheism, is the declaration of God's name in Ex. xxxiv. in re- sponse to the prayer of Moses, which has already been noticed. Whatever the age of its present literary form, and it is certainly ancient, its content is a thought of God which underlies and unifies the whole Scriptures. I have no wish to emphasise or to divert attention from the supernatural elements of the narrative in which this proclamation of God's nature occurs ; but I would earnestly submit to any readers who may find these elements a stumbling-block, and are tempted to withhold their serious attention on this account, that no theory of interpretation should be allowed to obscure the grandeur of the theology itself. Some will read the narrative without misgiving as the unadorned history of a miraculous event in which physical phenomena were witnessed by human eyes ; others may read it as a poetic myth designed to arrest attention, and enchain the admiring interest of multitudes, while preserving a sublime truth in a form of beauty which the world would not willingly let die. In any case the doctrine is the same. The glory of the Lord 20 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT is not material splendour, but moral excellence. The answer to Moses' prayer was not a blinding fire mist, not a storm cloud sweeping past his craggy shelter, but a declared char- acter, and in particular the character of God as He stands related to erring and sinful men. We are frequently assured that the God of the Old Testament is a harsh and vindictive being, quite unlike the Father whose name was declared by Christ. He is painted for us as the author of a lex talionis which fittingly repre- sents His own vengeful justice as the punisher of sin. But here God is said to have revealed Himself to Moses as One whose essential nature is not austerity but graciousness, not implacability but mercifulness. As clearly as words can speak the Lord proclaims Himself the friend of sinners ; and to paraphrase John's words respecting Christ we may almost say, " And Moses beheld His glory, the glory of a Father, full of grace and truth." It is significant that in Num. xiv. Moses pleads that mercy may be shown to the people on the ground of the glorious name thus proclaimed. He sees (or the author of the passage sees) that forgiveness is greater than implac- ability; and therefore appeals to the divine magnanimity, and deprecates its failure under provocation. " Let the power of the Lord be great, according as Thou has spoken, saying, ' The Lord is slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and that will by no means clear the guilty.' . . . Pardon, I pray Thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of Thy mercy, and according as Thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt until now." This prayer for mercy, in the faith that it is God's eternal nature and glory to forgive, is the keynote to all the sweetest songs of Israel. Throughout the Psalms and Prophets pardon is sued for, and every kind of blessing besought for God's name sake. There is not a single instance of prayer for mercy based on any trust in the CHRISTIAN THEISM 2 1 efficacy of sacrifice to take away sin, while the futility and offensiveness of sacrifice when offered as a substitute for mercy or justice is indignantly declared.^ These expressions are in profound harmony with the letter and spirit of the ceremonial institutes.^ The ritual law gave no encourage- ment to any belief that sin-offerings were available for deliberate transgression. Such offerings were enjoined, and had a definite educational value ; but their scojDe was strictly limited, and for wilful offences were as sternly for- bidden by the Priestly Code as they were indignantly denounced by the psalmists and prophets. The " Old Covenant" savours throughout of inexorable demand, and no more provides forgiveness for its own breach, than the English criminal law contains assurances of mercy. But it is a grave, though common, mistake to imagine that this is incompatible with a belief that there is mercy in God. The function of law is to obtain obedience and to punish rebellion ; but the administration of mercy by the Supreme Lawgiver is not relinquished or impeded by the fact that the terms of its bestowal are not formulated in statutes. Remission remains within His authority, and is conditioned only by regard for the sanctity of those objects which laws are enacted to protect. Hence in the highest and holiest minds among the Hebrews, as expressed in Ps, cxix., veneration for divine law blended with faith in divine mercy. The consciousness of legal guilt was intensified, while at the same time it was deprived of its natural power to crush the sinner into a demoralising state of despair, by a faith, which was often a saving faith, in the divine graciousncss and mercy as revealed by the Name in which generations had trusted. ^ Cf. I Sam. XV. 22 ; Ps. li. 16, 17 ; Hos. vi. 6. * That the same fundamental principle runs through codes of different dates is evident. Cf. Lev. xx. 10 ; Num. xv. 27-30, xxxv. 30, 34 ; Deut. >vii. 2-13, xxii. 22-25. 2 2 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT The ethical conception of God which thus emerges into view becomes clearer when we consider the relation of the Divine Name to the laws with which it stands connected, not only in a particular section of Exodus, but in the entire Hexateuch as it existed in pre-Christian times. The funda- mental demand of the Decalogue is love. " Thou shalt love " is the universal ordinance, and all the rest is explanation or application to the various relations of life. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God " comes first, and then follows, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour." What, then, are the legitimate deductions which may be drawn from these precepts respect- ing the character of the God to whom they are attributed ? Clearly that He Himself is lovable, and that He loves men. Whether we criticise the admonitions as divine, or as human compositions, devoid of any supernatural authority, they assuredly disclose the writer's idea of God. No man who regarded Him as a stern and remorseless despot, would have conceived the preposterous notion of ascribing to His heart a thirst for man's affection, or a considerate insistence on love as due to all His creatures from each other. If we pass on to examine the remainder of the Decalogue, and even the multifarious statutes which touch the details of social commerce, the same deduction may be drawn. Even the severest sanctions and the much abused lex talionis ex- hibit an inexorable abhorrence of cruelty and of selfishness in every form. They teach that God will not smile upon any act by which one man hurts another. God will watch over the rights of the humblest bondman, and will judge the harsh master, the unjust ruler, the unfair trader, the injurious person of every station and degree. Every victim of wrong was thus taught to believe that he had a friend and champion in God. Every high-handed criminal was taught that he had ultimately to reckon with God, and must account to Him for his offences. Yet still the name of God remained the hope of the penitent and contrite heart. CHRISTIAN THEISM 23 The Hebrew idea of God shines out with pecuHar beauty in a large class of admonitions which no human law could enforce, because demanding justice, kindness, and mercy in multifarious details of conduct which no finite mind could judge. After many of these ethical but extra-legal injunc- tions there is written, with sublime faith in Him who ponders the heart, " Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God." ^ The quiet reserve which delivers no threat where it cannot enact a penalty, yet holds up God before the man who fails to love his brother, reveals an ethical conception of God which harmonises with the Sermon on the Mount, and with Christ's vivid parable of judgment between the sheep and the goats. It recognises the superficiality of all statute law as clearly as Paul discerned it, and unmistakably declares that God will be satisfied with nothing less than the genuine, heartfelt, handwrought love which the Decalogue solemnly requires. HI The limits assigned to this Essay preclude even a brief review of the meeting between Jew and Greek, and their reciprocal influence on each other, nor will they permit a complete examination of the way in which Hebrew Theism is reproduced and consummated in the New Testament. I shall therefore deal only with those characteristics of Christianity which are denounced by Jews as corruptions, or are attacked by anti-Theistic writers as incredible. In pursuance of this purpose I shall have to speak — I. Of the Unity of God (a) as a doctrine to which Christianity is pledged, and by which all its tenets must consent to be judged ; {d) as a doctrine which is declared by many anti-Theistic writers to be philosophically unthink- able. 2. The Invisibility and Inscrutability of God in rela- tion to various theories of manifestation. 3. The Christian J Cf. Lev. xix. 13, 14, 3-) ''>^^'- 17, 35-38, 43. 24 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT view of God's manifestation as an elucidation of the problem of Unity. 4. The Ethical conception of God as interpreted by the New Testament doctrine of Salvation. I. Christian Theism, as formulated by some ecclesiastical creeds, is thought by many critics, both inside and outside the Church, to be utterly incompatible with faith in the Unity of God. I am not careful to discuss the justice of this opinion. It may be true that some documents which were framed as rigidly as possible to exclude Arians and Sabel- lians from the ancient Church, are incurably Tritheistic in their only intelligible meaning ; but assuredly their authors never intended to affirm a plurality of Gods ; nor can any individual teacher of acknowledged position, or any Church which now retains these creeds as symbols of the true faith, be charged with consciously defending them as Tritheistic. It is neither my business nor my ambition to defend or attack these formulae. They may conceivably, though it requires a large imagination, be reconcilable with the doctrines of the New Testament and with the religious beliefs of their own authors. To me, however, their interest is chiefly historical. Christian Theism has no authoritative exposition outside the original documents which have come down to us from the Founders of the Church, and I shall be content to insist that the authors of the New Testament as reporters and exponents of Christ's doctrine emphatically teach the Unity of God. No statements could be stronger or less ambiguous than those of the New Testament on this subject, e.g. it is recorded that on one occasion Christ quoted, with entire approval, the ancient words, " Hear, O Israel ! the Lord our God is one Lord " (Mark xii. 29-32). At another time He said, " Call no man your father on the earth : for one is your Father, which is in heaven " (Matt, xxiii. 9). Similarly, John writes, " And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent " (John xvii. 3). Paul frequently reiterates the same CHRISTIAN THEISM 25 truth. " But to US there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him"(i Cor. viii. 6). " Now, a Mediator is not a mediator of One ; but God is One" (Gal. iii. 20). "One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all " (Fph. iv. 6). " For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (i Tim. ii. 5). James is equally explicit, " Thou believest that there is one God ; thou doest well" (Jas. ii. 19). These are not exceptional passages, but, in short, pithy phrases, they sum up the truth which per- meates the New Testament from end to end. There is no uncertainty in these clarion notes. It may be urged that other doctrines of the New Testament are at variance with them, and such a plea deserves examination. But the doctrine of Divine Unity is so clearly stated, and is so strongly confirmed by reason and by the intuitions of the heart, which cannot divide its worship of the Highest, that nothing which conflicts with this fundamental idea can have any claim to be respected. It is impossible to put back the human mind behind the hard-won victories of Hebrew faith and Greek philosophy, which, from their remote and inde- pendent positions, witness to mankind that we liv'e in a Cosmos, and not in the midst of a chaotic concourse of fragments, or under a divided and uncertain rule. There is either One God or there is No God. This is the ulti- matum which philosophy and theology are with one accord presenting to the nations which still worship many gods ; and the last great fight between faith and unbelief is being simplified to this one issue. It will not be necessary to insist upon the fact that the New Testament agrees with the Old in representing God as a Person, and that, yielding to the inexorable necessities of human language and thought, it speaks of Mim in anthropo- 26 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT morphic terms. It is only necessary to refer to this obvious truth, because we have now to deal with a difficulty which arises from the combination of the doctrine of the Divine Personality with that of Unity. Probably the most serious objection which Theists have ever had to face is that which affirms that the existence of a Sole Eternal Person is inconceivable. Many earnest thinkers when perplexed by the mysteries of Trinitarianism are inclined to flee into what is inconveniently called Unitarianism as a haven of intel- lectual simplicity and rest. In reality it is neither a simple nor a restful position, and is assailed by Pantheists and Agnostics with immense force. Mr. Herbert Spencer is so absolutely certain that in all consciousness of self, a not-self, or an other-than-self is given, that in discussing the necessary but unknowable source of all things he ceases to be an Agnostic, at least to this extent, that he knows that whatever else it is, it cannot be a conscious person. He tells us that consciousness is "con- stituted of ideas and feelings caused by objects and occurrences,"^ and therefore there cannot be an Eternal Being who is both subject and object to Himself. I have criticised this sentence elsewhere as an altogether one- sided statement,^ but it is none the less cogent as a positive assertion of the truth that a subject mind cannot exist without an object, because it fails to affirm what is equally true, namely, that an object cannot exist without a subject, and that the two are correlative terms. Pantheism presses the same difficulty against all believers in a personal God, and to this extent agrees with Mr. Spencer that such a Being cannot be the First and Sole Cause of the now existent universe, because without an objective world He could have no conscious- ness. Pantheism affirms in various forms that God is the ^ Nineteenth Century, Jan. 1884. 2 The Mystery of God., p. 70. CHRISTIAN THEISM 27 eternal and infinite substance beside which, or as it fanci- fully says, " beside Whom," there is and can be none else ; and it denies consciousness to the All, as the Infinite One, because the whole of all that is cannot leave room for an object to itself, and cannot be an object to an outside or transcendent mind, seeing that by definition such a mind cannot exist outside the All. In some of its less extreme forms Pantheism affirms that God becomes conscious in man or in similar beings, because the Infinite One is also the manifold, and so within the Eternal Unity there is the ceaseless play of subject and object. According to this view consciousness belongs to God only as He issues forth into finite and changing forms of self-manifestation, i.e. His own finite parts discern their self-existence as distinct from other parts ; but can never be viewed as objects by the great All, because in that All they are themselves included. Pantheism therefore bears powerful witness to a philosophic principle which, if valid, appears to be fatal to every non-Christian form of Theism, namely, that the Personality of the One God can only be conceived of as possible by virtue of an internal variety in His own Being, some play of inward relationships in His own nature. Unless Theists can meet the demands of this principle without lapsing into Pantheism, they can only retain their faith as an unreasoned conviction, and can never hope to give it a philosophical interpretation. Three questions are likely to arise in the minds of cul- tured men who have not read widely on this particular subject. I. Do Theists admit the force of the difficulty thus urged by Agnostics and Pantheists? 2. Has any non-Christian Theist successfully grappled with it ? 3. P^ailing this, does Christian Theism possess a unique solution of the problem ? In replying to these questions I cannot do better than take Dr. Martineau as the most distinguished and capable writer who has discussed the problem from a Thcistic 28 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT standpoint, which excludes any assistance which the Logos doctrine of John may be able to afford. The Christian Theism which incorporates this doctrine stands apart from any other faith or theory, and as Dr. Martineau rejects it, he properly represents what for the purposes of this discussion must be called non-Christian systems of Theism. By placing him in this position I am not denying him the name Chris- tian in any sense in which he would accept its application. That Dr. Martineau admits the gravity of the difficulty under review is well known to readers of his works, and will be made evident here by adequate quotations. His Study of Religion contains lucid and beautiful discussions of many Theistic problems, but it lamentably fails to discover an " other-than-self " for God, while admitting with Mr. Spencer and all Pantheists that without such an object a Divine Subject cannot conceivably exist. In his later work on the Seat of AutJwrity in Religion^ this failure is tacitly confessed by the making of a new attempt in which additional elements are introduced. The nature of the problem is thus stated : " The moment we conceive of mind at all, or any operation of mind, we must concurrently conceive of something other than it as engaging its activity. . . . God therefore cannot stand for us as the sole and exhaustive term in the realm of uncreated being: as early and as long as He is, must also be somewhat objective to Him."^ Hence he sets out anew in search of an eternal " other- than-self" for God, and the penalty of failure is either to find faith in God evaporating into Pantheism, or dying out into an Agnosticism which at least knows this — that the First Cause of the Cosmos is impersonal. As a fundamental basis for such an " other-than-self," Dr. Martineau postulates the existence of matter as a solid substance which occupies space, "as the rudimentary object for the intellectual and dynamic action of the ^ Scat of Authority in Religion, p. 32. CHRISTIAN THEISM 29 Supreme Subject." He speaks in a singularly hesitant way about this datm/t, and is well aware that many will refuse the concession ; but finally he grasps it as a neces- sary factor, and proceeds to build his theory on this eternal rock, which may or may not be solid in reality, but must be solid for his theory. But when we have granted this hypothetical but not unreasonable datuni^ we are frankly told that it is not a sufficient objective, because it gives "no scope for the alternatives of will or the exercise of creative reason." In beautiful language we are led through various stages of creative activity whereby God puts His power into matter and produces inorganic and organic forms, and at length living creatures. These created objects are declared to have always been in existence, partly because creation in time is unthinkable, partly because, if temporal creation were admitted, this would leave God without an object prior to the first creative act. Hence the " Solitary God inhabiting eternity," who used to figure largely in some .systems of theology, has been renounced as an impossible being. The eternal creation of an infinite series of temporal things must therefore be conceded. Such a datum is large and involves peculiar difficulties, but it is confessedly still too small. " The power thus lodged " in things made " still remains in one sense subjective to God," i.e. such an eternal creation is little if anything more than our old acquaintance the Stoic's Cosmos, which is the vesture of one universal intelligence, and all its movements are the activities of this immanent soul. Dr. Martineau is quite aware of this, and again declares that it is only when " we emerge into the conscious ego of intellectual existence, which finally sets up another person," that we find an objective to God which does not identify " all power with His will. . . . The full security against the dissolving mists of Pantheism is first obtained when we .... stand in the presence of the supernatural in man, to whom an alternative is given, 30 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT and in whom is a real mind or miniature of God, consciously acting from a selected end in view. Here it is that we first learn the solemn difference between what is and what might be ; and carrying the lesson abroad, discover how faint a symbol is visible nature of its ideal essence and Divine Cause. . . . The outward world is not God's characteristic sphere of self-expression. . . . The silence is first broken, the self-expression comes forth in the moral phenomena of our life." ^ Passing over much which invites attention in the inter- mediate stages of this New Genesis, let us fix our attention on the " other - than - self" which is provided in manlike beings, assumed to be eternally created, and so truly in the likeness of God as to be described as His " miniatures." With sincere regret I am compelled to point out that Dr. Martineau has not arranged for the creation of these " miniatures." They are presented as the culminating triumphs of an ascending scale of created works ; yet without their existence God could not have produced the lowest effect on matter, seeing by hypothesis He can only be a Person, because other persons live to give scope for the play of His faculties. Eternal creation is postulated, but this convenient phrase must not conceal from us the obvious truth, that God can no more be thought of as producing the conditions of His own Personality eternally than at a point in time. If these miniatures eternally exist, it must be either because God contains in Himself the independent power to produce them, or because, like matter, they eternally coexist with God, and are not caused by Him, but are themselves multitudinous causes of movement in the Cosmos. On this point I must quote against the author an apparently forgotten dictum of his earlier book : " I think of a Cause as needing something else in order to work, z.e. some condition present with it. . . . If there be a condition requis- ^ Sea^ of Authority in Religion^ pp. 35, 36. CHRISTIAN THEISM 3I ite for the Divine Cause, it must from the nature of the case be already there, i.e. be self-existent with Him."^ This sentence was written when Dr. Martineau was contemplat- ing " matter " and " space " as the only discoverable data for choice, but it is quite as axiomatic if for matter we substitute " manlike" persons. If they are the necessary conditions of God's Personality, they must "be self-existent with Ilim," and He is no more their Creator than they collectively are His. It thus appears that Dr. Martineau is impaled on the horns of a dilemma, either of which is fatal to his theory. If God actually created all finite persons, it must be con- ceded that some uncreated " other-than-self" existed with God, or within God's personal fulness of being, as the indis- pensable condition of His own causality. If, on the other hand, God did not create all finite persons. He is not the First Cause of the universe, and Theism disappears. Where Dr. Martineau has thus failed it is unlikely that any living or coming philosopher will succeed. He has failed where Plato and Aristotle and Zeno failed, and where all the trained hosts of metaphysicians have failed for centuries. He has had the vain attempts of the past before him, and, confessing their failure, has laboured hard and skilfully to supply what was lacking in them, and to avoid their defects, while still persistently refusing to acknowledge the value even to philosophy of that Eternal Self-expression which the inspired fisherman of Galilee described as the Word. The outcome of his labour is that he has virtually demonstrated the impossibility of the Unitarian position. His arguments to show that the First Cause must be One and Personal are admirable ; but his attempt to render such a Being conceiv- able breaks down. Hence it is not unreasonable to affirm, that if God is to be revered by philosophic minds as the Creator of the Cosmos and of man ; if we are not to reel back into the insensate folly of a materialistic evolution ^ Study of Religion^ vol. i. p. 381, 2nd cd. 32 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT which could not start itself, and has no starter ; or if in flying from this ghastly absurdity we are not to deceive our religious yearnings by using the word God as an ideal name for a godless universe, — we must discover some adequate Objective or Divine Self-expression, which so enriches our conception of the Divine Personality, that we can think of God as containing in Himself all the conditions of self- conscious and spontaneous volitional energy of life. Before advancing to another stage of this discussion, it may be well to register certain remarkable features of Dr. Martineau's theory, (i) The very existence of a personal God is staked upon a theory of matter which the author regards as uncertain, and which in his Study of Religion he felt obliged to relinquish as useless. Were this scientific hypothesis, to which he resorts despairingly in his later work, disproved, his theology would have to be shifted to a new foundation, or perish. (2) The existence of a personal God is furthermore staked on the eternal existence of some " Self- expression " which is only discoverable in man or some manlike creature. (3) The peculiar difficulty which besets the theory, when eternal matter has been given, is the production of some self-expression which shall not itself be divine. The hypothesis of God eternally issuing into some self-expression which may be identified with Himself is unwittingly shown to be free from the peculiar difficulties which the theory has been elaborated to overcome. It is not a part of the created universe, and therefore its identifi- cation with God has no Pantheistic tendency ; and it does not stake God's existence on the eternity of matter and finite creatures. Thus we are taught, none the less surely because quite unintentionally, that it is more philosophic to think of a Divine Self-expression which was always "with God " and " zuas God" than of one which was not God, yet was with Him in the beginning. (4) Eternal creation being not only conceded, but demanded, the antiquated arguments CIIRISTIAX TIIF.ISM 33 and sneers of Arians, Socinians, and Jews against Internal Sonship are consigned to the limbo of metaphysical anti- quities. If eternal creation be more thinkable than creation in time, an eternal Son must be more thinkable than the Arian Son, who once began to be. These contributions towards a true philosophy of Theism would have made the heart of Athanasius sing for joy. 2. It will be remembered that in our examination of the Hebrew doctrine of God's self - revelation, we found an unbridged gulf between the Infinite Mind and finite thinkers, and we saw that the doctrine of angels onl)' removes the difficulty to a distance. Incidentally Dr. Mar- tineau assists our faith in the existence of these manlike creatures by asserting the absolute necessity of some such beings to philosophical Theism. Those who smile at such a belief as childish may well take note of this significant fact. But we have not found any relief to the Old Testament difficulty. The rational believer as well as the rational sceptic is compelled to acknowledge that the mere postula- tion of these creatures under any name leaves the problem of revelation unsolved. It seems remarkable, but is in truth quite natural, that the gap in Hebrew theology should thus closely correspond to the gap in philosophical Theism. Assuredly it is profoundly significant that if without sacri- ficing Divine Unity we can discover a divine self-expression, we shall at the same time solve the double problem of Personality for Philosophy and of Revelation for Theology. If John's "Word" can be received, not as a second God, but as the necessary and eternal self-expression of the One God, it supplies at once an objective for the Divine Mind and a manifestation of God to His creatures. Seeing that these two topics are inseparably conjoined, and that Christian Theism offers one doctrine of God's Person as a solution of both mysteries, I shall preface our 34 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT examination of this doctrine by pointing out that the New Testament agrees with the Old in maintaining the In- visibility and Inscrutability of God as the correlatives of its doctrine of Revelation. The statements made on this subject are as clear as those which affirm the Divine Unity. " No man hath seen God at any time." He is " the King eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God." " The blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable ; whom no man hath seen at any time, neither can see." The in- scrutability of man is made an illustration and a proof of the assertion that the human intellect has no power to discern the unrevealed mind of God. " For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man that is in him ? Even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God."^ The visible works of nature declare some- thing of their author ; but, as we have just heard, they are not the characteristic sphere of His self-expression. To our deepest questions they have no reply. They shed no light on the mystery of our future. Sin, Sorrow, Pain, Aspiration, Hope, and Fear are all made terrible, and their issues are wrapped in thick darkness by death. In view of this appalling mystery we ask. What does God think of us ? What will He do with us ? How shall we be judged, and on what principle will our lot be appointed in that awakening which most men anticipate yet know not whether to desire or dread ? These heart-shaking questions are not illumined by the wonders of the sky or earth or sea. To all our agonised inquiries Nature answers, " Such wisdom is not in me." If we but knew what God is, and what His thoughts are in relation to our lives, such knowledge would be more than all the sciences. But divine thoughts are at least as unsearchable as man's. We can guess, we can draw reason- 1 Cf. John i. i8 ; i Tim. i. 17, vi, 15, 16 ; I Cor. ii. 11. CHRISTIAN THEISM 35 able inferences ; but we cannot find out God as we find out worlds and elements and laws. At this point the New Testament still agrees with the Old, in the conviction that though man cannot ascend to achieve the scientific observation of God, yet God can impart to man a true knowledge of Himself. The dictum, " no man hath seen God at an}' time," covers the ancient stories of so-called " Theophanies," and it coincides with rabbinical opinion that God was never imagined by the authors of the Old Testament to have been displayed to human vision except in a representative sense ; but the entire burden of the New Testament may be summed up in the statement that God has revealed Himself to the world in Christ. The subject of the Incarnation is treated in another cssa\-, but some reference to it here is inevitable. When we are asked to think of God as manifesting Himself by assuming human nature as a vestment of visibility and an organ of active intercourse, we are constrained to recognise the sole fitness of a Person to represent Him who is invisible. But the more thoroughly this principle is appreciated the more inclined we are to ask. Is this manifestation to mankind in the midst of earthly time and on this insignificant globe a solitary and exceptional event, or may we regard it as a special and temporary form of a personal revelation which is eternal as God? It is difificult, and to many minds virtual!}- impossible, to believe in such an event when regarded as a solitary and exceptional incident in the history of God's relations with the cosmos. There may be something exceptional in the state of mankind, which rendered a Divine manifestation in a finite form a wise and needful expedient ; but the more we reflect upon the declared purpose and benefits of such a revelation, the more strongly it is borne in upon our minds that if needful here for redemptive or educational reasons, it must be needful wherever manlike, i.e. intelligent, moral beings exist throughout the universe. It ^6 THE AXCIKNT FAITH IX MODERN LIGHT is indeed inconceivable that He who is for ever changeless should issue into \isibility once only, and but for a few moments in the midst of eternal ages, and on one of the least of many millions of worlds. The difficulty may seldom be articulated, but it lies deep in many minds, and is one of the ill-defined causes of doubt which prevail among cultured men and women to-day. But how differently we can view the Incarnation when illuminated by the thought that it is God's eternal nature to issue into knowable form, and that His self-expression is eternal ! This is the thought which the proem to John's Gospel was evidently written to diffuse. " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The main purport of this sublimely simple saying is that God was never without a self-expression. In Himself, i.e. in His self-conscious Life, God never was and never can become visible. We have no eyes which can read unuttered thought, or search the dark depths of another consciousness ; nor can we conceive of any finite intelligence which could be capable of exploring the sanctuary of another self But John while assuming that his readers are acquainted with Luke's story of the nati\-ity, and including that earthly incident in the statement " the Word became flesh," yet views it in its eternal setting, and places it before the world as the coming into the region of our sense-perceptions and into the circle of our social life on earth of One who had been God's self-expression, God's Word, in that eternal past which includes what to our infirmity must be called " the beginning " when " God made the heavens and the earth." Neither in his Gospel nor in his ist Epistle does John affect to tell us or even to know what the Logos Form was prior to the Incarnation, and in relation to the universe at large, but his language distinctly attributes personality to the Logos. Other interpretations are offered, but they are very superficial, and fail to satisfy the conditions of a sound CHRISTIAN THEISM 37 exegesis.^ The least unsatisfactory of these, and the only one which can be noticed here, accounts for the description of Christ as the Word become flesh, by stating that all God's earlier messages which had come to men as law and pro- phecy were summed up in Jesus as a living messenger who is thus constituted the living truth of God. There is beauty and truth in this proposed explanation. It is quite scrip- tural, but it is only a fragment of John's thought. It leaves out of account John's eternal prospect, which includes not only man's tuition, but man's creation and the creation of the cosmos, and melts away into the haze where thoughts of time and temporal succession are lost. It offers no inter- l^retation of the fact that the Word is declared by John to have been already existent when the "beginning" is reached b\' human imagination. It fails to deal with the statement that all things came into existence through Him. If this had been all that John wanted to say, the world would never have had those marvellous chapters which have had such an immeasurable influence on philosophy as well as on theology for so many centuries. Some of John's sentences may be attenuated to this meagre meaning, but when all are fairly read tcjgether, they exhibit a Word who did not at first loecome personal in Christ ; not an impersonal message embodied in a personal messenger, but a living One of whom it can be said historically, " and the Life was mani- fested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, whicli was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." The " life " thus manifested in time to the apostles is the Word which was with God, and " was God." Such language must transcend our exposition, for it con- tains a thought so vast and many-sided that its utterance inevitably becomes paradoxical. It cannot, however, be called obscure. A word or discourse is just!)- termed a ' Note I J, p. 62. 38 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT thought because it is an uttered thought, yet there is a sense in which we can distinguish between the utterance and the thought uttered. So the Logos may be spoken of in one clause as only " with God " and in the next as God. The doctrine is that the Invisible God, to whose self-conscious life no man can penetrate, has never been without expression in a knowable personal form. This form is not another individual of a limited species collectively called God, but is God ; so that the Word may be conceived of as for ever saying to the Universe, " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. ... I and My Father are One." Into the innermost secrets of the Godhead we cannot hope to pass, nor can we ever speak of divine things in other than metaphorical language. Attempts to define the infinite, and to get behind the manifesting Word so as to apprehend the innermost relations of the Revealed One to the Revealer, have not helped the faith or enlightened the intellects of men. Hence I make no presumptuous effort to explain precisely how the living Word may constitute what philosophy desiderates as an objective for God which exists with Him and fulfils the conditions of Personality and Causality, without being separated from Him as one finite person is separated from another. It is inevitable that thought and language should prove unequal to such a task. Our nearest approach to success must lie in the use of anthropomorphic analogies, with a distinct proviso that they connote finite limitations which they are not intended to denote. When we speak of " another-than-self " for God, we are entitled to add that we do not mean another self in the sense of a second personal God, but something which corre- .sponds to another self in the case of finite creatures. An eternal and self-existent person must contain in Himself what we can only find in other finite beings outside our- selves, or He cannot exist. But this is no disproof of His existence, it is only an admission that His nature must con- CHRISTIAN TIIKIS.M 3^ tain a fulness which corresijonds to at least dual personality in finite beings. Our conception of Space is that of measurable extension, but this is no evidence that space is not im- measurable or infinite. Our conception of Time is that of measurable duration, )'et we cannot get rid of the idea of eternity, because our time imagery fails. When Mr. Spencer reaches the inevitable conclusion that there is an eternal and inexhaustible Force, he is obliged to insist that this force which persists is not the force we know, for among other reasons the laws of force as known to us absolutely require previous work done as the condition of activity. Hence, according to every philosophical analogy, it is certain that an Eternal and self-existent Person must if spoken of at all be spoken of in terms which, like those which refer to time and space and force, require to have their finite connotations denied. Subject, therefore, to this explanation it appears that the Logos affirmed by John is an " other-than-self " for God, which satisfies all the requirements of the case as excellently stated by Dr. Martineau, and in a way which escapes all the fatal objections to his own conjectural datum. A self-existent person cannot be dependent on His own created objects for His personality. That which corresponds to an Objective for Him must belong to His own uncreated nature. Given, therefore, such an eternal self-expression as John declares, and the First Cause stands before our thought in complete and undivided unity. In passing from this consideration of John's doctrine, as a solution of the problem of Divine Personality, to view it as supplementary to the Hebrew doctrine of Revelation, we enter a region where thought is less difficult, and where the language of Scripture is more varied and explicit. The inward or Godward relation of the Logos is more distinctly expressed in the Greek (•rpoc tw Oiou) than a translation can 4b THE ANCIENT EAITII IN MODERN LIGHT show, but still it is not dealt with in a way to suggest that John was consciously dealing with the psychological problem. But the outward and manward, or more broadly the creatureward relations of the eternal Word are dwelt upon as an integral part of the Christian revelation. He is the "effulgence" of God's glory, "the very image of His sub- stance," and God has spoken to us in Him. Thus the Logos dwelt with God as form dwells with substance, and as the visible presentment of a man dwells with the man and is the man, and though the man is not merely what we see, yet we know him, and can come to him in no other way. One of the most beautiful and simple of scriptural metaphors is disclosed to English readers by the revised translation of Rev. xxi. 23. Speaking of the future city of the saints, John writes : " For the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb." As translated in the Authorised Version, the verse suggested that God and the Lamb were two distinct light-givers ; but when John's distinction be- tween the light and the luminary is uncovered, we see that every gleam of radiance flows from the one eternal and in- approachable source in God who is Light, but that this sole light is enshrined for modulated diffusion in Christ, so that all illumination reaches the inhabitants of the city through Him. This answers to all the language which speaks of God as " in Christ," and it beautifully expresses the truth that the Logos is God's necessary self-manifestation — God's medium of self-revelation to the universe. We are tempted perhaps by philosophic habit, or by contempt for idolatry, to exhaust our powers of analysis in stripping the idea of God of everything which limits Him within the outlines of a form. But what is our reward ? Is it not that we find God reduced to a mere negation of finite qualities without a residuum of reality? By such a cold abstraction religious yearning is mocked. Our hearts would embrace a person, but are chilled by a white cloud which CHRISTIAN THEISM 4I vanishes into nothingness. We have created a vacuum and called it God, and neither in the heavens above us to-day nor in the ages of futurity, can we hope for anything hke that beatific vision of the Living God for wliicli the soul pants in the arid wilderness of speculation. Such feelings are not peculiar to any individual or class. Looking back on the history of religion we see how pcnver- fully the yearning for some objective form has operated. The tendency to idolatry has been practically universal. Within historic times it has defied the clearest teachings of Theism, and has survived, or revived, in spite of indignation and contempt. The iconoclastic l^uddha has become an image. Image-worshi}) prevailed in Israel for centuries after the prophets wrote their scathing denunciations. In large portions of Christendom image-worship and the adora- tion of the Host almost supersede spiritual wcjrship, and the visible priest takes the place of an unseen Christ. Even Positivism follows the same course, and assists its worship of idealised Man by [portraits of canonised men. Such facts as these prove that the craving for Form is ineradicable. Men cannot worship Plato's Ideas or Aristotle's Mind. From such metaphysical figments the Stoics fled to Nature and adored the universal Reason as expressed in the visible cosmos. Thus Pantheism, which assumes such airs of superiority to " anthropomorphic " Theism, is a last and most extreme illustration of man's demand for form. Its most fascinating thought is that the cosmos is the one but manifold image of the invisible, the vestment and self-expression of God. The universality and power of this craving for form for- bids us to treat it as a contemptible infirmity. We shall be wiser to respect it as the natural demand of finite minds, and so incpiirc whether it cannot have some legitimate satisfaction which does not involve idolatry. Readers of the Ihble owe much of their abhorrence of idolatry to the iconoclastic 7.eal of the prophets, and the stringent prohibi- 42 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN .MODERN LIGHT tion of image-making by the Jewish law. Yet no one can deny that, according to the Old Testament, God condescends to meet man's craving for Form to assist his idea of God. The old " Theophanies," the cloud of glory, and prophetic dreams and visions, are all examples of this condescension. The curtained space in the Temple, with a seat on which no visible shape rested, helped to focalise men's thoughts ; and even the act of turning towards the sanctuary when praying afar off, must have saved many from the sense of vagueness and unreality which thousands now complain of when trying to commune with a silent and shapeless Omnipresence. Coming to the New Testament we find idolatry still denounced as a sin ; yet the Incarnation is placed before us as God's provision for man's need, and Christ is distinctly declared to be the Image of the Invisible God. Wherein, then, lies the folly and criminality of idolatry, and how can it be distinguished from the worship of Christ? The answer is perfectly clear and adequate. Idolatry cannot be wrong merely because an image is a form which helps to express and show forth a thought, but because it is an expression of man's own thought of God, and is not God's self-expression to man. It is the symbol of an idea, and therefore a word ; but it is not God's word ; it is not God's answer to man's inquiry, but man's poor and illusory effort to answer himself. Human nature is mocked and deluded when induced to invent, or to accept what other men have invented. As an image of God, it makes little difference whether the image be carved in stone, draped in poetry, or coldly outlined in a proposition. In any case, the man-made image is only an unauthenticated guess which may have little or no likeness to the Divine Truth. Man's god-making, whether literary, artistic, or logical, is to be refused as a pretended portrait of an unseen Being. But none the less it is true that, without an image of some kind, no man can think of God. The Formless Void of dialectics CHRISTIAN TIIEIS.M 43 is no more God than is a figure sculptured in marble. It is more truly Not-Being than lieing. We can no more truly reach God by anal)'sis than by imagination. The onl)- conceivable satisfaction of our intellectual and affectional thirst for a living God, is some living Image which God Himself supplies. In substance, these considerations are of universal validity. Man's sensuous nature may demand an Incarna- tion, while creatures of finer constitution may be able to discern things and persons which elude our faculties ; but as we have seen in dealing with Hebrew Theism, the Infinite Mind must be inscrutable to the loftiest created intelligence until He manifests Himself. Thus a Divine Word is the only conceivable link between the infinite and the finite. The first step towards communion must be God's, and John fills the gap which yawns in every non- Christian system of Theism by declaring that God has never been without a Living Self-expression. 3. The absolute necessity for an Objective Form for the Revelation of Invisible Personality must not tempt us to exaggerate its efficiency. Let us also confess that there is a knowledge of Persons, which Form, whether conceived of as a material figure or an intellectual ex[3ression, cannot convey. The Love which is not a mere passionate desire, finds that the most intimate communion which is possible between human beings is still a remote intercourse. There is still a gulf fixed which neither beholder can cross. In supreme hours, such as come with great perils, or in the chamber of death, v.e look into the faces of beloved ones and yearn for a sight of the hidden life. We hear their words, but they sound like voices from afar. In times of trouble when comforters visit us, we know that they cannot penetrate to the innermost secret of our sorrow. In times of misjudgment we long to lay bare our true selves, but 44 THE ANCIENT FAITH IX MODERN LIGHT words fail, explanations darken, even tears misrepresent, and we know ourselves unknown. " Self-expression " is, indeed, the most difficult of all the arts. The highest poetry is a failure to the poet, and all preaching is a failure to the prophetic soul — " For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within." The greater a man is, the more difficult it becomes to find language for his inspiration, and to show himself aright to his fellows. With fuller knowledge and loftier aims, his methods of work must of necessity be perplexing and often inexplicable to others. Reverential sympathy may trust his wisdom and goodness while labouring for remote objects, but the multitude he strives to benefit are likely to regard him with suspicion, and his ways with contempt. Is not this a partial interpretation of the divine sorrow which is frequently affirmed by the prophets, " My people have not known me"? Is it not also an interpretation of Christ's plaint to His disciple, " Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know Me, Philip " ? The alien and unfit saw Christ, and in John's phrase they also saw and heard and handled the Word of Life ; yet these phenomena conveyed to them no Truth, and made not manifest the Life enshrined within. The chosen few walked and talked with the Word Incar- nate, yet after three years they were still incapable of read- ing Him as He and they desired. The finite form and human attributes which, according to Christian Theism, were indispensable vehicles of revelation, were also hindrances and limitations. There were truths which, as Christ told Peter, "flesh and blood" could not reveal. For the Infinite Lord the "form of a servant" was in some respects a dis- guise, and the early removal of that material object was as essential as its temporary use. Hence it was that Christ said to His friends, " It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Paraclete will not come to you. . . . CHRISTIAN THEISM 45 When He, the Spirit of 'I'ruth, is come, lie sliall guide you into all the truth. . . . He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine and shall declare it unto you." ^ Until the inherent difficulty of self-revelation is appre- hended, we ha\e no clue to the significance of Christ's teaching respecting the Spirit. Even those who take a strictly humanitarian view of Christ's person must confess that for Him, as at least a peerless son of man, the task of showing Himself was singularly difficult. But how sup- remely difficult appears this task if, with John, we believe that Christ knew Himself to be not merely a man, but a man and something more, — a man in whom the Father dwelt for revelation ! It may for a moment be thought that the diffi- culty would be lessened by the possession of extraordinary powers ; but this relief is illusor\'. Finite minds can only comprehend finite symbols, and the modes of communication open for God's use are limited by the inexorable necessity of using a language which His creatures have learned. He must use an imperfect medium of communication, or else create new faculties of which we have no conception. How, then, can we estimate the difficulty of bringing even the most intimate associates of Christ to see that the Divine Spirit was present in the human Friend they revered, but were religi- ously afraid to worship? Without endangering that loyalty to God for which He had chosen them, and which He had come, not to weaken, but to nourish, He could only lead them little by little into the consciousness of a divine com- panionship ; nor could He assert His own Divinity in words until they were thus prcp.ired to believe the amazing truth. When this dawned upon them thc\' were in danger of cleaving to the human Form with an exaggerated affection. The veil needed to be rent that they might .see the Life of which it was a vestment. The bodih' form also needed to be withdrawn that they might live in ceaseless communion ' |()hn xvi. 7-14. 46 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT with One who was confined to no human temple, and was as truly everywhere as in the body which He had made His vestment for a season. In reading Christ's words about the Spirit, we therefore need to regard them as the language of One whose purpose in life was to reveal Himself to a world, which was dark and devil-haunted for lack of the Truth hidden in His own self- consciousness. If any reader shrinks from such a standpoint as beyond the reach of present faith, let him remember that, rightly or wrongly, this was John's standpoint, and therefore his interpreters must take their places at least hypothetically by his side, or can never hope to know what he meant to teach. Viewing Christ thus, we see that He had to impart ideas which no language spoken among men could embody in their wholeness. He was obliged to give broken lights or leave men in darkness. His disciples thought of God as Invisible, and He must confirm their belief ; yet must He also con- vince them that the Father was showing His mind and heart ; was showing Himself in and through the Son who had come into their midst. He must prepare them for His removal from their midst as one who walked and talked and lived within the range of sense-perception. Yet He must assure them that this removal did not mean absence. He must convince them that He, the Jesus Christ of Nazareth, would not be holden of death, but be raised up to a glorified life of intimate union with the Father ; and yet He must make it clear that while, in the terms of a poor earthly analogy. He sat enthroned above the highest heavens. He would be as truly their Master and Friend, and as truly the hearer of their words and reader of their thoughts, as while He dwelt as a brother in their midst. Hence we find in the profoundest and most spiritual discourses reported in John's Gospel, phrases which are as picturesquely anthropomorphic as any in the Old Testament. " I go to prepare a place for CHRISTIAN Tni;is.M 47 you." " I go unto the Father." " I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of Truth." " I will not leave you desolate, I will come unto you." " A little while and the world beholdeth Me no more ; but ye behold Me." " If a man love Me, he will keep My word : and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." " These things have I spoken unto you while yet abiding with you. But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name. He shall teach }'ou all things, and bring to remembrance all that I have said unto you." If we take these, with many similar utterances, and attempt to harmonise them literally, we find contradictory absurdities. If we try to analyse them, and then so recom- pose their parts as to frame a doctrine of three persons, with separate offices and functions, no clear division can be made. In some places the Spirit appears to be a person ; in others, an almost passive influence, proceeding from the Father ; in others, as a subordinate being who has no spon- taneity of action, no claim to personal recognition, and no function but to magnify the Son. The same things are attributed to Father, Son, and Spirit. Christ will come and dwell with His disciples. Christ and the Father will come together as though two invisible guests. The Spirit also is to abide in us for ever, while Christ goes away to the Father. These are a few of the confusions which abound in the letter, and they are enough to kill all faith if criticised without sympathetic insight into Christ's purpose and the inherent difficulties of His task. But with this clue to guide us, the meaning is not indistinct. Christ does not reduce the God- head into a species which consists of three individuals, with separate departmental offices, and are One God only as collect- ive humanity is man. Nor does Christ darken counsel by loose statements in which names are interchanged without reason. He meets human infirmity of thought by language 4S TIJF. ANCIKNT FAITH IX MODERN LKllIT which enables us to think of the Father in heaven as also here on earth, and in possession of the innermost sanctuary of our personal life. God comes to us objectively in Christ, and thus sets a living image before mankind which gives a definite and intelligible idea of Himself. This image is as truly, if not as vividly, before men's minds to-day in the recorded life as it was during the period of fleshly residence on earth ; and in seeing the significance of this objective revelation we see into the heart of the Invisible Father. But the record of this objective self-expression does not suffice. We need inspira- tion to appreciate its riches of knowledge. We crave to know also that the Being whose glory passed before the first disciples is accessible to us, and that we are not living out of His ken and care. Hence the doctrine of the Spirit has been given to teach that God is not only transcendent, but immanent. He not only came once, but is always coming ; yet is never coming, because always here. He who made us has access to our minds not only through the avenues of sense ; He can enter by a door no physical hand can open ; He can speak without moving waves of air to break upon our ears. He does not miraculously dispense with our ordinary faculties for the discernment of truth, but He has power to quicken spiritual energy, to add the mystic music of a spiritual voice to the words \\hich would otherwise be like those of a deceased author. Christ is God's self- expression, but the Spirit is His self-impartation ; He is God in living touch with us, and helping our infirmities, so that we may have purified eyes to see the things He has revealed, and be strengthened with might in the inner man as by a new breath from the Creator's mouth, so that we may be able to comprehend His love, and do the things He has commanded. Helped by this never-absent Friend, we see God in nature as far as nature can declare Him ; we also see God's thought in the Scriptures, and, above all, God's character in Christ. Thus Inspiration is the comple- CHRISTIAN THEISM. 49 mcnt of Revelation ; and the Love of God, commended to the world by the life and dying of the Word made flesh, is shed abroad in each believing heart by the Spirit. 4. Christianity inherited from Judaism its profoundly ethical idea of God ; but this goodly heritage came bur- dened with certain problems which the Old Testament never formally discussed, though it thrust them into promi- nence, and contained in at least an implicit form most important clues to their solution. We have seen that devout Israelites firmly believed in the immutability of the divine character and the inviolable sanctity of moral law ; yet they also believed in the efficacy of repentance, in the possibility of forgiveness, the remission of penalty, and in the ultimate deliverance of the godly from the destructive consequences of sin. But these beliefs were not intellect- ually harmonised. Each belief was held fast as a doctrine of revelation ; each was found satisfactory to the reason and heart while viewed apart ; but speculative attempts at con- ciliation seem to have been arrested by a religious reverence for God's supremacy, coupled with a restful intuition that the Judge of all the earth must needs do right. It has often been said, and notably by the late Dr. Hatch, that it was Greek philosophy which forced upon the Church the twofold problem of the relation of the idea of forgiveness to that of law; and the relation of the conception of a Moral Governor to that of free will.^ But this is a most misleading statement. Both these are problems raised by ethical Monotheism and peculiar to it, and were discussed between Jews and Christians before Greek philosophy exerted any appreciable effect on Christian thought. All the factors of the problem are prominent in the Old Tes- tament, and their solution is the ethical raison d'etre of Christianit}'. That Greek habits of thought forced the dis- 1 T/ic Hibbcrt I.atuycs^ 1SS8, p. 226. 4 50 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT cussion of these problems in an apologetic and philosophic form upon the Church need not be questioned ; but when this happened their solution had not to be invented, but only to be brought forth. It had already been provided in the teachings of Christ, and by Paul's interpretation of Christ's life and death. The Greeks had no conception of a moral order centring in and administered by an Eternal and Righteous God. They had the conception of an order to which gods and men were subject, and by their highest minds this order was believed to be rational and therefore right ; but the ethical content of this conception was exceedingly small. It was virtually the thought of an automatic Destiny, working out its necessary decrees without regard for man's inward life, and without anger or pity, approval or disapproval for men or gods. The wicked man had therefore cause to fear the Nemesis which would bring to him the natural consequences of his deeds ; the good man might hope to reap some benefits resultant from his virtue : but the man who regretted his misdeeds could never imagine that Heaven would forgive his crime, or cut the threads of fate for his relief. In such an order the problems now before us had no possible place. A cosmos thus dominated by an impersonal principle of necessity is not a moral order, and it leaves no room for one to be developed. In such a cosmos, v/hether conceived in a materialistic or pantheistic sense, all things work out an endless continuity of sequences without possibility of choice within or control from above. There is no Moral Governor, no government, no free will, con- sequently there can be no sin, and therefore neither forgiveness nor punishment, but only necessary action followed by necessary effects. In such a cosmos strictly ethical problems cannot arise. Only in a cosmos created and governed by a Person can any collision between law CHRISTIAN THEISM 5 1 and forgiveness, or moral agents and a Moral Governor, have any imaginable place. Happily the same idea of God which renders these ethical problems possible, also paves the way for their solution. .\s a preliminary consideration it enables us to affirm, that a Personal Creator cannot be powerless to act on the universe for the purpose of giving effect to His ethical judgments. He is not only the First Cause in the order of temporal succession, but the permanent principle of causality: He is the continuous and persistent Cause of all movement and life, and can touch the sequence of events in the physical realm, so as to bend and direct their currents by methods of which man's \olitional control of nature is a type. Hence there is no such incompatibility between salvation and natural law in a Theocentric Cosmos, as there is, or would be, in a godless world. Unless restrained by some immutable ethical principle, God can avert the natural consequences of human transgression. The fact that potential!)' God can do these things is not only the antecedent condition of any ethical question coming before our minds, but when tlie c^uestion has come it compels us to deal with it on purely ethical grounds. Again, a Personal Creator and Ruler, who issues and administers Laws which include punitive sanctions, may conceivably annul or alter these laws in the exercise of the same authority which imposed them. Here again the question raised is purely ethical, and is one which pagan philosophy, whether ancient or modern, is peculiarly incom- petent to discuss, because it can only be dealt with even hypothetically in relation to a Theocentric Cosmos in which the will of a Personal God is free, and His power supreme. It touches the immutability of God's character, the inviolability of His word, the stability of His purpose, and the moral continuity of His work. But in relation to 52 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT each of these points the problem presupposes God's exist- ence, and His power to please Himself. How, then, does Christian Theism deal with this strictly ethical problem? In respect of the law, considered as a Jewish code or series of codes, Christianity denies that God ever tied His own hands by any enactments. It affirms that the Judaic dispensation was national and transitory, and that its laws were not universal or per- petual expressions of God's will. It distinguishes between Law as an eternal and necessary order, which even God cannot alter or relax without unrighteousness, and a par- ticular set of regulative commands. The Jewish law in this latter sense had become almost a fetich to the Pharisees, and Paul's treatment of it as a local and temporary instrument of discipline for an immature people, excited their vehement anger. But Paul urged with irresistible force, that a legal code was powerless to produce righteousness, i.e. to carry men into perfect con- formity with that eternal law of righteousness of which it was a partial and provisional expression. He insisted that although God's will for men is changeless, His method of moral culture may change, as parental discipline changes when children's ideas of right and wrong become developed, and the higher motives of honour and affection come into play. We can have no sympathy, then, with the obstruc- tionist pride of the Jews, who thought that the Mosaic dispensation was as sacred and unalterable as the eternal principles of moral government. It has become plain, not only to Christians, but to many Agnostics, that conduct which is actuated by considerations of personal security or advantage, or of legal obligation, is ethically less pure than conduct which springs from a free spirit of love. On this point Paul's discussions anticipated all that is most beautiful in Mr. Herbert Spencer's Data of Ethics^ in which he adopts the Christian ideal of conduct, while emu- CHRISTIAN THEISM 53 lating the ancient alchemists by a scientific endeavour to transmute the base metal of selfishness into the fine gold of altruism. Paul found in the love of God in Christ an element of such potent virtue, that it could transform human character by changing the thoughts of the heart and creating an enthusiasm for the Father's kingdom and glory. Hence he was able to say that for transmuted character the Jewish law was obsolete. But he always insisted that this change of dispensation was in the interests of righteousness, and not, as the Jews supposed, a specious anarchism. No fair-minded reader of the New Testament can regard Christianit}- as a surrender of the Divine will, or an abdica- tion of the duties of a Moral Governor. The ancient moral law was translated into an exemplary life by Christ. His Life is an interpretation of that eternal law of Love which was less vividly expressed in the Decalogue, and His actual character is fairer than any ethical ideal which the best of men had previously conceived. The injunction to follow Christ is not an imperious mandate, but it includes every " Thou shalt" and " Thou shalt not " in the practical ethics of Moses. Likeness to Christ is held up before men as the goal of individual aspiration, and those who have no such aspiration are declared to be none of His, and are forbidden to expect a place in His kingdom. The ethical standard, therefore, is not lowered but raised ; the environment of human life is widened from a nation to the universe, and from this brief span of existence to eternity ; but God's inexorable hatred of sin, and His purpose to exterminate it, is declared to be the chief reason for Christ's advent and death. l^ut granting this inflexible ethical intent, it is demanded, How can the doctrine of forgiveness be reconciled with the divine maintenance of an eternal and immutable Moral Order? The answer to this inquiry is written large in the New Testament. It is one of Christ's most fundamental 54 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT doctrines, that under certain definite conditions, forcjix eness is not a breach, but is itself an integral and essential part of the moral order. By His personal example and by His verbal teachings, Christ thus elevated forgiveness into a supreme duty. There are, according to Christ, only two things which God will not forgive, namely, the sin against the Holy Spirit, which cannot here be discussed, and the sin of refusing to forgive them that sin against us. "If ye forgive not . . . neither will your heavenly Father forgive you." In His model prayer He teaches us to imprecate vengeance on our- selves if unmerciful, by saying, " Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." Pardon is therefore not viewed by Christ as moral laxit}-, or as a departure from the strict course of righteousness, but as a primary law of moral life, and as a fundamental principle in the society He came to found, on a declaration of God's righteousness in "passing by iniquity, transgression, and sin." This law of forgiveness is strictly conditioned in Christian ethics by genuine repentance. Among men the reality of repentance can seldom be verified ; but so urgent is Christ to prevent any denial of mercy to the truly penitent, that He throws all the risk of error into the scale against suspicion, and commands us to forgive a brother as often as he may turn and only say, " I repent." God's forgiveness is not to be obtained without a repentance which is real in His unerring sight ; but allowing for the difference between fallibility and infallibility, God's forgiveness is represented to us as granted on the same condition as man's is enjoined. To those who look on conduct as consisting of outward and visible acts, this inclusion of forgiveness among the virtues must appear anomalous. But the ethical glory of Christian Theism lies in the fact that it carries our minds into a more purely spiritual region, and bids us look, not only on acts, but on motives and on states of mind, which are CHRISTIAN THEISM 55 infinitcl}- more iinportaiit ; because they are the hidden springs whence proceed the issues of love, and because they are, indeed, the realities with which ethical science, as distinct from legislative authority, is mainly concerned. Christ carries out to its full development the ancient truth — As a man " thinketh in his heart, so is he." Hence, in His judg- ment of men, now and hereafter, He is a discerner of "the secrets of men." Mere outward rectitude cannot satisfy Him, nor can outward acts of wrong render Him unjust to one who has erred through ignorance or weakness, or through direful temptation. In the superficial judgment which regards action only, repentance appears valueless and inoperative, for it cannot alter the past, nor can it heal the wounds which sin has made, nor stay the external plague of corruption, disorder, and disaster which trans- gression has caused. But in the inner realm, where ethical distinctions have validity, the significance of repentance is inestimable. True repentance means the production of an entirely new mind, and with it a complete change in the man's relations with the eternal moral order. Before repentance the transgressor was an anarchist, a revolter, and disturber of the world's peace — he was like a broken bone in the social body, a discordant voice in the great chorus ; — but after repentance he reveres, and yearns to con- form himself to the law of righteousness; and this man of renovated thought, affection, and volition is like a bone reset, a voice attuned to the concerted harmony of life. To refuse to recognise this change of nature and relations is therefore essentially unjust, and the treatment of the new heart as if it were an enemy to righteousness is an offence which a holy God cannot commit, and cannot condone in His creatures. In a mechanical cosmos, if such terms can be combined, a new heart counts for as little as the cry of a drowning man ; but in a Father's estimation it counts for more than many stars. It hv no means follows, however, that because f(M-- 56 TIIK ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT giveness has thus a primary place in an ethical order, it must include an immediate, or total removal of all the grievous consequences of wrong-doing. Having seen that God's power must be regarded as sufficient to give effect to His judgments, we are compelled to exclude dynamical considera- tions from this higher stage of the discussion, but there are benignant reasons why even repentance should not be allowed to cancel the connection between sowing and reaping. For- giveness recognises the veracity of the new mind, it releases the individual from the pangs of perpetual condemnation, it assures him of renewed trust in his rightness of spirit, and thus throws open the door of fellowship with God, and co- operation in His service with all who live in loyalty to Him. But forgiveness is not inconsistent with chastisement for the deepening of right impressions on the individual, and for the instruction of his acquaintances; nor does it require or permit such an interference with the natural order of physical causation and social sequence as would encourage procrastination and conceal the enormity of sin, and so screen the pardoned individual at the cost of undermining the foundations of the moral schoolhouse in which we have been placed. Hence, while showing the righteousness of forgiveness, Christ teaches also the mercy of severity ; and among the many rays of ethical truth which shine from the Cross, this comes to us, That God will spare no anguish to Himself or His sons, which may be necessary to conserve and solemnise the sanctity of Law. At this point our thoughts approach that mystery of Atonement which is dealt with by another pen, but no statement of Christian Theism can omit to say that, as in His life, so in that Death, which was its crowning action, Christ was the Self-expression of God. The Cross is the interpretation to humanity of that Name, which had been written long before in wonderful, but still weak Hebrew words. " The Lord, a God full of compassion and gracious, CHRISTIAN THKISM 57 slow to anc;cr, and [plenteous in mercy and truth, kcepinij mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty." Thus understood, the Cross becomes an assurance, that the Creator is faithful to all the moral responsibilities of Creation, and that He Himself is in eternal harmony with the moral order in which He disciplines mankind. He made men, foreseeing and permitting the tragical develop- ment of their free experiments in self-direction. He knew that generations of erring men would hand down to posterity a woeful heritage of weakened moral power, evil example, entangling circumstance, and bewildering theories of life; and we are taught by Christ that in all this God found, not a reason for dooming all His erring creatures to perpetual ruin, but an irresistible appeal to His justice and compassion ; and a cry for help, which a faithful Creator could not dis- regard. Like as a father pities the children he has begotten into a world of pain and strife — pities their frailty, their ignorance, their inevitable mistakes ; and while blaming their wilful faults, yet feels intense compassion, because nothing is so sad as sin : like as a wise father chastens an erring son because he loves him, and strives by every method in his power to awaken better thoughts, greets the first move- ments of repentance with delight, fosters them with words of sympathetic trust in their sincerity : like as a good earthly father, when he sees retribution falling, stoops to bear the son's burden of shame, and will often sacrifice both health and wealth, and even lay down his life to save the contrite prodigal from ruin ; — even so the Cross teaches us that the Father in heaven pities His children, and takes upon Himself the burden and sacrifice of their salvation. The Cross is thus the living synthesis of Law and For- giveness. It is the conciliation of the ancient paradox, " A just God and a Saviour." It is God fulfilling the eternal law of Love towards His creatures, and so constraining all who 58 THE ANCIENT FAITJl I\ MOIH'.UN LIGHT duly apprehend the truth to love Him because He has first loved us. In loving Him, men learn to love His law, and to hate the things which grieve His Spirit and disturb the order of His world. Thus Christian Theism is not only an ethical Monotheism, but is also a regenerative force, to bring the torn and distracted race of man into happy relations with the universal order, which ethically binds the Creator and His creatures into one family. It is therefore no vain thing to anticipate that, as Christian Theism becomes the light and power of human society, the world will be filled with the music of concerted lives, and all the earth be hallowed as one mansion in the Father's House. NOTE A (p. 5) Having referred to the work of the Higher Criticism, without endorsing or disputing its validity, it may not be superfluous to say that I regard it with respect and hope- fulness when conducted in a scientific spirit. As to its legitimacy there can be no question, luery village dame who reads Deut. xxxiv. becomes, unconsciously, a " higher critic," by perceiving that Moses could not have written the account of his own death, or the eulogy which declares, " And there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses." Those who would limit the analysis of the Old Testament within the limits of such a reader's acumen must be very few, and may be disregarded. The same law which justifies belief in a later authorship of this fragment must be universally applicable, and therefore the claim of critics to pursue their calling is indisputable. No rational person can imagine that the religious value of Deuteronomy is diminished by the discovery that Moses did not write the last chapter, and only a feeble faith can anticipate with alarm the ultimate results which analysis may yield. Strong faith will always say. Let us know, if possible, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ; that we may adjust our thoughts to the facts, and not tamper with facts to spare a little mental agitation. All this seems to be almost axiomatic. But between the cordial admission of CIIRISTLW THKIS.M 59 tlic principle and an immediate ov wliolesale ap[)ro\'al (jf all the handiwork which is offered as its legitimate fruitage, there is an appreciable difference. When inferences drawn from probable, not to speak of improbable, data, are treated as certainties, when guesses are given as " results," and when intuition and " fancy " take the place of proof, scepticism is not unjustifiable. May 1 add, that if specialists in criticism could be a little more patient with those who desire nothing but the truth, but like their truths verified, some heart- burning might be spared, and religion would suffer less from the recriminations of different orders of ser\-ants. Nothing is so unbecoming in a critic as the assumption that agree- ment with himself is a standard by which scholarship, insight, and courage are to be measured. Professor Cheyne has done much to infuse a religious spirit into English criticism, but his book on T/ie Founders of Old Testament Criticism is not pleasant reading, because marred by the fault just mentioned. I deprecate his disparaging comments on Professor Driver and other fellow - workers who have sufficient " caution," " moderation," and " sobriety " not to follow him implicitl)'. Such comments are neither fitted to soothe their feelings nor likely to augment public confidence. Professor Cheyne pleads for a free use of the " historic imagination " in conjunction with the critical faculty. He cannot even see that the word " fanciful," as applied to one of his hypotheses by Professor Robertson Smith, expresses a good reason for its non-acceptance. But while it may be conceded that without imagination there can be " no vivifying the lifeless conclusions of a cold criticism," a sharp distinction must be drawn between the legitimate exercise of this faculty for the literary grouping and arraying of historical material, and the unscientific use of it for the provision of facts. At the present moment it would be impossible to print in many coloiu's a Resultant Old Testament which would represent a general consensus of critical opinion, or have any pretensions to be regarded as final. Until critics and archx^o- logists can agree respecting the antiquity of literary culture and some other fundamental questions, no theory of the Old Testament can be wisely accepted as more than a mere working hypothesis. Theologians and preachers are not free to run the risk of building upon sandy surmises. They ought to be, and I belie\-c that most of them'are, prepared to welcome and build upon all historical facts as these arc ascertained and verified ; but in their recognition of these 6o THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT facts they will certainl}- prefer to be guided by men who do not offer them complex, fanciful, and imaginative theories as scientific results. In this connection the history of New Testament critic- ism is instructive. For many years Lightfoot, Westcott, and other defenders of the traditional view of the Christian documents were slighted as men who lacked " the historical sense " and the " highest scholarship," and even as " endowed advocates " of ecclesiastical traditions ; and Christian ministers were openly charged by Professor Huxley and many others with ignorance, or worse with dishonesty, in concealing from the public the "results of critical scholarship " ; yet to-day these results are given up. The present position is well summed up by a candid though reluctant witness : " There was a time — the great mass of the public is still living in such a time — in which people felt obliged to regard the oldest Christian literature, including the New Testament, as a tissue of deception and falsifica- tions. That time is past. . . . The oldest literature of the Church is, in the main points and in most of its details, from the point of view of literary history, veracious and trust- worthy. In the whole New Testament there is probably but a single writing which can be called, in the strictest sense of the word, pseudonymous, the Second l^^istle of Peter." ^ I agree with those who deprecate a hasty conclusion that Old Testament criticism will suffer a similar humiliation. There was an anti-Christian animus in the criticism of the New Testament which cannot be discovered among the fore- most Old Testament critics in England and America, and is comparatively rare in Germany; and this fact adds immensely to the value of any judgments which find general acceptance. It must also be remembered that the historical problem now* before the Church is vaster and more complex than the one just closed. The Christian Scriptures came into existence in a literary age and under circumstances of international publicity. Within a few years the chief documents were published in many parts of the world, and in various languages. They passed into the hands of numerous, remote, and independent organised communities, and in the course of a few generations they became the subject of polemical criticism and discourse. These facts have no parallel in the case of the Old Testament, which carries us 1 Professor Harnack, Tlie CJiroitology of Ancient Cliristian Litera- ture down to the Time of Eusehiiis. Quoted and translated by Dr. Sanday in the Guardian for January 20th, 1897. CHRISTIAN THEISM 6 1 back into vast and dimly lighted periods, of which even the external history is obscure, and into circumstances which render traditional views less likely to be accurate. But when due allowance has been made for these differences, it remains true that the fallibility of criticism has been impressively exhibited. It is gratif}-ing that a brilliant group of luiglish critics has triumphed over many boastful and disdainful opponents ; but they owe their success very largely to the opportune discovery of new documentary evidence. Hence it behoves us to avoid dogmatic conclusions respecting the Old Testament, which may be contradicted by archrcological research. Records of the past, more precious than gold or silver, are being sought for, and are likely to be found, in Egypt, Assyria, Palestine and adjacent lands. A few years may witness a final confirmation of some conjectural recon- structions of Hebrew history ; but it is not impossible that some traditional views may have a surprising vindication. In any case archaeology must have the last word, and that last word may not be heard by this generation. NOTE B (p. 9) In bringing the Psalter^ down to a late age, Professor Cheyne was confronted with those anthropomorphic features which have often been regarded as proofs of barbarism ; but concerning this he well observes, " The freedom with which the psalmists use anthropomorphic, or let us say mythic expressions, is a consequence of the sense of religious security which animates them. They have no expectation of being taken literally : they know that each member of the Church has a key to their meaning." NOTE C (p. lo) This anthropomorphic language is so extreme in some recent works that it almost amounts to a scientific defence of those primitive superstitions which personified the objects of nature. Thus, in a work which contains a laudatory preface by Mr. Grant Allen, we are told, " Trees . . . are .sentient beings, very much alive to the circumstances of their surroundings. It is all very well to ascribe this energy to the action and reaction of temi)crature, sunlight, and rain- ' Orii^in of the Psallt)\ p. 286. 62 TIIK AN'CIENT FAITH I\ MODERN LIGHT fall . . . but a purely mechanical process is impossible. . . . When a man gains some particular object for which he has long been striving, we call him persevering, energetic, and industrious ; and when a tree does the same we can hardly do less than give it due credit. . . . Of the five senses they (plants) possess three, feeling, taste, and smell . . . admitting that these senses are possessed . . . must we not conclude that they are discriminately used?"^ The argument thus indi- cated by an ardent evolutionist may be profitably read in arrest of the scorn cast on anthropomorphic conceptions of the First Cause. The scientific repudiation of mechanical evolution as inadequate to account for the phenomena of a tropical forest, is equally valid as applied to the Cosmos. It is a confession that evolution implies intelligent purpose and volition. Hence, if we deny a personal First Cause and Intelligent Evolver of Nature, we are compelled to attribute man-like qualities to inanimate things. Lest Mr. Rodvvay's language should be thought unusually imaginative, here is a sentence which I have just met with in an elementary Text- Book of Agricultural Botany: "Each organism, whether animal or vegetable, will pursue a similar course of conduct, using different means to attain the same end." NOTE D (p. 37) The interpretation of the Logos doctrine criticised in the text has been well expounded by Dr. J. Drummond, whose close study of Alexandrian philosophy preserved him from the common fallacy of confounding John's doctrine with that of Philo.- I have not attempted to discuss those theories which, with various modifications, treat John's Logos as the affirma- tion of a purely ideal pre-existence of Christ, because their adequate treatment would require more space than the entire essay now occupies. Some interpreters define the Logos as the sum of all God's thoughts, the fountain of all eternal wisdom and truth. Others narrow it down to God's ideal of manhood, which first found a perfect realisation in Christ. But, however phrased, such mystical conceptions are foreign to the sublimely simple thought of John, and cannot be fitted into a thorough and detailed exegesis of his prologue. Moreover, all these views are false to New Testament usage ^ James Rodway, /;; tJic Guiana Forest^ pp. 21 1-223. - Via^ Veritas, Vita, ]3. 307. CHRISTIAN THEISM 63 (jf the term Logos, and on this ground alone would have to be dismissed. This statement directly contradicts many- writers whose names carry great weight, but I shall close this note by showing how arbitrary and uncritical are the grounds on which the conclusions of great j^hilological authorities may sometimes be based. For this purpose I cannot tlo better than quote the dictum of Professor Max Miiller, who thus writes: " This Greek ^\•ord, whatever meaning was assigned to it by Christian thinkers, tells us in language that cannot be mis- taken that it is a word and a thought of Greek workmanship. Whoever used it, and in whatever sense he used it, he had been under the influence of Greek thought, he was an intel- lectual descendant of Plato, Aristotle, or of the Stoics and Neo-Platonists, nay, of Anaxagoras and Heraclitus. To imagine that either Jews or Christians could adopt a foreign terminology without adopting the thoughts embedded in it, shows a strange misapprehension of the nature of language. . . . Why do we use a foreign word if not because we feel that the word, and the exact thought which it expresses, are absent from our own intellectual armoury ? " ^ Respecting this utterance, I venture to observe that a more misleading or inaccurate statement has seldom found its way into print through the bias or carelessness of a great scholar. The author entirely overlooks the fact that Logos found its way into Jewish use, not as a foreign word imported into Hebrew to supply a felt defect, or because " the precise word and the exact thought which it " expressed was absent from the intellectual armoury of the Jews, but as the best Greek equivalent which could be found for a Hebrew term which had to be translated if the "intellectual armoury" contained in the Old Testament was to be presented to the Greek-speaking world. Many generations before the Gospel of John was written, the LXX. version of the Old Testament determined the value of Aoyoc, in relation to Hebrew thought, by using it almost interchangeably with pjjrjM to render the force of i3"n. It was an excellent word for this purpose ; for even its secondary meanings ^excepting only its later philo- sophical meaning; correspond with extraordinary accuracy to those of in"!. Furthermore, it can, if needful, be demon- strated that when the Hebrew authors of the New Testament wrote in Greek for the diffusion of their ideas throughout the Gentile world, they followed the example of the LXX. translators in their usage of the term Logos. When John wrote his Gospel and ICpistles this term must have long passed ' Thcosopliy (Uid Psyclioloi^ical Ri-//i;ioii, p. 380. 64 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT into currency in churches, and it impHes no acquaintance with philosophy in the writer or in his readers. Serious argument, however, is rather out of place in dealing with Professor Max Miiller's dictum. Its quality may best be tried by applying it to two test cases, (i) In the enunciation of his philological law the Gifford lecturer resembled the New Testament writers in the fact that he was trying to express his ideas to foreigners, and also in the fact that in order to do so he adopted what is for himself " a foreign terminology." Will he, then, pay Englishmen the compliment of admitting that he did so because the " exact thoughts which it expresses " were " absent from " his " own intellectual armoury " ? If not, how shall we apply his dictum to the apostles? (2) The New Testament has been translated into upwards of 300 languages. Have the translators adopted all the heathen ideas "embedded " in the foreign terminology they have used? If not, how shall we apply the new law to the Septuagint version, in which Logos appears some hundreds of times ? Unfortunately the law so lucidly proclaimed in 1892 has been too often assumed in Biblical criticism, and pagan ideas have thus been read into the words of men who abhorred them. Christian theology has suffered much, and still suffers, from this subtle source of corruption, and the mischief recurs in every country to which missionaries are sent. They can only use the language of their hearers, and are sorely perplexed to find out ways of purging these terms of the false and often vile thoughts " embedded in them," and of gradually filling them with the ideas of Christ. That uncultured and prejudiced heathen peoples should misunderstand their foreign teachers is par- donable, but that one of the foremost scholars of our genera- tion should elaborately justify their blunder leaves us divided between amazement and regret. II THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLE By EDWARD MEDLEY II The Permanent Significance of the Bible Has the Bible outlived its welcome? Has it any longer a living message for mankind ? Is it a force, once powerful, but now exhausted, to be examined with a merely anti- quarian interest, as one might examine the literature of an extinct people, and picture to ourselves its ancient charm, but for us, here and now, a dead thing? To hear some of the voices which are clamorous in the world, one might think that these questions must be answered in the affirmative. Already the Bible has been bowed off the active stage ; its funeral oration has been pronounced, and all its doings are spoken of as being in the past tense. It has had its day, it is said ; its sceptre has passed into hands more competent to present-day affairs ; its kingdom has been given to another. This, and much else, is now being said ; and yet when we have taken breath again, and begin to look round, this fact becomes clear, namely, that whilst the Bible has been submitted to the fiery ordeal of criticism, legitimate and illegitimate, ever since its Canon was finally settled, it yet lives and works with a sort of deathless energy. Certainly no body of ancient literature has ever under- gone a scrutiny so varied, so prolonged, and so penetrating as that which the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments have had to endure. Dates, authorship, subject-matter, history, morality, religious teaching, all these have been thrown with impartial hand into the crucible ; whatever 67 68 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT has not in it an immortal principle ought by this time to have been consumed. Of this searching critical process we should not complain. It is everyway right that books, for which so much is claimed, should be tried in a manner that would be superfluous in the case of a humbler litera- ture. If the Scriptures in their substance convey the mind of God to man, then our faith should be robust enough to see with equanimity their trial by fire. Of this we may be assured, nothing of permanent value will suffer abiding loss — whatever ultimately goes ought to go. It should not be forgotten that criticism, not too friendly, has been invited by affirmations made on behalf of the Bible, which it does not seem to make for itself. Keen-eyed opponents have been supplied — gratuitously, it might be said — with material on which to exercise their skill by those who, if they love the Bible well, love it not too wisely. Thus it has been affirmed that Moses was the author of the entire Pentateuch, together, probably, with the Book of Job ; that the Creation narratives of Genesis are scientifically accurate, anticipating to a nicety our latest discoveries. It has been stoutly declared that the prophetic books were written in their entirety by the great men whose names they bear, in each case the man being one, and his book one too. The headings of the psalms have been taken as authoritative, every psalm, for instance, attributed to David being from his pen. It has been urged that quotations which are attributed to names popu- larly accepted as the authors of them at the time a scrip- ture was written, without doubt authoritatively declare who the real authors were. And, finally, as silencing every objection, the saying, " All scripture inspired of God is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruc- tion in righteousness," has been taken to mean that every jot and tittle of scripture, as we have it, is so inspired. It may be, but it is not there said. THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BlBLE 69 These statements, and they might be indefinitely multi- plied, have supplied only too abundant matter for unfriendly critics, who, in not a few instances, have deftly handled them as though they were integral parts of the original record ; and the disproof of any one of them has been held to be tantamount to a disproof of Scripture itself. It is as though the defeat of volunteers, who, unasked, should have put on the uniform of the regular army, were held to be equivalent to a defeat of the army itself. In this way many sincere minds have been disturbed and distressed. The disturbance and distress are greatly to be deplored, but surely no thoughtful mind can regret the process by which Scripture questions have been relieved of extraneous difficulties. It is a pure gain to have the field cleared of these most human encumbrances, for they have impeded the friends of the Bible, and have been a godsend to those who are hostile to it. The temper of critics, here and there, is strongly to be deprecated ; but criticism, even of a drastic sort, may prove to be nothing else than a divine fire, with which God shall give public proof as to what has in it His own life and Spirit. Certainly, in spite of all the conflict which has raged round the Bible, it has been of all books the most abidingly significant. Whilst the Scriptures were in the very process of formation, the early parts profoundly influenced the men who, in the providence of God, were to become the writers of the later pages. That is, a mere fragment of the Bible was a potent element in the education and spiritual prepara- tion of the great men who are acknowledged to be amongst the foremost minds of the race. The earlier writers were evidently well acquainted with the fragments of Scripture already in existence, whilst they, in their turn, helped to mould the writers of a later generation. Thus, if we take a book like that of the prophet Hosea, the date of which yO THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT can be defined with tolerable precision, we find that he was evidently acquainted with many of the facts recorded in the Pentateuch (though we cannot say that he possessed it in the form we have it). He imports into his work sayings from the pen of Amos, whilst he himself is used as a quarry by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah. These men, forming a group pre-eminent for mental capacity, moral fervour, and spiritual insight, did not think it beneath them to embody in their wonderful pages quotations from the ruder prophet of early Israel. And when from the Old Testament we turn to the New, the same fact is in evidence. References to Hosea, direct and indirect, are found both in the Gospels and the Epistles. Paul can find nowhere else words better fitted to express his thought than those of a man who lived and wrought in the eighth century before Christ. This is an example the like of which might be multi- plied. The Scriptures are interknit by an intimate know- ledge on the part of the writers of them of the work of those who had gone before. That is, the Bible in its com- ponent parts was immensely significant to the men who were themselves amongst the most influential men of the times in which they lived. Turning to later ages, we find the book still held its own. When the Septuagint version was made, the sphere of Old Testament influence extended amongst Greek speak- ing peoples ; and many an inquiring mind from amongst the Gentiles began to turn to the ancient Hebrew literature as to a light set in a dark place. The instances related in the New Testament, we may be sure, are but samples of what was constantly happening ; there were many centurions, many men of Ethiopia, many Greeks coming up to worship at the feast, besides those whose cases are recorded there. Serious minds, feeling the weight of great problems, the nobler men, who formed the better part of their generation, THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLE 7 1 were glad to find a literature that carried with it a strange note of authority. It was radically different from the literature with which they were already acquainted ; much of that was noble, but it was avowedly a speculation. It did not say I know, but I think ; not. Thus saith the Lord, but, The conclusions of reason look in this direction or in that. Men were weary and burdened, and it was con- solatory to them to find a body of writings which professed to relate the actions of God in history, and to record the sayings of men who were filled with a Spirit divine. In the early years of the second century of our era the New Testament was practically complete ; though the Canon was not finally settled, the books, very much as we have them, had taken their place as a religious literature without a rival. That far-reaching principle of the survival of the fittest had operated ; out of a most diverse literature the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse had emerged as the best of their sort that the world contained. A dark time was in store for mankind ; the great structure of the Roman Empire began to rock towards its fall, and it looked as though the Christian Churches scattered over the length and breadth of it would be involved in the general ruin ; but as it was said of the City of the Seven Hills, so long as the Colosseum stands Rome shall stand, so it might have been said of Christianity, so long as the Scriptures stand the Christian faith shall stand also. Through the dreary chaos of a dissolving state the Bible held its own, and men found in its messages strong consolation and clear guidance for their time of need. In process of time a great change came about. For the Christian ministry a priestly hierarchy was gradually substituted ; the Church began to gather to herself an authority over men which previously had been reserved for the Scriptures, as containing a divine word, or for Christ Himself The Bible fell into the background, its 72 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT main use being to supply a repertory of proof texts where- with to sustain the enormous claims which the Church, or the clergy as representing the Church, put forth. In fact, the Scriptures, and even Christ Himself, became subordinate to that Church which was supposed to exist only by means of their teaching and His living rule. Yet even in those days, when the book, as a whole, seemed shorn of its power, it exerted a penetrating influence. Its precepts and spirit touched the law, and infused a tenderer tone into the harsh body of Roman jurisprudence ; it taught men to love mercy as well as justice. In places of religious retreat, to which men, despairing of the times, had repaired, copies of the Scriptures were to be found ; these were read and studied, and deeply influenced men who, with many faults, were yet amongst the better spirits of their time. Even in the very thick of what are called the Dark Ages, there never failed a succession of godly people whose best life was fed from the life of God in the Scriptures, The lamp burned low, but it was never extinguished. Men like Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis of Assisi,^ and Louis of France, masters of men as they were, looked to the Bible for light and guidance. No doubt in some ways they terribly misread it, and, armed with a text, they disavowed some of the fairest elements of the life of man as God made it. But, be this as it may, they were deeply ^ It is related that on one occasion an inquirer, Bernard by name, came to the cell of St. Francis with the question, what should a man do who had received from the Lord possessions which he wished no longer to keep? to whom the saint replied, "We will go at morning-tide to the church, and will learn, through the holy gospel book, as Christ taught His disciples." And in the early morning they two, inquirer and teacher, went to the church and prayed the Lord that He would vouchsafe to show them His will by the first opening of the book. So the story runs ; and, whether true or untrue, shows how the hearts of good men turned in a dark age to the Bible, as to a light shining in a dark place. See S/otcs and Saints, by Baldwin Brown, THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLE 'J ^ affected by the book ; it helped to shape and inspire them, as they, in their turn, helped to shape and inspire whole generations in mediaeval Europe. Later came the revival of learning called the Renais- sance : that movement, south of the Alps, shaped itself into a study of the ancient pagan literature ; men holding high office in the papal Church, whilst they retained the names that belonged to the Christian faith, drew their real inspiration from the poets and philosophers of the Greek and Roman world ; they were baptized pagans, only they were baptized first and became pagan afterwards. But, north of the Alps the Renaissance meant a return to the primary Christian literature. The Bible came forth from its comparative obscurity ; in this matter Erasmus was at one with Martin Luther, for he did noble service in giving the Scriptures to the people. His appeal against Pope and Church was to Christ and His apostles. The Reformation was really due to the impulse which the study of the Bible created. Men, sick at heart, desiring religion, and yet repelled by the narrowness and greed of churchmen, turned to the book, and found there the undimmed revelation — God in creation, God in history, God in prophecy, and, finally, God in His Son. The Bible became more and more the people's book, and proved itself living and capable of putting forth energy ; it moulded the best life of Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon Europe. It is a plain fact of history that the race which, with all its faults, has more virile energy than any other, the race which has conquered India, peopled an American continent, and is now peopling Australia, New Zealand, and habitable Africa, is the race that has preserved the Bible as an open book. It is found in countless homes, and in quiet hours is the chosen companion and counsellor of all sorts and conditions of men. In spite of continual attacks, in spite of that spiritual apathy which is immeasurably more dangerous 74 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT than any direct attack, it is more widely circulated and read than any other book in the North American continent and in these British Isles. Moreover, it has this singular distinction, the Bible is not the possession of any one class. There are ancient classics that are part of the paid-up literary capital of the race ; they are known and valued by educated men, and deservedly exert a large influence, but in a direct way they do not affect the million. The labouring man is not acquainted with Thucydides ; he knows nothing of the philosophy of Plato or the ethics of Aristotle ; Socrates is a name to him, and nothing more. But the Scriptures, in countless instances, are fixed in his memory ; his language, in its nobler parts, has been moulded by them ; Scripture phrases are welded into his speech ; he is prepared for life and death by the words he finds there. Use and wont blind us to the significance of the fact, that every Lord's day throughout the habitable globe there are to be found assemblies of men and women engaged, with more or less seriousness of attention, in listening to the Bible read in their hearing. No doubt, to some extent, this is done in obedience to a conservative instinct which loves to preserve an ancient custom because it is ancient ; and it is done, further, under the influence of great historic Churches which have woven Scripture into the order of their public service, that order holding apart from the active assent of those who use it. But, making all allowance for these collateral influences, the fact still remains that people, gentle and simple, people endowed with the latest culture and people plain and unadorned, are found ready to listen, often with great inward comfort and manifest delight, to words taken from a literature, part of which dates back nearly three thousand years ago. And this public reading of the Christian Scriptures is rooted in a private reading which is quite as wonderful. THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLE 75 Some people read the Bible in a dull mechanical way ; some people read it as though the mere fact that they had read so much would be credited to their account in the final audit ; some people read it because of the music of its songs, the simplicity of its narratives, the splendour of its prophetic diction, for, as we have it in our tongue, it is a well of English undefiled. But how many are there who read it because, as they believe, it speaks to them from God, it conveys His mind, and enshrines the great facts of His redemption ? In their times of stress and trouble, in the sunshine of prosperity and in the dark shadows of adver- sity, they say of it, as David did of the sword of Goliath, " Give me that ; there is none like it ! " The Bible at this present has penetrated every sphere of civilised life. It has inspired art and moulded law ; it has lifted up the moral standard of the race. Some acquaintance with it is part of a liberal education. Its phrases are embedded in our speech. They have become l)art of the current coin into which is minted man's highest wisdom. Men quote it without knowing the source upon which they have drawn ; it has been used in the Senate house and the great assemblies ; orators have found in it some of their finest illustrations and most pertinent appli- cations. And, more than all, men have discovered in it, so they believe, the answers to their most vital questions. It has deepened their sense of spiritual need, and then satisfied it. In the book they have heard the voice of their God and Saviour. This brief sketch indicates the position which the Bible has held in the past. The verdict is decisive — of all books the Bible has been the most significant. Omit all refer- ence to it, suppose that by some intolerable catastrophe every trace of it had vanished from the world, then the student of history would find himself face to face with an insoluble perplexity. He would be compelled to suppose 76 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the existence of a power in human life which had com- pletely disappeared from it. As the astronomer, from the variations in the course of a planet, deduces the existence of another body not then visible, so the historian would have to conceive to himself an extinct literature which had proved itself the greatest factor in the making of the most pregnant movements of history. He would have, as it were, to re-create the book, passages from which are inscribed on every great landmark in the progress of mankind. So much is clear, in the past the Bible has exerted an un- rivalled influence. From these facts can the horoscope of the future be cast ; can it be said that a book that has been thus powerful shall continue to exert an influence coeval with the race? Is the Bible like the sun, which shall bless the earth with its light and heat so long as the present system of things shall continue ? Or is it like some cosmic force, which once wrought powerfully in the formation of the globe, but now has become quiescent, and can no longer be counted upon as an active energy ? Certainly this generation is being told by voices that do not lack assurance that less and less will the Bible exert an influence upon the lives of men. By a curious con- fusion of thought, for which the friends of the Bible are themselves, to some extent, answerable, it has been im- agined that a more accurate knowledge of the methods of its composition rob it of its value. It is as though a sounder acquaintance with the w^ay in which our earth came to be, a more perfect mapping out of geological processes and periods, would rob our hills and valleys of their beauty, and make our fields less fruitful. These questions and affirmations can only be satis- factorily answered by an examination, however brief, of the reasons that have given the Christian Scriptures their THE I'ERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE J5IRLE // present hold upon the world ; though it might be said beforehand that it is not unreasonable to suppose that a literature which has become wrought into the very roots of human life and thought has in it elements that cannot die. We must part with our sober judgments if, in a panic, we are to give up as a dead thing a book which, from the composition of its first fragmentary pages up to this pre- sent hour, has never ceased to be living and to put forth energy. After all, men may be foolish, but the race is not in this way befooled. Time tries all things. The things that can be shaken disappear, and, as they vanish, make only more evident the things that cannot be shaken. These remain, and the Bible remains amongst them. ]^lrst amongst the reasons that have secured for the Bible its pre-eminence, is its literary beauty. It is some- times said that if only men get the truth, it is of no moment in what form it is presented ; if the meal be good, it can be served up as well on delf as on china. But the parallel is misleading, for there is an essential connection between matter and language. Style is much more than a mere trapping, which can be dispensed with and the substance remain intact ; it is thought in visible and audible expres- sion. Men are right when they expect that revelation shall ally itself with fitting language, and that great truths shall be set forth in a way that is great. As a matter of fact, there is (happily) no exception to the law that poor litera- ture dies off. If a book is to live, it must be good of its kind. The Bible submits to this demand ; held together by an inner unity of thought and of purpose, it is yet infinitely varied, and in it every note is touched, from a limpid sim- plicity to the flashing splendours of the most fervent speech human lips can frame. With what dignity is the Creation story related in the Book of Genesis ; the subject and the language march abreast. The narratives of the patriarchs are as though they fell from the lips of some heaven-born 78 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT speaker, who relates by the camp-fires the incidents that befell his fathers. Not a word can bear omission ; very- few descriptive epithets are employed, and yet in the end the reader becomes possessed of a human character. He sees rising before him a man with distinctive qualities who brings his lesson with him. We discover, without being directly bidden to note it, the faith of Abraham ; the tough secular temper, touched with grace, of Jacob ; the frank, generous triviality of Esau ; the purity of Joseph, who was at once a man of the world and a man of God. Moses appears a superb figure, yet not superhuman, rather a most human soul, gradually trained to become the prophet and father of a nation ; a man of ample powers, yet gracious and pitiful, having compassion on the ignorant and them that were out of the way. These men, notable as they were, do yet tread the solid earth. Let a critical reader carefully consider such a narra- tive as that which relates Abraham's purchase of a burial- place for his wife from Ephron the Hittite, in which the colours are as fresh as though laid on but yesterday ; or the story of Joseph and his brethren ; or the brief paragraph that relates how Moses courteously helped the daughters of Jethro, and protected them from the boorish rudeness of the shepherds, — and then ask himself whether he is not dealing with men who were of God's nobility, and yet were bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. The vehicle is exactly suited to the subject which it has to convey ; it is artless, and yet reaches the end of the highest art. Such narratives the world will not let die. Or let him turn to the pages of the prophets. Without doubt their style is very varied. Hebrew literature, like all other, has its ruder period, its golden age, its time of de- cadence ; and these are to be discovered in the prophetic books. But it may fairly be affirmed that no other body of literature contains, within so small a compass, so much THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLE 79 that is penetrating, magnificent, and sublime. Under the influence of historical criticism some of the prophetic books have been rediscovered for our generation. They have been put back into their actual setting, and educated men have confessed that they did not know what a wealth of imagery, what intense realism, what moral fervour, what a noble trust in God, are to be found in them. Take but one example from the Minor Prophets. Habakkuk lived and wrote, probably, at the close of the seventh century B.C. The conditions of his life were about as different from our own as it is possible to conceive ; and yet let a man who is perplexed and staggered by what is permitted under the government of God turn to his pages, he will find set forth, in language that is immortal, the struggles of a soul that felt as he feels, facing his doubts, and slowly beating his music out, until he reaches the haven of a perfect trust. Such a man is indeed our brother — we clasp hands across the centuries : a trust such as his is the goal of all philosophy and of all religion. Perhaps the most modern book in the Old Testament is the Book of Job. It is fearless in its expression of those questions which, above all, beset and perplex the good. It refuses the common-place solutions with which men try to silence the anguished cries of the conscience, it even vindicates them. In the end, the much-tried sufferer is righted by God Himself, and he becomes the intercessor for his well-meaning but tedious and exasperating friends. All is handled with a breadth of view, a wealth of imagery, and a splendour of diction that sets the book in the front rank of the dramatic literature of the world. The Psalms contain a body of devotional literature which is unique. In a manner they are dateless com- positions ; it is of comparatively small moment when they were written or by whom. Feeling, experience, despair, and trust — these belong to a world in which already time 8o TIIK ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT is no more. It adds to the interest of the 23rd Psalm if we can be assured that it was written by David ; the 90th Psalm becomes more significant if we can believe that Moses was its author, and that he wrote it as he led the Israelites up and down the aimless wilderness. But such points are not vital ; they do not affect the tender sweetness, the quiet trust of the one psalm, nor do they make the other less fitted to express man's sense of his mortality ; its words fall upon our ear like the tolling of a funeral bell ; nowhere else is the brevity of man's life and the eternity of God so set forth. The Psalms have sup- plied the battle songs to men fighting for home and freedom, they have been sung in the hour of victory, and men have gone down to the grave with the words of them upon their lips. And these things have been so because, amongst other reasons, they supply the most exquisite vehicle for the expression of spiritual experience which the world contains. This is but to say that in their way, and for their end, they are perfect as literature. Put them away, and one great aspect of the deeper life of man would cease to find its final setting forth. From a literary point of view the New Testament stands upon a somewhat different level from that occupied by the Old. The Gospels (as we shall see more fully — later) are dominated by one supreme personality, and the function of the evangelists is to set down, without pre- judice, what they had seen and heard concerning Him. The writer has to be obliterated by his subject ; rhetoric, finished phrases — these have their value, and are not to be despised ; but they are out of place when a man has to tell of the things which Jesus began both to do and to teach. When heaven comes down to this world, we do not want to know what the recording angel may think of the apocalypse, but what actually happens, and this is what the evangelists have succeeded in describing. With an THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE IHBLE 8 1 unfailing self-restraint, without adjectives or marks of admiration, with a transparent simplicity, they have sketched a perfect life, lived under the ordinary con- ditions of humanity. They have done what was never done before or since, they have made actual a figure which without their words could only have been thought of as ideal. The humanity and the Deity are unimpaired, and stand in unimagined combination ; they coalesce, and yet the orb of each is complete. Many persons are introduced into the Gospel narratives, many characters are developed, but nothing is permitted to interfere with the main purpose, which is to set forth the Christ ; we see no man save Jesus only. It is vain to tell us that the Greek of the evangelists is poor, lacking classical finish ; that sentences are often rude, and that Aramaic phrases abound : all such criticism is a triviality, — the main end is accomplished, and that it is, means that the writings that do it are of the very highest order. In the Epistles the reader moves again in a different field. In them history is subordinate ; broken threads of it can be discovered here and there and pieced together ; there are personal references, but the main purpose of the apostolic letters is to unfold and develop the signi- ficance of the facts which the Gospels supply. These facts are not exhausted when they are narrated, they do not end in themselves, and by a necessary instinct men look for some light upon the inner meaning of them. Moreover, the Christian life created new experi- ences, and these had to be brought into line. And thus, whilst, like every other part of the Bible, the Epistles of the New Testament were written with some immediate purpose in view, — to correct an error, to expand a truth, or to express affection, — they are yet for all time. In James the Christian rabbi speaks, in Peter the 6 82 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT Christian pastor, in John the Christian mystic, in Paul reason and feehng are fused into an incomparable dialectic. And whilst it must be admitted that sometimes the fire in his thought melts the mould of words into which it is cast, so that the grammarian and verbal commentator are driven to despair, yet are there passages from the pen of the Apostle of the Gentiles that hold a supreme place in the literary treasures of the race. The eulogium upon love, and the resurrection chapter in the ist Corinthian Epistle, the apostolic prayer for the Ephesians, and the Epistle to Philemon, come to mind as examples. In venturing to speak about the literary element in the Bible as supplying one source of its permanent significance, it seems as though an apology were due to the devout reader, to whom it sounds almost profane to speak thus about books that for him contain the words of his Saviour and the messages of redemption ; he becomes impatient about a point of view that seems to give significance to what, after all, in infinite matters, is so subordinate, that it may well be dismissed. But such need to remember that the Scriptures have to be con- sidered as they affect the great common world, into the thick of which they are cast. If all men had reached the purely spiritual point of view, then, perhaps, the literary aspect of the Bible might be put aside. But all men have not reached that point, they are attracted or they are repelled by the vehicle in which divine things are conveyed to them. If the Scriptures, as literature, had not risen above the level of the Koran or Mormon Bible, we may be quite sure that they would have been neglected. Even in them the heavenly treasure is com- mitted to an earthen vessel ; but that vessel is of great fitness and beauty. It has attracted, and it will not cease to attract, all sorts and conditions of men who are open to the influence of cadence and of rhythm, of sweet THE PEKMAXKNT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLE S^ thoughts sweetly spoken, of a noble message nobly expressed. From the literary aspect of the Bible we may advance to the historic, as supplying another reason for belief in its permanent significance. It is native to the mind of man to desire to know how things came to be. We cannot contemplate a great building, a venerable form of govern- ment, or an ancient philosophy, without desiring to know who were the founders and builders of them ; we would see the process of their formation and growth. Looked at from this point of view, the Bible is a unique book of origins ; it alone supplies some account of the beginnings of certain facts which are of pre-eminent moment to mankind. It opens with the story of the creation of the world and of man. The story is composite, and bears evidence of points of contact with other cosmogonies, the biblical account being peculiar in this, that it is free from puer- ilities ; it moves with unequalled dignity, and it is so composed as not to compel to any one theory of the mode of creation, whilst it maintains intact the primary facts of a Creator distinct from His works, and a creation produced by an orderly process of development which makes man the summit and crown of the whole creative movement. It is a record that can be appreciated by the unlettered man, conveying to his mind certain cardinal truths ; and yet it appeals no less to the man who has already learned much from the records embedded in the strata of the earth, and from the advancing formations of animal life. No doubt there have been biblical commentators, more courageous than wise, who have tried to compel the Crea- tion story to move to their music ; they have boldly made it a partisan, and it has suffered obloquy when they have suffered defeat. But when one asks how better could some 84 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT rough outline of the creative process be conveyed to man- kind in a way that should have a message for all men, our question gets no reply. The story is told, not prosaically, not scientifically, but dramatically— that is, in a human way, in which great facts are rather shadowed forth than closely described. The end being to teach us that the builder and maker of all things is God ; that He works from the rudimentary to the complex ; and that, at last, man appeared upon a stage already prepared for his advent, akin to the earth he trod and yet akin to the God that made him ; a living soul, innocent, free, open to temptation, capable of rising, no less of falling, the one possibility involving the other. This creature of God is tempted from without ; tried, but not coerced, he yields, and in yielding casts the blame, as ever, upon another. And thus sin came into the world, and the Creator, if He is not to be defrauded of His choicest work, must become Redeemer. The record of the Fall, God being of an infinite compassion, supplies the preface to the story of Redemption. Passing from the beginnings of all history, there stand now two facts which dominate the religious interests of mankind — these are Judaism and Christianity. Whatever may be men's attitude with regard to them, these two facts remain unmoved ; they are not subjective developments, which may be true for one man but of no moment to his neighbour ; they are the master facts in religion, and man by nature is a religious being. We know that when man advanced above the low levels of animal life, and began to look about him ; when he saw the wide heavens, and the great stars, and the glowing sun ; when he felt the forces of nature play round him, and marked the succession of the seasons, seedtime and harvest, summer and winter, — then his thoughts took shape, he filled the world with gods grotesque and loath- Till-: rERMANENT SIGNIFICANCI'. OF THE niliLl-: 85 some, or of exquisite beauty ; he pictured to himself lords many and gods many. On the plains of Babylonia, by the sea-coasts of Palestine, in I'^gypt, and in sunny Greece, men worshipped gods and demi-gods innumerable. Art, science, philosophy — all these were powerless to clear the world's Pantheon. Presently there appeared, situated geographically right in the very thick of the ruling nations of the world, a handful of people, l^y race they were akin to their Semitic neighbours ; they were a pastoral and agricultural people, not clever in the arts, not conversant with philosophy ; living for generations in a rude way, such luxuries as they had being imported. But in one point they differed from all other peoples about them, they wor- shipped one God ; in a world full of polytheists they were monotheists. That is a remarkable fact. They had their lapses ; but spite of these, they gradually grew firmer in their faith. Political deterioration and ruin did not hinder their religious advance. Finally, they cast away all other gods, and worshipped the one God, Jehovah the God of Israel. The attempt has been made to explain this wonderful difference between the Jews and their neighbours on the ground of what has been called the Semitic instinct. Different races, it has been said, possess different char- acteristics ; some are more religiously disposed than others ; some, under the influence of a prolific imagination, are polytheists, whilst the Semite was naturally given to mono- theism. But the facts do not sustain this ingenious suggestion. The Semitic nations of Syria, Phcjenicia, and Mesopotamia were polytheists, like the rest of mankind. They worshipped Dagon, Ashtaroth, and Baal.^ What, then, made the difference ; what gave rise to monotheistic * "Anion.L(st the theocratically Ljovcrncd nations of the East, the Hebrews seem to us as sober men anions^ drunkards" (Lotze, Micro- cosmus, vol. ii. p. 267, Eng. trans.). 86 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN I.TGIIT Judaism ? The Bible, and tlic Bible alone, gives the answer. It relates the history of Abraham — his call, his separa- tion from his polytheistic kindred, his migration, and the rise of the Jewish race. It describes, in broad outlines, here and there more detailed, the long process of education through which the Hebrew nation passed. We see them at times lusting exceedingly after other gods, trying to unite the worship of Baal with the worship of Jehovah; we see the revelation becoming clearer, their hold upon it more firm, until at last, though politically a discredited people, they appear as the guardians of the one funda- mental truth which carries within itself all else — God is one and His name one. After Judaism, the next great religious fact is Christianity. It is greater than Judaism, as the finished product is greater than the raw material wrought up into its substance, or as the end is greater than the steps by which it has been reached. Christianity is not an appendix of Judaism, though there was a time in its history when some would have made it that ; it is rather its completion, the haven of its rest. Judaism, in its essential elements, was an ad intei'ini dispensation ; it was a religion of symbols and shadows. If nothing had come after it, if it had remained, as the orthodox Jew of to-day believes it did remain, its prophecy still unfulfilled, nursing empty hopes and looking for the consolation of a larger revelation, which, after all, had never come, then it would have been discredited. But Christianity has come to be ; it stands in the world the most significant of all religious facts. It cannot be denied that it exists, that for many years it has existed, and that it exerts a most potent influence upon the thought and the actual life of mankind. For many centuries its history has been interwoven with the history of the race. No author who undertakes to give an account of the THE rKRMANKNT SIGXIFICANCK OF TTTi: rJP.LE Sy development of national life in I^Lurope and in .America can afford to ignore it. There is not only the fact that the peoples, in whose hands are the governing forces of the world to-day, have covered their lands with sanctuaries dedicated to Jesus Christ, and that Christian worship binds the earth together with a girdle of prayer and praise, — there is the deeper fact, of which such things are the tangible evidence, that it has laid a powerful hand upon the very springs of the life of man ; it has moulded philosophies, inspired art, shaped social customs, changed ideas. The contrast between the Europe of the first century and the Europe of the nineteenth, immense as it is, could not be accounted for upon any theory of natural development, unless that movement were aided by some such force as Christianity supplies. These things being so, it is a singular fact that secular history, which relates the advance of the Christian faith, gives the very scantiest account of its origin, gives in- deed no account at all. There are fragmentary notices in Josephus and the younger Pliny, there are records of early persecutions, but no clear, concise, definite account is obtainable of the beginnings of that new faith which was presently to shake the Roman world, and finally to seat itself upon the throne of empire. It seems as though the men who might have rendered this inestimable service were smitten with mental blindness ; the whole Christian move- ment was to them so small, so weak, so entirely unimportant that it never occurred to them to trace it to its source. They held it to be a local folly, a provincial fanaticism, which might well be left alone with good-natured con- tempt.^ Indeed, there are many evidences that the ruling 1 Mr. Lecky remarks that nothing is more remarkable than the unconsciousness of pagan writers of the second and third centuries of the power that was growing up amongst them prior to the hour of its triumph. 88 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT powers in the first century desired to let it severely alone ; but when Christianity became strongly aggressive, then it was dealt with, not as a bad religion, but as a political nuisance, which, for the sake of peace, must be put down with a strong hand. Where it came from, how it came to be, its true relation to Judaism, and the hostility of traditional Judaism to Christianity — about these questions little inquiry was made, and the world, with one solitary exception, was actually left without information as to the source of an influence which has wrought upon it more powerfully than any other ; it knew no more about that than did the Egyptians of the fountainhead of that great river Nile which assured their country of fertility and wealth. That one solitary exception was supplied by the historical books of the New Testament. These tell us of the birth of the Founder of Christianity ; they relate how, trained in no human school, in due time He came forth to be the teacher of a new religion ; they succeed in portraying a unique figure, absolutely simple and unofficial, with no mark of conventional authority, living a stainless life, doing deeds that won for Him the hearts of men ; in His speech moving easily amidst the sublimest topics, talking of God as His Father, and of heaven as His home. They relate how, later, He became the object of suspicion and hatred to the priesthood of His nation, these never relenting until they had brought Him to His Cross. With no change of style, these books, as they have spoken of the Cross and death and burial of Christ, go on to tell of His resurrection, of the fellowship which men had with Him after He had risen, and, finally, of His departure from this visible scene a living person. Later, one of the evangelists takes up his pen, and, with the significant reference to his Gospel as the relation of that which Jesus began both to do and to teach, — as THE TERMANKXT SKINIFICANCK OF THE ])n;LE 89 though he were about to continue the story of the same life, gives an account of the followers of Jesus. They were very unlike their Master, a truly human combination of iron and clay and fine gold, making mistakes, failing to apprehend the full significance of the faith they held, carried by the irresistible force of circumstances far beyond the ideas with which they had started, until the circle widens, and from Jerusalem the new religion spread to Judea, to Samaria, and, at last, to the Gentile world. The later history gathers about one man, once intensely hostile, but presently won over to the faith of Christ ; and we see him carrying that faith into the ruder parts of what is now Asia Minor, then pressing forward to the shores of the ^gean Sea, thence making the critical passage to Europe, founding Christian communities in the chief cities of Greece ; and finally, though in a manner he had not foreseen, this man is found in Rome itself, ministering, even in his prison house, to a Church which he had not founded, but which owed more to him than to any other Christian teacher. At that point the narrative breaks off; only by a careful comparison of notices scattered up and down the Pauline Epistles can we make out anything of a later date. But, indeed, nothing further is needed ; our curiosity desires more, but the necessities of the case have been answered. The origin of Christianity, its Founder, its early struggles for existence, its spread throughout the length and breadth of that empire which was then almost co-extensive with the known world- — all this is secured to us. It is for others to say whether this precious fragment of history sufficiently accounts for what came after, whether it does or does not supply an adequate starting-point for the amazing development that followed. But this much is clear, the book that contains it must be of permanent significance to every generation of men. It is inconceiv- able that so priceless a record should be permitted to drop 90 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT into oblivion. By reason of the missing link in the world's deepest history which it supplies, the Bible stands, and must stand, a volume of inestimable worth. In dwelling thus upon the literary and historical value of Holy Scripture as sustaining a belief in its continued pre-eminence, the subject has moved on lower levels, which cannot, however, be omitted from our survey, for they furnish the foot-hills of a loftier range. There follows the consideration of the moral and spiritual worth of the Bible as making it certain that it shall live and work so long as man exists upon this earth. The moral and the spiritual shade off by imperceptible degrees into each other ; together they form the religious, but it is convenient to view them, to some degree, as distinct. By the moral is meant, in the first instance, that which has to do with manners, or, deeper, with the quality of conduct ; by moral law is meant that complex of laws that should rule the complex of conduct. Man is a creature possessing a conscience and freedom ; he is a moral being. As such, in spite of his frightful lapses, his immoralities, his fallen estate, he has, in the person of his best men, elaborated ethical systems ; he has devised schemes of conduct, and pictured to himself ideals ; he has felt the force of that word — ought, which seems to set up a standard outside himself, indicating what he should do, and what he should abstain from doing. And thus, throughout the ages, in nearly every land, great moral teachers have arisen. It would be wrong to condemn them, or to pay them but a grudging homage ; it would be untrue to say that outside Scripture all is dark, and within all is luminous ; there are bright points outside the Bible, and there is twilight within it. But in these matters we must judge, not by the steps of a process so much as by the end arrived at. It is conceivable that at points the tup: pkrmanknt significance of the bible 9 1 lower system may outstrip the hitrher, and yet itself, in the end, be wholly surpassed. And thus it has been, when we take the best of the world's moral teaching, so far as we can disentangle it from Christian ethics, and put it side by side with the final moral teaching of the Bible, then there can be no question where the pre-eminence and perfection lie. This must be looked at somewhat in detail, for there has been not a little confusion of thought. The Bible has been spoken of as though it were what the Mohammedan holds the Koran to be — a book of an equal moral value all through. Leviticus and Esther have been put upon the level of the Epistle to the l^^phesians or the Gospel of John. It has been imagined that if it came from God, then every part must be, not simply relatively perfect or good for its end, but absolutely so. Which is as much as to say that the bud, the blossom, the inchoate form are as the fruit which comes at the end of the series ; that the babe and the child are as the full-grown man. When once this conception has been adopted, then there follows, of necessity, a perversion of facts and of moral judgments in order to sustain it. The lives of the patriarchs, not only in some noble element in them which the Divine I'rovidence was educating and perfecting, but in the details of conduct, have been held up as models for Christian men in the nineteenth century. The wars of early Israel have been supposed to give a divine sanction to racial cruelties ; slavery has been supported out of the Bible ; the imprecatory psalms have been defended in a way that has been something other than a defence of healthy, righteous indignation. In a word, it has been supposed that the Author of revelation has been honoured, and His cause defended, by ignoring that process of gradual development and enlightenment which reigns supreme in every other field of the divine activity. The effect of this method of handling Scripture has 92 THE ANCIF.XT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT been painfully disastrous. Opponents have not been slow to avail themselves of it, and have put disturbing, and even unanswerable, questions. They have won an easy victory by asking whether a man who should act as some of the early patriarchs are reported to have done would now be permitted to exist outside bedlam or a prison ; or whether wars conducted on the lines of the Hebrew invasion of Canaan would not now awaken universal execration. The remedy is to let the book speak for itself, — to view it as a whole, which, growing slowly through the centuries, begins with Adam and ends with Christ. The wider survey reveals the fact, which becomes increasingly clear as it is considered, that we have in it the record of a growing moral enlightenment,— an enlightenment which has been gained, both through the workings of Providence in human history, and by luminous teaching dropped into that course from above. It has been well said that the general formative truths of the Old Testament were pro- gressive forces in early history. The story of the creation, which has been already touched upon in another connec- tion, has been of inestimable service to the moral progress of mankind. It reveals, in a unique way, God as Creator, and as akin to man ; it indicates the source of evil in the world as springing from man's abuse of freedom ; it is dead against fatalism, idolatry, pantheism, and atheism. The story of the Jewish people, though in parts sad reading, is the story of a slow but real growth in moral ideals. The nation is seen gradually ceasing to be a wild and savage horde, difficult to govern, and ever ready to drop into abominable excesses. Step by step it emerged into a condition in which a higher law obtained, and men acknowledged the claims of righteousness. It was a true instinct that led the Jews to group their historical Scrip- tures with the prophetic books, for they are written mainly from the prophetic standpoint : policies are judged, kings THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE IJIIJLE 93 and the rise and fall of nations, according as they discover obedience or disobedience to divine law, so far as that was then revealed. Political wisdom was conceived of as sub- mission to the will of God, and political astuteness, however keen, was held to be but unwisdom if it rebelled against that. The prophets, as a class, were found in Israel alone. Other nations had their soothsayers, their astrologers and stargazers, — the Jews themselves were not without a taste for such professors of black arts, — but the prophets are not to be confounded with these men. The prophet was a man possessed by a vivid consciousness of the presence 01 the living God, before whom, in his thought, he ever stood. If need were, he could stand up alone against king, priest, and people ; he spared none, his passion was for righteous- ness. There are words in the old prophetic books of the Bible that are amongst the very finest pleas for just laws, honest judges, a respect for the poor, a care for the outcast, for social righteousness. The moral fervour of the prophet was amazing ; it lifted him above all externals. With purged eyes, penetrating into the heart of things, he declared that religious worship, the trampling of temple courts, sacrifices, and incense were an abomination when allied with iniquity. It were useless to mourn and fast and smite the breast, and then use a false balance and light weights. To praise God in a psalm, and then to exact the last farthing of usurious interest, was infinitely worse than to be a dumb dog in religion all your days. It was this blending together of social duties with the sense of God, making them part of His service, that set the prophet a man by himself — a veritable word of the Lord, quick and powerful. lie saw that worship, precious as it is, is but a means to an end, and that end is that men should do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. God was in the heaven, yea, the heaven of heavens could 94 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT not contain Him, but He was to be obeyed in this present secular world by the homely graces of truthfulness, kindli- ness, and faithfulness to duty. Other nations had noble minds that built up in a philo- sophic way ethical systems ; other nations had patriotic leaders and righteous men ; but the Jew only had the pro- phetic man, who, knowing little of schemes of ethics, and often but little of policies, did yet surpass all others in his know- ledge of human duty as an interpretation of God's will into conduct. In the Old Testament the moral trend is upward. We do not find in it the perfect ideal, but we do find in it that ascending movement which prepared for it that shining stairway by which one passes from the Decalogue to the Sermon on the Mount. God was at work from the earliest dawn of the race, beginning with man as He found him, and with infinite patience leading him forward, preparing him for the larger revelation and the perfect redemption, even as the dawn prepares for the coming of the day. If we once admit that God has mankind under training, the lessons of necessity starting from the lower levels ; and, further, that the Old Testament contains the critical pas- sages in the earlier parts of this educative process, — then we are bound to look for a consummation, and it is this which the New Testament supplies. We have there what has been called the ultimate morality, which took up into itself the best of all that had gone before. There is nothing original in this sense that it can afford to dissociate itself from all that precedes it ; to imagine such a thing is to condemn the past, and the Maker of it, in order to glorify the present. In this sense, then, of dissociation from the past, New Testament morality is not original ; but it is original in this, that it possesses a perfect balance, a rounded completeness ; that it makes the principle of faith a motive force in morals ; and that it is expressed, not simply in a succession of precepts, but in the character THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLE 95 and conduct (jf a person. One at length appeared who could say, If you would be good, follow Me ; do as I do, be as I am, and you will fulfil all moral law. This balance and completeness of New Testament morals gives the book a unique value. As a rule, ethical teachers have tried to enforce their views of duty by the exaggeration of one aspect of conduct to the detriment of others equally important, or by restricting themselves to a single section of society. One deals with men and masters, but has little to say about women, and nothing about the slave. Another emphasises manners, but pays little atten- tion to the real core of conduct, the motive and the heart. Still another would have a man create for himself an impossible world, in order that he may the better culti- vate his own character. Life — rough, secular life — is felt to be an evil not to be overcome ; it must therefore be evaded, in order to be good. Or the body is held to be the original seat and source of evil, and therefore, in the name of a higher good, must be denied its rights and put under ban. Whole schemes of morals have been built up which omit God, whilst others have so leaned towards the divine aspect that they no longer walk this solid earth ; they lack the practical note. It is only by a tedious com- bination, a sort of eclectic policy, that out of the moralities with which the world abounds a rounded and balanced teaching can be constructed. In the New Testament all is different ; it lays its hand upon every section of society ; it does not legislate for a class, but for all, because it deals with man as man. The body is respected, and the common life of the world. Man is held to be a creature belonging to two worlds, having duties to his fellows, to himself, and to his God. What a man is stands there above what he does, and yet conduct is not neglected. The Sermon on the Mount, with its beatitudes, its heavenly air, its glorious ideals, is not con- 96 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT tradicted by the plain homespun of Paul's exhortations to diligence, to sobriety, to the modest mind ; or by his appeals to masters and servants, to husbands and wives and chil- dren. Together they form a perfect whole ; or better, here is a world with plenty of sky-room above it, and sunshine over all. What has appeared to be an insoluble difficulty has been overcome ; body and soul, earth and heaven, man and God, have each received what is due. But more than this ; in the New Testament the question, What is goodness ? is answered, not only by a wide variety of precepts and ideals (which are precepts glorified), but by the presentation of a Person who did Himself exemplify all that He taught. He was the only teacher that the world has ever had who was Himself all that He demanded. " Follow Me " was with Him the sum-total of duty. As men stand before the figure depicted in the Gospels, they are at once humbled and charmed ; they feel, here is one immeasurably their superior, and yet not less, but more human than they are themselves. He did not live by rule a life of visible, external separation from the world ; He did not maim one part of Him in order that the rest might thrive the better. Only let men be what He was, let them live as He lived, and heaven would be begun. When He is considered more closely, it is discovered how far He was from the conventional type of goodness accepted in His day and country. He differed from it down to the very roots of character, for He started from a different conception of God. All about Him were men honest and sincere, who did verily believe that the way to please God was to live under the dominion of footrules, balances, and calendars; with them a day had been well spent in which, with unspeakable labour and endless caveats, they had kept within the letter of the law, as that was inter- preted by the tradition of the elders. He lived amongst these people, yet He was uninfluenced by them ; in com- THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLE 97 parison, His life was as free as a bird's. He loved nature, it supplied Him with material for exquisite parables setting forth God and human duty ; He loved men with a deep and passionate affection ; He had His intimates, He enjoyed their companionship ; of one of them it is said, in a truly human way, that He loved him. In His deepest sorrows He clung to these men, but His love was wider; it em- braced all sorts and conditions, even as the heavens over- span and embrace the earth. He was gracious, unassuming, always ready to spend and be spent for others, and yet withal He had a capacity for righteous indignation that at times flamed up and almost consumed those whom it touched, Jesus Christ was the incarnation of a perfect morality, and that fact claims for Him and for the pages that enshrine Him a certain immortality. It is said, indeed, that this unique person is a mythical product, that in process of time, having got hold of a noble personality, men accumulated imaginary matter about Him, they added the halo and the nimbus. One would like to know where are the men who, rising above the level of human nature, were able by any conceivable process to create Jesus Christ ; for, if they are to be found, let us go and worship them. But they are not to be found. Happily, though in a manner sadly enough, we have plenty of examples of man's handiwork in this matter. We know something of the Christ of earthly tradition, we know the mediaeval Christ, we know the theological Christ, we know the Christ evacuated of deity in order to save His humanity, we know the Christ evacuated of humanity in order to save His deity, and we know that they differ as much from the Christ of the Gospels as does the stiff and grotesque figure in a painted window from the living man. The Christ of the evangelists in the broad outlines of His character stands shining clear in His own light, the child, the son, the guest, the citizen, the teacher, the friend, 7 98 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the lover of mankind, translating into daily conduct His own highest utterances, living and dying in such wise as to supply the final pattern for all human goodness. In Him the noble outline of the Old Testament is fulfilled, for He did justly, loved mercy, and walked humbly with God. He is immeasurably greater than the book that contains the records of what He was ; He secures for it a perpetual significance ; it can never be that the world will let fall into oblivion the words that describe the Son of Man. The subject of this discussion has now reached its climax. Man is a spiritual being ; he has commerce with the invisible, and is at home in the eternal. Supply his bodily wants, meet his aesthetic tastes, fill him with music and with song, expand his mind, let him take science and philosophy as his field, endow him with troops of friends ; and yet, if this be all, he is discontented, disconsolate, and these moods of depression deepen into misery and gloom, and that because the nobler part of him is unmet. Is there, he asks, one greater than all other, a God ? And if so, of what sort is He ? How does He regard man ? And what of these sins : this sense of disobedience that seems to betoken, not simply an abstract rule of right broken, but a personal relation violated ? True, we are told with much elaboration of statement that tribes of men have been discovered who cannot count beyond ten, and who appear to know and care nothing for a God. It is suggested that these are examples of man in his natural state, unconscious of spiritual needs and unperplexcd by religion, and that in them the great problem is stated in its genuine simplicity. And hence, that the thirst for God and for forgiveness are figments, concocted by theologians and foolish people of that order. This is the sort of reasoning that would prove that it is not native to the eagle to breast the roomy air and gaze upon THE TERMANKNT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIELE 99 the sun, because an eagle has been known to refuse to quit its cage when the door has been thrown open ; or, that man, left to himself, loves confinement and hugs his chains because a captive has been discovered who chose a prison rather than freedom. The answer surely is that in judging of mankind from man, he must be looked at when at his best; and, further, our view must be extended over long spaces of time and wide areas of this habitable earth. When that is done, it becomes clear that man stretches out his hands, after God, if, haply, he may feel after Him and find Him.. The Hebrew psalmist spoke for the race when he cried:. " My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God." It is here that the Bible stands unapproachable ; it handles matters of undying interest ; it is the record of a divine revelation. Its literary beauty, its historical value,, its moral worth, are all embraced in this larger purpose ; they are not unimportant, but they are subordinate. It is, as this conception is grasped, the Bible, the record! of a revelation which in its nature is progressive, that wc- arc able to hold its various parts in due perspective ; there is found to be an ascending order of values, and the whole is to be judged by its end. Much that is imperfect, viewed absolutely, is then discovered to be relatively perfect as a step in a process, the end of which is the coming of the Son of God in the flesh. It opens, not with an argument in favour of theism, but with the bold declaration, " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth " ; it moves forward to tell the story of lives that are inexplicable without Him. I le is the one element common to them all ; there is many a failure, many a gross blot; yet did these men live and die in the faith that takes hold on God. Its course expands into the history of a nation of which hard things can be said, — a dark, perverse, and passionate people, inferior in many things to the nations in the midst lOO THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT of which they lived, only by slow and painful steps advanc- ing to a more spiritual conception of God. In spite of themselves they were under education, and this singular fact emerges, that national decay did not mean that the great lessons of their history had been lost upon them ; for at last, when they had been reduced in numbers and in spirit, they were found to have ceased from idolatry, and to abhor it ; in theory as a whole, and in practice as to their best men, they became (as we have seen) Monotheists, who believed that God is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Their worship, crusted over with formalism as it was, and defaced by rabbinical tradition, was yet the Avorship of a God, living, working, ruling, holy, invisible, whose very name was not to be pronounced by unclean lips. The moral element shades off into the spiritual, and the Hebrew psalter, part of it doubtless of a late date, remains the highest expression of the life of a human spirit in its inter- course with the Father of spirits. Here, again, God is not the climax of our argument ; He is a postulate, without whom the deepest experience of the heart of man becomes only so much subjective movement, indicative of nothing save his immense capacity for self-deception ; his anguish and his tears, his splendid hopes and hallelujah songs, though they inspire him to faithful living and holy dying, are but fond things fondly conceived, unless, indeed, there be a God who loves and saves. And thus the history reveals God at work in the world, J;he supreme factor whose power is everywhere ruling and .overruling in heathen kingdoms as well as in Israel, the >God of all the earth. The prophets reveal a God of perfect righteousness, w4io smites the evil-doer, man or people, and yet withal pities, yearns over the lost, and is ready to forgive. The law, considered not only in its rudimentary enactments, but in its expansion in the provisions of the THE PERMANENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLE lOI priestly code, and all the details of a ceremonial system, reveals a God educatinS, ll)(^0>j)LaT(l)S. 170 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT to find a more lucid summary of what the Church beheves concerning its divine Lord. The one point to be grasped and held firmly is that expressed by the formula " Two Natures in One Person," a phrase to which modern psychology can take no objection. The language of the Westminster Confession may well be compared with that of Chalcedon — "The Son of God, the Second Person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance, and equal with the Father, did, when the fulness of time was come, take upon Him man's nature and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin, — being conceived by the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, compo- sition, or confusion. Which Person is very God and very Man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man." This, it will be seen, is but a restatement of the Chalce- donian formula, and affirms the two Natures in One Person without attempting further definition of the terms. In like manner speak all the great Confessions of Christendom. Each truth stands on its own irrefragable basis of evidence. He is God, He is Man ; and yet His whole life attests that in every attribute of personality He is one and the same Christ. Almost every form of intellectual resistance to this two- fold verity has its modern counterpart. This may be said even of Arianism, although to a smaller extent than is the case with other theories. That strange instructive episode in the history of religious thought has passed away, without possibility of revival. Long since has the Arian hypothesis been clearly seen to be fatal to all true mediation. "The infinite chasm which separates creature from Creator," writes Ferdinand C. Baur, " remains unfilled, and there is nothing really mediatory between God and man, if between the two there be nothing more than some created and finite exist- ence, or such a Mediator and Redeemer as the Arians DEITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST I/I conceive the Son of God in His essential distinction from God ; not begotten from the essence of God and co-eternal, but created out of nothing and arising in time." It is not too much to say with Mr. A. J. Balfour, that "such simplifi- cations as those of the Arians are so alien and impossible to modern modes of thought, that if they had become incor- porated with Christianity, they must have destroyed it."^ Much more specious are the theories of Nestorius on the one hand, and of Apollinarius on the other. These heresi- archs have among the thinking Christians of to-day many followers who never heard their names. Wherever men virtually attribute a double consciousness to the Son of Man, assigning certain utterances and deeds to His Divine and others again to His Human nature, they are implicitly Nestorians. Where, again, they think of the spirit that animated Him as only and altogether Divine, the Logos simply taking the place of man's "reasonable soul," they are unconscious Apollinarians — so far, at least, as modern psychology permits. Both lines of thought illustrate the difficulties into which those are led who seek to make clear to the logical understanding the philosophy of their faith. IV Our thoughts on this great subject must, like all true scientific thinking, be conditioned by the facts of the case. There is no topic, perhaps, on which theological precon- ceptions are permitted to play so large a part in the interpretation of phenomena. We go to the gospel history, not only with reverence and faith, but with a definition of the Divine, in accordance with which we read the whole. Possessed as we are, and justly so, with the conviction of our Lord's Deity, we regard His personal life from that point of view alone. Thus I have seen comments on the Sermon on the Mount which represent the Divine Speaker ^ Fotmdaiioiis of Belief ■, p. 279. 172 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT as having, while He uttered the discourse, outspread before His omniscient view all the philosophies of the ancient world ; speaking in full cognisance of the aspirations of Eastern and Western sages after the True, the Good, the Beautiful ; knowing their vain thoughts and baffled hopes, and preaching a divine philosophy which would lead man- kind in the end to new light and life. In like manner, as He pointed to the birds of the air, and to the lilies of the field, He is thought to have had consciously before Him the marvels of their organisation and growth, with all the records of Creation from the remotest past. As a poet of our day has expressed it — " Nature her fine transmuting powers Laid open to His piercing ken, The lives of insects and of flowers, The lives and hearts and minds of men, Depths of the geologic past, The mission of the youngest star : No mind had ever grasp so vast. No science ever dived so far ; All that our boldest guess sees dim, Lay clearly visible to Him." So it umst have been, it is reasoned, because He was God, and our theory of the Divine so requires. A surer way is to turn to the evangelic records themselves, and to learn from them how, in fact, it was that the Son of God was manifested. We may find some things contrary to our pre- conceptions ; but it is our business to take them all fairly into account. These facts unquestionably show a certain limitation placed upon the exercise of divine attributes and powers. How far such limitation extended, whether it embraced the exercise of His omniscience and omnipotence, it is not for us to decide by any metaphysical or other a priori con- siderations. We have but to study and fairly to interpret what He said and did. The Apostle Paul affords us a key to the mystery by his DEITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST 1 73 expressive word, He "emptied Himself" — iccvrov iKivooai'^ — a phrase which perhaps more than any other in Scripture engages the best and deepest thought of our time. There is, I cannot but think, on more sides than one, considerable rashness in its interpretation. Kenotic theories are proposed on every hand : that only will abide the test which consists with the facts of the gospel history. Plainly, our Lord laid something aside. And that this was more than the external manifestation of His glorj', seems implied in the very form of the expression. There was something intrinsic that it was possible for Him to surrender, remaining still Divine. His attributes, it has been said by some theologians, may be regarded as twofold — immanent and relative. Holiness, veracity, love, were im- manent; omniscience and omnipotence relative. The former remained unchanged, the latter might be laid aside or reduced to " quiescence." And thus in the union of the two natures while yet on earth, our Lord took upon Him certain limitations in the one direction, though not in the other. The theory undoubtedly harmonises many facts in the his- tor}'', although open to the objection that it seems to divide the attributes of our Lord in an arbitrary way. Other thinkers would restrict the statement to the independent exercise of His attributes. He chose not to employ them, and entered into a state of entire dependence upon the Father. It was a proof of His love that He did this, as the apostle so strongly puts it ; making the self-renunciation of our Lord the great example of sacrifice for the good of others. Nor less did it display His omnipotence. "The entire process of condescension is a display, not of weakness, but of infinite moral strength. What we should venerate in the Ketwsis of the Son of God is the triumphant power of an unswerving will, persisting under the utmost pressure of ^ " Exaninivit" ; Vulgate and Beza. Hence the word exitianitioUy which alternates with Kenosis in many modern writings. 174 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT distress and trial in a morally glorious action. As Gregory of Nyssa well says, ' That the omnipotence of the divine nature should have had strength to descend to the lowliness of humanity, furnishes a more manifest proof of power than even the greatness and supernatural character of the miracles. ... It is not the vastness of the heavens and the bright shining of its constellations, the order of the universe and the unbroken administration over all existence, that so manifestly displays the transcendent power of the Deity, as this condescension to the weakness of our nature, — the way in which sublimity is actually seen in lowliness, and yet the loftiness descends not.' " ^ Such a view is confirmed by certain distinct features of our Lord's earthly life and history, as recorded by the evangelists. I. His Miracles. — It is unquestionable that both He Himself and His biographers often represent these works as wrought by a comnmnicated energy. It is not always so, and so far there is ground for arguing from them to His inherent omnipotence. We might quote His august words to the leper of Galilee, " I will, be thou clean " ; His command to the winds and waves of Gennesaret, " Peace, be still " ; His cheering assurance to the nobleman of Capernaum, " Go thy way, thy son liveth"; His repeated summons to the dead, " Maiden, arise " ; " Young man, I say unto thee, Arise." The utterances are those of a divine authority.^ But in general His miracles are represented as works which God did by Him. "I can," He said, "of Myself do nothing." "The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." His miracles, like His whole life, betokened His constant and indissoluble fellowship with the Father. " God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost and with power ; He went about doing ^ The Doctrine of the Iticarnaiion, by Robert L. Ottley, M.A., vol. ii. p. 287. ^ See Matt. viii. 3 ; Mark iv. 39 ; John iv. 50 ; Mark v. 41 ; Luke vii. 14. DEITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST 1 75 good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him." Of one memorable occasion it is recorded, " There were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every village of Galilee and Judaea and Jerusalem ; and there was the Power of the Lord that He should heal." ^ " The Lord " here is, of course, the Jehovah of the Old Testament. So when He was about to work His crowning earthly miracle, He " lifted up His eyes and said, P'ather, I thank Thee, that Thou heardcst Me. . . . And when He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth." Thus emphatically was it shown, " because of the multitude standing around," that the miracle was wrought in the power of the Father. In this respect also He was made like unto His brethren, to whom He said, " He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto the Father." 2. His Knoivledge. — We are here unquestionably on more difficult ground. It is comparatively easy to conceive the exercise of power to be suspended by an act of will ; it is less so to suppose a voluntary abdication of knowledge. How could the Divine-Human cease to be omniscient? The question has sorely perplexed many serious minds, and is perhaps insoluble, our metaphysics not reaching to the comprehension of that unique Personality. We can but employ the method of induction, and instead of reading the facts of the history in the light of foregone theory, must inquire into the facts themselves. Now, in the first place, there is the distinct and explicit statement that He " increased in wisdom " as well as in stature. A very general way of understanding this state- ment has been to suppose it to refer to His human intellect only, the divine remaining consciously omniscient. This ' Luke V. 17. See Revised Text {avTov for avrwi). The Revised Version hardly conveys the striking force of the original. 176 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT view, however, really denies His one Personality; it is a lapse into Nestorianism. Sometimes, again, it has been urged that the growth was only apparent, observers interpreting pro- gressive manifestations of His inherent and infinite wisdom according to human analogies — a subtle form of Doketism. The fact in its simple statement requires no such meta- physical solutions. We are told, if plain words are plainly to be construed, that as one condition of the Incarnation, the consciousness of the Son was led on by degrees to the apprehension of truth, both human and divine. To remove the unquestioned difficulties attending this conception, the theory of Dr. Dorner, author of the History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christy demands some notice. He supposes a progressive, gradual Incarnation — a continual " becoming," through the stages of His earthly growth ; distinct epochs of this progression being noted in His meeting with the " Doctors " in the Temple and at His Baptism. "The being and actuality of the Logos remained metaphysically and morally unchanged ; but Jesus of Nazareth possessed the Logos merely so far as was compatible with the truth of human growth and the capacity of His expanding consciousness. In other words, the eternal personality of the Divine Logos entered into the humanity of Jesus as it grew and became capable and worthy of receiving it. . . . The process of union began with the supernatural conception, and was completed with the Ascension." ^ This attempt, like others, to bring the Kenosis within the grasp of human thought, deals with matters too high for us. It is enough to know that with Him the advance of knowledge and wisdom was a reality and not a semblance only. A second fact bearing in the same direction is the perfectly natural way in which He seeks information on ordinary matters : " How many loaves have ye " ? " Where ^ Dr. Philip Schafif in Herzog, Encycl., art. " Christology." DEITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST I 77 have ye laid him?" "He came to the fig-tree, if haply He might find anything thereon." The exposition seems forced and artificial, which makes Him ask, as a teacher, for instance, asks his pupil, respecting what was already well known to Him. No doubt there were such questions, in which the answer was thus known — questions put, not to elicit information, but to test knowledge and character: " Whose is this image and superscription ? " " Who do men say that the Son of Man is?" " What was it that ye dis- puted by the way?" But the inquiries to which I refer belong to a different category — sometimes they even con- tain the element of surprise : " How is it that ye sought Me? wist ye not that I must be in My Father's house?" On these words of the Child Jesus it has been well remarked : " It is well-nigh impossible to believe that He knew that Joseph and Mary were leaving Jerusalem, that He knew them to be unaware of His tarrying behind, that He knew the sorrow which they were experiencing in searching for Him, and that He deliberately did what He did for the express purpose of teaching them a lesson." ^ Then, besides such questions, there are passages which intimate from the very words employed that on many sub- jects He gained information. Bishop Westcott, in a note on John ii. 24, dwells on the distinction between knowledge absolutely possessed (sihsvcci) and knowledge acquired {yivoj- (TKSiv), and points out passages in which our Lord is said to "come to know" certain incidents and facts. Thus Jesus came to know that the Pharisees had heard of the numbers that His disciples were baptizing ; He came to know that the impotent man at Bethesda " had been a long time in that case." He came to know that the people designed " to ^ T/te Co7iditions of our Lord's Life on Earthy by Arthur James Mason, D.D., Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, 1896, p. 147. 12 178 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT come by force and make Him a king." At the table of the Last Supper He came to know of a question that His disciples were desirous to ask of Him.^ Akin to such instances are those in which He is represented as filled with wonder, roused to indignation, moved with compassion. "Wonder," says Canon Mason, "is the shock, whether agreeable or otherwise, of the strange and unexpected. Wonder is the result of a new and significant truth being forced upon our consciousness, which cannot all at once be co-ordinated with what was known or thought before." So in the last dread scene of all, " He began to be greatly amazed and sore troubled," and cried from the depths of His sacrificial agony, " If it be possible." ^ But, on the other hand, there are instances of His know- ing what He could not have learned from any ordinary means of information — proofs of Divine intuition, of Divine insight, of nothing less than omniscience. This appears in the case of many an incident. He knew of the fish with the stater in its mouth, of the colt " where two ways met " at Bethphage, of the poverty of the widow who cast two mites into the treasury. Of these things He spoke, as of obvious matter within His ken. But more : He " knew all men " — their very thoughts. " He knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him." He foretold the denials of Peter. He predicted the fall of Jerusalem. Again and again He answered, not so much the words of those who surrounded Him, as their unspoken thoughts. The proofs of such insight led Nathanael to exclaim, " Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God !" and the woman of Samaria to say, " Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did; can this be the Christ?" Hence, too, the 1 John iv. I, V. 6, vi. 15, xvi. 19. To these instances Canon Mason adds Matt. xii. 15, xxii. 18, xxvi. 10; Mark ii. 8, viii. 17. 2 See on this whole subject, Our Lord's Knowledge as Man, by W. S. iSwayne, M.A., 1891. DEITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST 1 79 touching appeal of Peter's faith and love, " Lord, Thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love Thee ! " In full accord with these manifestations of divine know- ledge are the claims He makes as a Revealer of Truth. " Verily, verily, I say unto you, We speak that we do know, and bear witness of that we have seen," There was a sphere of knowledge which He retained within His conscious com- mand, including all that was required for the great purposes for which He became incarnate. In the words of Hooker : " As the parts, degrees, and offices of that mystical admini- stration did require, which He voluntarily undertook, the beams of Deity did in operation always accordingly either restrain or enlarge themselves."^ All that men need to know concerning God He came to reveal ; as a Teacher He was infallible; He was "full," not only of "Grace" but of " Truth." He retained what was needful for man's salva- tion ; of the rest He "emptied Himself." In this light the passage, of which opponents of our Lord's Deity have made so much use, loses its difficulty. Of tlie day and hour of final judgment He said: "No one knoweth, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."^ Many have been the expedients em- ployed to reconcile the plain sense of this declaration with the omniscience of the Son. Thus, " He knew not as man, while He knew as Son of God " — implicit Nestorianism. " He knew, but was not commissioned to reveal " ; an explana- tion recognising part of the truth, but for the rest having recourse, for theological reasons, to non-natural interpreta- tion. Such refinements, however, with other more elaborate expositions that have been propounded,^ appear needless if once we place the passage side by side with those which ' Eai. Pol., bk. V. § 54. - Mark xiii. 32 ; Matt. xxiv. 36 (R.V.). •" For a good summary of these, with patristic and other quotations, sec Liddon, Bmnpton Lectures, viii. l8o THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT assert or imply a limitation. That knowledge, which it was no part of His saving purpose to reveal, did not, in fact, lie within the sphere of His present consciousness. Not to possess it was a part of His voluntary renunciation. But whenever His work required it, knowledge was com- plete, infallible. This much He distinctly claims. As a Teacher, He had the confidence which comes of conscious infallibility. The very fact that in one case He declares His limitation of knowledge, implies that wheresoever He speaks with authority there is no questioning His words. The great illustration of this is His testimony to Old Testament Scripture. True, we must be careful to under- stand the extent of this testimony. We must not quote His authority for conclusions which He nowhere authorises. It is perfectly supposable, for instance, that in His citations and references He employs the current designations of one and another book or section. It was no part of His mission — it would have distracted attention from His message — to set men right on details like these. What is certain is, that He recognises the divine authority of the Sacred Books, and rests explicitly on this for attestation of His highest claims. To disregard their teaching was fatal : "Ye search the Scriptures because ye think that in them ye have eternal life ; and these are they which bear witness of Me. And ye will not come to Me, that ye may have life." " The Scrip- ture cannot be broken." "It is written," was for Him the end of all controversy regarding conduct or belief. Did the Pharisees err? It was in that they made void the word of God because of their traditions. The Sadducees ? It was because they knew not the Scriptures nor the power of God. After He had risen from the dead, He made the great assertion, " All things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms, concerning Me." The three parts into which the Jews divided their Scriptures are thus enumerated, and to DEITY AND IfUMANITY OF CHRIST 161 all of them, separately and combined, He gives His solemn attestation. So of individual parts of the Old Testament: "Moses wrote of Me"; "David in the Spirit called Him Lord." Here the validity of the appeal again depends upon the broad fact that these great saints of old had given their prophetic witness to the Son of God. Thus far, it may be admitted, we have no questions before us of such literary criticism as we may well suppose to have lain outside our Lord's cognisance ; but we have undoubtedly the truth declared that He came as Heir of all the ages, and that God's messengers in the past were His heralds to mankind. The subject is one that may be followed out into large and various detail. Our Lord's use of Old Testament Scripture is a topic of immense interest, on which the last word has not yet been spoken. But accepting Him as our Teacher, we are distinctly bound to receive "the things written afore- time for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope." 3. Perfecting tJwough Discipline. — The sorrows and temptations of our Lord are in some points of view the most mysterious, as they are the most affecting, parts of His earthly history. That the Infinitely Blessed One should be "acquainted with grief " is wonderful ; more wonderful still, that the Infinitely Holy should be "tempted in all points like as we are." Hence, with an unconscious Doketism, these solemn declarations are too often explained away. His temptations in particular arc virtually made a kind of acted parable — a lesson to ourselves from that which affected Him only in outward semblance. Bodily pangs can be understood ; the mystery lies in the deeper anguish of the spirit. There is thus a prevailing tendency with some classes of religionists to dwell almost exclusively on the physical and outward aspect of His suffering — the scourge, the thorns, the nails, the cross. Religious art, as of the 1 82 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT great Italian painters, and many hymns, both ancient and modern, express this tendency. Ecce Homo ! is the appeal to which the heart most passionately responds, — misinter- preting, or failing altogether to apprehend, the "travail of His soul." Now the remark made at the outset,^ that the very apostle who more than any other sets forth our Lord's divine greatness, also insists most earnestly upon His humanity, may with equal force be applied to the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is noteworthy that the great declarations respecting Him as " the effulgence of the Father's glory, and the very image of His substance," of whom it is said, " Let all the angels of God worship Him," and whose " throne is for ever and ever," should lead on directly to the repre- sentation of Him as "partaking of flesh and blood," "made in all things like unto His brethren," and "perfected through sufferings." This last declaration is explicit. It is thus that He brings many sons unto glory.'--' The statement has, 1 Seep. 158. ^ Heb. ii. 10 : enpeTrev yap avTco . . . noXkovs vlovs els 86^av ayayovrn TOP dp^rjyuv rrjs ccoTrfpias avTcov Sta nadr]puT(x)v Te\eia}(Tai. R.V. " For it became Him ... in bringing {inarg. having brought) many sons unto glory, to make the author {mai-g. captain) of their salvation perfect through sufiferings." The interpretation of this much-discussed passage centres in the aorist participle ayayovra; (1) to whom does it refer? (2) is it prior in time to reTieiaxTai, or contemporaneous with it ? 1. The suggested reference to dpxrjyov may be at once dismissed : even if we could suppose that those who in the next verse are called our Lord's "brethren" are here His "sons," in anticipation of v. 13, the order of the words is decisive. The only tolerable connection is with avTa. 2. It may be admitted that the more obvious rendering would be to make the participle prior in time to the infinitive : " It became Him, having brought many sons," etc. And on this view many varied inter- pretations have been advanced ; chiefly, " having actually brought many sons to glory," i.e. the saints of the O.T. dispensation, or "having in His eternal counsels brought," etc. Neither seems natural or adequate ; the thought gains both force and simplicity if we may render "in bring- ing." Will the Greek permit ? Certainly the aorist participle may DEITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST 1 83 I know, been often explained as having respect to our Lord's work, rather than to Himself. The perfection is defined as completeness in the issues of that work : the full salvation of those who follow Him as their Saviour. Such exegesis can be dictated only by supi)Osed theological necessities ; and the parallel passage, " Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered," might have suggested the deeper personal appli- cation of the words. He was to regain, as the result and reward of submission to divine discipline, that which He had put from Him. His essential character of goodness, patience, courage, self-sacrifice, was to be elicited in full manifestation ; and thus He grew, if we may so say, to the perfectness which placed Him upon the throne of Heaven. " Wherefore, God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name which is above every name." He had won that name — had won it back — through trial, obedience, and suftering. express action contemporaneous with that of the verb with which it is connected, e.i^: dvoKpLdels elrrfv, He answered and said ; ivpoa-fv^djxfvoi (inov, they prayed saying (see also Rom. iv. 20 ; Phil. ii. 7). But it also seems true that in these and similar instances the part of the complex action expressed by the participle is in a subordinate and a modal relation to that of the main verb : thus, " He said in the way of answer," "they said in the way of prayer," "He emptied Him- self by taking the form of a servant." A strict parallel here would rather require transposition of participle and infinitive : (Trpenev oltc5 . . . ciyayelv . . . re>iacocrai'Ta, "it became Him ... to bring ... by perfecting." On the whole, while retaining the rendering " in bringing,' it seems best to regard the aorist participle as exceptional if not unique. .A perfectly normal usage would have been the prcse7it participle ayovra - iv rw ayeiy, "in the course or process of bringing"; but the writer apparently wishes to avoid the suggestion that the perfecting of Christ l^y sufferings is one step only in a process : it is something involved in the very fact of the bringing many sons unto glory. Had the infinitive construction been chosen we should have had, not iv tS liyav, but tv Tw dyayiiv ; and as the one could by common usage be replaced Ijy the present participle, so is the other e.xceptionally, but quite intelligibly, replaced by the aorist participle. In any case the interpretation of rsXf tcoo-at stands good. .S. W. G. 184 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT In reference to our Lord's temptations, while we cannot fully understand them, two considerations may afford some key to the mystery. The first is, that the power of a temptation to affect the soul lies not so much in any sense of weakness, as in the purity and holiness that are assailed. These form an element of sensitiveness, and in proportion to the saintliness will be the horror at the assaults of evil. He, therefore, by whom the temptation would be felt more exquisitely than by any of the sons of men, was the Son of God. The second thought is that the recorded temptations of Jesus lay in the line of His work as the Messiah. They presented to His mind one and another way of attaining His great purpose, different from the chosen path of sub- mission and self-sacrifice. Assert Thine own power to supply Thy needs ! " Command that these stones become bread." This failing, through His trustful dependence on the Father, the next seductive appeal was to reveal that confidence to all men : " Cast Thyself down from hence." When this, too, proved fruitless, the question was urged whether the kingdom of the world might not be won, after all, by worldly ways. Do homage to the god of this world, and the " kingdoms and the glory of them " may easily be Thine. It was then that, with a scorn divine. He declared that His only possible path was that of obedience and service; and the tempter vanished.^ Only, however, to reappear. Virtually, it was the same appeal which the un- knowing disciple addressed to Him at Cssarea Philippi. The Cross, the suffering, "this shall not be unto Thee"! Our Lord recognises what such an appeal implied. " Get thee behind Me, Satan ; thou art a stumbling-block unto Me: for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men." Such were the temptations that beset His career, and would have hindered His purpose, while ^ On the Temptation, see especially Dr. Fairbairn, Studies in the Gospels. DEITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST 1 85 apparently carrying it forward to consummation ; and by resistance He won His way to perfection and to victory. V Such, then, are some of the aspects of what is called the doctrine of Kenosis. The term is undoubtedly a con- venient one, but we must not press it too far. It is simply the adoption of an apostolic phrase, to sum up the records and declarations of the New Testament respecting the earthly life of the Son of God ; accepted, as these are, by devout thinkers of our day with an almost un- precedented fearlessness and sincerity. The attempt has been repeatedly made to include these facts under some larger generalisation ; and the several " Kenotic theories " of our time, with varying success, endeavour to bring the grand reality within the conditions of our thought.^ But as Dr. James Denney observes, "The idea (of Incarnation as described by Paul in the passage referred to) impresses the imagination and touches the heart rather than aids the intelligence ; the attempts that have been made in what are known as the Kenotic Christologies to interpret it metaphysically, hardly take us much further on."- The progress of thought is soon arrested ; and we who can so dimly understand the union of body, soul, and spirit in ourselves, or analyse the movements of our own free will under the sway and impulse of the Divine, need not wonder if we fail to explain the union of God and man in the unique personality of Jesus. And yet we may reverently advance by another line of thought to some apprehension of the mystery. Without theorising as to what the Divine renunciation may mean, we may at least take note how very nearly the Eternal may ' See an admirable summary of these theories in Dr. A. B. Bruce's Hioiiiliatiini of Christ, Lecture iv. - Studies in Theology, i'^94j P- 57' 1 86 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT approach to man. He who pervades the universe with His presence, whom we may trace in the atom, the flower, the star, chooses as His temple the spirit of man. This is not Pantheism ; nor, confessedly, is it Incarnation ; yet the thought may do something to bridge over the vast expanse between God and man. The saint and the pro- phet, especially, are God-filled, and are most truly them- selves when "the Spirit of the Almighty" takes possession of their powers, and brings them into harmony with the Supreme Goodness and Truth. Man, in his ideal, is akin to the Divine. " In the like- ness of God" man was created. "A man," writes the Apostle Paul, " is the image and glory of God." ^ Such declarations cover far more than any outward character- istics ; they suggest affinity, of which communion with God is for us the highest possible expression, and of which Incarnation is the crown. The method we can never understand ; but the fact itself is in the line of all other Divine manifestations to His intelligent and spiritual crea- tion ; only infinitely transcending them. God " in very deed, with man upon the earth," prepares us for God in man, and for Him whose name is Immanuel. Hence the deep significance of the fact that the title which the Lord Jesus when upon earth especially assumed was that of " Son of Man." He alone employs it. To His disciples He was Teacher, Master, Son of God. The title is a direct claim to lordship, associated as it was with Daniel's vision of "one like unto a Son of Man," who " came even to the Ancient of Days." ^ But this reference to prophecy does not exhaust the meaning of the phrase. We are all sons of men -.^ He alone sums up our race, in its highest ideal and with all its possibilities of perfection. To ^ I Cor. xi. 7. 2 Dan. vii. 13. 3 See Bishop Chadwick, " The Gospel of St. Mark," in the Expositor's Bible, p. 54. DEITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST 1 67 speak of Him as "the ideal man" is inadequate: such a title might conceivably be given to one of merely human birth, who might, by a process of divinely-guided develop- ment, come forth at length as the consummate flower and crown of humanity. Yet such a man, however sanctified from the womb, would still be born with the hereditary defect of our race, and would need that the stain of original sin should be purged away. The Holy One of God, virgin born, appeared under entirely different conditions. As has often been pointed out, He came, not as a man with whom the Divine Logos was pleased to associate Itself, but as God-man from the first, the Son of Humanity, " the Second Man, the Lord from heaven." And in the mystery which must attend the truth of His renunciation after all our thoughts and reasonings concern- ing it, the highest aspect of the Incarnation — that in which it comes most nearly home to ourselves — must never be forgotten. As a revelation of perfect purit}-, and of perfect love, it requires no metaphysical subtleties, or fine-drawn distinctions, or exegetical acumen, to bring it within the range of our reverent and adoring thought. It may be that the theologians of our time have dwelt somewhat dispro- portionately on the possibilities of limitation in the Divine Humanity, to the comparative neglect of the certainties of life and love and grace and truth which, in full-orbed glor}', that Humanity reveals. From pondering the Kciiosis of which Paul speaks, it is good to turn to the proem of John's Gospel, and to read the open secret of the Incarnation there. To reveal the Infinite Holiness, translated into human life, to manifest the Eternal Love and the Eternal Righteousness, as in reality and essence One, and thus to become the Light and Life of men, was the great intent of His mission. In a world of sin this Love declared itself mainly in self-sacrifice, " Hereby know we Love, because He laid down His life for us."^ ' I John iii. 16. l88 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT It was an ancient question, much debated, whether the manifestation of God in flesh was the consequence of human sin. The question characteristically exercised the school- men;^ in our own day Dorner and Martensen, among others, have revived it. They argue that this most glorious fact in the universe may, for the honour of God, be best conceived as apart from the introduction of sin into the world. And it is added, with great force, that since the God-man abides for ever, to remain the centre of faith and worship after sin has been destroyed, it is reasonable to suppose that there must be some eternal purpose, uncondi- tioned by the Fall, in such a manifestation.^ " The thought," writes Bishop Westcott, "that the Incarnation, the union of man with God, and of creation in man, was part of the Divine purpose in creation, opens unto us, as I believe, wider views of the wisdom of God than we commonly embrace, which must react upon life. It presents to us the highest manifestation of Divine love as answering to the idea of man, and not as dependent on that which lay outside the Father's will. It reveals to us how the Divine purpose is fulfilled in unexpected and unimaginable ways in spite of man's selfishness and sin." ^ There is something sublime in the speculation, impossible as it may be, on either philo- sophical or exegetical grounds, to affirm its truth : the fact that it has laid hold of so many minds may show how congenial is the thought of God revealed in manhood, and so revealed eternally. But as it is, the revelation is conditioned by sin ; it culminates in sacrifice, and the " Lamb slain " is " in the midst of the throne." We are thus led to the crowning ^ See Bishop Westcott's Epistles of St. John, note on the " Gospel of Creation," pp. 277-299, for a summary of their arguments. 2 See Dorner, History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, div. ii. vol. ii. p. 80, Clark's trans. The question is discussed by Principal Edwards, The God-man, p. 84 sq. ^ Epistles of St. John, p. 315. DEITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST 1 89 purpose of the manifestation as it respects ourselves. It was made, not simply that we might gaze upon its surpassing glory, and by the power of its attractiveness be ourselves moulded into the image of the Divine, but that sin might be put away, in what we are entitled to say was the only possible method. This great aspect of the subject will be treated elsewhere in the present volume. Only, the twofold truth stands clearly forth ; that none but man could atone for man, and that none but God could "make an end of sin." It is the more necessary to insist upon this aspect of the doctrine, from the fact noted at the beginning of this Essay, that the centre of Christian belief has somewhat changed. If it was only too possible, when the problems of Soteri- ology occupied chief attention, to become egoistic and even selfish in our religious thought; it is possible, on the other hand, to forget, in the larger Christology of the day, that what we need is more than a revelation, however attractive and sublime. It is true that as we look upon " the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" we are "changed into the same image, from glory into glory." So far the Ritschlian theology, which has fascinated so many thoughtful minds, is undoubtedly right. But sinful as we are, we are not in a position to behold that glory until a transforming change has been wrought upon ourselves. Most impressively is this truth brought out in the two most magnificent delineations which the Epistles contain of our Lord's divine majesty. He, " being the effulgence of the glory of God and the very image of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power, zvhcti He had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high " ; and so the sublime representations of His Sonship and divine greatness that follow, all culminate in the thought that " it behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiatio7i for I90 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the sins of the people." The vital element in the great revelation is Atonement for sin. So in the Epistle to the Colossians. There, in the unveiling of the Mystery of God, Redemption, the Forgiveness of sins, stands first : then comes the wonderful description of Him who is the image of the invisible God, the " First-born of all creation " ; and after the resources of language have been exhausted in the expres- sion of His Divine greatness, the apostle returns to this as the climax of all, that by the Blood of the Cross is the universal reconciliation. Atonement is first and last ; and it is the law of Sacrifice which conveys to us the deepest significance, both theological and ethical, of the Divine Humanity of the Word, the Son of Man, the Son of God. THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST By R. VAUGHAN PRYCE 191 V The Redemptive Work of the Lord Jesus Christ There can be little doubt that, in the minds of many, acceptance of the Christian Doctrine of Redemption by- Jesus Christ has been greatly hindered by the way in which the doctrine has been set forth by theologians ; by the views to which they have given expression. It has been affirmed that sin is a debt due to God, and that God rigidly exacts payment of that debt, and that Christ has paid our debt to the uttermost farthing. It has been held that Christ, by His sacrifice on the Cross, appeased the wrath of an angry, if not vindictive God ; and disposed Him to look with favour on a sinful race, which, but for that sacrifice. He was prepared to destroy. It has been taught that God insists on punishing the guilty, but is nevertheless willing to punish the innocent in place of the guilty ; and that Christ has been substituted for us, and become the bearer of the punishment which was our due, in our stead. A highly artificial doctrine of imputed righteousness has been maintained ; and we have been told, that though we arc not actually righteous, yet, through faith in Christ, God regards us as if we were, because of the imputation to us of the righteousness of Christ. By these and kindred conceptions, prejudices have been created against a doctrine which is certainly contained in Scripture, and which has been a source of consolation and comfort to multitudes of stricken souls. On the other hand, it has been affirmed, commonly in a 13 194 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT reactionary spirit and temper, that the only redemption man needs, is redemption from ignorance, which is effected by knowledge, and not redemption from sin by any costly process of mediation. It has been affirmed that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not a gospel of remission of sins through the blood of Jesus; that His gospel is contained in the Sermon on the Mount, and in His general teaching con- cerninp- the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. o It is affirmed that the Parable of the Prodigal Son teaches all we need to know, or can know, concerning the relations of God to man, and of man to God ; that this beautiful, illustration of the willingness of the Divine Father to receive the returning prodigal negatives any doctrine of mediation, or of reconciliation effected by the death of Jesus Christ, and that all such views must be abandoned in. favour of what is called a simpler and more rational faith. The present essay is designed to call attention to certain teachings of Scripture which seem to be overlooked in the affirmations of the second paragraph in the above, and to be strangely perverted in the affirmations that precede these. The attempt will be made, in the light of the views that have been described, to collect from the New Testament,, and especially from the sayings of Christ, the doctrine of His vicarious sacrifice. No attempt will be made to fathom the unfathomable mystery of godliness. Therei will be no direct discussion of the nature of the atonement, though light may fall even on this mystery in the effects which it produces. Where Scripture is silent, speculation- will, as far as possible, be avoided. It will be taken for granted that, without the aid of the Divine Spirit, man can never know how real and appalling sin is, and can there- fore never know what kind of redemption can alone meet his need. It is perhaps hardly to be doubted that when men come to the Scriptures for their thoughts about sin,, they will be ready to welcome the teaching of Scripture REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 1 95 concerning redemption from sin. Be this as it may, on the subject in hand our only appeal is to Scripture, as it is the only source of knowledge. I The New Testament writers declare, and they repre- sent their Master as declaring, that a mysterious efficacy attached to His death ; a significance which is not explained by many interpretations of that event, as when it is said that He died a martyr to truth, and the like. These writers affirm that in some mysterious way the death of Christ availed for the redemption of man. This is a declaration of Scripture and not a revelation of reason,, and must be so regarded. The leading passages in which this efficacy is taught will be considered below. It is enough to remark now, that the testimony of the New Testament on this point is so clear and full that no statement of the doctrine of the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ can be accounted scriptural which fails to discern and appraise this truth. If it be said that Jesus Himself did not speak much about it, this must be granted ; but the reasons for this become obvious on a little consideration. First of all, the thought of what was awaiting Him gave Him anguish, and made it natural that He should shrink from speaking of it. Noth- ing, moreover, can be clearer than that His audience, even when consisting of His most intimate disciples, was wholly unprepared for any announcement on the point, and that they were incapable of understanding Him. If, then. He docs speak at any time of the event which threw a shadow across His life, and on which the efficacy of His work depended, we may be quite sure that His words will be charged with the deepest significance. V/ith these considerations in mind, let us recall the words of the evangelist Luke (xii. 50), wherein he tells us' 196 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT of the baptism of suffering to which Christ was looking forward. We shall probably see reason presently for supposing that the meaning of the temptation of Christ was that the inducement was held out before Him of ascending His throne without suffering ; but whether this be so or not, the language of Jesus, as recorded by the evangelist, implies that there was a profound purpose in His passion and death. Then there are allusions, scattered throughout the Gospels, to the efficacy of His death, show- ing His own view on the subject. Indeed it seemed to be in the very consciousness of Christ, not only that He was born to be a King, but that it was only by passing through suffering and death that He could ascend His throne, or be glorified. In His conversation with Nicodemus, at the outset of His ministry, speaking of the purpose of His coming, He •declared that He must needs be lifted up in order that the , disease from which humanity suffered might be cured. That this lifting up refers to the Cross is made tolerably . evident by a subsequent allusion in the same Gospel, where the writer says that the lifting up of Christ meant His • death (John xii. 32). Here power to heal humanity is virtually made dependent on His death. Again, He says, according to the same evangelist (chap, vi.), that His flesh is to be given for the life of the world, where He could not be referring to His incarnation, for the event was yet in the future. He could only be referring to His death. Else- where, He says (Matt. xx. 28) that He came to give His life a ransom for many. What ransom means we shall investigate later ; the point now is that the reference is to His death, and to the mysterious efficacy that belonged to it. The words were spoken a week before the Passion. He had been announcing to the apostles His approaching death, with the fearful details, — the judgment, the delivery to the Romans, the mocking, scourging, and crucifying, — to REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 1 97 be followed by the resurrection. Then immediately after- wards He sums up the doctrine of His death, as in a word, saying, " The Son of man came to give His life a ransom for many." Nothing could more clearly point to the virtue of His death than these words from His own lips. With these words the apostles are in abundant agreement, as when Peter declared (i Pet. i. 18, 19), not to multiply illustrations, that we were redeemed, " not with corruptible things, with silver or gold . . . but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ." Only one other example. At the Passover, just before His Passion (Matt. xxvi. 26), when He was instituting the great memorial feast alone with His disciples. He shows to them the profound efficacy of His death, telling them that His blood was about to be shed for the remission of sins. Let this suffice on the efficacy assigned to the passion and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The evidence is drawn from the Gospels ; but it would be easy to quote similar testimony from the Epistles, showing how apostles under- stood their Lord. H If it be asked. What is the efficacy attributed to the death of Christ ? the answer is complex, but for the most part clear. A threefold efficacy is assigned by the New Testament to the death of Christ. It is suggested, if not stated, that there was a threefold necessity for His death. It was necessary in order to the remission of sins. It was necessary, also, in order to the imparting of the new life. It was also necessary in order that the tempter might be vanquished. It may seem presumptuous to speak of a necessity that He should die who called Himself the Saviour of the world, yet Scripture appears amply to justify, if not to encourage, this mode of speech. 198 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT 1. Men have sometimes spoken and written as though the atoning death of Christ was necessary in order to win the love of God for us. The Scriptures never speak in that way. Christ is never spoken of as though He were the procuring cause of the divine love, but always as its gift. He is not the spring of the divine love, but its expression. Evangelists and apostles agree that the gift of Christ to the sinful race was a manifestation of the amazing love of God ; that it was of God's tender love, and unspeakable com- passion, that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. It is emphatically His death for us that supremely expresses this love. He taught edifying doctrine, and that was good. He gave utterance to lofty precepts, which was also good. He gave men an encouraging example, and consolatory promises which have cheered the hearts of saints and martyrs. But none of these are presented as the great and supreme expression of the divine love for us, while His death is so presented. It is here that the profound purpose of God is to be seen — in His death. 2. The remission of sins is attributed to the death of Christ. The idea is a sacrificial one, and is essentially involved in the Old Testament sacrifices. Accordingly, when the Messiah is spoken of as about to appear, salvation from sin is intimately connected with the work He is to accomplish. At the time of the Advent the Jewish people were expecting their Messiah. The Gospels make this evident. And it is equally evident that their notions of what He would be and do were shaped, in great measure, by the representations in the Book of Isaiah, the fifty-third and fortieth chapters of that book being interpreted by the Rabbis as Messianic in character. Accordingly, we are not surprised to find the Baptist pointing Christ out to his disciples as the Lamb of God who would bear away the sin of the world. The expression REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 1 99 has its explanation in the prophetic forecast. Then, again, we have Zacharias the priest, the father of John the Baptist, describing', in prophetic song, the mission of his own son, and saying of him, that he would be the prophet of the Most High, going before the face of the Lord to pre- pare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation unto His people in the remission of their sins. The evangelist Matthew, moreover, sees in Christ's miracles of healing a proof that He was the sin-bearer whom Isaiah had prefigured. In perfect harmony with this we find Christ Himself declaring — and three evangelists tells us this — that His blood would effect a new covenant for the remission of sins, whereby He would lift men into a new relation to God, one of favour and forgiveness. The reference is to what took place in the upper room on the night of His Passion. He took bread and called it His body, broken for them, and bade them eat of it. In Jewish sacrifices the offerer often partook : it would therefore hardly surprise the disciples that they should be invited to eat of the bread. When, however, he poured the wine, and said that it repre- sented His blood poured out in sacrifice for them. He performed an act which had no analogy in Israel ; and He points to a mysterious efficacy attaching to the shedding of Mis blood which had no counterpart in the sacrifices of old, for it was specially ordained in the Levitical Law that the blood of the sacrifices might not be drunk on pain of death, but was to be poured away at the base of the altar. The peculiarity is striking. The Levitical Law said : Kat the blood and you shall die. The reason is added : The blood is the life, and it is it which maketh atonement by reason of the life that is in it. The command of Christ is : J3rink ye all of it ; and the reason is given : For this is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the 200 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT remission of sins. The blood of the sacrifices under the old economy might not be eaten, and the prohibition was grounded in the very reason which is urged in the new covenant for taking it, namely, that the blood is the life that makes atonement, the fact being that the blood of the animal had no value except as a symbol ; whereas the blood of Christ was the reality which it symbolised. The former had no real efficacy, being but the blood of bulls and of goats, which could never take away sins. The latter, the blood of Christ, of which the wine was the symbol, was really efficacious. Augustine is a sound inter- preter when he says that the blood might not be eaten in the one case, because it simply prefigured the most precious blood which makes atonement by means of the soul that is in it. In the blood of the beasts there was no soul that could be spiritual food, and therefore it may not be eaten. 3. There is another reason given for the death of Christ, and this will bring us, perhaps, more nearly face to face with the mysteries of the spiritual world. It is frequently suggested that there was some mysterious necessity for the death of Christ as the alone condition of the life of Christ — the vital principle of His own life — passing into us. Indeed, the symbolical act, to which attention has just been called, seems to suggest this, while the words of Christ elsewhere hardly leave us in doubt on the point. Conversing with Nicodemus, and speaking of the purpose of His coming. He says, that it was for the regeneration of men, that they might be born anew. The Lord hints to Nicodemus how His death would effect this. When He had been lifted up, i.e. crucified, healing virtue would go forth from Him ; a new life, new in vigour, new in principle, even the divine life, would be infused into the REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 20I believer. This is elsewhere said to be His own life. Before it could enter into man, however, it must needs be first poured out or forth. This is not directly affirmed in this passage, but it is implied. On a subsequent occasion, discoursing to the multitude that followed Him over the Sea of Gcnnesaret, He further illustrates this thought — a thought which frequently appears in John's narratives of His discourses. His death, it is affirmed, was necessary, in order that His divine life, infused into man, might regenerate him ; and it is affirmed that this was the gift of the Heavenly Father to mankind in the death of His Son. Christ declares that the bread that perishes is a symbol of Himself; that His divine nature is the bread, the true bread, the nourishing principle of our eternal life ; and that it was to be communicated to man by the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood. The exaltation of Himself as the object of faith is noteworthy. So is His statement that He was about to give His flesh for the life of the world ; clearly indicating a close connection between His impending death and the life of the world ; as also that that death was necessary in order to this giving of life. The murmuring of the Jews at this expression has often been repeated since. His added words, on that occasion, are intended to show that what He would do would be done after His death. When the Lord speaks, \\ith the emphasis involved in the expression " except," of the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood as essential to the life of man, He uses mysterious words. But if we understand Him to be referring to His death on behalf of sinners, and to the effect of faith in Him who thus died, light falls on the words which otherwise are inexplicable. An old divine says that the best way to understand this verse is to make trial of, and feed on, Him 202 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT by faith, and that we shall then soon discover how true the words are. Christian experience vouches that this is so. One of a very different school of thought says that the eating of the flesh of Christ, and the drinking of His blood, is faith in the death of Christ ; so that the sense is, if ye use not the death of the Son of God as meat and drink, ye have not the life of the Spirit in you. The writer's mean- ing is that in the fullest and noblest sense the soul's needs are met in Him. 4. There is a third purpose of His death — showing at once its efficiency and the virtue or necessity of it — to which mysterious, but obvious, reference is made. The Lord's pregnant discourses, on the eve of His Passion, contain plain hints of a mysterious conflict with the power or powers of darkness ; a conflict which began on the mountain of temptation, which was renewed in the shades of Gethsemane, and which reached its height on the Cross, when the words, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " reveal a heart on the point of breaking. After the institution of the Supper, the Master and His disciples left the upper chamber, and passed in the moon- light into Gethsemane. On the way He speaks to them of the coming of the prince of the world ; a coming, of course, for conflict, because of the necessary antagonism between the spirit of truth, incarnate in Jesus Christ, and the spirit of evil. It was the renewal of an old conflict. Most significant are the words of the evangelist at the conclusion of the narrative of the first temptation, " Then the devil departed from Him for a season." We now become aware of the renewal of that conflict, of the return of the tempter for the final trial of strength. Jesus is aware that the assault is impending, but the agony of the conflict is not as yet upon Him, and the high priestly prayer testifies REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 2O3 to the as yet unbroken calmness of His spirit. The Shepherd and the httle flock are alone together, and His tranquil spirit communes with His Father in holy words of prayer. He had, however, already warned them that the wolf was coming ; and now the conflict is at hand, and there is no escape from it. Gethsemane has ever since been a sacred name, because it witnessed the mysterious agony or conflict — for that is the meaning of the word — which was soon to issue in triumph on the Cross, where He would vanquish him that had the power of death by Himself dying. Gethsemane was the scene, and is the symbol, of the intense spiritual conflict called forth by the approach from without of a being who nevertheless had nothing in Him. It was the hour and power of darkness. Christ's heel would be bruised by him whose head He Himself would bruise. Save for the final assault on the Cross, to which in a moment of extreme weakness He had to submit, this perhaps was the climax of the struggle between the Son of God and the prince of the world. So did the Good Shepherd give His life for the sheep. He chose to die, that by death He might vanquish him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. By death He brought to nought him that had the power of death, and effected the deliverance of his .subjects (Heb. ii. 14, 15). There are frequent references to this great spiritual conflict elsewhere in the New Testament. Thus we find the evangelist John saying that one purpose of the mani- festation of Christ was, that He might destroy the works of the devil. The Apostle Paul is clearly in accord with this. While the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews boldly declares that the assumption of humanity by Jesus Christ, and His subjection to temptation, even to the uttermost, 204 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT was necessary in the interests of humanity; that only by Christ's resistance of temptation to the uttermost, even unto death, could the ascendancy which the tempter had secured over the race be effectually destroyed. If it be asked how Christ's death effected this destruction of the lord of death, the answer is given by this writer when he goes on to explain a second purpose of the death of Christ, namcl}% that He was the expiation of the sins of the world ; and this, in reality, is the central idea in the whole subject. As has been said, Paul also presents this aspect of the work of Christ to us, as in his letter to the Colossians, where he describes the work of Christ as a vicarious triumph over our spiritual foes. His reason for viewing the subject in that light, in writing to this Church, is given in the circumstances of the Church. The faith of the Colossian believers was disturbed by two forces. The one was represented by Judaism, the religion of formal observances ; the other, by a Gnosticism akin to the theosophy of the Essenes. The teachers of the latter doctrine laid stress on the principalities and powers of the unseen universe ; and it is in reference to this belief that Paul sets forth the work of Christ as a work of triumph over the spiritual adversaries of the Christian. There are powers of darkness from which we needed to be delivered, as well as evil inclinations within ; and in Christ we have our deliverance from these. Christ took on Himself our human nature, with all its temptations, says Paul, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews also says. The powers of evil gathered about Him. They assailed Him again and again in His history, ever, however, suffering defeat. They assailed Him in the suggestion of Peter, "This shall not be. Lord." They assailed Him often. At length the crisis came, and the final defeat. The powers of evil, which had clung like a Nessus robe to His humanity, — so Lightfoot, — were torn off and REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 205 thrown aside for ever. And in the victory of Christ our victory is involved. In His Cross we, too, are divested of the poisonous clinging garments of temptation, sin, death. Thus does Paul set forth the effect of the death of Christ on the powers of evil. He entered into personal conflict with the tempter, triumphed over the tempter, and apparently lessened his power for ever over us. What that struggle cost Him we cannot tell. The advantage that comes to man through His vicarious suffering happily we may share, but the "price" of our redemption was His Passion. We can hardly be wrong, then, in saying, that His mysterious agony opens to our view something of the transcendent meaning of His death. It was necessary that, in this way, he should be vanquished whose was the power of death, whose it was alone to make death other than God intended it to be. Let this suffice on the threefold necessity of the death of Christ as the Scriptures seem to declare it. He died in order that forgiveness of sins might be possible. He died in order that the flow of the life of God into the human soul might be possible. He died in order that evil might be vanquished — might be deprived of its triumphant power, and ultimately of its dominion. The reader will not fail to observe the absence of certain ideas which have found a place in some modern systems of theology. There is nothing here about appeasing the anger of God. There is nothing here about the satisfying of an exacting creditor who will be paid to the uttermost farthing. So far the effectiveness of the death of Christ may be set forth in three terms : forgiveness, life, moral victory. Ill This is not all that is told us on this momentous theme. Attention must now be turned to certain terms and ex- 206 THE ANXTENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT pressions which not only throw light on the necessity and the efficacy of the death of Christ, but which also reveal to us something concerning the method of the great salvation accomplished by that death. The reference is to such terms as Propitiation, Expiation, Reconciliation, Covenant, and the like. I. And, in the first place, let us consider the term Propitiation. It is not possible to solve the mystery of the death of Christ. All that is possible is to understand what Scrip- ture says. Light enough is given for guidance, not enough to satisfy the speculative intellect. As elsewhere, so here, the revelations given in Scripture are abundant, many rays of light converging on the Cross. We have allusions to the death of Christ in a great variety of forms : in sacrifice and type, in prophecy, in apostolic doctrine ; and by these light is thrown on the mysterious significance of that death. Meanwhile, let us not seek to be learned beyond what Scripture teaches, or to be definite where Scripture is obscure, or to put an undue strain on figurative language. Some have taught that the sufferings of Christ were penal. They have declared that Christ was punished instead of the sinner, — that this was necessary in order to reconcile the attributes. Justice required that sin should be punished ; mercy required that compassion should be shown towards the sinner. Christ bore the punishment which justice demanded, and mercy let the sinner go free, the claims of justice having been satisfied by the Innocent One standing in the place of the guilty. Precisely what the punishment was that Christ bore presented a difficult problem, and various attempts were made to solve it by those who, nevertheless, agreed that what Christ bore was a substitutionary penalty. Some went so far as to say that He endured the very pains of hell, the exact equivalent REDEMPTIVE WORK OP^ THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 20/ of what sinful humanity deserved to suffer. Others, Hke Grotius, shrinking from this conception of the work of Christ, nevertheless maintained that He endured penalty instead of man, as far as would suffice to prove the justice of God, and to deter from light thoughts of sin. It was on views of this kind that the theory of imputation was grafted, the theory which taught that the sin of man was imputed to Christ, and that the righteousness of Christ was imputed to man. There is in such views so much that is artificial, not to speak of the element of injustice which seems to be involved, that many of the best minds have been repelled. They have turned away from all exposition of the doctrine of the atonement, or they have sought an explanation of it elsewhere, in some view that would be less offensive to the moral feeling. The notion of a transaction between the justice of God and His mercy is not attractive, and almost inevitably becomes in thought a transaction between the Father and the Son, leading naturally to the Arian position. Then it is not easy to see what penalty Christ bore, thereby saving us from bearing it. It cannot be death, inasmuch as all alike suffer it, the saved and the unsaved alike ; while none affirm that Christ bore the penalty of eternal death. These views were not known to the early Fathers of the Church, and they have never become Catholic doctrine. There are, however, some terms in which it is supposed that this doctrine may be found, and propitiation is one of these. Hence we must inquire into the meaning of this term. What, then, is the idea to be attached to it ? Now, at the outset it must be observed that this term Pro- pitiation is one of the terms found in pagan religions as well as in Scripture. It does not, however, follow that the meaning attached to the word by pagans is the mean- ing attached to it by the Scriptures ; and to overlook this 208 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT is to introduce confusion and error. The heathen man, no doubt, when he brought an offering to his god, hoped thereby to win his favour. He would appease the wrath of the angry god. He would induce him to relax the claims of his law in return for the compensation the worshipper offered, and so to pass by the sinner's sin. There is no such idea in Scripture, though it has appeared in theology. Let us now try and understand what the scriptural idea of propitiation is. And, first, as to the problem. The Scriptures teach us, that between God and what is sinful the incompatibility is complete. Sin, therefore, must be put away from the sinner before he can be acceptable to the holy God. If, then, there can be no communion between the holy God and what is sinful, how shall man enter into communion with God ? If he could clear himself of sin, he could commune with God. If he cannot do this, then, apart from a helper, he must remain separate from God. The fall of man means living in estrangement from God ; and, in the language of Scripture, so to live is to be dead, — dead to God, which is the only death man need dread. How then shall that change be effected in him which his condition and the holiness of God alike require ? There is a way revealed of God, and to know this is to know what we may of the great propitiatory work. What then is this work ? The Lord Jesus Christ, at the final Passover feast, when instituting the ordinance which the Christian Church, in all its branches, has reverently observed for so many centuries, spoke to His disciples of " a new covenant in His blood." The account is given us by three of the evangelists, and may therefore be regarded as sufficiently attested. Light is here thrown on the method of the Redeemer's work — on the process chosen of God by which to effect our redemption. In the service of God everything depends REDEMPTIV^E WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 209 on the aflfections and the will, and this is fully regarded in the method we are now to consider. A new covenant in Christ seems to mean that Christ becomes surety for mankind in a covenant of grace. The nature of this covenant must, if possible, be ascertained. The statement may perhaps be hazarded, that if humanity could of itself cease absolutely from sin, or, to use the scriptural expression, could " die unto sin," so that sin no longer had any place in it, or power over it, it would in that case do for itself what Christ did for it. He, of His own free will, in this sense took our place, and did vicari- ously what we could not do, " died unto sin " once for all on behalf of humanity, and thereby, of His own free will, presented to God a vicarious oblation, the second Adam doing on behalf of humanity what humanity ought to do of itself, but could not, and Himself entering into covenant that, through His grace and help, humanity should do- what, apart from that grace and help, it could not do,, should die unto sin and live unto righteousness, and so- meet the requirements of the holy will of God, and return to fellowship with Him. Christ became, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews has it (vii. 22), the Mediator of the new covenant, our sponsor, pledge, and surety on our behalf in a covenant. Had mankind been able to- fulfil that condition which He fulfilled vicariously, had it been able to present itself to God a sinless offering, ng redemption would have been required. Man was made for the sinless service of God. That had become impossible to him. Christ undertook for us, died unto sin for us, that is, in our nature lived the perfect life well-pleasing unto God, and so to say answered for us. Responde pro me is the Vulgate rendering of Hczckiah's prayer, " O Lord, undertake for me " ; " be surety for me " is the rendering of the Hebrew phrase as given by Gesenius. VVe have here an illustration of the meaning of the 14 2IO THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT work of Christ viewed from the present standpoint. As the Representative of the race, as the Prince of salvation, as the second Head of humanity, He fulfils the condition we could not fulfil, and at once pledges us, and enables all who believe in Him — all who by faith enter into union with Him — to do what God's will requires. Gathering aid from the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and anticipating what we shall presently learn from the Epistle to the Romans, this is the interpretation we seem bound to put on the Redeemer's own words. In the light thus shed some other teachings become plain. We now see what the Lord meant in His high-priestly prayer when He spoke of consecrating, sanctifying or consecrating. Himself, that the disciples might be sanctified or consecrated. This is what the Apostle Paul refers to, or at least it lies beneath his teaching, when he speaks of one dying for all, and affirms therefore that all virtually died in that act. This is what the Catholic Church means, and has always meant, by Its doctrine of satisfaction. The idea with which we have to become familiar is that of the ratification of a covenant, wherein Christ becomes the surety or sponsor of humanity. To use the words of Athanasius, God's law was fulfilled by the sacrifice of Christ, inasmuch as all died in Him, and in Him took a new beginning of life; thus man was saved, while the supreme consistency of God's holiness was safeguarded. Here, then, is another reason why the death of Christ was necessary. His death ratified this new covenant, the covenant of forgiveness. We may turn, for fuller information, to the apostle's account of the meaning and effect of Christ's death as given in the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. He is there really replying to a question, or objection. Some- body supposes, or is conceived as doing so, that the apostle's doctrine excuses sin, for the more we sin, says the objector, the more we magnify the grace of God in REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 211 forgiving sin. His argument in this chapter is directed against that position, his purpose being to show that the acceptance of God's grace, and continuance in sin, are incompatible. And the reason he assigns is, that the acceptance of the gospel, and dying unto sin, are one and the same thing. And it is in this connection that we have one of the best scriptural expositions of the great doctrine of Christ's propitiatory or vicarious work. " tlow shall we who died unto sin live any longer therein ? " The believer is pledged to die unto sin by the dying unto sin, on his behalf, and as his surety, of Jesus Christ. The intelligent acceptance of Christ means that, like Him, we become dead to the suggestions and the commandments of sin : are as unmoved by these things, says Chrysostom, as a corpse would be. Such a doctrine, says the apostle, cannot lead to Antinomianism. He, the Head, the Representative and Summation of the race, did for us what we could not do for ourselves ; did it vic^iriously : and by accepting Him we place ourselves beneath the absolute obligation at once to die unto sin and to live unto God. There lies beneath this argument, and exposition of the apostle, the momentous fact that by accepting Christ we become united with Him, spiritually one with Him in mystic union. We are incorporated with Christ. For the doctrine of the incarnation is not that Christ became a man, but it is that Christ became the man, the second Adam, humanity recapitulated in one, the second Head of the race, the Representative of humanity as a whole, and not of this man or that in particular. By faith we become incorpor- ated with Christ. The apostle's term is one which cannot be exactly rendered, but it is the strongest he could employ. The " planted together " of the Authorised Version has become, in the Revised Version, " become united with Him, by the likeness of His death, united with the likeness." The meaning cannot be expressed in a 212 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT word. It is best expressed in our Lord's discourse con- cerning the Vine and the Branches, where the natural union between these is made to set forth the spiritual union between believers, between renewed humanity, and Himself. Paul's theology cannot be understood unless this spiritual union between the redeemed and the Redeemer is recog- nised. In order to apprehend the meaning of Christ's dying unto sin, we must apprehend the meaning of Christ's incorporation of humanity, of all mankind, into Himself. That was His offering to God. The sinless Head of the race died unto sin for the race, in covenant, promising that through Him men should die unto sin, and pledging them to do so. The early Fathers make frequent allusion to this idea of incorporation. They knew nothing of the later doctrine of imputation, and of the imputed righteousness of Christ, — a fiction invented by men who had departed from the simplicity of early times. The matter may be stated otherwise and still be Pauline, There are two natures in us, the one needing to be slain, the other needing to be quickened. The death of Christ effected the former : it is an accomplished fact, in the apostle's view, inasmuch as our Representative died. The resurrection of Christ effected the latter. How ? By virtue of our mystical union with Him ; since His incarnation we are " homogeneous with Christ." This subject is further developed by the apostle in some other of his Epistles. And further development is needed, because it is easy to see that the self that died in Christ was sinless, and was not therefore the sinful self that needed to die, and the question arises. How is this to be explained ? How is it to be reconciled with the doctrine of the mystical union ? The apostle has not lost sight of this question. In the fifth chapter of his Second Epistle to the Corinthians there is a passage which more or less closely relates itself to this. REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 213 He has been speaking of his work as an apostle. He describes it in a sentence. It was his supreme pur- pose in life to publish abroad the good news of what Christ had accomplished for man, and to explain how it might be appropriated by man. His life was given up to this service of man, and the motive of his service was the love of Christ. Christ died for us : Paul would live to tell it. But how are we to conceive of Christ's death? of His work in dying for man ? Paul here expresses himself on this point. " Christ died on behalf of all, and therefore all died." What does he mean ? We cannot imagine him to mean that Christ died in order that men might not die. He rather means that Christ died to secure their death in the only sense in which death is of significance, namely, that they should die to self and sin and thus live to God. He cannot mean that Christ died instead of their dying, because the same expression is used in reference to Christ's resurrection, and none imagine that Christ rose instead of our rising. There must therefore be some other meaning than this. May we not understand the apostle to say, that in that one death for all, potentially all died ; and that a mysterious virtue belonged to the death of Christ, and a mysterious meaning? That His death was virtually the death of humanity summed up in Him? That as far as sufficiency is concerned, the death of Christ meant the death of all ; and that as far as efficiency is concerned, all who are united to Him by faith actually die unto sin and live unto God? And if this is his meaning, then we can easily understand the apostle to agree with his Lord in affirming that Christ died as a sponsor or surety in a covenant, and rose again in the same capacity ; and thus guarantees the dying unto sin of man, and his living unto God. Here, then, would seem to be the meaning that we are to attach to the teaching of 2 14 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT Scripture concerning the propitiatory death of Christ. Christ's death on behalf of men pledges men to die unto sin as He did. Moreover, He enables men — also a part of His pledge in the covenant — to do so. He died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. The apostle then goes on to say how absolutely different is the Christian view of things from the carnal view. We no longer judge after the flesh but after the Spirit ; and that is so in regard to the Head as well as in regard to the race which He has redeemed. And then the apostle emphasises a point which should never be lost sight of, that the whole work must be traced to the purpose of God, to the resolve of God to be reconciled to His children at all costs. It was He who was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, striking out of His account their transgressions, and laying it on the apostles to proclaim this. And then he proceeds to show, in the twenty-first verse, how the sinless Christ identified Himself with sinful humanity, the fact being that " Him who knew no sin, God made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." What does the apostle mean ? In proceeding to examine into the meaning of these words, we may set aside Augustine's interpretation as untenable. He makes sin here to mean sin-offering, taking a view which puts him at variance with all the Greek Fathers. What, then, is the meaning of the phrase " made to be sin for us " ? Let us approach the question by asking what sin really means. What do we mean when we speak of humanity as sinful ? If we take the case of an infant, it is quite clear that he can know no sin, if by sin is meant actual transgression, for he has not been guilty of it. But then the infant shares the lot of the race which is by heredity infected in nature, which is in a wrong rela- tion to God, as an infected nature inevitably must be. Separate these two ideas or facts, actual sin, and the REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 21 5 wrong relation to God which an infected nature implies, and it will be seen how possible it was for Christ to share the one without sharing the other. Without actual trans- gression there may be such an identification with man, in his present lot and condition, that Christ may be said to share his wrong relation to God — in His case voluntarily adopted for a purpose ; in our case inherited. And if so, then there is a sense in which the sinless Head became like us, shared our sinful condition, in order that He might restore us to our right relation to God. The sinless Head of the race is, by His incarnation, identified with the sinful, in order thereby to work out their redemption. There are two views of this passage with which the above is in obvious contrast. There is the view of those who would explain away the passage by making it refer simply to the indignities endured by Christ at the hands of men. The affirmation is that the Lord received from the hands of men a treatment which wore the appearance of, and might be construed as if it were, the treatment given to a sinner. The statement of the apostle, however, is not that men reputed Him to be a sinner, but that God made Him to be sin. There is more here than semblance or appearance ; nor is the reference to what He received at the hands of men, but to what He was by the will of God. The words do not merely mean that men entertained ill thoughts of Christ, and treated Him as though He were a sinner, for they say that He was made sin for us. The other view is that Christ, the sinless One, the realised ideal of humanity, wrapt Himself in His people's sins, and was constituted sin, by His Father's act and His own, in such a manner that at the bar of God He was no longer innocent. Before men, indeed. He was not guilty, but before God He was. It is further maintained that this guiltiness before God was not by any infusion, but by objective imputation, which carried with it punitive consequences precisely as 2l6 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT though the sin were His own. The obvious objection to this view is that it is artificial, and without foundation, other than in the fancy of men. The exigencies of a system or creed may require it, but Scripture does not give it. There is a remarkable passage in the Epistle to the Galatians (iii. 1 3), which says that the curse of the law rested on man on account of sin. That we can well under- stand, inasmuch as man has failed to fulfil the require- ments of the divine law, which itself says, " cursed is everyone that continueth not therein." From that curse we are delivered by Christ, and especially by His death; but how? Not by His becoming accurst of God in our place and stead, as some have dared to say, but by His dying as our Representative, Sponsor, Surety, in the cove- nant of grace ; by His so identifying Himself with us that He might " die unto sin once for all " for us. Here is the vicariousness of His death. The affirmation has been made, that he that hangeth on a tree is accursed of God. Paul did not say that, and in regard to Christ it is not true. This is an imported idea : it seems better to interpret the passage in harmony with the general teaching of the New Testament on our subject. 2. The New Testament has a doctrine of Reconcilia- tion. The reconciliation is no doubt of man to God. But is this a complete expression of the truth? We read in Scripture of the wrath of God, and the conviction is deep in human nature that there is that in God which prevents the outflow of the divine graciousness towards sinners. The holy God cannot look on sin but with abhorrence, cannot regard sinful humanity as though it were pure; and it is probably of this that we have to think when we speak of the wrath of God. It is no passion, it is no mere emotion, but it is the moral antipathy of the holy God to sin and defilement as such, — a defilement REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 217 which separates between God and the sinful race that nevertheless He wills to save. Now this wrath is repre- sented as having been affected by the propitiatory sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ : propitiation being the ground of reconciliation : reconciliation meaning that on the ground of what Christ has done for humanity that in God which hinders the outflow of His love has been removed, while all who believe are put into such relation to God, that the healing and purifying process may now begin, of which the conclusion is complete sanctification. 3. We have seen that under one aspect the vicarious office of Jesus Christ represents Him as in conflict with the evil one, and as effecting for man deliverance from the bondage and power of evil. It is under this aspect that Redemption must be considered, the term representing, so to speak, the price which the deliverance cost. In the early history of the Church, and by many responsible men, it was thought that Christ paid a ransom to the evil one as the condition of man's deliverance. That view did not survive Anselm's refutation. But a similar notion has corrupted Christian doctrine a good deal since ; the notion, namely, that Christ paid a ransom price by His death to someone in order that man might be redeemed from bondage to evil. This misapprehension has arisen from the circumstance that the Greek word for ransom has been rendered by theologians by the word redemption, a Latin word which does not convey the same idea. In the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, the Greek word for ransom represents a Hebrew word which has definite reference to sacrifice ; it therefore represents what the Lord intended. The idea of compensation forms no part of its suggestion or significance ; and, therefore, the question, to whom the ransom was paid, ought never to have arisen. The Hebrew reader would understand the 2l8 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT reference to be to the sacrificial work of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and what that sacrificial work was would need to be sought elsewhere. But while there was no ransom paid to anyone, never- theless His blood, or life, was what it cost Him to gain the victory for us for ever over him who had the power of death. Through death Christ destroyed him who had the power of death, that is, the devil (Heb. ii. 14, 15). The Good Shepherd gave His life for the sheep. In Gethsemane, and on the Cross, Christ gained a personal victory over the great enemy of man. The benefit of this victory all may share, for the common foe is weakened for ever ; and to effect this was part of the work of Christ. We are not told much about that mysterious conflict, and conjecture is vain ; but the fact that through agony, of which we have no conception, a victory was won, is a blessed fact. If we say that the price paid for it was infinite, we shall probably not exceed the truth. None can imagine the horribleness of the evil to be faced, as none can conceive the susceptibility and the dignity of Him who became our champion. IV It will be interesting, perhaps it is needful, to glance at the history of the doctrine so far as to indicate the elements that have come later into the Christian creed. In the early Church a singular view, suggested by Clement, was formulated by Origen, who affirmed that the death of Christ was a ransom price paid to Satan in compensation for his lost rights in humanity. Apart from this view, which was effectually set aside by Anselm, special stress was laid in the early Church on the doctrine of the Mystical Union. Here the idea that comes into prominence is that of the vicarious dying unto sin of the REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 219 Lord Jesus on behalf of humanity, wherein He pledges Himself to effect in man really what in Him was effected sacramentally or representatively. It is, indeed, true that Dorner has sought to maintain that as early as Justin the doctrine of substitution, or vicarious punishment, is to be seen. But this is an extreme position. Dorner has been refuted by Pressense and others, who show that no such doctrine was known to Justin ; while illustration of the prevalent belief is abundant in both Augustine and Athanasius. Augustine often speaks of the restoration of our fallen nature by Christ. No doubt he sometimes speaks as though this were effected by the incarnation. Neverthe- less he is frequent in affirming that Christ was the true sin-offering of which that under the law was only a shadow. He says of Christ that He died unto sin sacra- mentally that we might die unto sin actually. He, the sinless One, was mystically united with our sinful nature; and hence it became possible for Him, who did not need on His own account to die, to die for our sakes as the pledge or surety for us, that, through His virtue, we should die unto sin and live unto righteousness. The thought in the mind of Augustine is never that which is represented by the modern term imputation, nor that which is represented by the notion of a forensic justification. These potent ideas of later theologians are not the ideas of Augustine. His belief is in the mystical union of Christ with those whose nature He assumed. This is with him a governing idea, and it is to this that he sees the Apostle Paul referring when he speaks of Christ being in the " likeness of flesh." This mystical union made that possible which otherwise could not have been. He took our flesh upon Him. The curse of sin fell on Him: and through Him the righteousness of God becomes ours, because He puts us into right relation to 2 20 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT God, and thus begins the work which ends in the absolute death unto sin of the regenerated nature. His idea is not that Christ died to appease the wrath of God, but rather that by this mystical union death, or the curse of sin, accrued to Christ, and righteousness to those who believe. He certainly does speak of the blood of Christ as the price paid for man's redemption ; but whatever he may mean by that, he does not mean what Origen had taught, that Christ paid by His death a compensation to Satan. His thought is in quite another direction. He is thinking of the eternal law of holiness which needed to be fulfilled if the righteous Father was to forgive. Christ died unto sin for us, fulfilling the requirements of that law, and through Him we die unto sin. To the eternal law of holiness mankind, so to speak, stood in debt. That debt Christ paid. The figure is maintained in both clauses, but it is a figure. The fact is that we are incorporated with Christ by faith ; and, like Him, and through Him, die unto sin and live unto righteousness, and so fulfil on our part the law which He, our Surety, vicariously and sacramentally fulfilled for us. Athanasius is in substantial agreement with Augustine. The problem and the solution as he conceived them may be presented in a few words. The problem was this. Death had been threatened at the beginning as the penalty of transgression, — a death consisting in estrangement from God, the only source of life, and implying the complete ruin of man. On the one hand, the divine veracity in threatening must be upheld, while, on the other hand, God's moral creation must not be left to perish in its alienation, as that would be inconsistent with the divine goodness. The problem was how to safeguard the divine veracity, and at the same time, under the promptings of mercy, to effect the salvation of men. The solution of the problem is found in the doctrine of the Logos or Word. REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 22 1 Christ alone is competent to renew men. Pie becomes incarnate ; the Word becomes flesh, with a view to the atoning sacrifice. He took our nature on Him, a nature subject to the corruption of death. He offered it to the Father, delivering it to death of His own will, a vicarious act for us all. All died in Him, and thus the law- requiring death was met once for all by Him in our nature, and love and veracity are in equipoise. Athanasius is clear on the vicarious character of the Lord's death, but he does not mean by this that Christ was punished for the sinners. It is quite another idea that has possession of his mind. Christ dying a ransom for man means that, in the way described, the law of holiness, which is the expression of the very nature of God, is satisfied in Christ. With both Augustine and Athanasius sin is regarded in its effects rather than in itself, and the aim is to vindicate the divine veracity while giving scope to the divine love. Sin is a disease which can only be removed by the renewal of man, and this is secured by the incoming and indwelling of the divine Logos or Word, Jesus Christ. If we now pass on to Anselm and the scholastics, we shall find ourselves in quite a different atmosphere. Other ideas will be presented to us than those on which emphasis has been laid in the pages of this essay, and other than those of the writers whose views have now been expounded. Athanasius, as we have seen, held sin to be a disease which has defiled man's nature, and needs to be cured. Anselm conceives of sin as a debt which must be paid. The one regards sin in its effects, viewing it in a practical light. The other regards sin in its nature, and becomes at once speculative and scholastic. Anselm's scheme of thought is shaped by his leading idea. The motive of the atonement is not the love of God, but God's sense of what is justly due to Himself; and the method of the salvation is not the regeneration of man, in order to his 222 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT own fulfilment of the will of God, so much as amends to God for the wrong done to Him by sin. Sin is an insult to His honour, for which satisfaction must be made. The Son of God by His death has made this ; He alone could do this. His death on the cross was the voluntary payment by Him on our behalf of this debt which we were not of ourselves able to pay. Hence the necessity of the atonement ; not to compensate Satan, as Origen taught, — that view is put aside,- — but as a satisfaction to God : not that the death of Christ was our punishment inflicted on the innocent One in our stead ; that view had not yet appeared ; it came later as men departed further from the simplicity of Scripture. Anselm's scheme of thought appealed to the men of his time. He stood at the beginning of a period called the Scholastic Period, of which the characteristics were a love of abstract thought, of logical precision of statement, and of dialectic subtleties. Ideas that gave the dialectician trouble, because they did not admit of scientific statement, fell into disfavour. Problems involving the conception of free will, of sin as a disease of human nature, of the mystical union between Christ and man, and of the mystic life flowing from faith and fellowship with Christ, do not admit of scholastic treatment. Hence there is nothing in Anselm about dying unto sin in Christ and rising unto righteousness with Him. On the other hand, undue emphasis is laid on expressions in Scripture which seem to be rather illustrations of truth than expositions of it. Be this as it may, Anselm supplants Athanasius. It is like the evening star in place of the sun. Scholastic doctrine prevailed till time gave birth to Luther and Calvin. Luther's doctrine was shaped under controversy by his antagonism to Romish conceptions. A brief reference to the position of things must suffice. The Church of Rome taught that the original righteousness REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 223 which the first man possessed was no part of man's nature, but was a supernatural gift added thereto, and that at the Fall man lost this. The divine image remained, but the divine likeness or similitude was gone. Man lost no natural faculty, was still capable of good, except that, as the inevitable result of the Fall, his natural faculties fell into disorder. His actual loss was that of a supernatural gift and not of any natural power. So the Romanist maintained. The Reformers, led by Luther, held that what man lost by the Fall was nothing superadded and supernatural, but something which naturally belonged to him. The image of God was obliterated. The capacity, aptitude, power for spiritual things was lost. The faculty whereby God is known, and the will to do what God required, were lost ; and there was no recuperative power left in him. More than this. Not only was man thus deprived and helpless, but sin took possession of him, rushed in, so to speak, to fill the vacuum. There followed " an ineffable corruption of his whole nature, with all its powers " ; so that he became essentially and by nature sinful. So Luther maintained. Far - reaching consequences were involved in this doctrine, but they need not be considered here. We need only notice the bearing of all this on the doctrine of justification. The whole work of Christ in justifying was regarded as external to the man, as would naturally be the case since man had left to him neither faculty for God nor power of co-operation. Justification became acquittal from sin and from its penalties as the result of the appro- priating of the merits of Christ by faith, the righteousness of Christ being imputed to the believer though not possessed by him. It was taught, moreover, not simply, as had already been taught, that Christ's obedience was an acceptable sacrifice to God, giving meaning and efficacy to His death, but that His obedience was accepted of God, 2 24 1'li^ ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT instead of the obedience we owed and could not pay. And still further. For the first time in history the death of Christ was viewed as a vicarious punishment, inflicted by the F"ather on Him instead of on us. He, our Substitute, was punished and accursed of God for us. Luther does not hesitate to say this. God could not pardon without satisfaction. Justice required the punishment of sin. But it was conceived consistent with justice so far to relax the law, that another, and an innocent person, should be punished instead of the sinner. Hence it was inferred that Christ endured in His Passion the pains of hell, and this was regarded as a necessary part of the idea of satis- faction. Calvin consents to the doctrine of Christ's sub- stituted obedience and punishment. Our liability and obligation to punishment and the curse of sin were trans- ferred to Christ. He suffered the actual torments of the damned. So taught Calvinism. If Anselm is properly objected to on account of what he omits, these have surely added to the teaching of Scripture much that is utterly repugnant to its spirit. For the first time in the history of the Christian Church we now get such dogmas as these : that the sufferings of Christ were inflicted by the Father ; that the punishment of sin is remitted because an equivalent punishment has been borne ; that the alone guiltless is accounted guilty, and that the unholy are accounted holy by an artificial system of imputation. Certainly Athan- asius reads no such thoughts into the Scriptures, and it is not easy to understand how conscience could ever be brought to acquiesce in such notions. It is not to be wondered at that a whole crop of misbeliefs sprang up from this mischievous sowing ; but these need not detain us. In conclusion. If the account given above of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is substantially true, then clearly REDEMPTIVE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 2 25 the Redeemer's work cannot be confined to His office as Teacher. Man's supreme need is not deliverance from ignorance, but from sin, and it was to effect this that Christ came and died. Our moral need is greater than our intellectual need. We know more than we do, and the problem is how to bridge the chasm between knowledge and obedience, how to overcome moral reluctance, how to get rid of sin. No doubt the teaching of Christ concerning God and man, concerning life and duty, concerning the temporal and the eternal, is most precious ; the Sermon on the Mount is a noble charter ; the Parable of the Prodigal Son is a priceless boon. Beyond doubt we cannot think too highly of His example of self-sacrificing love, as we find it in the Gospels. No doubt His death may be regarded as confirmatory of His doctrine, and of the fidelity of His spirit. But Scripture says more than this concerning His death. He is not said to save us by His teaching, or by His example, not even by His example of self-sacrificing love. In all these respects He may be admitted to be supreme, but in them He is not unique. A unique virtue, however, is attributed to Him by His apostles, and is involved in His own words. There is something which is true of Him, and of no other. There is an objective work wrought by Christ on behalf of sinful humanity, which can only be described by the term unique. And if so, then He is separated from all other beings whatsoever. That is our contention and belief Consequently we regard Him as having a unique claim on the love and allegiance of men. Writers on the subject of the atonement often lay supreme emphasis on the fact that Christ, in dying on the Cross for us, removed the condemnation into which sin had brought the human race. Supreme emphasis has been laid in these pages on the fact that the object of the atonement is to produce holiness. This aspect of the work of Christ, 15 2 26 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT in the writer's view, is the one that needs to be insisted upon to-day. As to God's judgment concerning sin, happily there can be no doubt that sin lies beneath His condemna- tion. It cannot be otherwise. The sense of fitness within us testifies that it must be so. Conscience would be robbed of its meaning if it were not so. The apostle declares that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all un- godliness and unrighteousness of men. The relation that exists between our unrighteousness and God's righteous- ness is that of condemnation ; it would be inexpressibly sad to conceive it otherwise. The evidence of the universality of sin is complete. Sin means death in the only sense in which death is to be feared. Death means dissolution ; in nature, the dissolution which involves the loss of the natural life ; in the soul, the dissolution of the inward life of righteousness, which is the true life of man. Sin is more. Besides destroying our true life, it calls down on us the con- demnation of God. That is our condition, condemned by our own hearts, condemned by Him who is greater than our hearts, and who knows all things. That the death of Christ had relation to this condition may be freely and thankfully admitted, without saying that this is the aspect of the subject that has supreme consequence to-day, when the moral tendencies of the doctrine of atonement have been so seriously impugned. The aim of this essay has been to show that the Christian doctrine of atonement cannot be rightly interpreted by any who obscure its moral purpose. This is its supreme purpose. Its great aim is to produce holiness. VI NEW TESTAMENT WITNESS CONCERN- ING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES By SAMUEL NHWTH ■i-27 VI New Testament Witness concerning Christian Churches "All the churches of Christ." — RoM. xvi. i6. "So ordain I in all the churches." — i CoR. vii. 17. "As in all the churches of the saints." — i COR. .\iv. ^;^. "The brother whose praise in the gospel is spread through all the churches." — 2 COR. viii. 18. " That which presseth upon nte daily, anxiety for all the churches." — 2 Cor. xi. 28. "The churches of Judica which were in Christ." — Gal. i. 22. "The churches of God which are in Judcea." — i Thess. ii. 14. "The church of God which is at Corinth." — i COR. i. 2. "The church that is in their house." — ]\OM. xvi. 5. Churches, and not The Church, are the subject of the l^rcsent essay. The latter term, as used in the New Testa- ment, bears a very special and a very sacred meaning ; and it is misleading, may we not add, irreverent, to use it in senses widely diverse from this. When, for instance, one tells us that his friend has " entered the church," meaning thereby that he has become a clergyman ; another, that an acquaintance has " gone over to the church," meaning that he has attached himself to the Episcopal Church, whether of England or America ; and yet a third, that some of his neighbours are seeking to " destroy the chin-ch," when all he means, or ought to mean, is that they arc seeking to remove some invidious privileges conferred upon the clergy of one denomination, and to free them from irksome obliga- tions consequently laid upon them, — then, in either case, language is used which is both alien to the Neu- Testament, 230 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT and a stumbling-block to many through the erroneous inferences it suggests. In the New Testament, "The Church" denotes the great company which no man can number, which is gathered before the throne of God out of every nation, of all tribes and peoples and tongues, and which is figuratively described as the body of Christ, of which He is the Head. The places in which the term is so used are, it should be noticed, comparatively few, and occur in passages which are pro- phetical rather than historical, when the writer is speaking of the ideal and future, and not of what is present and actual. In all historical passages the New Testament writers speak of churches either explicitly or by implica- tion ; the singular number, with the definite article prefixed, being used only when it is some one out of " all the churches" that is spoken of; and even then, for the most part, some differentiating epithet is appended, making it clear to which church out of the many reference is made. The passages quoted above exhibit the predominating language of the New Testament on this matter, and show how great is the contrast between the thought and speech of the apostles and that of many who claim to be in a pre- eminent degree their successors. Churches, as we meet with them in the apostolic writings, are companies, whether small or large, of Chris- tian men and women, associated for purposes directly arising out of their personal relationship to Christ. And by a Christian we mean one who is trusting in Christ as his Saviour, hearkening to Christ as his Teacher, and serving Christ as his Master and Lord. To this association he is drawn by the attraction of a common affection and a common interest. No one who has so *' learned Christ " N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 23 1 needs that any should suggest to him such an association, or that any command should be laid upon him to seek it. That he should do so follows necessarily from the constitu- tion of his nature, and from the circumstances of the case. The spontaneous response of his heart to the mercies he has received, prompts him to render to Christ the homage we denominate worship ; or, in Scripture phraseology, to " bow the knee to Him " in the exalted dignity — " the name which is above every name " — to which He has been raised, and to praise Him by the glad confession that He is " Lord of all," His newly-awakened sense of the beauty of the Saviour's character and the blessedness of His mission of mercy, impels him to an open testimony to His wondrous work and inspiring words ; and his realisa- tion of the meaning of the new relationship into which he has been brought, moves him to the earnest endeavour to do to others, and for them, all that he knows his Lord would have him to do, — having freely received, he would freely give. In order to fulfil efficiently this threefold purpose of worship, witness, and work, he finds himself dependent upon the help of others like-minded with him- self For, though he could in some measure fulfil them alone and apart, experience and instinct conspire in teach- ing that he can best do it when united in fellowship with others, and aided by their co-operation and sympathy ; and it is of his best that he would mve to his Lord. H But while the association of Christians in churches thus follows by a natural sequence from their personal union with Christ, the inquiry at once arises, — are any directions given by our Lord, or His disciples, as to the manner in which this association is to be regulated, the functions it may properly assume, the distribution of those functions 232 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT amongst its members, and the authority of the associated body over the individuals composing it ? In times not far removed from our own, the answer to this inquiry was very commonly sought under the assump- tion that such directions would be given, if given at all, in the form of definite enactments, laying down for all time a completed plan of organisation from which nothing was to be taken away, and to which nothing was to be added. The almost unquestioned acceptance of this assumption was one of the hurtful results which flowed from that serious defect under which both professed theologians and private Christians then laboured, namely, the absence of perspective in their studies of the sacred records, and the consequent failure to apprehend, in any adequate measure, the progressiveness of the divine method in the education and discipline of mankind. Instead of assuming that because of old formal direc- tions w^ere supplied for the construction of the tabernacle, together with a code of laws authoritatively prescribing the forms of its worship and the appointment of its priests, therefore the fellowship and worship of Christian churches were to be regulated in like manner, the very opposite to this ought to have been anticipated. For, under the Christian dispensation, man is not, in the realm of his personal relationship with God, subjected to a system of formal law, but is emancipated into the guidance and control of great and far-reaching principles. Infancy, childhood, youth, and manhood are not more dis- tinctly marked in the life of the individual than they are in the religious history of the race. The primeval, the patriarchal, the Jewish, and the Christian, are four con- nected and progressive dispensations — four successive classes in the school of the Great Teacher. Both in the lessons taught and in the methods of discipline employed, there is a corresponding advance from a lower to a higher N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 233 stage. In the first, man is taught his dependence upon God — the truth which Hes at the foundation of all religion, and which may be summarised in the words, " apart from Me ye can do nothing." In the second, he is trained to the exercise of faith, of faith in its simpler forms as suited to the childhood of the race ; of faith, too, whose rewards were often visible to sense and not long delayed. In the Mosaic economy, with its moral and ceremonial law, its sacrifices and oft-repeated purifications, its distinctions of clean and unclean, its solemn sanctuary and its holy place, man is further taught his own impurity and the need of holiness. Christianity, while it embodies and expands all these previous lessons, advances to a higher stage, and her mission is to train man, not to a religion of mere depend- ence on a Creator, nor of simple faith in a Lord and King, nor to a religion of moral righteousness only, but to a religion of holy love. Her distinctive formula is embodied in the words : " God is love ; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him." Christianity stands related to Judaism as manhood is related to youth. The Jews, as still in a state of immaturity, were governed by laws. As the apostle expresses it, they were as chil- dren " under guardians and stewards." Though the heirs of a great inheritance, they differed " nothing from a bond- servant." Christianity confers the full privileges of sonship. The age of immaturity gives place to the age of trusted and honoured affection. The son rises to an intelligent perception of his father's purposes. The father's will is no longer an expression of pure authority to be unhesi- tatingly submitted to, but an exhibition of wisdom and moral excellence in which he increasingly delights. Obedi- ence is no longer mere duty, it is a holy pleasure. Ser\Mce is rendered " not by constraint, but willingly." Law is displaced by love. Such a spirit has plainly passed beyond the "beggarly rudiments." To place it under 234 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the rigid constraint of formal laws would be to impose upon it a terrible bondage. It would be to sentence a man to the humiliation of a lasting pupilage. It would be the rejection by a father of the intelligent and honour- ing affection of a son for the blind and imperfect fondness of a child. To no such bondage, however, have we been subjected. We are not under law, but under grace. The appeal, in the determination of what is for us right or wrong before God, is not made to definite enactments, but to our own consciousness of what is in harmony with the character of God, and with His will as expressed in His written word. Christian obligation is thus wider and more spiritual than the Jewish. That which under the Law had of necessity a limited range of application, and was referable for the most part to external conduct, becomes expanded into a principle of far-reaching authority, extend- ing to the innermost springs of thought and feeling. The personal discipline of the soul thus becomes of the very highest kind. It is no longer the passive discipline of simple abstinence from things forbidden, but is an earnest and per- petual striving after the highest excellence. God's voice in the soul is no longer a solemnly reiterated " thou shalt not," but the gentler and mightier " learn of Me." Our aim is not just to do what God has bidden, but to become what God is. Such, under the Christian dispensation, is God's method of dealing with us in our personal relations with Himself; and it being so, we ought to anticipate that a like method would be followed when He is dealing with us in our relations with one another. If, in the high matters per- taining to the former. He honours us by confiding in our love, it would be a strange phenomenon if in that depart- ment of our religious life where we honour Him in His creatures, and serve our Lord by serving the least of these His brethren, Christian fidelity and Christian affection should not be trusted to observe His will and interpret N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 235 His wishes. To one who has felt the joy of the spirit of freedom which Christianity breathes, and how' greatly man is blessed by the confidence God condescends to repose in him, and how healthful is the exercise to which his spiritual powers are put by the constant effort of studying the char- acter of God and the great principles of His government, and of applying these to the varying circumstances of human life, it would be a perplexing anomaly if, in the matter of church organisation, the Christian man were placed under the fetters of a rigid law. That any, there- fore, should assume the existence of such a law, or have assented to those who affirmed it, without surprise at its inconsistency with the spirit of the gospel, and without the consciousness of the incapacity implied by it, would appear to be next to an impossibility. hLxperience, however, teaches how common it is, even in these Christian times, to advance no further in the religious life than the earlier stages, and how many never get beyond the Judaic state. Law rather than love rules within them. Their main inquiry is, what must we do ? rather than what may or ca}i wc do ? And hence as the gospel says very little of what we must do — contains hardly an\'thing in the form of a positive and absolute precept, and the>' have not yet learnt to act from the promptings of a generous love, their religious life is at the minimum, they arc " all their lifetime subject to bondage," and it is nothing to be wondered if, in regard to the government of churches, they are altogether legal in their thoughts and requirements. Here we are reminded how intimately the power of rightly investigating matters relative to the spiritual life is dependent upon the state and style of our personal piety. God's ways and thoughts are not as man's, and unless we are earnestly seeking to press forward in God's ways, and are diligently striving to apprehend His groat and holy thoughts, the record of His spiritual work in the world 236 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT will be set before us in vain. It will speak in a language that sounds strangely in our ears ; its characters will appear grotesque and unmeaning ; the key to unlock its secret treasures will not be ours ; and we " cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged." Ill But, it will be asked, does not the apostolic organisa- tion of the churches supply us with an authoritative model, in accordance with which all future churches should be framed ; and is not therefore all we need for our guidance to be found in the example they have set us ? The right answer to this inquiry can only be gained from a careful and unprejudiced study of the history of their procedure as given in the apostolic writings ; and to such a study wc now invite our readers. I. The story of the apostolic organisation of the churches commences naturally with that of the first church, the church at Jerusalem. At its first meeting, held within the seven or eight days which intervened between the Ascension and the day of Pentecost, it proceeded, on the suggestion of Peter, to the election of an apostle in the place of Judas, Respecting this meeting, we are told that the number of those present was about one hundred and twenty, and that all alike took part in the important business then transacted. A few days later occurred the solemn inauguration of this church, when, on the day of Pentecost, it received its baptism of consecration and its public investiture with power from on high. Passing over many of the circumstances connected with this event, and dwelling only upon those which, directly or indirectly, bear upon our present inquiry, two significant facts present themselves to notice. These are, first, that on this day a N. T. WITNESS rOXCERMNr, CHRISTIAN CHURCHKS 237 large number of brethren were assembled (Acts ii. i) in a private house (Acts ii. 2). At the least there would be the hundred and twenty previously spoken of, and in all proba- bility many more; for as there were five hundred brethren to whom our Lord showed Himself after His resurrection, we may fairly suppose a larger gathering on an occasion which would bring to Jerusalem many who did not usually dwell there. And secondly, that whether the number were larger or smaller, the tongue-like flames " sat upon each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utter- ance." This, the devout reader will acknowledge, was not a mere wonder, but a " sign." God teaches by symbol as well as by word, and those flames of fire and those other tongues have their meaning. Four lessons, then specially needed, and which those present, accustomed as they were to pictorial teaching, would readily recognise, were set forth in a vivid and impressiv-e form. These are — {a) That God's truth is to be made hiozvn to all men. The spirit of exclusiveness, whether springing from the misuse of Jewish privilege or from intellectual pride, is not to be the spirit of Christianity. God's truth is God's gift to man, and no one may withhold it from his fellow. It is not a "mystery," a secret to be wrapped up and hidden, but a " gospel," glad tidings of great joy to all people. God Himself leads the way in this world-wide proclamation of the truth. The power of His Spirit con- strains His servants, overpowers their natural hesitation and unwillingness, and even against themselves makes them, so to speak, that " Parthians, and Medes, and Klamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Juda:a and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, in Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and the parts of Lyba about Gyrene, and sojourners from Rome, Cretes and Arabians," every one in his own tongue, heard them speaking the mighty works of God. 2 3'S THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT (/;) With no less distinctness did the sign teach, secondly, That the special blessings resultiiig from the Saviotir's death ivere open to the acceptatice of all. The o-ift of the Holy Spirit, in a measure altogether distinct from any earlier bestowal, is set before us in the Scriptures as the result of the Saviour's work. It was so announced by the forerunner : " He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost"; and it was so affirmed by the Saviour Himself when He said : " I will pray the Father, and He shall give 5'ou another Comforter . . . even the Spirit of truth." This specially Christian gift, this crowning boon of the Saviour's mercy, is now conferred upon all in this praying and waiting assembly : they were all filled with the Holy Ghost ; all, not a favoured few only, not the distinguished leaders only, not the chosen apostles only, but all in that large assembly, where, though possibly there may have been a Nicodemus and a Joseph of Arimathcxa, yet certainly the large majority were humble and undis- tinguished men. (r) Again, the peculiar form under which the power of the Spirit was manifested in those who received the gift teaches, That the priniaiy work giveii to Christ's servants to do is to publish abroad His truth. " They began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." It was by the gift of the Spirit that they were to be " clothed with power " for their work, and the immediate effect of the bestowal of that gift was to impel them to " speak the mighty works of God." Most distinctly, then, were the followers of Christ taught that their special work in the world was not priestly, but pro- phetical ; not to offer sacrifice, but to make known His message of love and mercy — in apostolic phrase, to wield " the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." {d') Further, the " sign " teaches, That participation in this Christian ivork teas not to be confined to any one N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 239 class of CJivisfs folloivcrs. To be the minister of God, in the sense of a servant conunissiotied to declare His will, is an honour which all ages have regarded as amongst the highest within human reach ; an honour to be jealously- guarded from intrusion, and which, in most cases, has been appropriated to a family or tribe. So was it with the Mosaic priesthood, the honour might be attained only by a few. But not so now : " the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law." "Arc not all these which speak Galilaeans ? " Outcasts, as many of them were in the estimate of current opinion, they are all God's chosen instruments, " clothed with power from on high," to go forth as His messengers, and declare amongst the nations the glad tidings of great joy. Of this company of believers, thus inaugurated, we are further told that they were in the habit of joining in an act of daily worship in the temple, and of afterwards partaking of a common meal in their own place of meeting (Acts ii. 46 ; v. 42) ; and that so great was the bond of brotherl}- affection amongst its members that each regarded all that he possessed as property to be held in trust for the common good. Throughout the period embraced by the first five chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, the church at Jeru- salem is a single assembly of worshipping and loving Christians. Organisation has proceeded no further than its first stage of voluntary association — voluntary, that is, so far as concerns human relations, for " the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved." Of organisation there is just so much as implied in this, and nothing more — no officers, no distinction of function amongst the associated brethren. Service is rendered by one to another, not in virtue of office, but in the exercise of the gifts with which he had been endowed. I le who had wealth, because he had it, gave to the needy ; he who had the gift of knowledge and utterance, because he had 240 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT it, communicated what he knew to the ignorant ; and those who had the largest knowledge about Christ, the apostles, were on that account the most prominent in the instruction of the brethren. They " had all things common." 2. In the sixth chapter of the Acts an account is given us of a second step taken by the church at Jerusalem in the matter of organisation. Superadded to the one assembly are its seven officials, equal in rank and identical in func- tion. But what the nature of that function was, we have no sufficient information for determining. We are indeed told that the occasion of their appointment was the com- plaint of the Hellenistic Jews, that their widows were neglected in the " daily ministration " ; but what is indi- cated thereby, whether it were a distribution of alms to the poor, or a distribution of food, or attendance upon those met at the social meal, or any two or more of these com- bined, is altogether uncertain. Further, it is to be noticed that no name or title dis- tinctive of their office is anywhere given to the men now appointed to " this business." As a body of officers, they are nowhere else referred to, nor is any instance recorded of the actual performance of the duty here assigned to them. In one passage only have we any subsequent recog- nition of their appointment, and there Philip the evangelist is simply described as " one of the seven " (Acts xxi. 8). Moreover, the tenure of office by " the seven " was but temporary. For shortly after the death of Stephen, the members of the Jerusalem church were all scattered abroad, " except the apostles." Accordingly we find Philip, the only one of the seven, besides Stephen, of whom there is any separate mention, engaged in preaching the gospel in all the cities between Azotus and Caesarea, and subsequently dwelling with his family in the latter N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 24 1 city. Any further attendance upon widows at Jerusalem was therefore, in his case, precluded. Whether, if the ser- vice of the seven at Jerusalem had not been so suddenly and so sharply interrupted, their office would in time have become identical with that afterwards known as the deacons', is one of those imaginary questions that can never be answered ; and certainly it should not be assumed that the two offices were identical. 3. The three or four years following the death of Stephen present a new and important chapter in Christian history. We now read of many centres of Christian life and love instead of one. " They that were scattered abroad went about preaching the word," and with such success that companies of disciples are gathered in various parts of Palestine and Syria. The first breach, moreover, is now made in the wall of partition between the Jew and Gentile ; and it is interesting to notice how gradually, yet surely, events move on towards its accomplishment. First, the gospel is preached in Samaria, and Christian love repeals the law of exclusiveness, which forbade the Jew to have dealings with the Samaritans. " Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and proclaimed unto them the Christ." Next, the Ethiopian eunuch, a Gentile, to some extent indeed embracing Judaism and embraced by it, for " he had come to Jerusalem for to worship," but as a eunuch inadmissible to the congregation of Israel, — this man is received by the same Philip into the congregation of the Lord, and becomes, as Eusebius expresses it, " the first- fruits of the believers throughout the world " (//. E. ii. i ). After this we hear of the conversion of Cornelius, with the distinct acknowledgment by the church at Jerusalem that " to the Gentiles also hath God granted repentance unto life." And lastly, contemporaneously with this event, perhaps rather somewhat preceding it, is the founding of 16 242 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the first Gentile church in Antioch through the labours of " the men of Cyprus and Cyrene," who in that city " spake unto the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus." One striking fact of this period is the almost complete withdrawal of the apostles from the scene. It might have been expected that they would have been the foremost in this work of evangelisation, and have assumed the post of leadership and command. What were the reasons that led them to remain behind in Jerusalem, it is not for us positively to determine. It may have been that with the remembrance of their former weakness, when they all " left Him and fled," they were now more distrustful of themselves, and waited for a clearer intimation of the divine will until they left the city. It may have been that they did not yet realise that all that was involved in their Lord's command to stay in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high was now fulfilled. Or it may even have been that some special intimation had been given them that for a season they should withdraw into comparative retirement. But, whatever the reason, the fact remains that in this outburst of Christian activity the apostles took no leading part. It did not originate in any proposal of theirs ; God's providence originated it by scattering the members of the one church. Instead of taking a prominent share in it, they did but slowly and cautiously recognise it. It was not by apostolic lips that the gospel was first preached to the Gentiles, nor by apostolic labours that the first Gentile church was gathered. They send Peter and John to Samaria, but that was after they had heard of Philip's successful labours there ; and though it is by Peter that Cornelius is received into Christian fellowship, this event occurs at the close of the period we are speaking of, when, in consequence of the great work which had been already wrought, they began to leave their retirement and visit the disciples. " It came to pass as Peter went throughout all N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 243 parts, he came down also to the saints which dwelt at Lydda " (Acts ix. 32). The great work of church exten- sion now accomplished is presented to us as springing from the free impulse of the Spirit on the hearts of believers. It was not the result of the labours of persons officially appointed thereto. Wc read of no special commission granted to these zealous Christians. No call to ofifice is given to these founders of churches. No apostolic ordina- tion is conferred upon these first evangelists. The only commission is the general commission given to every man to tell what he knows, and testify of what he has seen. The only call is that universal one, in virtue of which the strong is called to help the weak, and the rich to aid the poor. It is God who ordains by the gifts He bestows and the opportunities He provides. It is the Spirit who chooses, as He sees fit, the instruments of this wider manifestation of His power. Another fact also to be noticed is the entire silence of the history respecting any appointment to office in these newly-gathered churches. Occasions are not wanting when reference to those who held office in them would naturally be made, if any such existed. Peter and John came to Samaria on an important mission as the representatives of the apostles, but no special charges are given to any recog- nised heads of the community, they themselves appoint no elders, and they lea\-c without directing the appointment of any. When the trembling and astonished Saul is brought into Damascus, it is " a certain disciple " named Ananias who is sent to minister to him. When Dorcas falls sick and dies, and is laid in the upper chamber, it is " the disciples " who send two men to Peter, and it is to "the saints and widows" that Peter presents her alive. And of the church at Antioch, we are simply told that " even for a whole year Paul and l^arnabas were gathered together with the church, and taught much people." 244 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT 4. A fresh period in the history of Christian evangelism is opened up to us, when, in the providence of God, the apostles, who had hitherto tarried in Jerusalem, now under- stood that the time had come in which they must set themselves to fulfil their Lord's command, and " go into all the world " ; when, too, from the church at Antioch, Barnabas and Saul were " sent forth by the Holy Ghost " on the work whereunto He had called them. It is now that, for the first time, we read of elders in the churches, namely, in the church at Jerusalem, and in the four Asiatic churches founded by Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. Of the time and manner of the appointment of these in the church at Jerusalem there is no mention ; and respecting the nature of their office, we have no positive statement. From the title, we can infer only that it was some such general superintendence as the head of a family might exercise over his household. The social habits of the Easterns, with their strong family feeling and their reverence for age, might naturally lead here, as it had already done in the synagogue, to the appointment for the most part of elder men to the chief place of authority, and so to the use of the term presbyter or elder as the designation of the office. Concerning the duties of the elder at a subsequent period, we have fuller information. At present we have only the name and the single fact that it was to the elders that the money raised by the Christians at Antioch for the relief of the brethren in Judaea was sent ; and as the natural inference is, that they undertook the charge of the gifts thus intrusted to them, we are left to the conclusion that now at least their office was not confined to spiritual concerns. The appointment of elders in the churches of Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and the Pisidian Antioch took place when the two missionaries who had founded these churches were taking farewell of them on their return to the city " from N. T. WITNKSS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 245 whence they had been committed to the grace of God for the work which they had ' now fulfilled.' " Respecting the manner of their appointment, all that is told us is contained in the short passage which tells us that " when they (Paul and Barnabas) had appointed for them (the disciples) elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they com- mended them (the disciples) to the Lord in whom they had believed." But whether we are to understand by this that the two missionaries nominated to the office those whom they deemed the most suitable, or that, following the method pursued by the apostles in the election of the Seven, they suggested to the several churches that they should choose some of their number, is wholly indeterminate. The lan- guage employed admits of either interpretation. That more than one elder was appointed in each church, though not expressly stated, is more than probable. It was certainly so in the church at Jerusalem, and so, too, at a later date in that at Ephesus ; for, when reaching Miletus on his last journey to Syria, Paul " sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church." Wc may therefore safely presume that it was so here also. Of any official members in the church at Antioch in Syria, there is no mention. The names are given us of certain gifted brethren there, described as prophets and teachers ; but that they are so described is no evidence that they sustained any official relation to the church. They were men specially qualified by the Holy Spirit to edify others by their gifts of utterance, the teachers being those who were fitted for the quieter and more continuous instruction of the disciples ; and the prophets those upon whom the I loiy Spirit came more suddenly, and at intervals, and impelled to speak in a more thrilling and impassioned style upon the higher themes of the spiritual life. Whilst favoured with the presence of such men as these, the church at Antioch, like the church at Jerusalem while 246 THE ANCIKNT FAITH IN MODERN LKillT the apostles were still amongst them, would feel no need for formally appointed officials. None at least are referred to, and the silence is expressive. For it is not a mere handful of believers that is set before us, a feeble company in some obscure spot, unequal to the ordinary functions of a Christian church, but a vigorous and active community in the metropolis of Syria, entering warmly into the spirit of Christian evangelism, alive to the claims of their suffering brethren in Judaea, and sending forth its missionaries to the busy cities of Asia. We read of no elders in Antioch ; and that no such office as that commonly understood as the deacons' had been created there, is shown by the fact that Barnabas and Saul are employed by the church to convey their pecuniary aid to the brethren in Judaea. And this was not done because the two missionaries happened to be then going to Jerusalem, for this was the business on which they went ; and as soon as they had discharged it, they "returned from Jerusalem" (Acts xii. 25). 5. The fifteenth chapter of the Acts records for us certain memorable proceedings in which, for the first time, the sisterhood of the churches is openly recognised. Paul and Barnabas had just returned to Antioch from their Asiatic journeyings, and had given an account of their mission to the brethren there, as to men who had a right to expect it from them, and had a common interest in their work. It was at this epoch, when, as we may well suppose, the Chris- tians in this city were rejoicing at the encouraging report now made to them, and probably preparing for new efforts, that " certain men came down from Judaea and taught the brethren, saying, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." These men, as the sub- sequent narrative shows, had received no commission from the church at Jerusalem. They came to Antioch on their own prompting, and the opportunity of exercising the gift N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 247 of teaching is freely conceded to them on the simple ground of their common brotherhood in Christ. Their testimony, however, is freely canvassed and warmly discussed, till ultimately Paul and Barnabas, with certain others, amongst whom was Titus (Gal. ii. i), were appointed to go to Jertsalem about this question ; and an interesting picture is presented of the simplicity of manners and community of feeling then exhibited by the Christians at Antioch, in the statement that they joined in accompanying their delegates over the first stage of their journey. This reference to Jerusalem is the voluntary act of the chirch at Antioch, and not in consequence of any claim to authority on the part of the former. It was under the circumstances the most natural course to be pursued. The men who had troubled the church at Antioch and opposed its teachers had come down from Judcea, and had un- deiignedly, or otherwise, spoken as if they had received the sanction of the apostles and brethren there. It was there- fore fitting to send, in the first place, to know whether this was indeed the case. In the brief statement of Acts xv. 2, we are told that the delegates were sent to consult " the apostles and elders " at Jerusalem ; but that it is meant thereby that they were sent to consult them only is more than doubtful. In point of fact, the question at issue is discussed by the church at large ; for on the arrival of the delegates they were received of " the church and the apostles and the elders " ; and at a second meeting held " to consider the matter," the entire company of the brethren were present, and join in the decision arrived at. At the former meeting the discussion was started by " certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed," affirm- ing the necessity of circumcision and of the observance of the Mosaic law. More, as we gather from the words of Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians, was intended by this than the assertion of a general principle. One at least of 248 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the delegates was an uncircumcised Gentile ; and the words of the speakers were meant to apply to the Gentiles now present. A personal animus was thus introduced, and there was, Luke tells us, " much questioning " : " to whom," Paul adds, " we gave place in the way of subjection, no, not for an hour." / The question thus submitted to the brethren at Jerusa- lem was, it should be noted, one in which all Christians iiad a common interest. It was not a point of internal economy, not a mere matter of private discipline, but a grave question affecting their common Christianity. It so happened that it first came up in a definite form at Antioch, but it concerred all churches, and not the least that church out of whi:h, more or less directly, all churches had sprung. It affected the form in which Christianity was to be exhibited to the world, and their methods of labour as Christian evangelists. It affected also, and that most intimately, the communion of Christians with each other. It was therefore a service rendered to the brethren in Judaea, to bring the subject to their notice. Accordingly Paul is not directed by the Holy Spirit to settle the question at once, by an exercise of h's apostolic authority. The will of God upon the matter had been distinctly made known to him, but he is not directed to authoritatively announce it. The question concerns the churches at large. He is therefore directed to go to Jerusalem. He " went up by revelation." As the result of the discussion, the teaching of the " troublers " is emphatically disowned, and by a unanimous vote of the church, two brethren are courteously appointed to convey to Antioch in a written form its judgment on the question submitted to them. The transaction does not issue in the institution of any formal bond by which the union of the churches was to be maintained, still less in any by which the subordination of one to the other was either asserted or contemplated. The narrative given us is worthy N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 249 of careful study, not only for the facts which it relates, but also for those which are conspicuous by their absence ; the more so that by giving it the title of the Council of Jeru- salem, many have been led to identify it with those semi- and more than semi-political assemblies of later time, which, under the name of Councils, have wielded so unchristian a tyranny. 6. Coming now to the period embraced by the Pauline letters, we read of churches with two classes of church- officers, termed respectively bishops and deacons. They are named together for the first time in Phil. i. i : " Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." The former of these two terms is now acknow- ledged, by all trustworthy expositors, to denote the same persons as those heretofore spoken of as elders.^ As regards the nature of the office thus indifferently designated, no precise definition is given. The new name of " bishop " or "overseer" does but confirm what has before been gathered from the designation " elder," that the distinctive duty of the office was the general superintendence of the associated brethren — the care of their interests (i Tim. iii. 5), and a watchful outlook against everything that would imperil their well-being, whether from within or without : "they watch in behalf of your souls" (Heb. xiii. 17). It was, as Peter teaches us, like that of the shepherd who feeds and tends the flock ; in fact, the two words are conjoined as approximate synonyms, when he speaks of our Lord as the ^ The evidence may be briefly summarised thus : i. In three passages the two terms are expressly identified, viz. Acts xx. 17 compared with ver. 28, Tit. i. 5 com])ared with ver. 7, and i Pet. v. i compared with ver. 2. 2. In two other places bishops and deacons are spoken of, but no mention is made of presbyters, Phil. i. i and i Tim. iii. 3. In no instance are the three terms, bishops, presbyters, and deacons, found thus in combination. 250 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT "Shepherd and Bishop" of our souls (i Pet. ii. 25). In the list of qualifications for this office given in the First Epistle to Timothy, are included a skilfulness in ruling and an aptness to teach ; the latter being also described in the ICpistle to Titus as the ability " to exhort in the sound doctrine, and to convict the gainsayers." Clearly, then, ruling and teaching are amongst the prominent functions of the office ; yet not so exclusively as to preclude any who were able to edify the church from the due exercise of their gift in its proper season. " All can edify one by one, that all may learn, and all may be encouraged" (i Cor. xiv. 31). Rut while all who were competent so to do might occa- sionally teach, it was upon the elders of the church, also called bishops, that the responsibility rested of providing for the regular and orderly instruction of the ecclesia. The duty was theirs specifically and emphatically. Further, inasmuch as a plurality of pastors, whatever the name by which they are designated, was the rule in the apostolic churches, it would naturally come about that a distribution of function amongst them would to some extent be made. Those of their number who became noted for their skill in administration would have yielded to them the lead in ruling, and those who were pre-eminently gifted as preachers or teachers would, as a matter of course, take the more prominent share in the exhortation and instruction of the church. Hence, as might be expected, we read of some elders who " ruled well," of some " who labour (toil hard) in the word and in teaching," and of some also who were distinguished in both of these departments of service. Respecting the duties of the deacons, nothing whatever is told us by the apostles. They are referred to in two passages only. One is that quoted above (Phil. i. i), where they are simply named ; and the name alone tells us nothing of their office. The term is exceedingly wide in its signifi- cation, and is applied in the New Testament to anyone X. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CIlURCIli;s 25 I who may render to another any service of any kind, from the very highest, that rendered by our Lord Himself (Rom. XV. 8), down to the very lowest, that rendered by a personal attendant (Acts xiii. 5), and lower still, even to the wicked service of wicked men, who in 2 Cor. xi. i 5 are called the " deacons of Satan." The other passage is the third chapter of the First Epistle to Timothy, and this, though speaking of qualifica- tions, is silent respecting duties. It tells us that deacons " must be grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre " ; that they must hold the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience ; that before their appointment they must be proved, and that those only are to serve who are found irreproachable ; that they are to be the husbands of one wife, and of a wife who conducts herself well ; and, lastly, that they are able to maintain good order in their own households. To draw from this list of diaconal qualifications any exact delineation of diaconal duties, seems to me to demand more than a prophet's illumination. I, at least, can lay claim to no such super- human skill, and must decline to accept the claims of any who may profess to possess it. 7. Of any further developments we have in the New Testament no record, not even of such a change as would be made, if in place of several bishops in a church one only were appointed. Still less is there any record of the creation of an office superior to that of the presbyter-bishop. The Epistles to Timothy and Titus have indeed been appealed to as showing that two young disciples of the Apostle Paul had been appointed to such an office ; but the arguments by which this conclusion is reached rest upon a scries of doubtful assumptions. Into the discussion of these we do not here enter ; it is enough for our present purpose to note that they are assumptions, and that therefore the inferences 252 TIIK ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT built Upon them are too uncertain as a basis for an authori- tative rule of church order. Advices given by Paul the aged to his son Timothy respecting his personal demeanour towards the Christian men and women ^ at Ephesus, are arbitrarily transformed into commissions of office ; and an imaginary contrast is drawn between the charge given at Miletus to the Ephesian elders and that given to Timothy, to the effect that the former are invested with authority over the laity only, while the latter has authority over the clergy also. Even i Tim. v. i, strange to say, is quoted as proving that Timothy was authorised to administer rebuke to bishops ; whereas, even if the passage refer to bishops at all, he is expressly bidden not to rebuke them. With regard to the work of these two e\-angelists, it is to be noticed — {a) That they were sent, the one to Ephesus and the other to Crete, on a special and temporary mission only. This, in the case of Timothy, was to oppose the false teaching of those speakers of perverse things whom Paul had foreseen would, after his departure, arise in the Ephesian church. In the case of Titus, it was to give to the new converts whom Paul had recently gathered in Crete further instruction respecting the conduct becoming Christians, and to provide for the preservation and con- tinuance of the good work already wrought in that island. What Paul had done for the churches in Asia, but had, from some cause unknown to us, been unable to do for Crete, this Titus is left behind to arrange : he is to " appoint elders in each city," that is, wherever any company of believers were gathered together. And (/^) That neither the giving of counsel nor even the administering of rebuke implies the exercise of an official authority. There is a wide and manifest difference between ' Called in i Tim. iii. 5 the house, i.e. household, of God. Compare the house of Onesiphorus, 2 Tiin. iv. 19 ; the house of Stephanas, i Cor. xvi. 15. N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 253 the two things. To convey a message of admonition (i Tim. i. 3), to put a brother in remembrance (i Tim. iv. 6), to communicate what one has learnt of the truth (2 Tim. ii. 2), are not the special functions of an official. They are duties common to all ; every Christian, in the measure of his ability, is bound to fulfil them. The power to do so is that of moral suasion, and arises from the personal char- acter of the speaker, and the authority of the truth he utters. The same applies to the investigation of charges brought against an elder ; the full confidence of the parties concerned is all that is implied, not official position. Such confidence would necessarily be given to one who came as the friend and companion of an apostle, and sent by him to communicate instruction from him on various points of faith and practice. The " angels " of the " seven churches which are in Asia " have also been adduced by some as seven instances of an order of ministry superior to that of the presbyter- bishop. But imagery used in so highly symbolical a book as the Apocalypse is very untrustworthy evidence for matters of fact ; and even if it were quite certain that the "angel" of each of these churches was its presiding minister, this would be no proof that the office he held was different from any that we have previously met with in the historical passages of the New Testament. 8. In concluding this part of our subject, we notice — First, the absence of any rigid uniformity in the apostolic organisation of the churches. We read of the same church in various stages, and of contemporary churches in different stages. We have the simplest i)ossiblc type of organisation, and we have a more complex organisation of various degrees. The apostles do not commence with a matured form in accordance with which they frame each church as it was gathered. Organisation is not so much imposed on the 2 54 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT churches as left to grow naturally out of their necessities. In this we may recognise a mark of the divine wisdom bestowed upon the apostles. Their procedure in this is in harmony with God's own method. With Him the life is more than meat, and the body more than raiment. Organs, forms, relations are determined by the circumstances of life, do not deter- mine them. His institutions are subservient to the wants of His creature, do not create them. " The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." It is man's way, not God's, to aim at " acts of uniformity." It is our proneness to walk, not by faith, but by sight, that leads us to think more of the form than of the spirit. It is our short-sightedness that trembles at the decay or destruction of the shell as if it must needs involve the decay or destruc- tion of the life it enshrines, forgetting that the Great Teacher has said, " Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth much fruit." Secondly, the data furnished in the Scriptures are clearly insufficient for the construction of a model form of church organisation. Not only is there no sign that the apostles themselves had devised a form, according to which they would mould each separate society ; but, as if they had, of set purpose, endeavoured to guard future times from finding an absolute model in their administration, the notices they have left on record are of the briefest kind. They have given the barest outlines of their proceedings. We have one office mentioned, the general character of whose functions can be determined with a fair measure of certainty ; we have another named, but nothing said about its functions. No rule is given respecting the creation of other offices : no law forbidding it. The outline which the apostles have left us admits of being filled up in an almost endless variety of ways. There might be an exact con- formity with apostolic practice in each of two churches N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 255 which, notwithstanding, presented manifold differences in the forms of their internal regulations. An open door is thus left for diversities of organisation, and no one church is entitled to claim the title " apostolic " as its peculiar possession. IV The apostolic organisation of the churches, however, though not intended to supply us with an authoritative model-form is, nevertheless, of the highest value for the principles it embodies and the example it has set. From the manner in which, as wise master-builders, they laid the foundations, we may learn how we should build thereon. I. And foremost amongst the instructive features of their example, is the marked respect and deference paid invariably by them to the ecclesia, the assembly of the brethren. At the very first meeting of the church, this keynote of the apostolic administration is given in the clearest and most emphatic manner, when, in the important step of the election of a successor to Judas, the choice of the two names to be submitted to the lot is freely intrusted to the entire company. If at any time the apostles might, with propriety, have exercised an exceptional prerogative, it would be at this early period of weakness and immaturity. We should have felt no surprise if, in this the infant state of the church, the apostles had acted as in loco parentis, and had done on its behalf what, in ordinary times, it would have been left to do for itself. Their doing so would have been challenged by none, and the appointment they made or recommended would have been readily accepted. The more expressive, therefore, is their abstinence, and the more distinctly marked is their recognition of the rights of the Christian brotherhood. 256 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT Still more significant, if possible, is the conduct of the apostles at the election of the Seven. It was the first occasion of any discord in the Christian family, and might therefore seem to furnish a just occasion for the assertion of a special authority ; yet they act simply as advisers of the brethren. The propriety of adopting some measure to meet the necessities of the case is submitted to their approval ; the election of those who were to carry out their wishes is committed to them unconditionally ; and the assurance is given them beforehand, that whomsoever they may choose, these the apostles will without question institute. When intelligence is brought to the church at Jerusalem that the Gentiles had received the word of God, and Peter's action in holding Christian fellowship with Cornelius is challenged by some of its members, the criticism is not resented either by Peter or by his fellow-apostles. To call in question the action of an apostle is not treated as an act of rebellion against constituted authority. The brethren are not told that it is no business of theirs. On the contrary, their interest in the matter is acknowledged without demur. As one amongst them, Peter gives an account of what had happened in the house of Simon at Joppa, and in that of Cornelius at Ceesarea ; and his conduct is cleared by the proof so distinctly given, that the admission of Cornelius into the Christian brotherhood was the act, not of Peter, but of God ; for before any outward baptism by water, he received, without human intervention, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, even as they themselves had at the beginning. 2. The policy, if one may so term it, pursued in these several instances, is maintained throughout the entire course of the apostolic history. The great bulk of their teaching is given to the churches directly and not mediately. Alike of the doctrines which they unfold, of the inspired precepts N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 257 which they enforce, and of the acts of discipHne which they either recommend or command, is it true that they are expressly addressed to the brethren who arc associated in Christian fellowship. It is to the church of the Thessalonians, to the church which is at Corinth, to all that are in Rome called to be saints, to the churches of Galatia, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colossal, to the saints which are at l^phesus . . , that Paul addresses nine out of his thirteen Epistles. It is to the sojourners of the Dispersion, and not to any chief men amongst them, that Peter sends his apostolic instructions ; to these also that James, " servant of the Lord Jesus Christ," addresses his weighty exhortations. And it is to the " little children," "young men," and "fathers," that the beloved and loving apostle writes his last words of love and warning. 3. It is in just accord with this, and is, in itself, a significant fact, that in these ICpistles the references to church - officers are so occasional and so slight. In the apostles' conception of a church, it is never its ministers who stand in the forefront, shutting out of view the company of the brethren, but, contrariwise, the ministers are in the background, the brethren in the front of the picture. In the Epistle to the Philippians the bishops and deacons arc, as we have seen, associated with the saints in the address ; but it is so done in this l^pistlc alone. In i Thcss. none arc mentioned, though the presence in that church of some of the former class is to be inferred from the exhortation, " to know them that labour among you, and are over you in the Lord." In the Papistic to the Colossians allusion is made to the " ministry of Archippus," but what that ministry or service was is unknown by us — it may have been simply some service rendered to the saints by a visit of benevolence; but even if it were that he was then holding 17 258 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT office in the church at Colossae, the passage would be still more expressive, since the church is directed to admonish him, and not he the church. In Romans, i and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, and 2 Thessalonians, no references to officers in the churches addressed, direct or indirect, are to be found.^ This silence does not, of course, warrant the inference that no bishops or deacons existed in these several churches, for, in the case of Ephesus, we know that it was otherwise ; but it does show how clearly in the mind of the apostle, and in the mind of the Spirit by whom he was guided, the essential idea was that of the ecclesia of saints and faithful brethren ; it shows how thoroughly all the members of the church were recognised as having a personal responsibility in the well-being of the whole ; and how far it was from being the case that the clergy were the representatives of the church, still less that they constituted it. Though rulers of the church whose ministers they were, they are not treated as distinct from it, but as members of it, as some among the brethren using their particular gifts for the good of the whole, just as others used theirs, and therefore presenting no imperative reason for being singled out from the rest for special notice. 4. One further point in the apostolic example claims to be emphasised, namely, that the duty of maintaining the purity of a church is not exclusively laid upon its pastors and rulers. It is devolved with all the force of apostolic authority as a responsibility in which all its members share. It is the Corinthian Christians, not certain officers of the church, who are charged to " put away the wicked man from among " themselves, and to " be not unequally yoked with unbelievers." It is the Thessalonian ^ Gal. vi. 6 is no exception. The right of a teacher to pecuniary support, quite apart from any official relation, is implied in i Cor. ix. 4-14. N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 259 church, not the men who " were over " them, who are bidden to " admonish the disorderly," to " withdraw from every brother that walketh disorderly," and to " have no company " with anyone who disobeyed the apostolic word. It is the Hebrew Christians, not those "who rule over" them, who are charged to look " carefully, lest there be any man that falleth short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble " them. 5. What, then, we may here conveniently ask ourselves, was the relation, as set forth in their own acts and words, of the apostles to the churches gathered by them ? We have seen how carefully they abstain from the assertion of personal or official authority in matters pertaining to the internal arrangements of the churches ; and throughout their history they never appear as sustaining the position of a supreme ruler over any one of them. In so acting they are acting in accord with all that has gone before, and with the honoured title they bear. Above all else they are Christ's messengers, sent to announce a message of un- speakable preciousness. As at their first appointment they were " sent forth to preach the kingdom of God," and, in obedience to the Master's word, " went throughout the villages preaching the gospel and healing everywhere " ; so now, with the Saviour's last words still sounding in their ears and bidding them " go unto all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation," they do not fail to recognise that their supreme function is to make known, as widely as may be, the words and the work of the Great Redeemer. They are the Lord's evangelists, intrusted with His evangel, commissioned by Him to announce it, and, for the discharge of their mission, clothed by Him with i)Ower from on high. How they regarded their apostolic commission, and what in their view was an essential qualification for it, is distinctly set forth in the words of Peter : " Of the men, there- 26o THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT fore, which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us . . . must one become a witness with us of His resurrection." The special function of an apostle is here expressly described ; the occasion required that it should be. He was to bear witness of what Christ had said and done, and emphatically of that which was the crowning fact of the Saviour's ministry and the confirmation of the whole. His resurrec- tion from the dead. With equal distinctness is the same declared in the words addressed to Paul on the journey to Damascus : " To this end have I appeared unto thee, to appoint thee a minister and a witness, both of the things wherein thou hast seen Me, and of the things wherein I will appear unto thee." It is reaffirmed in the words of Ananias : " The God of our fathers hath appointed thee, to know His will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear a voice from His mouth. For thou shalt be a witness for Him unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard." And the apostle himself, in proof that he possessed the qualification needed for the office, twice appeals to the Lord's appearance to him : " last of all, as unto one born out of due time, He appeared unto me also." " Am I not an apostle ? have I not seen Jesus our Lord ? " Such, then, was their work, and such its qualification. They were, if one may so say, the living depositaries of the gospel of Christ. Others of their contemporaries might be able to bear testimony to the same facts, and according to their gift expound the same truths, but with the apostles it was a business to do it ; they were " set " to this work, appointed to it by the Lord Himself, and specially qualified for it. And this work they fulfilled, not only to the men of their own day, but to the men of all time. What the apostles themselves were to the first churches, their written testimony is to us. In so far as they were N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 26 1 the ministers, the servants, of Jesus Christ, doing His will and proclaiming His message, all true believers are their successors, but in that which distinguished them from other disciples they can have none. Their apostleship they could not transfer to another ; they had neither the authority to do it, nor the power to confer the qualification needed for it. In the proper sense of the term, the New Testament Scriptures are the only successors of the apostles.^ V I. We gather, then, from all that has gone before, that, according to New Testament teaching, the organisation of the churches of Christ has been committed as a solemn trust to the honour and fidelity of 1 1 is servants, and that a large measure of liberty has been left to them in this department of their service. The apostles themselves pursued no uniform method. They nowhere lay upon us an authori- tative precept to act in this matter precisely as they did. They nowhere forbid any addition to their plans, or any departure from them. We are, it is true, forbidden to forsake the assembling of ourselves together" (Ileb. x. 25) ; but for this we have, as already seen, a higher law than even that of an apostle, the law of love, the all-controlling love of Christ. The apostolic example is, indeed, full of instruction in the spirit they manifest, and in the general principles which governed their conduct. Even the details of their procedure demand our reverent consideration, and are presumably the wisest and best for us to adopt under ^ It is worthy of notice in tliis connection, tliat in liis Gos])c] and Epistles the Apostle John never once uses the term "apostle"' either of himself or any other of the Twelve, but completely identifies himself and them with the j^eneral company of his Lord's followers, by givinj^ them no other title than that borne in common by all, namely, "disciples." If he has occasion to individualise a fellow-apostle, he speaks of him simply as "one of the Twelve." 262 THE A^•CIENT FAITH IN I\IODERN LIGHT circumstances similar to theirs. But alike by their speech and by their silence, by what they do and by what they refrain from doing, they make it plain that it was not their intent to lay these upon us as laws of the kingdom. They in no way fetter our Christian liberty, they put no restraint upon our freedom of action in obeying the impulses of the Holy Spirit, or in using as best we may the opportunities which God's providence may open before us in the chang- ing circumstances of human history. Thus much at least we may learn from their example, that varieties in church organisation are not an evil to be deprecated, are not even necessarily a defect to be remedied. As in their days some churches had less of organisation and others more, so may it rightly be now. As with them organisation was variable in its forms and its extent, modified by the varying conditions of social or public life, so may it be now. Organisation is but a means to an end, and should foster, and never check, the full expression of the spiritual life of a church. As that grows, so must it grow ; ordinarily by slow and gradual changes, since such will ordinarily be the growth of the life. But not so always. Whenever the windows of heaven are opened wide, and a more abundant blessing is poured down upon a church, so that it rises to a higher perception of duty, to a more intense response to the Saviour's love, and a larger sympathy in the travail of the Saviour's soul, — then, like the bursting of the buds under the warm breath of spring, there may be a sharp breach of continuity, and the arrangements of the past be cast aside as no longer suited to the needs of the present. In a word, the organisation of a church must be subordi- nated to the well-being of the church. The spiritual life which the Head of the church has through His Spirit enkindled, must be sacredly cherished as a " gift from the Lord," and His servants must watchfully see to it that by no self-imposed restrictions they hinder the adoption of N. T. WITNESS COxNXERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 263 any measure that may be found to contribute thereto.^ The Hberty of action which He has allowed to us, is also itself a gift in whose faithful use we arc both honoured and blest. To shrink from the responsibility it involves, or to sanction arrangements which prevent its rightful exercise, is a traitorous act, more traitorous than his who mutilates his limbs to escape the service of his country. In this we have been " called for freedom," and may not entangle ourselves again in any " yoke of bondage." Loyalty to Christ demands of every church that in all its arrange- ments it maintain its full freedom to adopt whatever may promote the healthier and more efficient discharge of the primary functions for which its fellowship has been formed. Whatever will conduce to the fuller and more reverent expression of its faith and love in the worship it renders to God ; whatever may help to a more intelligent appre- hension of the meaning and extent of the redeeming work of Christ, or to a fuller experience of the operations of the Holy Spirit, and so to the utterance of a more powerful and more winsome testimony ; whatever may promote the readier exercise of Christian activity in the new fields, which a quickened perception may recognise as white already unto the harvest, — these, be they what they may, a faithful church will keep itself free to adopt, even though they demand that some things very helpful in the past should now vanish away. Against this freedom, organisa- tion need not militate. Organisation is not of necessity antagonistic to liberty. If the latter be viewed under its positive rather than its negative aspects, as the power to do rather than the mere absence of restraint, organisation may be its minister and not its foe. A solitary in the desert may be free from the restraint which social and political organisations involve, and nevertheless be as effectually deprived of power to accomplish his wishes as a culprit in ^ See Notes A and B, pp. 270, 271. 2 04 '^^^^^ ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the stocks or a prisoner in his cell. Organisation, there- fore, may even be essential to freedom ; and when this is the case it is not allowable merely, it is obligatory. 2. Are there, then, no limits to this freedom, no rules to guide and control its exercise? To this it might suffice to reply, that here, as elsewhere, loyalty to Christ must be the supreme law. His appeal in granting us this freedom is to our loyalty to Him, and our response is to be given in the faithful and prayerful and constant endeavour to learn what it is He would have us to do. All that we need for our guidance is really summed up in this. There are, however, some general principles involved in the new life which Christ has given us, and permeating the teachings of the New Testament, which mark out for us certain bounds beyond which we may not transgress ; and with a brief exposition of these, this essay will conclude. (a) First and foremost : no Christian man, and there- fore no Christian church, may allow any human mediator to come between the soul and God. In the kingdom of Christ the peculiar offices and privileges described by the word " priestly " are conferred, not upon some, but upon all. Under former dispensations and in other religions a priestly order is a predominant leature. Intercourse between man and God is not direct and personal, but indirect and mediate. The priest is the channel of communication between the creature and the Creator. It is through him that the worshipper offers his homage to the Supreme, and by him that blessings are conveyed from the Great Giver to the objects of His bounty. From the bondage of this earthly mediation the Christian is freed. He comes himself to the throne of grace, and himself enters as a priest into the holy place by " a new and living way." Everywhere and always can he himself offer acceptable sacrifice through Jesus Christ. " There is one Mediator between God and men, Christ N. T, WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 265 Jesus." The official priesthood being thus abolished, a Christian church is in the highest sense a brotherhood. It is not a community composed partly of privileged and partly of dependent classes. All sustain the same high relation to the Heavenly Father, and, by thus bringing us near to God, Christianity has brought us nearer to one another. It has removed the great gulf that separated man from man, when to one there was free access to the throne of God, and against the other the door of the heavenly temple was firmly barred. How far off from himself, and more painful still, how unreachably above him- self, must the ordinary worshipper have felt the priest to be ; and how little able was the priest from his exalted station to enter into the troubles and cares of those around him. In but a scanty measure was he " touched with the feeling of our infirmities." In gathering us all around our Father's throne, Christ has taken away this root of bitterness out of the family of the Lord, and through the fulness of His grace has joined the hearts of His children in a newer, closer bond, so that, according to His prayer, "they may all be one, even as Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee." In the emphatic words of Scripture, Christ has " made us to be priests unto God," " a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices," and has given us " boldness to enter into the holy place b)^ the blood of Jesus," to " offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually." A boon so blessed the Christian man may never forego. Between himself and the Heavenly Presence he may not suffer another to come, nor may he dare to interpose the darkness and chill of his own jjresumptuous mediation between a brother's soul and the beamings of His Saviour's love. Over the portals of every church must be written large and clear, " No Priest but Christ." (d) Secondly, for the Christian man, and therefore for every Christian church, the supreme appeal is to the 266 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN ^lODERN LIGHT word of God as made known to us in the Holy Scrip- tures. Amongst the unclean things which God forbids His servants to touch, and separation from which is the con- dition of His approval and presence, is the recognition of any authority as co-ordinate with, or superior to, His own. The claim to such authority is denounced as the spirit of the antichrist who opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God, setting himself forth as God : and against submission to it the Christian is solemnly warned, lest he " receive of her plagues." To us the Bible is the divinely attested record of the revelation of Himself which God has made through prophets and apostles. The assurance of this comes, with an ever-increasing strength, from what we have felt and handled of this word of life. It is through it that we have " heard the gospel of our salvation," have been " sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise," have been " strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man," and have been brought " to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." And it stands alone in this high place ; we know of none like it ; and we need none other, for its fulness has never been exhausted. Its authority over us is and must be supreme, since through it the eyes of our understanding have been enlightened to know what is excellent. All teaching, all rules and methods of action, must be tested by it, and can only have authority over our conscience and our life as they are based upon it. Whatever the excellence attaching to any merely human authority, and whatever the respect to which on many accounts it may be entitled, if it claim for itself any jurisdiction over the churches of Christ, any authority over their members to bind or loose, it is usurping the throne of God, and must be cast out as an unholy thing. (c) Thirdly, the Christian man may not devolve upon N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 26/ another his personal obh'gation to study the divine word, or invest any human teacher with authority to determine for him the will of God. The one authoritative interpreter is the Holy Spirit, whom the Saviour, according to His promise, sends to guide us into " all the truth." It is He who takes of Christ's and declares it unto us, who teaches us all things, and brings to our remembrance all that our Lord has said. None else has been appointed by our Lord to fulfil this office; and nowhere have we been discharged from the duty of learning His will, each one for ourselves. In humble dependence upon the promised helper we are to seek continually to " know the truth." The obligation springs from our personal relation to Christ, and is constant and paramount. .Another, under the teaching of the Spirit, may have learnt some lessons to which I have not as yet attained, have seen some larger meaning in the words of Christ than I as yet have apprehended, or been vouchsafed some clearer vision of God's spiritual operations than any I have as yet beheld ; — the revelations made to him can be no revelation to me until I, too, have learnt through the same Spirit to hear in them the Father's voice, and to see that they are in very deed new light breaking forth from the holy word. This, I take it, is the real meaning of the famous sentence—" The Bible and the Bible only the religion of Protestants." It is not a blind worship of a book. It is not a perverse obliviousness to the rcxclation God is ever making in the creation He sustains and in the government He exercises. Still less is it the denial or disregard of the presence and operation of the Holy Spirit. It is, in summary phrase, the assertion of our individual respon- sibility to the revelation God has given us of our personal obligation to learn and obey His truth. Instead of a slavish bondage to the letter, and a worship of the outer garb of truth, it is the earnest recognition of the essential 2 68 THE ANCIENT I'AITH IN MODERN LIGHT difference between the letter and the spirit, and the con- fession tliat the truth which is revealed is far higher than the medium through which it is revealed. For the truth is ever spiritually discerned, and only as we diligently cultivate the powers of the soul, and in answer to our humble prayers and earnest strivings receive the teaching of the Spirit, can we enter into its presence and learn to " know the truth." This responsibility is enforced by all we have found the " word " to be through the experience of the past. It is the gospel of our salvation ; it is for us to know it that we may rejoice in the glad tidings it brings. It is the charter of our privileges ; it is for us to be familiar with it, that we may stand fast in the freedom it confers. It is the guide of our life ; it is for us to study it, that we may walk in the way it reveals. And it is the commission of our office ; it is for us to examine it, that we may work the work it gives us to do. The words in which another, however holy or wise, may express his apprehension of the truth of God, may nev^er take the place of our own earnest study of our Father's will. It becomes an act of idolatry if we yield to them any authority in the temple of God, and an act of treason if we impose them as authorities on the consciences of others. In the loyal observance of these principles must every system of church organisation be framed. They may be briefly summarised as, Christ the only Priest, the Bible the only law-book, the Holy Spirit the only authoritative inter- preter. They are, as will be seen, in direct antagonism to the evils which at various times have caused discord amongst the churches of Christ. The first condemns the introduction of a priestly class : the second repudiates the supremacy of the State : and the third rejects the assumptions of the papacy. Those post-apostolic developments which have culminated in the Roman usurpations have either sprung directly from the violation of these principles, or N. T. WITNESS CONXERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 269 derived their power for mischief mainly therefrom. The root, however, of all the evil is to be traced to the violation of that one rule which has been placed the first. It was this which dragged the rest in its train, and enlarged and intensified the mischief which followed each separate violation of the " law of the house." (c/) One other principle, clearly involved in what has been already stated, yet for obvious reasons calling for especial mention, is this. No Christian church may deprive itself of the power of ready co-operation with other churches, in the service of their common Lord and King. The same law which forbids a Christian man to cripple his own power of service, forbids, with equal emphasis, a Christian church to create for itself any inability for any service to which its Lord may call it. Whenever, in the providence of God, the opportunity is given for a larger work than a single church can efficiently accomplish, and when the concurrence and aid of one or more other churches is imperatively demanded, then loyalty requires that such co-operation be, on the one hand, unhesitatingly asked, and, on the other, be cheerfully and generously given. Both reason and experience teach that such opportunities may be confidently anticipated, and no artificial barriers ought therefore to be erected in any church which would hinder it, cither in asking or in receiving the assistance of another. Should any such barrier, unhappily, exist, the call of the Master must override all inferior con- siderations, the barrier must unhesitatingly be overturned, and the way be left open wide for the needed fellowship in service. His sheep hear His voice, and they follow Him, Let the spirit of the apostolic example be faithfully followed, and the general principles enunciated above be loyally observed, in the organisation of the churches, and we make straight paths for our feet, W'e can advance with a firm step whithersoever the providence of God may direct. Distinguishing between the permanent and the 270 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT transitory, the essence and the accident, we can feel the fullest freedom to alter or enlarge the arrangements of the past. We escape from the reproach and the weakness of a timid and tenacious clinging to the very pattern of the tabernacle which our fathers have shown to us ; and can venture to remove the parts which have become unsightly or useless. The additions which will give it both beauty and strength can be wisely framed, the waste places be built up, and " the desolations of many generations " be repaired. May the Great Head of the Church give His servants wisdom and grace thus to work His will, that through His blessing " the little one may become a thousand and the small one a strong nation " ; our beloved Zion be " no more termed Forsaken " nor our land " Desolate " ; that " the sons of them that afflicted " her may " come bending unto " her, and " they that despised " her " bow themselves down at the soles " of her feet and call her " The city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel." NOTE A To one who reverently studies the operations of the life- giving Spirit, it is sufficiently manifest that the church life must needs be of many types. The life which He imparts and sustains is not in each case the same in degree, or the same in its manifestations. It is not a life which is instant- aneous in its unfolding, or which is limited in its growth. And it is as true of man religiously as it is of him physi- cally, that no one is the exact counterpart of another, but that each one has his personal characteristics and his dis- tinguishing features. Hence our church life, the life of associated Christian men, must necessarily be diverse, according to the degree of spiritual life possessed by the associated members, and according also to the special type of that life which may predominate amongst them. And, as a matter of fact, such diversities of church life have ever N. T. WITNESS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 27 1 existed. Similarities of spiritual tastes, the common sense of special and urgent needs, the pressure of like perils or temptations, the longing after the realisation of the same ideal, the concurrent recognition of a call to some new Christian enterprise, have in all ages drawn men together by the strong attraction of spiritual resemblances, — the like unto its like, — and so given distinctive and varied features to their religious associations. . . . And such diversities will ever be. They are at once the result and the evidence of the present operation of the Spirit of life upon the hearts of men. In the degree in which that life pervades the churches, these di\'ersities are the more manifold and the more manifest. They only cease to show themselves when that life declines. They onl}- cease to be when that life departs. — Christian Union, by Samuel Newth, M.A., D.D., pp. 26, 27. NOTE B Though the life of a church is something greater and more precious than its polity, polity nevertheless sustains an important relation to the life ; just as food and clothing are necessary for the sustenance of the body, even though the life is more than meat and the body than raiment. As is the life of a church, so is the organisation most suited to it — the simpler the life, the simpler the organisation it will need ; the more complex the life, the more complex the organisation it will demand. According to the special characteristics of a church's life will be the need of special arrangements by which that life may be fulfilled. As the life of a church expands, as it increases in vigour, as it acquires new faculties and larger sensibilities — so with the capacity to exercise new and larger functions, and to sustain new and wider relations, will it demand an enlarged organ- isation. Two obvious principles of duty hence arise. It follows, first, that we may not force upon any church either a larger organisation than its energies can employ, or one unsuited to its distinctive peculiarities. The law which enjoins a sacred reverence for life should teach us to rever- ence most of all the life which the Holy Spirit enkindles in the soul, and we may not depress it by the imposition of a burden disproportionate to its strength, or distort it by pro\-iding only unsuitable channels for its e.xcrcise. With equal distinctness it follows also that we may not withhold from a church the fuller organisation which its growing life may require, or prevent by any artificial restrictions the free 272 THE ANCIENT FAI-TII IN MODERN LIGHT play of its maturer energies. It is wrong to increase organ- isation when there is no natural need for it ; it is equally wrong to restrain it when growing life demands it. In- creased organisation is a hindrance, a dead weight, an evil to be shunned if it be uncalled for by any present need ; it is a good to be desired when it answers to increased capacity, or to the conscious recognition of a widening sphere of Christian duty. — Christian Union, p. 30. VII THE NEW CITIZENSHIP By JOSEPH PARKER i8 VII The New Citizenship In asking whether the Christian Church should be estab- lished by the political State, it must be admitted that the inquiry is old ; on the other hand, it can easily be shown that to-day this old inquiry is raised under conditions so unforeseen as to invest it with some degree of novelty. Nonconformists rightly suppose that for themselves they settled the question a long time ago ; but the world moves, society re-makes itself under completer discipline, and civil- isation — daily enriched on every hand — now^ promptly answers the spur of deeper and subtler motives. It is because of the New Citizenship, the environment being so palpably modern, that the question may be raised, without any reminiscence of old tempers or alienations happily forgotten. The whole Christian Church has grown in many directions as well as the State : education has filled up many a valley, and mutual knowledge, as between both individuals and communions, has made some rough places plain. Happily there is now no suppression of spiritual sympathies and longings which indicate dispositions, and forebode exertions, in the direction of brotherhood and peace. What part, if any, has the Ancient Faith, by which, throughout this paper, I mean the Evangelical Faith, played in all the holy and beneficent evolution ? In the course of this silent evolution, the somewhat ambiguous word " State " has re-defined its range, and 276 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT clothed itself with responsibilities certainly not expressed in earlier and rougher definitions. That word was once as a grain of mustard seed ; it is now as a great tree. We are face to face with a new state — a new citizenship — a new political and social apparatus. We are not now to look to dictionaries for a complete definition of the variable word " State," but to the facts of our rapidly changing national life. Dictionaries cannot keep pace with daily evolution ; they must wait for successive editions, and carefully abstain from confusing prophecy and etymology. In all that is vital in immediate service the real dictionary is made on the streets, and is only mechanised and formu- lated in the tranquil library. That we may not be lost in foreign places let us, in the first instance at least, think only of the British State, and directly ask whether that particular State should, under new circumstances, sustain any special and co- operative relation to the religion of Jesus Christ. What is this institution which in Great Britain we call the State ? Is it atheistic, non-theistic, agnostic, or what ? Is it essential to a perfect State that it should be non-religious ? Is the State simply an organised police, a great money- machine, a standing army, a bank protected by a man-of- war ? What is the State ? May it punish crime but not prevent it ? May it handcuff a man but not educate him ? What has given England, as a borrower, its great repute among the nations, — its navy or its conscience ? Let us look at some of the answers to such questions. The State, as self-defined by evolution, does not now confine itself to money-making, it goes so far beyond this as constantly to consider the wel- fare and progress of the whole people : the State educates its children and, in some rough, but THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 277 slowly-improving, way, it houses its helpless poor : the State has immensely advanced upon the policy of merely punishint^ its criminals, by endeavouring to reform them : the new State encourages thrift, promotes emigration, subsidises technical education: the State insists that there shall be one law for the rich and the poor, and it openly tolerates religious opinions which at one time it would have officially rebuked and punished. The State now protects women and children, shields the lower animals from wanton cruelty, looks carefully after the public health, and places its consolidated strength at the service of infirmity and helplessness of every degree. That is the new State, the State of to-day. But is not such beneficence on the part of the State a phase of mere morality? All who truly believe the Ancient Faith will deny that it is, and they will do so because they trace all fundamental morality back to the deepest religiousness. They know nothing of a sufficing morality that does not find its sufficiency in the living and ever-redeeming Christ. Evangelical believers consider that apart from the Person and Priesthood of Christ there is no vital or permanent morality. More than this, if an organised State can be spiritually moral it can have a conscience, and if it can have a conscience it can have a religion, and if it has a living and energetic religion it must in some official and adequate way express and propagate its piety. We must constantly keep in mind the fact that the State is always, consciously or unconsciously, encroaching upon religious ground. This process of encroachment should be watchctl. The State that would prevent crime as well as punish it must set itself at the very spring and fount of conduct by bringing the strongest considerations to bear upon motive, and motive is the innermost sanctuary of character. At 278 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT first the motive may not be the highest, but inasmuch as it is motive of some kind it belongs to a region of Hfe and o-rowth far away from the beaten road of mechanical and sordid politics. What, indeed, is this but religion? Those who have adopted the Ancient Faith cannot allow appeals to motive and conscience to be regarded as secular, for by their very nature such appeals are spiritual and funda- mental. When the State touches constructive character it becomes religious. The State cannot construct individual character without ultimately constructing organised char- acter, and organised character is the State at its best. The State may thus unconsciously be transforming itself into a church. The evangelical believer finds religion in unexpected places, not in some fanciful way, but in a way substantial and obvious. He will contend, for example, that there is not a proposition in arithmetic or geometry that is not religious either in its philosophy or in its uses. Two and two are four is surely not a religious proposition ? Yes, it is distinctly religious ! In itself it may be only an assumption, but being accepted it henceforth becomes a law which no man may alter; it is a partial definition of righteousness ; it is the corner-stone of commerce ; it is so sacred and so important that the man who trifles with the canon loses his character and is put away as a thief. Two and two are four has come to be a deeply religious proposition. Without it, or something equivalent to it, civilisation would be impossible. It is a creed ; a dogma ; a religion. No private judgment is allowed in such a case. The freethinker abandons his miscalled freedom when he worships at this venerable arithmetical altar, — he is the bond-slave of a dogma ! The freethinker may dispute the proposition, but he must not act upon his faith, or he will be put in prison until he becomes orthodox or harmless. A very melancholy aspect of the situation is that the freethinker himself was not consulted in the matter ! He THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 279 was, with no consent of his own, born into a world which accepted the narrow and legal dogma that two and two are four. My immediate point in this connection is that a proposition which in abstraction is purely intellectual becomes in practice sensitively moral, and consequently that the State whilst intending to be strictly political may as to practical issues be intensely religious. I Ought a State thus enlarged and re- defined to elect and support a religious institution, under the name, say, of Church? Is the new State a department of the Church? Is the Church the highest aspect of the new State ? There is an infinite difference between religion and theology. Forgetting this, we have been plunged into many a wordy controversy. Theology is academic, scien- tific, formal, credal, clerical, — it is, indeed, a kind of manufacture ; a form manipulated by experts and guarded by ordained stipendiaries. There is no salvation by theology, otherwise salvation would be by science and intellect and culture. On the other hand, religion may be unformulated, unwritten, spiritual, a thrilling and up- lifting inflluence in the heart and life of the simplest believer, — a great faith, an ennobling inspiration, a re- generated and faithful conscience, — a two -commandment Law, lofty as " God," social as " neighbour." Can the State, even the State of modern evolution, be cclectically theological ? No. Can the State be religious ? Yes. Why cannot the State be cclectically theological ? Be- cause there may be a dozen contradictory theological dogmas, and the right or wrong of them is not to be 28o THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT settled by voting, especially by the voting of men who themselves may know nothing of any theology, and whose concern may be as limited as their knowledge. The absurdity of such voting must surely be seen by all. What member of Parliament would bring in a Bill for the codification of Modern Empirical Philosophies of Religion ? Or a Bill to terminate the controversies which have been occasioned by the Ignatian Literature ! How, then, can the State elect an Orthodoxy, or choose one from a dozen competitors ? Obviously it cannot do anything of the kind. But it has done the very thing which we have declared it impossible to do. The English State has adopted an English Church ! This many-headed State, this money- borrowing, ship-building, blood-shedding, aggressive, and belligerent State has picked out a Theology and stamped it with the Queen's head. But when did it do this ? Precisely. That is the vital question. This selection was made centuries before the people were educated, centuries before the democracy and its day-school had appeared, centuries before the agricultural labourer had a vote to cast. But it is this very State, bearing so many historical epithets of shame, that has created the democracy, and made the agricultural labourer a man in politics. Certainly, and the State must take the consequences of its own evolution. As it makes men it unmakes slaves. As education comes in, fetters fall off. The bottles and the wine must be readapted. What, then, must be the relation of the totally new State to the religion of Jesus Christ ? My submission is, that whilst the State cannot be theological it may undoubtedly be religious : the State cannot be mechanically ecclesiastical, yet it may in many practical and legitimate ways foster the religious life of the country : the State cannot have a religious creed, but it can express religious sympathy. My nonconformity in THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 28 I relation to a specific Church by no means implies that I would expect the State to be atheistic ; on the contrary, I would labour the more for the evangelisation of the com- monwealth, and I would have the State more thoroughly impregnated with a sense of responsibility in relation to all religious activities. I could imagine such a State as we find in England saying in effect — I cannot pretend to distinguish between almost innumerable Christian communions : indeed it is no part of my function to prefer one Church to another : I recognise them all ; I value them all ; I protect them all ; I am told by those who most carefully study the national life that Sunday- school teachers are the best policemen, that ministers render the utmost service to the com- monwealth, and that religious institutions are amongst the strongest securities of the nation. In what way, if any, can I best show my appreciation of such service and influence ? This is very different to choosing a special Church, endowing a particular Establishment, or endorsing an official Orthodoxy. Evangelical nonconformity will never subordinate the spiritual to the temporal, nor will it pro- pagate itself at the expense of public taxation. But is there not another course open to it? Whilst it con- sistently declines State patronage, need it prevent the practical expression of State gratitude ? In resenting control, is it necessary to repel sympathy? Its watchword has ever been, " Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." But has Caisar himself nothing to render? Is Caesar an atheist? Is Caesar an outcast? Whose idea is it that organised Society is a mere accident, without vital relation 282 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT to the currents of purpose and tendency which we call Providence? Certainly no such idea can be traced to Jesus Christ. In itself it is a vicious and mischievous conception, and should be treated as such by the most strenuous separatists of Church and State. Society, the organised unit, the noun of multitude, cohering through lofty moral considerations, is a divine structure, quite as much as the solar system, and may therefore be a Caesar which has religious responsibilities. We may not have formed a proper conception of that multitudinous unit which we call the State or Society, therefore it may be timely to look into the nature of that unit as it has been evolved and inspired by new conditions. From that unit we expect education but not religion, honour but not piety, justice but not worship, honesty but not reverence. Is this right on our part ? Are we not partitioning morality and religion, and keeping each on its own side of the wall? Are we not sacrificing the largest relations of things to pedantic and clamant prejudices? Can a severer accusation be brought against us than that by a narrow and ill-natured conscience we have manufactured a Caesar incapable of prayer and independent of God ? But what can Ccesar do ? To my mind it is clear that he cannot prefer one Church to another, at least not with- out an invidiousness that would be fatal to the common sentiment and the common peace. But is it equally clear that Caesar cannot materially and systematically help certain departments of all Christian service? Is there not a temporal side to church life ? There are sites to be bought, estates to be conveyed, buildings to be erected, dilapidations to be renewed, and many other temporalities to be adjusted and sustained. Can Caesar render no assist- ance to his most reliable and beneficent supporters ? He need not, and must not, interfere with creed, ritual, or THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 28 O spiritual service ; there need be no control over faith, or prayer, or sacrament : Csesar would not be called upon for charity, but he might be permitted to express official thankfulness. But would not thankfulness imply control ? By no means, though it might imply inquiry, consideration, and account. But even in the matter of patronage and control are Nonconformists quite clean-handed? In the very dissidcncc of dissent do they get quite rid either of control or patronage? Let us see some of the aspects and degrees of State patronage and control clearly marked in the position of Nonconformists : — Nonconformists owe their liberties and their rights to Acts of Parliament ; their trust-deeds are enrolled in the Court of Chancery; in cases of dispute their trust-deeds are interpreted and determined by Courts of law ; their places of wor- ship are licensed and registered by the State ; their weddings are watched by the State registrar, and are charged for by him according to a scale fixed by the State; the inlet and outlet of their buildings are settled by State authority ; they are so watched by the State that they cannot legally shut out the public during the hours of service ; all their collec- tions for purposes not specified in the trust-deed are subject to income-tax ; they subject themselves to parochial rates if they sell their own hymn- books on their own premises ; they are exempted from parochial and other rates on the ground that their chapels are places of religious worship ; their ministers are exempted from service on juries and from service in the army, and thus the State con- cedes a standing which is denied by the very Church which claims Cajsar as its head, and as the defender of the faith ! 284 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT In doing all this, Caesar claims no dominion over the doctrine or ritual of Nonconformist Churches. May he not, therefore, continue and complete his consistency by giving those Churches, under carefully-guarded conditions, and under limitations fixed by the Churches themselves, temporal assistance for distinctively temporal purposes? If not, why not? May he not facilitate the acquisition of building sites ? May he not exempt all ecclesiastical and collegiate property from every form of taxation, and permit such property to be used for any remunerative purposes its trustees may approve ? If not, why not ? May not Csesar exempt from legacy duty every bequest or endowment given for religious uses ? Might he not exempt pastoral salaries from income-tax ? Might he not increase every legacy and endowment by a certain scale of increment ? Might he not facilitate clerical insurance and other forms of clerical thrift ? If not, why not ? Csesar would in this way be encouraging the influences which constantly make for the consolidation and the security of his own empire. There could be no serious difficulty in working out some such scheme of benefaction, for nearly all Christian communions have their organs or certified mediums of service, such as synods, unions, conferences, assemblies, and local associations, besides which the whole operation would be conducted under the watchful eyes of public critic- ism. The supreme advantage of such an arrangement would be the satisfaction of a kind of sentiment and con- science by no means difficult to understand. There are people who are shocked at what they would call a church- less State, a godless State, a prayerless State. All this feeling would subside if the State adopted some such policy (always open to modification) as has just been out- lined, for instead of having a sectarian State, we should have a State doing all in its power to extend and uphold THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 285 the entire religious influence of the country. Under such an arrangement could Parliament be daily opened with prayer? Certainly, Righteously. Most profitably. The Bishop of London, the moderators of the Presbyterian Assemblies, the presidents of the Methodist Conferences, the chairman of the Congregational Union, and the appointed heads of other Christian communions, could be formed into a committee of arrangement, and the happiest results, not in one way only, but in many ways, would follow, to the surprise and satisfaction of the whole Christian Church. I would personally go even further in defining the religious character of the State, for in the House of Commons I would secure seats for three bishops, and for the chairmen of all the Christian communions in the country. With- drawing the bishops from the House of Lords, considering them no longer lords of the realm, but fathers and pastors of the people, I would place them, with all other ministers, representatively, in the House of Commons. Why not ? Parliament is called upon to legislate upon peace, educa- tion, temperance, health, thrift, labour, and who could better advise upon such matters than men whose lives are devoted to the highest interests of the people? Thus, in the most practical way, I would avoid the reproach of making an atheistic nation. In all this line of suggestion my intention has been to draw, not only a broad, but a vital distinction between assistance that is temporal and oversight that is spiritual. Upon that distinction I must repeatedly and firmly insist. The State cannot justly elect any one Church for special privilege and support ; in doing so it would at once become a theological partisan, and place itself in a relation of hos- tility, negative if not positive, towards all other Christian communions. It would create an ecclesiastical orthodoxy, and it would offend a certain common instinct of justice. 2 86 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT The Anglican might fairly say, Why does the State adopt the thorny theology of Presbyterian catechisms, with all their metaphysical definitions, and all their elaborate incoherence of mangled texts? The Presbyterian might retort, Why should a Protestant State adopt a book of ritual and devotion full of rank popery or sacerdotal reser- vations and priestly tricks ? Methodism might say, Why be bound down by prayers that are often little better than pompous addresses to an invisible Shah, and that exclude the liberty and the passion of living and glowing devotion ? Others would object to what they would call a theological Act of Parliament ; and others again would have strong scruples about adopting or signing any stereotyped form, if on no other ground, certainly on the ground that lan- guage itself changes, and thus impairs or forfeits the authority of precision. Congregationalism, for example, has no written creed or formal standard that must be subscribed : it is held together by certain spiritual agree- ments, but authoritative verbal forms are unknown to it. If the State arrogated to itself the right to prefer one ecclesiastical form to another, it must take along with that perverted right the right to condemn and persecute all other forms. This, of course, will be denied, but denial is futile. Paradoxical as it may appear. Toleration is itself persecution. We do but vulgarise the term persecution when we think only of fine and imprisonment, and stake and block and exile. Persecution can be cruelly negative. Fashion can inflict the deadliest social contempt without imposing fines or striking blows. How unfashionable must he be who separates himself from the Church of the nation, the shrine of the monarch, the altar of the nobles ! How infatuated, how conceited, how dangerously eccentric ! Avoid him, stigmatise him, suspect him, laugh at him, but tolerate him ! Eighteen centuries ago they would THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 287 hav'c crucified him ; to-day they tolerate him, and thus increase and prolong his agonies. Of course he will be supported by his conscience ; but for such support he is in no degree indebted to the State, which first made him a heretic, and then shunned him as a pedant. By and by, as education extends and civilisation takes a wider and juster view of social relations, the State will come to see that it can only pursue such a policy at the risk of its own dis- integration, for no State can with impunity continue to insult its own tax-payers, and sneer at the conscience of its own citizens. II I low would the State then stand in relation to the question of Conformity and Nonconformity ? Would not the same irri- tation continue? Would not ecclesiastical controversy be embittered ? The State would have no relation either to Conformity or Nonconformity. Nonconformity is much more than simple dissent from the establishment of a particular Church. Many Nonconformists have been believers in such an institution. Nonconformity has been in many quarters more a question of doctrine than of policy. If the National Church were national no longer, there is a sense in which Nonconformity would be as definite as ever. Romanism is not established by law, yet Protestantism encounters it with undiminished vigour. The difference would be that the doctrine opposed by evangelical and Protestant nonconformity would not be promulgated in the name, and, as it were, by the authority of the nation. It would become a creed, for which the nation as such would have no responsibility, and would consequently take its place amongst other creeds, securing for itself whatever 288 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT ini^ht be due to the intelligence, the zeal, and the influence of its believers. The Anglican and the Presbyterian would simply be nonconformists to each other. Dissent of this kind, enlightened and forbearing, is not to be discouraged, for it may be educative, emulous, and quickening. We need have no fear that by such mutual dissent we should pro- mote the baser sort of individualism. We might, indeed, thus realise and express the larger unity. To belong to each other, to complete each other, to help each other, is the very desire of the heart of Him in whom we find the ideal of God. The State could be religious without having a privileged Church. In losing an institution, it need not lose a char- acter. It might, indeed, justly claim that it became less ecclesiastical as it became more spiritual, less sectarian as it became more sympathetic. I have contended that the great composite unit that we call the Nation may have an individual character, and I may add that this character is happily not at the mercy of the ill-disposed and ill- mannered persons, who are a disgrace and a weakness to any community. It would be true to speak of England as Christian England, though thousands of its citizens never enter a place of worship. It would be true to speak of England as an honest country, though its jails are some- times full of thieves, and its courts of bankruptcy are in session all day long. It would be true to speak of Eng- land as a healthy country, though hospitals and infirmaries and dispensaries are standing in every shire, and in well- nigh every parish. We thus regard the national unit as a whole. A country has a genius as well as a geography. England may be valorous, though your next-door neigh- bour may be a coward, and your own son a poltroon. I could therefore by analogy have no difficulty in thinking of England as a sincerely religious country though it should abolish the special privileges of any favoured com- THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 289 munion. On the other hand, I could not regard England as necessarily a religious country simply on the ground that it established and endowed any particular Church. A country may buy a reputation, or sop its conscience that it may gratify its lust. An assassin may wear a ring. The character of the State does not depend upon any one institution, how good or bad soever : we must know all the facts before we can form a sound conclusion. As I walk along Newgate Street towards the City, I find on my right hand the notorious jail, where men have been imprisoned and hanged, generation after generation ; and on my left hand I find the famous Bluecoat School, where generations of children have been trained : by which institution shall I judge the character of England ? So, I argue that the character of the State does not depend on church or chapel, bank or jail, school or factory, but on a certain something affected by them all, yet different from any of them, as climate may be different from weather. And so I return to the doctrine that the State has an entity of its own, or is an entity by itself, and that it is much less a human structure than it sometimes seems to be. I repeat my conviction that Society is a divine idea, a divine organism, a divine instru- ment, a holy potentiality. Therefore, as the State includes all sorts of elements, all ages and conditions of people, all temperaments and dispositions, all characters and services, it may be in its very heart truly religious, though it may pick out no Church for special privilege and distinction. I have no difficulty in connecting this whole line of suggestion with the innermost spirit of the ICvangelical faith. That faith contemplates the discipling of " nations," and proposes nothing less than the conversion of " every creature," It throws its holy spell upon both the nation and the individual. It will have nothing to do with ethnic divisions, barbarian or Scythian, caste or bigotry, Jew or 19 290 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT Gentile. It insists that God has made of one blood all nations of men, and it rebukes with holy violence the pitiable falsehood that God is a respecter of persons. The Evangelical religion is the religion of universal humanity. It claims the dominion of the heart, making that heart holy and humble and self-sacrificial. It is not an alms-collector, as if alms were a bribe or a price : it so affects the soul as to draw it into the joy and the high rapture of continual gift and service. This is what is meant by " the voluntary principle," the principle of a regenerated, a sanctified, and a consecrated will. To this, and not to State aid, does it look for the propagation of the gospel in all the regions of the world. It will not work either by compulsion or taxa- tion, — it works under the power of the grace of Christ, — under the infinite inspiration of a pathos deep and tender as the love of God. This pathos is the crowning power of the Evangelical faith. It creates missions. It gives to the world a new heroism. No merely intellectual system could do what is done by sanctified pathos. Philosophy need not be philanthropic. Science need not make personal sacrifices. Even Poetry need not at any inconvenience go beyond her own flowering and fragrant paradises. But the love of Christ must preach the gospel to every creature, and capture for Jesus ev^ery people and tongue : storm and tempest cannot deter it ; fever and plague cannot quench its passion ; it hath its way in the whirlwind, and it dis- covers *' a path which the vulture's eye hath not seen." It neither fears the frown nor courts the patronage of Cjesar. All other kings are as a vapour beside the King of kings. All other necessities are frivolous compared with the need of the New Birth and the New Name. That divinest love must finally conquer, for its resources are infinite, and its patience cannot be outworn. Then why should it seek the patronage of the State ? It never does. Why should it eke out by taxation what is left undone by sympathy ? It THE NEW CITIZEXSIIIP 29 1 never does. Then why suggest that the State may help the common work of the whole company of the churches ? Precisely for the reasons stated, and under the limitations so guardedly defined. The State is not an invention of atheism. Corporate man is the work of the beneficent Creator. As already submitted, Cnssar himself is a unit with a conscience, an entity with moral responsibilities. But even if Caesar could be penetrated by the love of Christ, one result of the penetration would be, not the election of a privileged communion, but a grateful and impartial appreciation of the purpose and service of the entire Christian Church. Never, at the risk of being tedious, forget what may be called the personality even of Caesar : we speak of the national conscience, the national health, the national credit, the national honour, why not of the national religion, not as a sect, but as a sentiment and a responsibility? The doctrine that "the State has to do with politics only," may be an aphorism which has gathered a kind of authority from the fact that its conciseness may have obscured its sophistry. What is the proper scope even of politics ? Who has any revelation upon this inquiry ? Has God told any man that politics must be restricted to the protection of life and property, the lust of territory, and the extension of commerce ? Admitting that something of the kind may have been the rough limit of politics in the elementary condition of society, is no account to be taken of social evolution ? A better citi/cn means a better citizenship. Increasing liberty means increasing responsi- bility. We must not therefore allow the term " State " to remain as a rudimentary term, ignoring the facts of evolu- tion. The State that has improved its prisons must have improved its conduct. The State that teaches little children to read may be awakening to new responsibilities. The State that is pushing out its franchises in all directions 292 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT may have become possessed with a new sense and a new appreciation of manhood. So I come back to my first position and demand, if the argument is to be complete, that the term " State " must be taken in all its latest significance. That significance would show the agricultural labourer in quite a new light. A hundred years ago the position of the agricultural labourer was far enough from being what it is to-day. His description, therefore, must be re-defined. The field labourer has his parliament- ary vote, his parish council vote, his village library, and twenty things, all of significant value, which his brother labourer never dreamed of half a century ago. " Agricul- tural labourer" once meant a smock-frock, nine shillings a week, and " pastors and masters." All this is changed. How has the change been brought about ? Not by a hereditary nobility, not by a feudal Church, not by an exclusive plutocracy. The change has been very largely effected by the Evangelical faith constantly inspiring evangelical missions in which the agricultural labourer has been primarily considered. The agricultural labourer owes himself very largely to Methodism, — evangelising, soul- saving, sensational Methodism. The agricultural labourer, as we now find him, is the spiritual child of John Wesley. What is true of the agricultural labourer is true, within proper limitations, of the whole State. The State owes itself, in all its larger patriotism, to services which it has never been asked to subsidise, — to services which, in its barbarous and priest-ridden days, it persecuted and de- nounced and banned. Being now a new State, what does it owe by way of simple gratitude to the religion that has saved it ? Patronage and control that religion will never accept ; but it insists that the favoured communion shall be made to rank with other communions, and that then the State may consider in what form it will express its gratitude to the Churches which have given it stability and THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 293 reputation, those Churches reserving their indefeasible right to determine whether, or on what terms, they can accept the help of a State they have done so much to develop and enrich. Socialism, altruism, collectivism, communism, are names that may at least represent mischievous influences. 1 can- not, therefore, accept them without careful definition. They arc terms that may be full of sophistry and deceit, mere cries of pedantry and selfish calculation. The socialism of Christ is universal. That distinguishes it from the altruism of parochial selfishness. Evangelical socialism says : " Preach the gospel to every creature " ; " teach all nations " ; " God hath made of one blood all nations of men " ; " God is no respecter of persons ; in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him " ; " there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him." "Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us ? To us there is but one God . . . and one Lord Jesus Christ." If that is socialism, I am in favour of it — it is world-wide, man-including, international, cosmopolitan, big as the heart of God. But there is another socialism only to be reprobated with indignation. It is the socialism that works for classes and cliques, and unionisms and petty local interests, whatever may become of the rest of the world. We can never be truly patriotic until we are truly cosmopolitan. For true cosmopolitanism we are in- debted to the Evangelical faith — the only faith on whose banner may be read " every creature," " all nations," " one blood," " one Father." On that crimson banner we do not read, " England for the English," " No Irish need apply," " Let the Armenians take care of themselves," " No Inter- vention," " Foreigners not admitted," — these are written on the black flag of the devil, not on the blood-red banner of Christ. 294 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT It has been thought the EvangeHcal faith had nothing to do with States and poHcies, and commerce and labour and wages. That is not so. The Evangelical creed penetrates the individual soul, penetrates the life of States, and penetrates the genius of organised civilisation. It is the greatest of creeds — generous as the sun, inflexible as the geometric square, vast and tender as the love of God. This is the true Christian socialism. But there is a socialism that is not Christian. There is a devil's creed that would boycot and starve a man if he did not belong to certain unions, or if he claimed the independence and liberty of a man : a creed that would drive the Chinaman out of California because he can work skilfully and live without wasting his wages ; a creed that would drive out the German clerk, the French artisan, the Italian waiter, because they can beat the English on English ground. That is not Evangelical socialism. Evangelical socialism would stir us to noble and generous emulation, saying to each country, " Work so well that no other country can compete with you " ; " the palm be his who wins it " ; " see that no man take thy crown." The object of Evangelical socialism is to get rid of the word " foreigner." It is a carnal word ; it is stained with sin ; the brand of Cain is upon it ; in every sense, personal, social, political, we are to be " no more strangers and foreigners " ; we are to be loving children in our Father's household. Every opposing socialism is organised selfishness, and should only be named in the pulpit of the world-loving Christ to be denounced and repudiated. The Ancient Faith is, first of all, a religion of in- dividualism. Under its action souls are saved singly — one by one — man by man — each heart regenerated or born again, as if it were the only heart in the world. " Every creature " precedes " all nations." But no sooner THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 295 is a soul fully and savingly brought under the power of Christ's grace than it determines to bring other souls under the same blessed dominion. This is the root of true socialism, and, indeed, I doubt whether there is or can be any other root. Outside the Bible, where does the word " neighbour " occur ? We are now so familiar with the word that we think we invented it, whereas it is exactly as special and distinctive as the word " God." The two words come together in the two great commandments of the law. Socialism, therefore, in its true sense is an under-theology, — the supremest thought brought down into daily practice, ■ — the Eternal Silence broken up into songs of the house and melodies of kindliest brotherhood. The word " neigh- bour " is a syllable in the word " God," that word itself, though only a syllable, being the very sky of language, the very fount of all the rivers of speech. In the New Testa- ment there are three words for " neighbour," but two of them occur only once, leaving o irXrja-Lov some twelve uses of its own, — " the one near, — a fellow-man, — any other member of the human family." It was Christ who, both in the Old Testament and the New, made " thy neigh- bour," not the mere iro\Lr7]<;, the townsman, but 6 irXiialov, the near one, the kinsman, the other heart, a word which may express the nearness of Sychar to Jacob's well, or the closer nearness of the Samaritan to the wounded Jew. Thus Christ seeks the individual soul, and the individual soul consequently seeks the other man, makes him his " neighbour," and lavishes on him the new-born and ever- enduring love. It is most important to bear this in mind, lest, forgetting the fount and origin of true neighbourli- ness, we should be tempted to imagine that a mechanical socialism is more benevolent than the all-redeeming love of God. There are lights which look like human inventions, are announced as such, are patented as such, are publicly sold as such, yet all those little lights arc sparkles of a fire 295 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT we never kindled ; so in morals there are conceptions of right and wrong, theories of social regeneration, and codes of duty and honour, which may owe all their value to the inspiration they deny. Who can tell to what skeleton shapes they would be reduced if they could be made to stand apart from the sustaining and beautifying influences which constitute Christian civilisation, and from the many outlines and forces which give perspective and colour to what would otherwise be an infinite void ? We have not sufficiently magnified this consideration in forming our estimate of human progress. I am distinctly in favour of claiming all this outlying property in the name of Christ, Every good thing is His alone. Every battle of right against might is Christ's war ; every encroachment of knowledge upon ignorance is Christ's invasion ; every search for that which is lost is Christ's quest ; every stoop over the bed of pain or death is Christ's own condescension. If, as Christians, we were not first in those holy services, we ought to have been ; and if we have been outrun in this sacred race, we must find the reason in our own lack of energy, for it certainly is not to be found in the will or purpose of Christ. The teacher of the Ancient Faith, if a tactician and a man of apostolic skill, can begin his work at the point of thinking, which has no suspected relation to Christian theology, and thus show many people how they uncon- sciously touch the highest possible lines of thought. He can show that many of the world's own established phil- osophies, axioms, and canons of wisdom, find their true correction, their natural expansion, and their divine apoca- lypse, in the very religion which they are supposed to ignore. He may show that Faith, instead of being a superstition, is the larger Reason. Without opening the Bible he can find innumerable texts, and without the form THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 297 of a sermon he can make known the saving gospel. Hence my distinct approval of some methods of popular lecturing, which, at first sight, se^m to be not only irregular, but extravagant and undignified. I cannot recall one indis- putable axiom in worldly wisdom that does not imme- diately point to its higher self as developed and completed in Christianity, nor can I find in practical Christianity a single doctrine that does not claim its counterpart in some law of nature, some habit of human thought, some guiding principle in civilised society, showing in how deep a sense it is true that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, that man was made in the image and likeness of God, and that Reason is always carving and inscribing marble slabs in honour of a power unknown, but undeniable. In view of such facts the Christian preacher need not shrink, in public or in private, from taking his texts from the oldest of all Bibles — the Bible of Nature and the Bible of human consciousness and experience. The great doctrine of vicarious suffering would seem to be the mother- doctrine of every sphere of life. If Christians walk by faith and not by sight, so do secularists, so do agnostics, so do atheists. Discovery is, in its own sphere, but another name for revelation in things spiritual. Prayer is but the uppermost meaning of all the heart's dumb yearning. If a large induction of facts has led to the discovery of a law, a still larger induction of still clearer facts has led to the revelation of a Father. The Christian preacher has so much to begin with in the actual life of his hearers ! They supply him with his starting-points and with the weapons which he turns ui)on themselves in the faithful application of his argument. lie finds them in quest of pleasure, and in offering them eternal joy he has the support of an instinct which cannot be safely suppressed ; he finds them in a multitude of cases providing against fire and flood, famine 298 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT and pestilence, and boldly calls upon them to complete their own prudence by providing for the larger time and the deeper need ; he finds them planting sweet flowers upon the graves where love lies buried, and he tells them that men may so die as to bloom in heaven's warm summer ; and if you ask him, as he changes his base of operation, adapts his methods to new circumstances, begins at all accessible points, why he varies the lines of his ministry, he will answer, " I have made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." In my forecast of the impending century— the twentieth since the summer of Bethlehem — I see clearly that Churches and ministers may have to accept larger definitions of theo- logical and ecclesiastical terms ; I see a time, may it come soon, w^hen all terms will be regarded as symbols pointing to truths infinitely greater than themselves. The telescope is not the constellation. I have come to see that it is more important that a man should believe in God, than that he should accept my particular and, perhaps, variable theory of God ; and that it is of infinitely greater con- sequence that he should believe in Immortality, than that he should select some special theory because of its tem- porary intellectual fascination. The supreme ideas will, by their moral sublimity, keep the man right as to his spirit ; the conflicting theories must be determined by life- long prayer and life-long education, — nay, more perhaps than life-long, — for we may have to pursue and complete in eternity what we could but imperfectly begin in the cloudy and troubled light of time. With regard to the Church, it would not surprise me to find, as the result of much ill-spent invention and much abortive effort — so much that the recollection of it would burn us like a furnace, if we THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 299 had not learned to match the rapidity of production by the rapidity of forgetfulncss, — it would not surprise me, I say, to find that, instead of havini^ to create a Church, we have simply to recognise one. Church-making is no business of ours ; when we attempt it, we usurp the Divine preroga- tive. The outer congregation we may, in some secondary and hmited sense, attempt to set in orderly array, but the Church — the inner, spiritual, holy sacrifice — lies beyond the province of our hands. It is not conceivable by me that the material creation can be so much larger than our thought can grasp, and the spiritual creation so much smaller ; yet men who have stood in reverential awe before huge masses of matter, and pronounced them incalculable, have stood in the presence of the Church, and reduced it to quotable statistics. The astronomer has forgotten that he himself is a greater mystery than the astronomy Avhich he worships. The meanest child is to mc infinitely more unthinkable than arc the constellations which hide themselves from the inquiry of science. This would seem to be the evolution through which biblical thought itself has passed. David considered the heavens, the moon, and the stars, and wondered that God should make account of the son of man. Peter, a man in ever)' way likely to be impressed by bulk and force and radiance, having been with Jesus and learned of Ilim, — having seen the white flame on Tabor, which Saul afterwards saw at the gate of Damascus, — looked upon the infinite pomp, and pre- dicted the noise of its departure and the smoke of its dissolution. Have we spiritually grown in the same direc- tion ? If so, we must have cause to know that the Church is as much larger than the churches, as Uie spirit is larger than the body, and that the universe was made for man, and not man for the universe. Looking in the direction pointed out by this suggestion, I am prepared to believe that many men are in the Divine Church who may not 300 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT be in the human congregation, and that the divine recog- nition of men in the final census will not more surprise the men themselves than shock, with unutterable astonishment, the scribes who were prepared to abridge the labours of Omnipotence by handing in a revised and corrected register of men fit for the kingdom of heaven. The Lord will graciously keep Creation and Judgment in His own hands, for men could never be trusted with absolute Fiat and Doom. Ill All that is vital in these doctrines must be largely indebted to the Christian preacher for exposition and popular acceptance. To my mind, the divinely qualified Christian preacher is the greatest man in the world. It is easily possible to misrepresent ministers by dismissing them as " theo- logians," and easily possible for ministers to misrepresent themselves by heedlessly accepting that designation. Be- fore it is accepted it should be clearly defined. It is sometimes accompanied with a smile, which is not the less suggestive that it is friendly. It means, without bitterness, that the minister is a superior kind of woman, too full of Greek and catechism to know much about the ways of the world. He is, at least outwardly, revered so profoundly as to be profoundly ignored upon all practical questions. He is the victim of an idolatry so sentimentally complete as to amount to practical annihilation. There is a sense in which the term " theologian " amounts to apotheosis in the kingdom of shadows, and there is also a sense in which it becomes the highest title that can be sustained by the most illustrious of mankind. I cannot but hold, let me repeat, that the Christian minister, when he realises his full vocation, when adequately equipped and THE NEW CITIZEXSIIIP 3OI wholly consecrated, has no superior in all the world : great in intellectual capacity, supreme in spiritual insight, strong in the instinct and in the practice of justice. The Chris- tian minister is not a chatterer of other- world phrases, but a true interpreter of life's mystery and sacrifice. We must get rid of the lie that the minister is a priest, — a kind of celestial broker, — even if, in getting rid of it, the minister has to do something which a narrow judgment may regard as non- ministerial. Ministers do not minister simply because they can do nothing else, but because they con- sider that by comparison nothing else is worth doing. This was the estimate of values which determined the action of the Apostle Paul. A mind so capacious and energetic could have even glorified any sphere of human activity ; }'et, gathering together all the privileges of ancestry, all the dignities of office, all the temptations of sense, he burned them all on the altar of the Cross^ and counted their sacrifice a gain. " But let every man take heed how " he preaches. A new citizenship demands a new pulpit; not a new doctrine, but a new method, a living adaptation. Jesus Christ took his texts from what was going on around Him : " when He saw how . . . He said unto His disciples"; "when a cer- tain lawyer stood up tempting Him, . . . He said." The living minister must dwell upon living themes. He should be a man of the people. Christ lived on the highwa}', in the market-place, in the open air. He did not recite His own compositions, or make a literary display, or give ex- amples of finished rhetoric, or exemplify the mechanical art of homiletics : He "taught," He "talked," He " answered." He was infinitely natural because He was infinitely sincere. He preached of Abraham; He did not preach to him. Christ never addressed the absentees; He looked His audience in the face, and bore straight in upon the heart. 302 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT There never were such discourses. They cut men in pieces ; they comforted the wounded with healing balm ; they made the sea boil, and lulled the raging of the waters ; they unmasked and scorched hypocrisy ; they cheered, as with light, souls that were struggling in solitary prayer. What great talking was the talking of Christ ! He whispered with infinite delicacy. " He cried with a loud voice." I cannot imagine Jesus reading an essay to His hearers. Nor can I imagine Paul doing so. Nor fervent Peter. Talk need not be jejune. Conversation need not be gossip. The people gather round a man who has a gospel, and believes it, and wants it to be accepted at once. The only man who can destroy preaching is the preacher, and in all truthfulness he can most surely destroy it utterly. Let him forget or neglect his central subject, and his own overthrow is certain. The truly consecrated and fervent Christian preacher does not preach to trades, professions, scholastic certificates, or university degrees; these "shoes" are to be "put off" outside the sanctuary, and within that holy place nothing is to be recognised but the sinfulness of the human heart, the universal need of Christ's vicarious sacrifice, and the neces- sity of being born again by the gracious and mighty energy of God the Holy Ghost. " O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel ; if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned ; if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity ; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand." It is a question of blood ! The blood of murdered men is on the skirts of unfaithful ministers ! In vain do we give men new ideas of the universe, new conceptions of spiritual truths, brilliant answers to intellectual objections, and dazz- THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 6^6 ling displays of many-coloured erudition, if we keep back the saving gospel, the humbling Cross, the redeeming blood, — if we let men slumber in their iniquity, if we hide the bottomless pit, if we make light of sin, if we turn the ministry into one of the learned professions, — the blood of murdered men will be required at the watchman's hand. A thrill of horror paralyses the soul as we think of the appalling meaning of the term " damnation " : who can measure its darkness, who can express its pain, who can follow the mystery of its agony ? but to what infinite significance is the meaning of the term raised when the man who is damned is a nominal minister of Christ, — driven away because of unfaithfulness, banished because he kept back the truth, damned because he murdered the souls of men ! When Paul speaks of " the foolishness of preaching," he is not referring to preaching as an art, or even as a method ; he is referring only to the foolishness of the thing preached ;— and what is that foolish thing, that contemptible absurdity, that meanest of all symbols ? It is the Cross. It pleased God to make a thing so shameful the symbol of a conquest so glorious. It is God's inscrut- able way. He used " things that are not," — things that cannot come into visibleness and measurement, — things that can only be dimdy and remotely thought of as transcendently negative — " to bring to nought things that are." It is a holy wonder, — it humbles our vanity, — it quenches our cleverness, and drives us out of ourselves for inspiration and strength. If I have in any degree entitled myself by long service to give advice to the next generation of preachers, I would plead with them to preach from the foot of the Cross. I would beg them to avoid all fanciful topics and all fantastic methods, and to give their whole time and strength to the unfold- 304 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT ing of the love of God, as shown in the person and priesthood of Jesus Christ who died for us and rose ao-ain. We can best approach even social questions from the Cross. Labour and capital can only be reconciled at the Cross. Family disputes must be settled in the spirit of the Cross. International misunderstandings perish when discussed within the sanctuary of the Cross. My brethren who are on their way to the pulpit need have no fear of being behind " the times," if they look at the whole movement of life from the standpoint of Christ's world-saving Cross. I believe that if preachers would be truly " original," the one thing they have to avoid is novelty. They must get back to divine beginnings, even to the original thought and purpose of God. They must get rid of all superficial and temporary methods of treating the corrupt and pestilent heart, and must there- fore work from the Cross, — from One who was slain from before the foundation of the world. The ancient is the truly modern. The eternal in the longrun rules the transient. It will be a day of woe for the Christian pulpit when its hireling occupants play popular tricks to win popular applause. Only one pulpit theme can last, and it lasts because it is none else than the unspeakable love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let us look at this matter in a living picture: Imagine the gathered hordes of ignorance, misfortune, misery, and shame, having gone the round of all the Unions, Con- ferences, Assemblies, and Convocations held in the course of the ecclesiastical year : imagine one of the members of that suffering community representing his comrades, and putting their sorrows and their wishes into words, and his speech might take some such turn as this : — " We have had a full year among you, and we cannot very well make out what you are driving at. We do not know most of the long THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 305 words you use. You are all well dressed and well fed, and you are D.D.'s and M.A.'s and B.A.'s. We do not know what you are, or what you want to be at. From what we can make out, you seem to know that we poor devils are all going straight down to a place you call hell ; there we are to burn for ever and ever, and gnash our teeth in pain that can never end ; we are to be choked with brimstone, stung by serpents, laden with chains ; — then why don't you stop us on the road ? Why don't you stand in front of us, and keep us back from the pit, and the fire, and the worm that cannot die ? We read the inky papers which you call your " resolutions," but in them there is no word for us that is likely to do us real good. They say nothing about our real misery ; nothing about our long hours, our poor pay, our wretched lodgings. Why don't you pass resolutions about the distiller, the brewer, and the publican ? We cannot stagger to our warrens and rookeries, where the chairs are stones, and the beds are straw, and the pictures our own black shadows, without passing the public-house and catching tempting whiffs of the hot drinks that make us worse than beasts. The publican robs us, mocks us, poisons us, and turns us out of doors. Why don't }'ou call him robber and murderer, and drive him out of the land ? He takes your pews, sings your hymns, passes your resolutions, presides at your meetings, and throws a crust to the orphan whose father he killed. You call yourselves men of God ? What God ? Where is He ? What docs He say? What does He want? When you come amongst us, you come against your will ; some of you liv^e upon us almost as much as the publican does, by writing tales about us, making speeches about us, drawing pictures of us in papers and books, getting our secret off us, and then selling it for silver. We have been watching you, and we "have formed our opinion of you just as certainly as }'ou have formed your opinion of us. Wo ha\c seen the 20 306 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT auctioneer knock down the cure of souls to the highest bidder ; we have heard the chapel man haggle for higher pay, and boast of the respectability of his pew tenants and the o-entility of his neighbourhood ; we have heard your backbiting of one another: — open graves, whited sepul- chres, impostors all ! How can ye escape the damnation of hell ! " It is easy to see how many protests can be urged against this violent speech, and how many pleas could be set up in palliation of its savage judgment ; it would be easy to summon a little army of self-denying clergymen, ministers, ladies, philanthropists, teachers, and visitors, who are labouring in the most degraded and repulsive parts of London ; it might be possible to discriminate between one publican and another so as to show wide difference of character, — but when every mitigation has been completed and every abatement has been allowed, there is enough left in that fierce charge to compel the sad and compassionate attention of Christian teachers and workers. Its opening sentences struck me as full of pain- ful suggestion. As a matter of fact, we may most uncon- sciously often use words which many people may not under- stand, — uncouth words, technical phrases, pulpit idioms, or mediaeval barbarities ; our style may be too literary, too pompous, too refined ; and we may be so partially and perversely educated, as to be more anxious to establish a proposition than to save a soul. An eminent critic has said that in the style of English which the historian Gibbon adopted, it was impossible to tell the truth. The critic meant that Gibbon's style was too majestic and stately to take up and set forth in glittering vividness the petty details, the minute and contemptible particulars and little- nesses, which make up no small part of the life of every aggressive and advancing people. So it may be with THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 307 Christian preachers. By the use of stilted phrases, long- dragging polysyllables, and a species of majestic slang that would not be tolerated in Parliament or at the Bar, preachers may easily create wide distance between the pulpit and the pew. Nothing, in my judgment, can meet this difficulty but pureness and earnestness of heart. A Christlike heart will have one object and only one, and that is to save men ; and in carrying out that object, if either dignity or simplicity must be sacrificed, it will be dignity that must suffer death. If I might add a word on an immediately related question, it would be to the effect that our evangelism is in danger of devoting its energies almost exclusively to what are known as " the masses." I must protest against this contraction, on the ground that it is as unjust to Christi- anity as it is blind to the evidence of facts. If the city missionary (he being a highly qualified man) is wanted anywhere, he is specially wanted where business is degraded into gambling, where conscience is lulled by charity which knows nothing of sacrifice, and where political economy is made the scapegoat for oppression and robbery. But to lecture the poor is easier than to accuse the rich. Have we not lost one bold tone out of the music of preaching? Who now dare say, " Yc adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God ? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God " (Jas. iv. 4) ; " Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation " (Luke vi. 24) ; " Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth : and the cries of them which have reaped arc entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth " (Jas. v. 4). That is a branch of evangelistic service which cannot be neglected with impunity. There is only one class worse than the 308 THE A.N'CIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT class known as "outcast London," — worse in every feature and in every degree, — and that class is composed of those who " have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton," and who " have nourished their hearts as in a day of slaughter." The " cry " is " bitterer " in many tones at the West End than at the East ; the ennui, the love of pleasure, the satiety of appetite, the speculation in marriage, the gambling in politics, the thousand social falsehoods that mimic the airs of Piety and proclaim the protection of Usage, — these seem to be distress without alleviation, and to constitute a heathenism which Christ Himself might view with despair. I am not able to look upon poverty as many do. It is to my mind not an accident, not a symptom, not a problem awaiting political solution, but a mystery in human discipline and redemption, a dark necessity in the completeness of the immediate situation. I cannot but feel that the world would be the poorer but for its poverty, and I feel it the more when I remind myself of the historian's testimony, that when the Romans lost their poverty they began their vices. That the lot of many of the poor can be improved no one disputes ; that a charge, an impeachment, tremendous in its justice, can be brought against parochialism, officialism, and the vicious species of landlordism, admits of no question — I am speaking of the greater poverty ; the solemn mystery of suffering ; that poignant and chastening appeal which, as Christ said, is " always " with us. I am of opinion that every Christian assembly should make a serious question of the Poor Laws of England. The workhouse as at present managed is a disgrace to us. We have no right to huddle all poor people together indiscriminately, as if they belonged to one class, nor should we content ourselves with the rough classification of criminal and non-criminal paupers ; the classification should be scrupulously graded, so that every necessitous person could go into the right company with- THE NEW CITIZENSHIP 3O9 out sense of degradation or injustice. The State would spend money wisely in providing neat and cheerful homes, guarded by humane and sympathetic discipline, for the honourable poor, and would thus show that poverty is not of necessity criminal or degrading, but may be compatible with social uprightness and deeply religious feeling. I have nothing to say for the ill-behaved, my one concern is for the virtuous and sensitive poor. But in order to address ourselves to questions of this nature, we must by pureness and Christlikeness of heart rid ourselves of the bitter controversies which are hindering the consolidation of Christian energies. If some controversies and specu- lations must, by a mysterious necessity of the human mind, ever continue, we ought to find in human charity the balance to intellectual speculation. Where mental excite- ment is not followed by beneficent activity, the head will develop at the expense of the heart, and the issue will be a pedantry that can only criticise, and a vanity that cannot stoop to see, the Cross. Hard work must balance hard thinking. Transfigurations on the mountain must be followed by miracles of healing at the mountain base. Thus, and thus only, will the whole nature be kept strong and sweet, the head glorious with light, the heart more glorious with love. Whilst sympathising with my whole heart with every well-considered movement for the better housing of the poor, I must always protest against the vicious sophism, that character is the product of circum- stances, — a narrow and cruel doctrine which is not onK' in direct opposition to the deepest teaching of Christianity, but is directly contradicted by the most obvious facts in human history. Any action based on so palpable a sophism must be empirical, superficial, and in the longrun abortive. It is this conviction which determines the methods of Christian philanthropists, and exposes those methods to the sneer of the energetic reformers, who with impotent vigour 3IO THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT address themselves exclusively to the readjustment of circumstances. To the worldly mind nothing can be much more ridiculous than to mock the poor by the erection of mission-halls. But the mockery may easily be in excess of the information. The mission - hall is itself but a symbol ; a symbol which, being interpreted, means, care of the body ; care of the mind ; advice under difficulty ; pro- tection against injustice ; the way to the saving Cross ; an answer to the heart's weariest trouble ; bread for the soul's intolerable hunger. In a word, the mission-hall symbolises the solemn truth that the stream cannot be cleansed until the fountain is purified. VIII CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD By WILLIAM BROCK sn VIII Christianity and the Child The aiin of the present Essay is to inquire in what definite form Christian truth may be most fitly presented to luiglish children of the present day. Such an incjuiry, while less strictly theological than those which have already occupied the reader, has the advantage of suggesting a practical test of the value of our theories ; and it is by no means irrelevant to the general purpose of the volume. If the substance of the Ancient Faith is to be preserved intact, nowhere is it more essential to guard it than in the instructions of the Home and the School. But nowhere is it more indispcnsaVjle so to present it that its beauty and majesty may only shine the clearer in all the searching blaze of Modern Light. It is proposed to consider, first, some of the existing facts which point to the necessity for such an inquiry ; then, some of the more recent changes which must influence its course ; and, further, some of the specific results to which it may reasonably conduct. I. SOME EXISTING FACTS IN REGARD TO RELIGIOUS TEACHING The present condition of religious teaching in our Homes and Schools discloses a variety of opinion and practice which is sufficient to emphasise both the interest and the urgency of the discussion. I. There is one system of religious instruction under 314 I'U^^ ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT which a large proportion of the children of the land are growing up, which, whatever we may think of its tendency, is at least perfectly definite and coherent. " Church teach- ing," as it is expressed in various catechisms and manuals for the young, sounds its one monotonous note with unmistakable significance. The Church, whether it be the Church of Rome or the Church of England, and in either case, external, visible, represented by its priests and operat- ing through its sacraments, is the kingdom of heaven. Membership in the Church is salvation. The child is taught, that in his baptism he entered the Church, and passed into a state of grace ; that from the Church he must receive what he is to believe, and what he is to do ; that the Church, by her ministers, will absolve him from his actual sins, and confer on him the gift of the Holy Spirit ; and that at death the Church will supply him with his viaticum, and secure his entrance into glory. The creeds of the Church, no doubt, instruct the learner in the doctrines common to all Christians, and direct him to the divine fountain of salvation. But it is one of the facts with which we have to reckon, that the tremendous stress laid on the priest and the sacrament must certainly obscure the sense of the invisible realities, and tend to arrest numbers of our }-oung pilgrims on the threshold of the shrine.-^ 2. There is, at the opposite extreme of opinion, the dis- position to bring the child up in avowed Agnosticism or active unbelief. It is impossible to judge to what extent such a disposition prevails. It would appear to be confined at present to a section of the cultured classes ; for the vast majority of our working people, whatever their own regard or disregard for religion may be, send their children to be ' The curate in charge of a parish in the South of England had been mslructing the children of the Sunday school in the dignities of the priestly office, and wound up by asking, "Tell me, what am I ?" A little girl volunteered the answer, " Please, sir, you are God." CIIRISTIAMTV AND THE CHILD 315 instructed in its truths. I'^ven among some of the most advanced Agnostics, there is a laudable reluctance to bring young people up in the atmosphere of doubt. There is no more jjathctic passage in the life of that fearless and candid spirit, the late Mr. Romanes, than the letter in which, while himself as yet unable to accept the Christian faith, he avows his desire that his boy should be spared as long as possible the knowledge of his own uncertainty, and, meanwhile, should be surrounded witli Christian influence.^ But it is scarcely to be expected that unbelievers in general would exercise such a reverent constraint. Marie Corelli's tragic story of TJie Mighty Atom, with all its exaggeration, is, perhaps, the index to a growing movement of the actively destructive order, as it is no unfair exposure of the melan- choly result which such a movement involves. It may well startle us to think that English boys and girls are being taught, as John Stuart Mill was taught in an earlier generation, to look upon all religion as superstition, and the Christian religion, in particular, as a tissue of fables. 3. A much wider tendency is in a less positive direction. It is a reaction, and, to a certain extent, a wholesome reaction, from the stiff catechetical discipline which required from the child definitions of original sin and effectual calling, of the nature of evil spirits, and the wrath to come. All will sympathise with the wise caution that we should not unnecessarily burden the opening mind with the per- plexing problems of theology. But the reaction may extend till it involves the exclusion of all definite religious conceptions. Children are then allowed to form their own fancies on the most august realities. Teachers limit their instructions to ethics, and are contented if their scholars grow uj) fairl)- well-behaved. In point of fact, there are many cases like that of the late Lord Shaftesbury, in which the child would be left in absolute religious ignorance but ' Li/e and Letters of C. J. Romanes, p. 159. 3l6 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN TIGHT for the gracious influence of a Christian nurse. Parents abdicate their hoHest functions, and suffer their children to grow up uninstructed even in their Bibles, and in the simplest truths of religion. A recent American writer affirms that among college students in that country " an ignorance of the Bible exists to an extent that would have been incon- ceivable a generation ago. Some of them are victims to the idea that the Bible should not be read by the young, for fear that they should be prejudiced in a religious way. The fundamental cause of the ignorance is the neglect of its use in the home in childhood." ^ A still more serious statement has been made by a writer of great authority at home. " Look how the English people treat their children. They have ceased, almost consciously ceased, to have any moral ideal at all." '" 4. What, then, is the position occupied by Evangelical Nonconformists in relation to the religious culture of the young? We stand equally opposed to the Romanist and the Agnostic ; but it is often urged that our own teaching has become colourless and undefined. Our fathers had catechisms ; we have only hymn - books. Their lessons were clear, even if they were cold ; ours, it is said, are apt to be vague and negative, and even to degenerate into what a friendly critic has described as " a feeble evangelical dilution." Now, if we are to count in the energetic onward movements of the day, we must have some distinct con- ception of what we wish our children to believe. It may, or may not, take the old method of question and answer. It must, of course, be simple and elementary ; it must be open to modification ; it must be drawn direct from the New Testament ; but it will be a " form " or " pattern " ^ of ^ Harper's Magazine, Alarch 1895, "The Bible in America," by the Editor. The Bishop of Winchester, in a speech at Guildford, has lately uttered a similar warning in regard to English boys and girls. -' Natural Religion, p. 134. ^ Rom. vi. 17 ; cf. 2 John 4. CHRISTIANITY AND TIIK CHILD 317 teaching in the apostolic sense, and it will embody what we conceive to be the substance of saving truth. The attitude taken up by Nonconformists in regard to religious instruction in schools supported by the State has given rise to considerable misunderstanding. Because some object to the teaching of the Bible in those schools, it has been concluded that they are indifferent to the teaching of it anywhere ; whereas it is their very reverence for the Bible that makes them anxious that it should be taught in the right place and by the right person, not as a mere school - book, but as a divine revelation. Because others have expressed themselves satisfied with the method of Bible instruction adopted, for instance, by the London School Board, it has been taken for granted that they desire nothing further for their children, and " undenomi- national " has been made, in some quarters, synonymous with " Nonconformist." Now it is true that many of us are content with the so-called " compromise " ; but it is because nothing more can be fairly taught at the expense of the ratepayers, and we are jealous of any infringement of the present limit. It is a mistake to imagine that in our own religious culture of the young we have nothing more positive to inculcate. We teach the whole subject of religion in our voluntary Sunday schools, in a manner in which we should never dream of asking to have it taught in the day schools of the State. No Episcopalian can be more earnest on behalf of definite Church teaching than many a Nonconformist parent is to indoctrinate his children with the truths which have been the life of his own soul. We can agree with Canon Gore that " we need accepted religious truths — that is, dogmas — to give power to our common life." ^ Only we maintain that spiritual things must be taught by spiritual men. 5. There is yet another voice to be heard; and it is ' Creed of the Christian^ p 5. 31 8 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT that of the person most immediately concerned. The thoughtful child is indeed, after his own manner, a theo- logian already. Our literature has recently been rich in incidents illustrating the excursions of his fresh and vivid ima""ination into the world of the unseen. The humour which marks them is not so impressive as their pathos, " The poor little hard-pressed brain " is seen striving to graj^ple with the meaning of the universe. Its curious questionings are the outstretching of a hand that seeks a "uide. Doubtless the response may often have to take the tone rather of restraint than of stimulus ; but it should never take the tone of contempt. We do not want our children to become pedants or dreamers ; we do want them to think, and we should encourage them in thinking. We should avoid overdoses of doctrine as we would overdoses of physic. But as we decline to give them the run of the medicine chest, and are at pains to make the proper selection for them, so, since they will have religious ideas of some sort, we must take care that those ideas are true. To send them out into the world without any such careful preparation, is to place them at an unfair disadvant- age. They ought, indeed, by degrees to form convictions of their own ; and no sensible teacher will expect or desire that his scholars should accept unquestioned the precise articles of his own faith. Let our young soldiers win their own spurs ; but do not send them unarmed and untrained into the battle. The uninstructed youth is apt to become the ready victim of a shallow scepticism or a blind superstition. On the other hand, the strongest and surest believers, in innumerable instances, trace their faith, not merely to the general religious influence of the home, but to the definite religious lessons imparted there. Timothy had only to " continue in the things which he had learned and been assured of." The theology of Augustine had its CIIKISTIAXITY AND THE CHILD 319 germ in " what he heard as a boy of the eternal Hfe promised by means of the humility of the Lord condescending to our pride," ^ Doddridge and the Wesleys illustrate the same law of continuity. Mr. Ruskin can refer us to the very chapters of the Bible by the truths of which, as he says, his soul was established in life. Even where there has been a complete change of opinion, there is sometimes to be detected a strange survival of the earlier beliefs. The fresh sweet current of Christian truth runs far out into the salt sea of doubt or unbelief. " I should urge you," writes George Eliot to her friend Mrs. Ponsonby, " to con- sider your early religious experience as a portion of valid knowledge, and to cherish its emotional results in relation to ideas which arc either substitutes or metamorphoses of the earlier." " The sigh of the exile for the home he has left sounds in such words. What is so precious and so enduring it must be well worth the utmost effort to pro- vide ; and to provide in a form the most distinct, the moist attractive, and the most consistent with modern investi- gation and enlightenment. II. SOME RECENT CHANGES IN THE TENDENCY OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT The difficulties of the task are accentuated, because the changes of the last half-century have been in all directions unusually large and rapid. The effect on the whole religious atmosphere has amounted to a revolution. Some observers express their doubt whether " the Reformation itself left a world so different from that which it found." ■'• We look at the same spiritual landscape as our fathers looked at ; but the entire perspective is shifted ; objects once prominent lie in shadow; other objects have emerged, ' Coifessions, i. 17. - Life of George E/iof, vol. iii. p. 253. ^ Miss Wedgwood, Nineteenth Century, September 1896, p. 422. 320 THE ANXIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT and stand out clearly, and challenge the attention. The Ancient Faith must be adjusted to the Modern Light if it is to be visible to the modern eye. And if the caution is everywhere necessary, where should it be more carefully observed than in the training of the men and women of the next half- century, destined, perhaps, to witness a still greater advance than their fathers? When we speak of change, however, it is easy to fall into exaggeration and panic. " The firm foundation of God standeth," a rock in the midst of the rolling waters. The substance of truth which the English mother of to-day lias to impart is what was taught by Lois and Eunice in the first century, by Monica in the fifth, by Robert Raikes and Hannah More in more recent times. Even in form and method much which we learned in childhood is far from being obsolete. Oliver Wendell Holmes recurs in one of his later letters to the " hymns of dear old Dr. Watts, which lulled me when a babe, and will mingle, I doubt not, with my last wandering thoughts." There are questions and answers in the " Child's Catechism " by the same author which survive in some memories, and still commend themselves to some understandings. The older school of thought can teach us much. The majesty of God was often upon their lips ; His omniscience also, and His righteousness, and the grandeur of His moral government. They saw vividly the guilt and misery of sin, and, with a corresponding clearness, the wonders of redeeming grace. They produced a noble type of character ; sterner and more austere than ours, perhaps less sensitive to sorrow, certainly less widely sympathetic; but, on the other hand, distinguished by a faith that rarely doubted, and a loyalty that never quailed, and religious emotions as strong and deep as they were silent and still. We have outgrown some of their opinions, but it will take a long while to outgrow them ; and while it may be an advantage not always to express CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD 32 1 our teaching in their words, it would be a calamity if it were ever to become divorced from their spirit. It may be convenient at this point to indicate some of the more active influences of the age which have to be borne in mind in our religious instruction of the young. Four in particular may be selected, the decline of mere authority in matters of belief, the rise of Biblical Criticism, the growth of humanitarian sentiment, and the widespread sense of the remoteness of the Supernatural. I, Authority in Matters of Belief Fifty years ago, authority was still the accredited instrument in general education. The lesson in language or in history was learned by rote from the text-book with little effort at explanation by the teacher, and still less opportunity of inquiry by the scholar. The spirit of inquiry was apt to be mistaken for a spice of rebellion ; and a boy who might suggest some difficulty in a Scripture passage was silenced by a frown. Now authority must always enter largely into the earlier stages of instruction. We must all begin by accepting something on the testimony of others. But the w^hole tendency of modern education is to subordinate authority to reason. The scholar is en- couraged to question, to doubt, to require a reason for the things which he is told. As he advances, his prime business becomes inquiry and investigation ; " scepticism the highest of duties, and blind faith the one unpardonable sin." It is inevitable that a disposition of mind thus acquired in ordinary studies should make itself felt in religion. We may rightly point out that scepticism is not, after all, so unmixed a virtue as is represented, and that there are regions of thought where the faculty of faith is indispensable. But we cannot any longer meet the questions of our young people with the reply, " I say so," or " the Church says so," or even " the Bible says so." Why 32 2 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN .MODERN LIGHT does the Bible say so, is the instant challenge of the active mind. We must be ready to explain its meaning, and to show the reasonableness of its declarations ; we must appeal, not only to the instinct of obedience and trust, but to the verdict of the understanding and the conscience. We should stimulate reverent inquiry, rather than attempt to silence it. Nor need this be done with reluctance or regret. It is the apostolic counsel to " prove all things." It is the fundamental principle of Protestantism that " we do not accept the truth of the teaching of Holy Scripture merely because we acknowledge the authority of Holy Scripture ; it would be more accurate to say that we acknowledge the authority of Holy Scripture because we accept the truth of its teaching." ^ Our Lord Himself while speaking with the highest authority, constantly challenges the consent of the candid mind. " Everyone that is of the truth heareth My voice." 2. Our Conception of the Bible and its Use The development of critical inquiry has had the effect of modifying, in some respects, our conception of the Bible. We have a conviction as firm as our fathers had of its unique character as a record of divine revelations ; and we teach our children to turn its pages with the olden reverence and love. But we cannot present it to them exactly as it was taught to us. It is no longer the mysterious aerolite, fallen in one glowing mass from heaven, and incapable of analysis ; it is rather a succession of stratified deposits, each with its own history to be ascertained, and its characteristic contents to be explored. It is a book, but it is still more a library or a literature, com- parable in extent and variety " to a selection of English literature from Bede to Milton." It comprises poetry and philosophy, tradition and history, familiar letters and pro- ^ Dale, Protestantism^ p. 63. CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD 325 found treatises, the regular narrative of the biographer and the raptured vision of the seer. It has its outer and inner courts, its sanctuary, and its HoHest of all. It must be taught with a fine sense of proportion, a light touch on matters of more transitory interest, and a stress upon essential truths. The old axiom, which assumed that every pin of the tabernacle was as precious as the altar or the ark, can be no longer admitted. It is the very reverse of the fact. There are indeed persons now living who can well remember how they trembled in their childhood, lest in their Scripture lessons they should misplace a letter or mispronounce a word, and so bring the curse of Rev. xxii. 19 upon their heads. It was time that such bondage should be broken. It is not for the monotone of an awful oracle that the child is to listen when the Bible is read, but for the varying cadences of the voice of a friend. If the literary composition of the book, and its other human elements, are properly explained, it is scarcely necessary to instruct the young scholar in the detailed results of Biblical Criticism. He will now be prepared in due time to consider them on their own merits without any painful shock to the understanding or the heart. It will not disturb him, as it has disturbed some brought up under an older discipline, to discover that the first chapters in Genesis do not teach strict science or actual history ; that David did not write all the Psalms, or Moses all the Pentateuch ; and that there are discrepancies of detail, and signs of addition and correction, in the Gospels themselves. No secret should be made of acknowledged facts like these ; but we need not be in haste to make critics of our children. There seems still a certain incongruity, even where the work is ably and cautiously done, in presenting the Bible " as rearranged by modern criticism " to boys and girls of twelve years old and upwards. It needs the maturer mind 324 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT to give proper consideration to the various problems which are involved in such inquiries, and to allot them their true value. They are apt simply to confuse the young scholar and draw off his thoughts from that which he most needs to learn, the divine substance of saving truth. He cannot see the wood for the trees. Still less can the suggestion find favour, that, because of the new light thrown by Criticism on the Old Testament, we should restrict the religious instruction of children to the New. It is quite likely that, in the choice of Bible lessons, there has been too little discrimination ; an unwise attempt to cover the whole field, and a failure to focus attention on the central facts. " The Story of Christ and His People " as contained in the Gospels and the Acts is undoubtedly the principal storehouse from which the steward of truth should be careful to draw. But can anyone who recalls the experience of his own childhood willingly forego the use of the Old Testament in his teaching of the young? The Book of Proverbs was compiled purposely for the religious training of the young Israelite ; and it is curious to find a place of honour allotted to it in one of the most modern school-books, the " Chicago Bible," selections from Scripture made in 1895 foi* use in the elementary day schools of that city. The Old Testament, however, has larger light than the wisdom of the Proverbs. " What children need most," it has been well said, " is some teaching to kindle their emotions, give them an ideal impulse, and start them on the upward path." Prudence and self-interest are splendid safeguards ; but for spiritual development we need a nobler nurture — " We live by admiration, hope, and love." Hence the value of the Psalms, with their sunny heights of praise and their depths of awe and wonder ; and of the biographies of patriarch and king, showing us the struggles of the true man, and his defeats and his victories ; and of CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD 325 the ancient histories and traditions, disclosing the Eternal in His creative activity, His mighty providence, and His righteous rule. It is the Old Testament, in many of its parts, which the child, so far from stumbling at them, understands better than the man. His imagination over- leaps the prosaic difficulties of the story, and grasps the spiritual reality behind. While we are fretting over dis- crepancies and hesitating at miracles, he takes the inner fact in its simplicity, and clothes it with its ideal beauty or magnificence. Genesis itself has been described as a book for babes rather than for scholars. The child wanders with Adam in Eden, or with Abraham among the hills and dales of Canaan, untroubled by variations between Jehovist and Elohist, careless of the line between the historic and the prehistoric, but quite sure that God is in the company. He would lose some of his most precious inspirations if he were cut off from the heroes and saints of the Old Testa- ment. Surely he may retain them without serious detri- ment to his intelligence. If there are interpolations in the story of David and Goliath, they do not touch the courage and the faith of the adventurous Bethlehemite, or make him a less authentic example of these virtues to the young scholar of to-day. 3. Growth of the Humanitarian Sentiment Another powerful influence on religious thought is the remarkable growth of the humane or altruistic spirit. Half a century ago there were noble philanthropists ; but the mass of society was seldom stirred by the sense of impera- tive duty to the distressed and the downtrodden. It was a sterner and less pitiful world, and we must be thankful for the change. But with increased sensitiveness and sympathy there has come a certain softening of character and a decay of the severer discipline, which is nowhere more perceptible than in school and home. Parental control satisfies itself o 26 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN xMODERN LIGHT with milder restrictions, and too often hesitates to act in presence of the growing self-assertion of the child. Teachers are slow to punish, and even censure is made lenient. It is inevitable that the effect should be felt alike in the form and the colour of religious teaching. The element of fear was never absent from the lessons of our childhood. Some- times it was even an element of terror. " Why are you afraid of God's anger ? " is asked in the Child's Catechism, prepared by Isaac Watts for children of three or four years old. " Because He can kill my body," the child is to answer, " and make my soul miserable after my body is dead." The very cradle song, otherwise so simple and beautiful, with which the mother lulled her little one to rest, contains such a verse as this — " 'Twas to save thee, child, from dying, Save thee from the burning flame. Bitter groans and endless crying, That thy blest Redeemer came." No mother could sing that verse now ; no teacher could dictate that answer. We have moved, during the lifetime of men in middle age, out of one atmosphere into another. The pendulum of change has indeed swung to the opposite extreme. Many parents would now hesitate to speak to their children of divine punishments at all. In their estimate, sin is but a slip or an infirmity, venial in a man, and almost imperceptible in a child ; and judgment and condemnation have passed into figures of speech. God is an indulgent and almost an indifferent Father, embracing bad and good in His universal but shallow benevolence. If it is impos- sible for children to escape the influence of such opinions, it is impossible for us to ignore them. The humanitarian sentiment has softened our views of religion, but it must not be allowed to emasculate them. We shall take no step backward toward the old unnatural harshness ; for it was a slur on the nature of God, and a contradiction to His word ; CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD 327 and we shall studiously guard our little ones against alarm. But it is equally culpable to conceal from them, as they grow older, the more awful aspects of truth. A God in whose Fatherhood there is no reserve of severity, a universe whose soft sunshine is never darkened by cloud or disturbed by thunder, are as useless as they are unreal. " There is no nerve," says Dr. Kushnell, " in a Gospel of mere specu- lative philanthropism." If we are silent about the fires of hell, let us make perfectly plain the permanence of the moral law, and the certainty of retribution. We may prefer in our instructions to dwell most on the mercy of God ; but that mercy must be presented in its true majesty, moving hand in hand with righteousness, and bringing pardons sealed with blood. 4. Fainter Sense of the Supernatural There remains the most serious of all the changes with which we have to reckon. The last forty years have witnessed the exaltation of natural science almost into a religion, and a corresponding decline in the sense of the supernatural. The earlier tendency of the principle of evolution, in particular, was to banish the idea of God to a great distance, and to dim the vision of a world behind the veil. It is true that the materialism with which we were once threatened is now seen to be by no means involved in the new philosophy ; and the first alarm has given place to interest and inquiry. But a new atmosphere of thought has been created, which the young scholars of our day inhale with their early lessons, with the literature which they read, and the conversation to which they listen ; and it must affect their apprehension of religion. They must, if they have any intelligence, look at the history of mankind, and at the proofs of creative intelligence, from a new standpoint and in a new light. They may be tempted to relegate all religious questions to the region 328 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT of the unknown. For if nature is once made all in all, God may be dispensed with — " mis en disponibilitc" is the recent French phrase — and forgotten. And it may follow, in the words of F. W. Myers, " that the portion of the educated world which Science leads, will wake up to find that the great hope of a future life, which inspired their fathers, is insensibly vanishing away." ^ The theory of evolution has its acknowledged limita- tions ; and the extent to which it may modify the expression of theological thought is matter for inquiry. We should point out to the learner that it does not profess to touch the substance of religious truth. " Spiritual powers," says Mr. Darwin, " cannot be compared or classed by the naturalist." " We should show where and how it may properly influence our conceptions of particular doctrines. But above all, we should seek to reinforce the sense of the supernatural by pointing to the positive present facts of Christian experience and conduct, to the movements of God in history and daily life, to the revelations of Scrip- ture, and to Jesus Christ. If only the reality of His mission is acknowledged, a door is at once opened into heaven, and the Father is revealed in the Son. III. SOME RESULTING OUTLINES OF RELIGIOUS TEACHING It remains to inquire in what form the particular truths which we desire to teach emerge from the legitimate influ- ences of the age, and how they should be presented to the opening mind. It is only an approach to the answer that can be here attempted ; and even the approach is made with diffidence, ^ Science and a Fid lire Life, p. 2. " Descent 0/ Ma?t, vol. i. p. 186. CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD 329 I . TJic Nature of the Child The child has to be taught something of his own nature ; and this is the first point on which the teacher must desire to be accurately informed. He will draw his conclusions largely from his own observations ; but he takes advantage of such careful " Studies of Childhood " as Professor Sully has recently collected, of the results of Christian experience, and of the unerring guidance of the New Testament. There is one element of confusion from which at the outset we may keep our subject clear. The idea that the child comes into the world under God's wrath and curse, and that, if he dies in infancy, he is excluded from God's presence, has no place in our belief. Equally foreign to it is the corresponding doctrine, that by the waters of baptism the sinful little soul is washed white and made a possessor of eternal life. We know no distinction between infants baptized and unbaptized. The blessing of our Lord fell upon all children, when He took the little ones of Capernaum in His arms and claimed them as His own. The child comes into the world, it is true, with an inheritance of evil. The signs of a Fall, for which any authentic theory of evolution must find room, soon make themselves manifest, and a bias is disclosed which could not have sprung from the will of the Creator. But this is not his only inheritance. His nature is like a pool where sweet and bitter waters mingle, or like a plant with a root of one kind and a graft of another. A pure and pious ancestry may bequeath its benediction to the generations that follow in an innate disposition to virtue and godliness. But above all, the impress of the Father of spirits is to be discerned. The child arrives already to some extent furnished and prepared for the life which he has to lead. There are signs soon evident of an Origin as well as of a Fall ; of moral OJ^ THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT faculties which are surely direct gifts from God ; of a per- sonal will, apart from all heredity, which will presently make it possible for him to appropriate the revelations of heavenly love, and so to overcome the less favourable tendencies of his nature and environment. No one who knows children would venture to claim for them the reputation of angels or saints, Saintliness and the deeper spirituality are the attainment of long and painful experience. The innocence of childhood is beautiful ; but it is of an equilibrium as unstable as that of primitive man. If " sin is lawlessness," ^ the germs of it may very early be detected in the child. " I won't " and " I don't care " — words which so soon find utterance — betray at least a certain moral imperfection. The cool falsehoods of some children, the mean excuses of others, the bursts of passion, the signs of greed or jealousy or even malice, are not, it is true, to be judged too seriously in such youthful culprits ; but they are the seed out of which may easily develop the sins and shames of later life. Even among some of those brought up under religious influence there arise sad instances of evil which show the unregenerate nature, active from an early age, and too strong for ordinary education. There are few grown boys or girls whom we need hesitate to teach what was taught with many proofs and particulars a generation ago, that they have " sinned against God in thought, word, and deed, and deserved His anger." To exclude the mention of sin is to attempt to obliterate a spiritual fact. Experienced observers express no uncertainty here. " I am daily more and more struck," wrote Dr. Arnold from the midst of his Rugby work, " with the difficulty of meeting the various temptations, both intellectual and moral, which stand in the way of boys ; a school shows as undisguisedly as any place the corruption of human nature, and the ^ I John iii. 4. CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD 33 1 monstrous adv'antasje with which evil starts in its contest with good." ^ On the other hand, the child comes up into life with many right dispositions, and many splendid capacities for good. His endless questions about God and the unseen disclose a surprising readiness of understanding. He is eager to know all that we can tell him on such themes, and full of quaint fancies and ingenious explanations of his own. He can submit cheerfully to law as well as defy it. Like his elders, he approves the right even when he follows the wrong. He is capable of self-sacrifice as well as self- seeking. He can readily be taught to pray ; and his prayers are often of the most sincere and pathetic character. Love to God and an anxious desire to please Him are sometimes manifest at a very early age. It is untrue to speak of the child nature as utterly depraved. Examples of depravity can easily be presented, and considering the environments in which they are formed, they are not sur- prising. But in the heart of the roughest lads, if only the teacher digs deep enough, he comes at last to the waters of repentance ; and from the same class the " Boys' Brigades " are fast producing an altogether unexpected power of order and obedience. Capacity for uprightness and honour, for kindness and generosity, for religious faith and loyalty, shows itself among all classes of our English youth. And, indeed, most of us can point to some favoured instances in which children seem to grow up almost without blame, so consistent is their conduct and so sweet and devout their disposition. There is an aspect, therefore, of the nature of the child in which its movements need to be developed rather tlian repressed. The moral faculty waits to be instructed, and the religious experience to be cultivated and confirmed. " To live by duty is in itself rudimentary religion." ' .Arnold's Life and Correspondence, \'ol. i. p. 33S. 332 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT Morality is the basis of religion. The theologians of the past generation might have objected to the statement ; but it would be well if in our practical instructions we laid the stress which they laid on morality. For indeed the Ten Commandments, wisely understood, have as real a bearing on religion as the Lord's Prayer. " Thou shalt," and " Thou shalt not," make plain the path of the child, and hedge it in with wholesome warning and restriction, " Children, obey " is the one special word which Paul addresses to the young.^ Let obedience take the wider form and breathe the warmer spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, and it is already the germ of faith and love. Encourage the child to be dutiful to his parents, and affectionate and self-forgetful, and you have prepared him to accept the higher obligations ; and if he is willing to accept the obligations of religion, he is not far from accepting its offers of strength and salvation. A child's religious experience is often very beautiful and true. It is also as a matter of course imperfect and onesided ; and the earnest teacher has often been in too much haste to correct it. He has tried to fix the child's thoughts in a particular mould, or to force them to an unnatural maturity. He has been dissatisfied unless the child could feel himself a great sinner, and accept in all its fulness the divine way of salvation. Sometimes words ot ecstatic devotion have been put into his lips ; or a public confession of faith has been prematurely asked of him, and, perhaps, prematurely made, with unhappy consequences at a later stage. Now all these things may properly follow as his experience increases ; but a child should be allowed to remain a child. " Line upon line " is the rule to be observed in his instruction. Let him yield Jesus frank and loyal service, and pray with unquestioning trust to his Obedience, prompt, implicit, and almost unconscious, is the first thing to be taught to a child ; and he can have no peace for his soul without it."— Sir Henry Taylor. CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD ^^^ Father in heaven ; and by degrees the deeper sense of things will dawn. Let him be taught to Hsten to the voice of conscience, and he will soon discover the reality of sin and the need of pardon. Let him be encouraged to fight his own battle, and sense of his weakness will awaken the cry for heavenly aid. In many instances our young pilgrims may pass onward from grace to grace, not without many faults and shortcomings, but spared at least the dreary waste of ungodly years, or the catastrophe of a great trans- gression. The blossom may fall, but the fruit will follow ; and we might be more successful in our spiritual husbandry, if we acted more on this expectation. Such a conception of the child's religious life in no way contradicts the necessity for conversion. Conversion is turning to God, and turning to God may be the work of an instant or the gradual movement of years. Those are the most striking instances in which the turning-point is marked, as in the case of Saul of Tarsus or Augustine, by a voice from heaven at a given time and place ; but conversion is as true when it comes slowly like the verdure of an English spring. Those who seem to us the best and most blame- less will respond to the appeal to " turn to God." They, too, are conscious of having " turned every one to his own way." Struggles pass in their young hearts of which they rarely speak. They have convictions of sin which, if they were freely uttered, would astonish us. They understand the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree. They understand that of the Prodigal Son, and it is often with tears and prayers like his that they arise and come to their Father. It is most desirable that all young persons, before they pass into manhood or womanhood, should be personally confronted with their duty in this respect. The Church of England has its Confirmation Service ; and a hallowed hour it has been to many of her sons when, with their own con- sent, they were pledged to " confess the faith of Christ 334 THE ANCIENT p-AITH IN MODERN LIGHT crucified, and to continue His faithful soldiers and servants unto their life's end." We also ought to summon our boys and girls to decision in the same great Name, It should be made less easy than it often is for them to slip out into the world unconverted. For to do so is to miss their grandest opportunity. " Rejoice that such a word as con- version, signifying such a thing, has come to light in our modern era. Here a man's spiritual majority commences ; henceforth he works in well-doing with the spirit and clear aims of a man." ^ " All things are of God " ; and the regenerating grace of His Spirit is as active in the development of the new life in Timothy as in the sudden awakening of the Philippian jailer. We hold as firmly as our fathers held the necessity for the new birth. Perhaps we look for the traces of it over a wider field. It is always God who works in us for our salvation, whether He snatches a wandering sheep out of the very jaws of the lion, or leads the lambs of His flock forth along the paths of peace. " We know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of Him." " 2. TJie Child's TJioughts of God and the Unseen Wor/d A firm belief in an unseen world seems to be among the earliest experiences of the child. His imagination quickly seizes on the dream of a fairyland peopled with mysterious forms and full of unlikely adventures. More serious teaching prompts him to construct a heaven, if not also a hell, after his own mind, and to fill it with orders of supernatural beings. There is perhaps no direction in which, without scorning his flights of fancy, it is more necessary to guide and sober them. We do not grudge him his glowing material conception of heaven. Streets of gold, a shining river, palms and crowns and a white-robed multitude stand as inspired parables of the eternal fact. ^ Carlyle, Sartor Resartus^ ii. lo. - i John ii. 29. CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD 335 But when it is believed, as some American children are said to believe, that " good people, when they die, go to the country," or that God "lives up on the hill," and can be approached by climbing the apple tree,^ there is surely room for a little spiritual colouring to be added to the materialism of the thought. A child may easily be made to understand that heaven is first a character and then a place, and that to cultivate the character is the best way toward under- standing the place. It is a change almost entirely for the better that the continual mention of heaven and its angelic inhabitants, once so marked a feature in children's hymns and stories, has given place to a more robust and practical presentation of the Christian life. Whatever weight we may attach to Satanic influence, the less our children think of it the better. Their minds are singularly apt to weave the notion of the devil into all kinds of forms, some horrible and some merely grotesque. Both the alarm and the amusement thus occasioned are unhealthy. Mephistopheles may be very real to the man ; there is no need for him to be allowed to haunt the child. His very image should be kept far in the background. " Do you not believe in the devil, sir ? " was once asked of Robert Hall. " No, sir," he replied ; " I believe in God." He well knew the power of the enemy ; but his faith was fixed on his everlasting Friend. The first idea of God which a child naturally receives is from the watchful and tender mother, and it becomes the idea of a Providence. " He keeps me from harm by night and by day, and He is always doing me good," is the earliest confession of the child's faith ; it often remains the principal religious conviction of the man. With the attempts at prayer, that dim sense of Providence con- denses into the clearer thought of a Father in heaven ; and this should by degrees develop into a persuasion of • Sully, Studies of Childhood^ pp. 122, 126. ^2,6 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the present Friend and Helper, waiting to be gracious, to forgive, and to restore. The love of God is the con- stant element and the frequent theme of our religious instructions. No theological scruple need now paralyse the mother's tongue, or leave the earnest child trembling in the chill of the outer courts. The universal Fatherhood, of course, embraces him, and the tenderest illustrations drawn from human love are applicable to the divine. It is perhaps more necessary to be reminded that the thought of sovereignty must go side by side with that of Fatherhood. There is an easy and familiar conception of God's goodness which robs Him of all dignity and all authority. It was never more necessary to teach the child that in the human family the father is also the king. But the Heavenly Father is the Supreme King; in His discipline " all's love, yet all's law," The child must never be allowed to suppose that God can be weak or variable. He must be taught that the law of right and wrong is God's law ; that conscience is God's voice ; that penalty follows sin, and is God's judgment; and that God's eye watches him, justly and kindly, moment by moment. Children, it is said, will not now brook the thought of God's omniscience. " I'm very sorry, dear, I can't believe you," was the rejoinder of one precocious little man of three years old to his sister's teaching on the subject.-^ If the truth was put in the threatening and hostile tone once so common, such scepticism would not be surprising. But the image of the Father's loving and searching eye, if at times unwelcome, is not incredible even to the youngest. No motive is better fitted to penetrate the child's mind with a wholesome reverence and awe. Let it be coupled with the thought of stainless holiness, unerring justice, and tender consideration and compassion, and it becomes one of the strongest aids in the formation of a true religious principle. ^ Sully, Studies of Childhood, p. 129. CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD 337 The old Hebrew Psalm, which presents the all-encompass- ing Jehovah in such imposing forms, overawes, but does not embitter or confuse ; and its issue is a prayer full of child- like confidence and hope," Lead me in the way everlasting." No opportunity should be lost of impressing on the child's mind the majesty of the Creator. Simple and picturesque his thought of God must be ; but with the wonders of the universe in view, it need never be allowed to become mean or unworthy.^ The youngest mind may be led upward to the throne by the splendour of a starry night, or the roll of the ocean, or the yearly miracle of spring. Nor need the child lose his wonder as he advances in his knowledge. His new conceptions of the order and immensity of nature ; of the vast prehistoric ages, and the immeasurable spaces in which countless systems roll ; of the wonders of the infinitely little, and the complex pro- cesses that have issued in the life of the world of to-day, should but kindle his apprehension of the Infinite God from whom all things proceed. It is not science that makes our young agnostics ; it is the want of a positive religious belief, such as should have been interwoven with their earliest impressions. A child trained to believe in the Creator interprets the fuller discoveries of riper years in the light of his faith. The steady ascent of the hill of knowledge does not dwarf the height of the heavens ; from the summit they seem to soar even more glorious than from the plain — " At Nature dost thou shrink amazed ? God is it that transcends." It is urged that we cannot point out to our children the mind of the Creator at work in the direct and specific way in which we ourselves were taught to discern it. The '"The little brain,"' mixing; religious instruction and fairy-lore together, is apt to " picture God as an angry or amiable old giant." — Sully, Studits of Childhood, p. 125. 22 338 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT form and colour and perfume of a flower were once accounted for by the answer, God made it so. They are now explained by the history of the species, and the action of its environ- ment. The botanist, it is suggested, has superseded the theologian. In point of fact, he has been his assistant. The more curious and complex the natural evolution, the more admirable must be the intelligence which has assured so fine an issue from so remote an origin. And the vaster the universe appears, with the ever -fresh discoveries of science, the more majestic is the power which created and sustains the whole — " A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things." We may still tell the child, God made the flowers. He can be no more denied His own flowers than, to adapt an expression of Mr. Romanes,^ He can be denied His own universe. Train the child's eye to observe all the delicate processes of natural causation ; but accustom his mind to travel upward to the source of life, and to discern every- where the present God. The example of men like Faraday and Clerk Maxwell shows how fitly a childlike faith may blend with the largest knowledge and the strongest under- standing. Such an assurance enables us to give the child, not only a just conception of the universe, but a fuller and worthier thought of God. It is this august Creator to whom he prays, who watches over him, whom he calls his Father. It is this vast and profound intelligence which searches his heart, weighs his actions, and controls his destiny. These lips of thunder pronounce his pardon, and he may find his home and shelter in these everlasting arms. It gives a new grandeur to the gospel when he is 1 " God is still grudged His own nn'wtvsQ:' — Thoughts ojt Religion, p. 122. CIIKISTIAMTV Ai\D THE CHILD 339 taught to recognise in Jesus, half-concealed behind the veil of his human nature, the very Word of God, by whom all things were made. 3. The Child and our Lord Jesus Christ Jesus Christ is emphatically the children's Friend, and they should be allowed to draw their impression of Him direct from His own life and lips. It was usual, not so very long ago, to present II im even to the young in the full panoply of theological definition as " the Redeemer of Ciod's elect, the eternal Son of God, God and man in two distinct natures and one person for ever." All a mother's tact and tenderness must have been needed to bring out of that description a Jesus whom her boy could love. The true method is to start from the historical and the human side, and so to come gradually to the conviction that He whose footsteps we trace is the Divine Saviour of the world. The teacher's first endeavour, therefore, must be to plant " the story of Christ " firmly in the memory, the understanding, and the heart. The very structure of the New Testament canon shows how carefully this was pro- vided for in the first ages of the Church. The Gospels hold the place of honour ; and of the Gospels, the Synoptic narratives, with their homely tale of all that Jesus did and taught, precede the more elaborate memoirs of John. John begins his Epistle by founding all that is to follow on the his- tory of which he and his brethren had been eye-witnesses. The history is presupposed in the other Epistles. It is the scientific order ; first the facts, then the inferences and the laws. " A certain nucleus of ascertained fact has been in all ages regarded as a needful prerequisite of faith." ^ The evangelists, it is evident, thought no pains too great in order to secure to young and old an accurate and con- ' F. W. Myers, Science ami a Future Life, p. 122. 340 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT nected view of the whole course of events from the first to the last.^ The utmost value is to be attached to whatever may help to make the gospel narrative vivid and impressive to the mind of the child. Travel and research have now almost reproduced for us the environment of actual scenery and human life in which it was enacted. The poorest child can tell, from the maps and prints on the schoolroom walls, where the Lake of Galilee or the Mount of Olives lie, and what they are like ; he has before his eyes the image of the Pharisee, and the Roman soldier, and the Arab robber from the desert ; he can picture the kind of home in which Jesus lived, the food He ate, the dress He wore, the boat He sailed in, the Cross on which He suffered, and the sepulchre from which He rose. It is a pleasant province of the teacher's art to bring such illustrations to bear on the various scenes in the history, and to add others drawn from his own larger information. But another element must be also supplied before the sacred story is made real. The heavenly atmosphere is as essential to its understanding as the earthly environment. The soul of the thing has to be reached. No painting of the contours and colours of Hermon, however exact and vivid, can make us feel the Transfiguration as it really was ; it needs the spiritual touch of a Raphael. No traveller's description of Bethlehem or Calvary can bring the child much nearer to the Cradle or the Cross ; Mrs. Alexander's simple hymns will make them both leap to life in his ready imagination. " Ecce Homo," even on the lowest view of what He was, involves so much more than the colour of the robe He wore, or the species of the thorns which formed His crown ! The child's mind is ready for the whole fact in all its wonder and mystery ; and the teacher's task is not fulfilled till he has led him to the ' Luke i. 1-4 ; Acts i. 1-3 ; John \x. 30, 31. CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD 34 1 heart of the story, and presented Jesus in some measure as He was. We thus approach our Lord's Person on His human side, and allow the Son of Man to become His own interpreter. It is the course recommended to us by His training of the first disciples. " Not direct dogmatic asser- tions about Himself led up to the first Christian con- fession, Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God, but the united and accumulated impression of all He was and did, upon a sincere and receptive soul." ^ Let a child be taught to watch Jesus at His work, healing the leper, comforting the widow, forgiving the sinful, raising the dead, and he will find out for himself how wonderful He is ; he will be prepared to hear of the saving virtue of His death, and he will not be startled at His resurrection and ascension. After the opening glories of the birth, which colour all that follows, the learner will be led, by the short glimpses of the boyhood, to think of Jesus as his pattern of obedience, piety, and faithfulness in common things. The example has itself an immense attraction, and no one appreciates it more keenly than an intelligent child. It starts from his own level in the quiet home at Nazareth ; it leads him on by its purity, its gentleness, its tender compas- sion and benevolence ; and if it ov^erawes him at last by its sublime self-sacrifice, it only confirms his admiration. The enthusiasm which an ordinary gathering of men can be roused to exhibit at the name of Jesus, shows how deep a dint must have been made by I lis character on their hearts in younger and more susceptible days. Starting from the example, we arrive at the words antl the works of Jesus. They form one great revelation of truth ; for the works are " signs," and every miracle is also a parable of grace. The child is at home with the Great ' Denney, Studies in Theology, p. 25 342 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT Teacher. Philosophers cannot exhaust that heavenly wisdom ; but it is " revealed to babes." Clearer perhaps to them than it sometimes is to us, is the vision of the king- dom which He came to establish, and over which He rules. They can understand that its citizens must be the humble and the holy and those who hunger after righteousness. They can appreciate the beauty of its laws, under which all are to care for one another, and to do right without seek- ing for reward. They see that they have only to be true children, simple and trustful, in order to belong to it them- selves. No less transparent to them is the thought of the Father in heaven, who cares for the lilies and the sparrows, and to whom we pray alike for the coming of the kingdom and for daily bread. By the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree they learn how neglect and ingratitude are sins. From that of the Publican and Pharisee they are taught humility. Faith shows itself in the cries and move- ments of Bartimaeus ; and every blind eye opened and every palsy healed becomes a picture of salvation. The child looks and listens and believes ; for, as Vinet has said, " faith is simple looking, as a child looks, with no attempt to analyse the object, but receiving it just as it is into the soul." So, line upon line, he learns of Jesus ; and if the pro- cess has been wisely ordered, the theological result will not be seriously wrong. The child's idea will answer to Peter's great confession. There is little need, by arguments from without, to prove Him divine : the difficulty is to imagine that He can be anything else. The word atone- ment may scarcely have arrested his attention ; the various theories that attempt to explain it are beyond his depth ; but he sings his simple creed and understands it — " He died that \vc might be forgiven. He died to make us good ; That we might go at last to heaven, Saved by His precious blood." CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD 343 Nor, with the great sacrifice in view, need he take long to learn that salvation is free, needing no sacrament to con- vey, no priest to mediate, no Church to confirm it ; " it is Christ that died," and rose and reigns. It must be the living Christ, our Advocate before the throne, and through His Spirit the indwelling life of our souls, in whom the child is encouraged to believe. " Every child, before it is capable of choice," says Dr. Dale, " is environed by Christ's protection and grace ; and its earliest moral life may be a life in Christ." ^ Surely, if the assurance may be given to any portion of the flock that the Good Shepherd is close at hand with a personal knowledge and care for all, it must be to the lambs whom He carries in His bosom. They cannot be too soon accustomed to hear His call and look up into His face. A child's prayers indeed take for granted that Jesus is quite near, that He understands everything, that He inter- cedes for us with God. Luther's little daughter was sometimes surer of it, as her father confesses, than Luther himself. The boy -martyrs of the early age went in that persuasion cheerful to their cruel death ; and Savonarola's glowing faith found no response in all Florence like that which came from the youthful bands whom he sent singing the Saviour's praises through its streets. It is still an immense moral and spiritual reinforcement, when children feel the Divine Saviour at their side and in their hearts. It gives a clear centre to their thoughts ; it makes it easy to conceive of God as approachable, a Father to be loved as well as feared. It nerves the young heart to withstand temptation, and bear pain, and overcome the dread of ridicule, and breast the stiff ascent of unwelcome duty. It ma)^ well be believed that the presence of the Lord was hardly more real and precious to Moffat or Paton when the spear of the savage was ^ lectures on the Epistle to tJic Ephcsians, p. 379. 344 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT pointed at their breasts, than it is to many an EngHsh boy standing up to-day among his schoolfellows for conscience and for Christ. Thus by their own simple experience may our chil- dren be taught the meaning of " the communion of the Holy Spirit"; and, without any elaborate definition of the Trinity, be led on to associate it with " the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ " and " the love of God." The whole gospel is theirs as well as ours. It is " not by lowering the truth, but by raising the mind," that the end we have in view for them is reached. 4. TJie CJiild and the Church The distinctive mark of the Christian Church is its spiritual character. The nation represents unity of race ; the family, unity of parentage ; the political party, unity of opinion ; but the Church " is held together by unity oi faith." ^ Nor is this unity of faith simply intellectual and doctrinal ; it is even more the unity of soul, which knits a man by bonds of trust and love, first to his Lord, and then to all his brethren. Wherever a company of such disciples is found, however small and obscure, there is a Church. Where that spiritual mark is wanting, there may be creeds and confessions, sacraments and priesthood, an establish- ment of religion and all the externals of worship, but there is no Church in the Christian sense, for a Church is com- posed of saints. Now the saintly character, even in its germ, is the result of a personal conversion. Christians are not born Christians ; they become Christians by their obedience to the call of God and the inward working of His Spirit. The basis of church membership is the trust of the whole soul in Jesus Christ as Saviour and King, the ^ Westcott, Epistles of St. John, Essay on "The Church and the World," p. 248. CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD 345 surrender of the will to His authority, and the confession of His name.^ The fitness or unfitness of a child for membership, therefore, is not to be decided by his age. Youth is no disqualification. Just as the phrase "adult baptism" be- trays a misconception of the position of Baptists, so to confine the fellowship of the Church to persons of an older growth is to mistake the principle on which that fellowship rests. It is the baptism of believers that Baptists teach and practise, and the ordinance is refused to no one on the score of his youth. So into the privileges of the Church Baptists and Independents welcome with equal warmth " both young men and maidens, old men and children," if only they " belong to Christ." It may be expedient, in certain circumstances, that a very young disciple should, for his own sake, wait until he has had some opportunity to test his loyalty by contact with a larger world. It is unadvisable even to attempt to force our older boys and girls into the Church. Let them come of their own accord. But when the desire appears intelligent and well founded, we cannot resist it ; for the Church is the household of faith, and the youngest believer has a right to be there. The same principle, however, equally requires that we do not receive children into membership merely because they are children. The Church should cherish all children with the tenderest care, and, both in home and school, encompass them with holy influences ; but the profession of faith in Christ must be their personal choice. It is not children as baptized children, or as children of believing parents, who are citizens of the kingdom of heaven ; but children in whom the spiritual ideal of childhood is in some measure realised. Neither birth nor baptism avails here, but " faith which worketh by love " ; and what admits to ' .See the excellent Primer of Cliurch Fellowship for Use in Con- jrregational Churches, pp. 22-26. 346 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the kingdom admits also to the Church. The ancient gloss on the narrative of Philip and the Ethiopian still holds o-ood : " if thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest." So considered, church membership appears in its true di^-nity as neither a dead form nor a barren sentiment, but the natural expression of a valid and joyful experience. It is the reality of the whole thing that we chiefly desire to impress upon our children. We are jealous for Congregational Church principles, not from a mere sectarian prejudice, but from the conviction that they embody, more closely than any others, the New Testament idea and the purpose of Christ. We are often reminded that our practice falls short of our principles, and we do not deny it ; but it is better to strive after the real than to be con- tented with the unreal. It was no shadow for which our fathers strove and suffered when they stood alike against Prelatist and Puritan for the freedom and spirituality of the Churches ; nor must we fail in holding fast and handing- down the same immortal principle to the generation following. But we do not train them to be chiefly con- troversialists ; we are more anxious that they should find a strength for their own inner life in the Church of Jesus Christ ; a true home, and a school of sacred learning, and an exercise-ground where they may be trained for the service of their fellow-men. Canon Gore has drawn a vivid and attractive picture, from his own point of view, of the Church as the Household of Grace.^ He represents her as receiving the newborn child into her arms at baptism, and making him thereby a member of Christ. As childhood ripens into youth, she meets him in Confirmation with the gift of the Holy Ghost, and thereafter nourishes his new life with the body and blood of Jesus. If he wanders, she revives and restores him with the sacrament of penance. She sanctifies his ^ Creed of a CJirisltaii, pp. 76, 77. CHKISTIAMTV AND THE CHILD 34/ marriage with her benediction ; slie comes to him in sick- ness with the holy oil or other holy ministries ; and, in the last great issue, it is she who " ushers his soul into the unseen world." Such a description does not commend itself to our acceptance, however it may awaken our interest ; for it seems to us to set the Church, her ministers, and her sacraments, where only Christ should be. But if we reject that picture, we may substitute for it one of our own. The parent among us is left at first with the whole responsibility for the child. The Church has its classes and its services where it rejoices to receive him, and where ministers and teachers do their utmost for his good ; and the members of the Church are usually full of a warm interest in one another's families. But no one comes between child and parent ; and if the parent fulfils his duty, there is no need for other teachers ; for no religious influence can be so beneficial as a Christian mother's personal instructions. Only when the child expresses a desire to make a pro- fession of his faith does the Church directly intervene. Then, according to Congregational order, the name is announced at a meeting of the members ; the community inquire into the application, and the community receive the candidate. He takes his place at the Table of the Lord, welcomed with the right hand of fellowship, recognised as a brother, and henceforth watched over as a son. His own friends and his father's friends gather round him with con- gratulations on his decision and prayers for his perseverance. He feels himself one of the Lord's household ; and there, as the years pass on, he finds his truest happiness. The com- munion (love-feast and memorial service in one) binds him constantly afresh to his Saviour and his Christian comrades. Somewhere in the Church's enterprises he is introduced to his own post of service, and contributes in his measure to its usefulness. He also, when the time comes for him 34^ THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT to marry, receives the benediction of the Church, as precious to him as if it were called a sacrament ; if he falls ill, he is sustained by the visits and the prayers of his brethren ; if he wanders or grows cold, they seek him out and labour to restore him ; and when death is drawing near, they encompass him with the strong sympathy of devout hearts, more effectual than any sacred wafer or priestly absolution. That, at least, is the ideal which we cherish ; and that is what we desire our children to find in the " household of faith." The Church, however, is more than a home. The days arc past when a young Christian might settle down, unre- proved, to the enjoyment of his own privileges and the care of his own soul. There is rather on his own part likely to be " a longing for something more magnanimous than the calm and indulgent Christianity "i which is still not un- common. There are budding Greathearts among our sons; and if some of our daughters are adorned with the meek and quiet spirit of Mercy, others are as brave as Christiana. It should not be necessary for such ardent spirits to leave the fellowship of the Church in search of adventure. The Church should be a centre of lofty opportunities and aspira- tions, like King Arthur's hall at Camelot — " Where every morning brought a noble chance, And every chance drew forth a noble knight." But so also should it be a training-ground for the feebler and less enterprising. Even the blind and the lame must have some post found for them on the walls of our Jerusalem ; for the law of the kingdom is, " to every one his work," A youth or maiden may have at first to be contented with a humble office, and must follow rather than lead ; but the sacred discipline will have begun ; and as the French soldier is said to carry a marshal's baton in his ' The words were used of Alice Le Strange, afterwards Mrs. Laurence Oliphant. CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHILD 349 knapsack, so, from teaching the youngest group of children in the Sunday school, or managing the smallest department of the Guild, a way may open to the career of the preacher, the missionary, or the social reformer. The business of the Church is to keep the sacred passion of humanity alive in the hearts of her children, and to prepare them to become, by their Master's grace, the benefactors of the world. The Church must continue to instruct as well as inspire ; for growth in knowledge is necessary in order to sustained and effectual endeavour. Our young converts, indeed, according to the suggestions of this Essay, are alread}' scholars in the elements of divine learning, and that scholar- ship will be of signal value. They will be able at once to impart simple lessons from the Bible with intelligence and effect, or to explain to an inquirer what he must do to be saved. But the more they are called to teach others, the more eager they should be to advance themselves. The student of medicine goes from his clinical practice in the hospital back to his lecture-room and his books. Practice makes his eye keen and his hand expert, but science must guide them both. Sometimes a young Christian becomes so soon absorbed in active service that his own learning comes to a standstill. He may do excellent work; but it will be a lifelong weakness and regret that he did not stay longer in the school of divine knowledge, and that no Aquila and Priscilla were found to " expound to him the way of God more carefully." Let the Churcn see to it that her teachers are taught, and that her evangelists have a full apprehension of the gospel which they preach. Where the home and the school have laid the foundation, let the pre- paration class, the biblical lecture, the library, the exposi- tions of the pulpit, build up the solid walls of truth. The wise damsels of the House Beautiful take Christiana's boys in hand on their arrival, test their acquirements, approve their answers, and proceed to instruct them further. They 350 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT do not spare the noble Christian himself. They have him not only into the armoury, but into the study ; " and there they read to him records of the greatest antiquity, and showed him the pedigree of the Lord of the hill, and the acts that He had done, and the names of His servants, and many other famous things." " These," says Bunyan, " are among the rarities of that place " ; and, thus instructed, the pilgrim went forth to enlighten and edify the weaker souls he met with in the way. There are changes even among the inmates of the Palace Beautiful ; and it is impossible for modern church members to discourse together in the language which sounds so natural and appropriate from the lips of Prudence, Piety, and Charity. Every age must have its own forms of Christian language and thought. Our children's children will not use the exact dialect in which we speak one with another of eternal things. The expression may be allowed to vary, if the substance remains. Every night, in the old village life, the bank of wood or turf which had built up the tribal fire was swept away, and another w^as constructed in the morning. But one glowing ember was selected, care- fully placed upon the hearth, and covered over with ashes. It was called " the seed of fire." The fuel for the new day was piled round it, and caught from it heat and light. Theological systems are the construction of the age, and every generation may be left to build its own. But here also the " seed of fire " is a sacred trust. The central faith, " once for all delivered to the saints," has been reverently preserved and handed down from the days of the apostles ; it has warmed and comforted us ; and we in turn bequeath it to our children. That fire, indeed, burns on the altar of the penitent and loving heart in every generation, and shall never go out ; for it is " the word of ■God which liveth and abideth for ever." IX THE PULPIT AND THP: PRESS By J. GUINNESS ROGERS 361 IX The Pulpit and the Press It is not too much to say of the Christian preacher, what was once said of the Church, of which he is one of the most conspicuous agencies, that he has been and is " everywhere spoken against." It must be added that, the higher his sense of his vocation and the more fully he realises it, the keener will this criticism become. If he be faithful, he must be a power, and a power which must be obnoxious to all the evil against which it is directed. Were he simply a lecturer on some subject of general interest — on science or literature, politics or ethics — he would be sure to provoke some com- ments more or less hostile, as well as others of a friend!}- character. His teaching would probably become the subject of controversy, and be discussed with more or less feeling ; but the feeling would be imported, since it is not necessarily involved in the difference of opinion on any scientific or literary subject. It will probably not be often absent, for the differences are so often due to the temperament, or the training, or the surroundings of the disputants, that warmth of feeling is very easily induced. But in the case of a preacher it is present from the first He speaks with an authority which itself provokes revolt. He is charged with a message from God, and on that very account has to meet with hostile criticism. Certainly he of all men has reason to distrust himself when all men speak well of him. The world has not so entirely changed its character that he can retain its favour, and, at the same time, be faithful to the gospel which he is commissioned to preach. 23 354 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT It is here that one of the chief practical difficulties of a minister of Christ is found. If he does not reach his audience, he is regarded, perhaps comes to regard himself, as a failure. The peril is lest he should seek to secure hearers by appeals which lose sight of the highest ends of his mission, and which, in fact, mean infidelity to his trust. Popularity, it is a mere truism to say, is not a conclusive nor, indeed, an essential element of success. John the Baptist was a mighty preacher, and yet his was the voice of one crying in the wilderness. For a time he attracted crowds, but they did not believe, and he soon found himself deserted. A preacher may be forced into this splendid isolation if he would be faithful, and the loss of popularity may in reality be the most striking evidence of his real greatness and power. A prophet has simply to publish the message of God that (to use the expressive words of Ezekiel), whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, yet shall know that a prophet hath been among them. The supreme con- sideration for him is, that he be true to the trust committed to him. But while a faithful servant of Christ may often have to forego all chances of personal distinction, sometimes to separate himself from chosen friends, and continually to expose himself to misconstruction, this is hardly his normal position. Nor is it one which a man of sane mind would willingly choose for himself. His ardent desire — that which must, indeed, be the passion of his soul — is to save men. But how can he hope to save them unless he can secure an audience from them ? While, therefore, he has at times to set his face like a flint, and, indeed, must be ready to do it at all times rather than compromise his message in a solitary point, he has, so far as fidelity to his great com- mission permits, to set himself to secure the attention, win the sympathy, persuade the understanding, awake the con- science of men. " Knowing, therefore, the fear of the Lord, THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 355 we persuade men," and in order to effect this, Paul tells us that he " became all things to all men." That single phrase is of itself sufficient to indicate the difficulty of the situation. Interpret it as the apostle did in his whole spirit and conduct, and it is a description of one of the grandest of human lives. Here is a man who is able to cast away all his own prejudices, to be indifferent to all considerations of personal feeling or glory, to put himself in touch with the thought and sentiment of other men at the furthest possible remove from his own, to study and humour their weaknesses, to sympathise with their difficulties and doubts — simply in order that he may help them in the battle of life. Clearly everything depends on the motive. Change that, and alas ! it is only too easily changed, so that a purely unselfish desire to glorify God in the salva- tion of men sinks into a base and sordid ambition for personal aggrandisement, and the whole character of the man's work is debased accordingly. The line of action is largely the same. There is the same close study of humanity, the same elasticity of thought and expression in the effort to meet even its caprices, the same anxious care to avoid that which gives offence, and to play upon all the peculiar tastes and fancies of the individual. But every trace of nobility is gone, and the whole action is degraded into a piece of mere selfish scheming of the most unworthy kind. The lowering of the motive must have some effect even upon the methods employed ; for men will stoop to actions for the purpose of securing their own personal ends from which they would have turned away with scorn and loathing had they been possessed by the Christlike passion for saving the lost. Still the essential difference is in the one motive, and the struggle of the Christian preacher is, while following the example of the great apostle, to keep his heart unspotted from the world. It is necessary to point out how difficult this must often be. The man, who has given himself to the work of the 356 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT ministry, in the belief that God has called him to the service, is solemnly bound to use the talents with which he is en- dowed. To neglect the gift that is in him is to fail in one essential part of his duty. It is sheer fanaticism, and fan- aticism of a very bad type — essentially selfish, though unctuous in its pious professions, to indulge in the fancy that God is honoured by a trust in some direct inspiration from heaven which will obviate the necessity for personal effort. But it is manifest that such effort means the study of the methods and arts by which popular success is won. The preacher, if he is wise, will ponder and seek out until he find acceptable words. There will be no department of knowledge with which he will not, to the measure of his abilities and opportunities, seek to make himself familiar. Especially will he carefully study the great masters of human speech, whether in oratory or in song. In these ways he may learn how to employ his own talents to the highest advantage. But this is success, as the world judges success. Perhaps the best preservative against the deroga- tory and even debasing influence of the popularity which may thus be won is for him ever to remember that this is not success. How far it may be the first step towards it will be very largely determined by the spirit in which it is regarded. It may in truth be the most serious hindrance to those grand results in the absence of which the most popular ministry must be pronounced a failure. " Neither at any time," says Paul, " were we found using words of flattery, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness ; God is witness ; nor seeking glory of man, neither from you nor from others." But even had a man the self-renouncing and self-forgetting spirit of Paul when the honour, even though unsought, comes, it is not easy always to detach the heart from it. The difficulty is increased in our own times by the in- creased attention which is given to the pulpit and its work by the press. At first sight it might appear as though this were THE I'ULPIT AND THE PRESS 357 a distinct gain. But there is, to say the least, another side to it, and one of sufficiently grave import. The preacher of to-day lives under very different conditions from those in which our fathers did their work. The journalist thinks it worth his while to study him, to chronicle some of his pro- ceedings, to criticise any of his special utterances. Now and then we have the " booming " of some eloquent preacher who, for one reason or another, happens to be prominent. He is favoured with the visits of interviewers who seek his views on an infinite variety of subjects, and reproduce them with more or less accuracy. He is made the subject of " pen and ink " sketches, in which he is pleasantly informed as to his virtues and also as to his defects. All this is interesting as a tacit recognition that the pulpit is a force, and a force of a very different kind from that which is suggested by the correspondence on the decay of preaching, which is one of the most common annuals of the silly season. But there are dangers lurking in it, especially to the preacher himself. For the standpoint of the journalist, and that from which a Christian minister should con- template his own work, are not only different but often distinctly antagonistic. The wisdom of this world is foolish- ness with God to-day as much as when Paul indited that pregnant and memorable statement as to the kind of success which the gospel had achieved. The successes, therefore, which an observer who judges by a purely worldly standard most appreciates and applauds, may in truth be successes of which, in the higher experiences of his spirit, the preacher may feel heartily ashamed. The critic is not to be blamed for this, for he necessarily judges according to the standard of the world, but the preacher cannot be influenced b)' him without lowering the whole tone of his ministry. For to come back to our starting-point, he is a servant of God, or he has no special claim to be heard. It is this which differentiates the pulpit from all other instruments for 358 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT influencing the world, and this which must always expose it to a specially keen and searching criticism. If a man has only private theories to ventilate, these may be examined without any special irritation. The discussion is a mere intellectual exercise, in which argument is met by counter- vailing argument on the opposite side, and the victory remains with him who can show the highest skill and mastery in logic. Man wrestles with man, and there is the end of it. But if this is all the preacher has to say for him- self, he is indeed in evil condition. For wherein consists his title to instruct or exhort men in relation to the most tremendous realities of their being here and hereafter ? There are numbers who know more as to the world and its inhabitants than he professes to do. Yet he, forced to con- fess his inferiority to the scientist in one sphere and the statesman in another, to the literary man and the historian on one side, and to the man of affairs on the other, still claims to speak to them all with authority on the question which transcends in grandeur and interest all others. It is hardly wonderful that these wise men of the world should be ready to cry with their prototypes on Mars' Hill, " What will this babbler say ? " That celebrated incident stands on the page of sacred story, a striking representation of what is going on around us to-day. There were many subjects on which Paul would have had to admit the superiority of those Epicureans and Stoics. If it had been a battle of human philosophy, it might have been extremely doubtful whether it would be wise for him to enter the lists. His teaching to them was mere babbling — a vain superstition — an idle dream — a sign of madness, not of reasonable thought. Why should they give heed to these visionary fancies of an unlearned Jew? And if this had been the entire account, they would have been right. There was no reason why Paul should instruct them, or why they should listen, if he was simply THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 359 evolving ideas out of his own brain. But had that been Paul's estimate, it is certain he would never have been addressing philosophers on the Areopagus, or indeed have visited Athens at all. He went there as he went every- where, under the constraint of the divine necessity. If he was mistaken in this, and God did not speak through him, he had no place there at all. So is it to-day. The preacher has to address himself continually to men at whose feet he might often be content to sit as a disciple, instead of attempting to be their teacher. They could and often do instruct him on matters of high, though not of the highest, import, and he not only listens with interest, but gratefully makes use of their teachings in order to illustrate and enforce his own. Nothing that has to do with the world and its tenants is alien to him. In every field of intellectual activity he finds that which will help him in his own distinct work, and he is grateful to all by whose labours he profits. But he claims that even to those whom he regards as in many respects his intellectual superiors he has a message to deliver. They may scoff at his pretensions, and if it were a question merely of human wisdom, their scoff might have considerable justification. But that is precisely what the preacher does not claim. He speaks in the name of the Lord God, and only as men feel this can he have power at all. Let this be felt, and the difficulty dis- appears, Paul explains it when he says, " God chose the foolish things of the v/orld that He might put to shame them that are wise ; and God chose the weak things of the world that He might put to shame the things that are strong ; and the base things of the world, and things that are despised did He choose, yea, and the things that are not, that He might bring to nought things that arc." That sums up the story of the pulpit. If the gospel has been the mighty power to salvation, and has justified its right to this distinc- tion through all the centuries, the power has been of God. 360 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT It has still been the foolishness of preaching in the eyes of those who had neither faith in its truth nor sympathy with its aims, but by it God has saved them that believe. There is no idle fanaticism here. The preacher does not profess to have some special revelation from God, enjoyed only by such as are permitted to know the secret thoughts of the Most High, and intrusted with a message to men which they are required to receive on his authority. The message has already been given, and men may study it without his intervention at all. He may be enabled to illustrate it by the results of his study, his observation, or his experience ; but he must beware how he assumes the character of an expert. In the understanding of the gospel he is not the best expert who has the ripest knowledge of the language in which it was first given, or the circumstances under which it was delivered ; but he whose sympathy with its spirit and submission to its teaching has given him the spiritual insight which makes him quick to discern its true meaning. There are still things hidden from the wise and prudent which are made known to the babes ; and to the end the childlike spirit will serve the student of the divine message better than the most cultured intellect. The preacher's first and chief work, especially in a country like ours, is not so much instruction as exhortation. No doubt there are prejudices to be removed, mistakes to be corrected, neglected views of the truth to be more clearly presented. The mind harbours many a false thought which has to be cast out before there can be a humble acceptance of the divine call. But the intellectual difficulties in the way of belief are comparatively small. The most grave and serious ones are those whose home is in the heart. " Com- mending ourselves to every man's conscience " is the apostle's description of his own work. He, be it remembered, was in a position very different from that of his successor in the pulpit of to-day. His message was a novelty. It must have THE PULl'IT AND THE PRESS 36 1 had about it that charm of freshness which we so eagerly covet. Sometimes, in depressed hours, we think — would we could have the privilege of telling this wonderful story of the Cross to those who had never listened to it before ; that we could see their faces light up with interest as they followed it through all its pathetic and moving details ; that we could mark the tear as it glistened in their eye, and then, as their nature had been stirred to its very depths by the wondrous recital, listen to a cry as anguished as that which burst from the multitude who were moved by Peter's first sermon to that outburst of penitence and longing: "Men and brethren, what shall we do ? " Alas ! we tell the story to those who have heard it so often that the recital becomes to them as the sound of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument. There may be novelty in the mode of presentation, but in the message none. All this (they may say in reply to the most graphic description) have we heard from our childhood up. In our own times the pulpit or the Bible class has not been left a monopoly of the teaching. The stage as well as the novel has undertaken to tell it also, and there have been Christians ready to applaud the effort, without pausing to consider how far this tends to weaken the unique impression of the sacred nar- rative, without contributing a solitary element of instruction or abiding influence. Paul had a very different task. His audience listened to the story he had to tell with all the excitement of curiosity and all the high-wrought sensation due to a new and strange marvel. Even the callous and indifferent Athenians were roused by the story of Jesus and the Resurrection. These were new gods, and the very mention of them stirred the stagnant current of their feelings to an unwonted pitch of passion. To-day the preacher has no such aid. Yet even the apostle, speaking to those who were thus uninstructed, still addresses himself to their conscience. If they were to 362 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT be converted, the conscience must be awakened. It had to be approached through the understanding, and therefore he preached Christ and Him crucified. But in beseeching men to be reconciled to God through Christ, he did not arrogate to himself any authority to which men were required to submit. He did not speak as a lord over men's consciences, but he persuaded them. He reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, if they were Jews. If they were Greeks, he appealed to the testimony of nature as interpreted by their own poets. Nothing could be more intensely human, and yet his success was due to the secret conviction wrought in their hearts that the power of God was with him. That is the special character of the preacher. He is a power in the only sense in which he desires or can expect such distinction, only as God is with him. If the conscience approve his message that it is the word of God, it has authority, but not authority due to his official position, nor even to any special knowledge he possesses, but solely to the fact that he has been touched by the Divine Spirit. This distinction between the preacher and the member of any profession needs to be strongly accentuated. Having once dismissed the idea of a supernatural character attaching to it, in virtue of which a man is entitled to claim a superiority to his fellow-men, and to exact from them an allegiance which would not be rendered to him because of his personal worth or eminent service, it is hardly possible to insist too strongly on the points which differentiate the preacher from a lecturer or professor. The latter does his work as any other toiler does his. It is work of the brain, and it may even be of the heart, but it is done as the work of the daily life, with its proper remuneration attached. In short, it is professional, and no shadow of reproach rests upon it because it is so. It does not affect to be anything else, and there is nothing derogatory in the fact that that is. THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 363 its character. There is a strange but not unfrequent tendency to upbraid men with their care for the pecuniary reward of their honest toil as writers or speakers. It is not only unjust, but it is at once absurd and insincere. That care can easily become excessive, and, what is worse, it may have recourse to unwarranted means in order to secure its objects. But in itself there is nothing unworthy in it. The man who has chosen literature or art or science as his pro- fession is not to be considered mercenary because he insists on having a fair remuneration for his efforts. Up to a certain point this is true of the Christian preacher. Those who avail themselves of his services should, even in their own religious interest, and still more in that of the great religious work to which they have a common attachment, so provide for his needs that the carking cares of this world shall not hinder the concentration of thought and feeling on spiritual work. But if his first care be to achieve professional success, whether for the sake of the emolument it brings or the honour by which it is attended, he forgets the true end of his ministry, and ensures its failure. It is idle to pretend to superhuman virtues, and foolish to expect it. Preachers are men of like passions and infirmities with their hearers. They cannot wholly escape the taint of the world-spirit. They are not free from the aspirings of ambition or the weak suggestion of vanity. They have to fight the devil in their own hearts quite as strenuously as on the broad field of battle in the world. But at all events they must have their ideal. Even if they fail to reach it, the contemplation of it and the endeavour to approach it has itself an elevating influence. And that ideal leaves no room for the presence of a purely professional temper. It may be urged, in all fairness, that were this spirit dominant a successful preacher would choose some other calling than that of the Christian ministry, especially in 364 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the Free Churches. There are prizes in a national hierarchy- such as the law has established in this country, which may tempt ministers. But they have no existence in Non- conformist communities. It is no vain boast to say that those who achieve distinguished position in their pulpit might have secured in some other career returns both of wealth and fame far in excess of any that the most envied among them has been able to attain. If a man's motives be of the earth, earthy, he had better stifle all inclinations drawing him towards the pulpit. For even success would not bring him what he desires, and, what is to him of even more importance, the very strength of his ambition would be the most serious hindrance to the coveted success. Even the world expects — surely the expectation is not unreason- able — that the preacher of the gospel should be superior to the influences which govern the Stock Exchange, and the moment the dominance of such motives comes to be suspected there will be a gradual decay of the influence which is the evidence of success. This demand of the world is, we have said, not un- reasonable. True, the world is itself possessed by the love of self. Its philosophy is saturated with the spirit of selfish- ness. Its heroes are men who have learned how to take care of self " Men will praise you when you do well to yourself" is as true to-day as it was in the distant century when it was first penned. But all this notwithstanding, it looks to its religious teachers for the exhibition of a different spirit. Even in the political world this is the ideal it would have its leaders keep before themselves. The noble Roman who was called from his farm to save his country, and who, when the task was done, laid down the dictator's robe and returned to his farm, has been the theme of many a glowing eulogy. To-day there is no charge which tells more against a .statesman than an impeachment of his unselfish patriotism, as there is no virtue which exalts him more in the public THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 365 esteem than a disinterestedness which is above even the reach of suspicion. A statesman who through long years of conflict has steadily pursued a course of conscientious integrity, who has shown a calm indifference to the opinions of men, and, whether in sunshine or in storm, has been true to his own ideas of the right, commands respect independent of any judgment which may be passed on his policy. Much more is this kind of virtue required from the preacher of the gospel. If he is not moved by a passion for souls, an unquenchable faith in the gospel, and a glowing enthusiasm for Christ, better that he never preached at all. In the Apostle Paul we have the finest type of the true minister of the New Testament. His conception of his special functions, his clear apprehension of the message he had to deliver, his recognition of the necessary limitations of his life and work, cannot be too closely studied by the preacher. Unfortunately, we know little of his sermons. We hear of the effect produced on those who listened to him, and we have the broad view of the subject of which he treated. He had to preach the "unsearchable riches of Christ," and he found in that theme enough, and more than enough, to occupy all his powers, without undertaking to discuss the many problems which were agitating the schools of philosophy, or endeavouring to redress all the grievances under which the world was " groaning and travailing in bondage " then as now. But especially is it from the man himself that we have to learn. There is in him a spiritual grandeur, which in itself is stimulating. Christ has so possessed him, that the work which the almighty constraint of love has laid upon him is the passion of his life. There has grown up of late a habit of criticising the great Apostle of the Gentiles, to the depreciation of his actual work, which is unjust to him and ungenerous in those by whom it is 366 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT indulged. It is not easy in studying him to leave out of consideration the fact of his inspiration, and it may be useful to make an honest attempt to study him as he may have appeared to an observer who regarded him simply as a preacher, deriving such influence as he possessed either from the convincing force of his doctrine or from the personal character of the man. As we study the record, we cannot but feel that the first, the strongest, the most abiding impression which he would produce, was that of one so passionately in earnest, that to him his work was everything. On this point the verdict of Festus is as decisive as it was undoubtedly and transparently honest: "Paul, thou art beside thyself." His was the un- doubting faith and the consuming zeal which, to a mere self-seeker, with a strong vein of cynicism, must always be unintelligible, and is therefore treated as a mental delusion. Such devotion is so far outside the region of thought and experience in which such a man moves, that he can find no other explanation. No suggestion could be more natural ; for if Paul was not mad, Festus undoubtedly was. Their spirits were moving in orbits so entirely apart, that it was impossible to conceive that they could both be in healthy condition. So far, then, this testimony is peculiarly valuable. It is the verdict of an enemy who had opportunities for judgment, and gives us an estimate of character which con- firms all the ideas we should have gained, whether from the records of Paul's life or the spirit of his writings. If there had been any reason to suspect the apostle's motive, — any single fact on which to rest a suggestion of insincerity or self-seeking, — any ground on which he might have been branded as an impostor who was seeking to deceive the people, — it would certainly have been presented. But no such hint falls from the lips of the sceptical Roman. He spoke under the influence of an irritation which made him forget the dignity of the Roman patrician ; but, even in the THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 367 heat of his passion, he does not venture to suggest that Paul was false. His earnestness had this effect, that the governor could only escape from the influence it might otherwise have produced upon him, by treating it as a manifestation of madness. It is to be accepted as a conclusive evidence that this great preacher lost himself in his subject. What men might think of Paul was to him a matter of no importance : his only concern was, that they should believe in the Lord Jesus whom he preached. Renan is very fond of speaking of him as the " ugly little Jew." There is nothing very dignified, or refined, or telling in the description ; but it may be true. He does not shrink from telling the Corinthians that his enemies said that in bodily presence he was weak and in speech contemptible. It may have been so ; but what then ? It simply shows that the power which he undoubtedly possessed was not due to any external qualities, not even to the grace or vehemence of his eloquence ; and we are thus forced to seek another explanation of his undoubted in- fluence. It is to be found in the impression which he produced everywhere, that his soul w^as possessed by his message. The man who can do this will always be a power. So strong is this force as an element of pulpit power, that it is open to question whether the gospel has suffered most from preachers who have set forth the truth in such a style as to give the impression that it is an unreality to them- selves, or from those, on the other hand, who have thrown into the instruction which "causcth to err" a fervour and an earnestness which have secured for their teaching a hold on the minds of men, to which, on its own merits, it was not entitled. Behind the sermon is the preacher, and the extent to which men are affected by his personality, as apart either from the doctrine taught or the form in which it is presented, is a point which the most careful and discriminating analysis may fail to determine This, however, may safely be said, 368 THE ANCIENT F.MTII IN MODERN LIGHT that a preacher of the gospel can never hope to wield any enduring power, however brilliant his gifts or wide his culture, unless he produce in the minds of his hearers a conviction that the gospel which he proclaims to others has come to his own heart as the very message of God. Under the influence of that, he is filled with that courage which is indispensable to the prosecution of his work. The coward in the pulpit is one of the most pitiable of spectacles ; and yet there are temptations to a weakness, as contemptible as it is injurious alike to the man himself and to those who listen to a word which does not so much express his own deep convictions of the truth, as his ideas of what will be most expedient for the hour, best fitted to produce a sensation, in harmony with the Zeitgeist, calculated to extend his own reputation and improve his position. These temptations haunt men everywhere, and critics of the pulpit are not slow to point them out. " The pulpit's laws the pulpit's patrons give, And they who live to preach must preach to live," was the taunt adapted by Lord John Russell from Dr. Johnson, and directed against Dissenting ministers. It was unworthy of a statesman, and especially of one who owed so much to those whom he thus held up to the ridicule of those who were his foes as well as theirs. It suggests the action of one of the meanest of motives as governing the public ministry of men whose one fault, which lays them open to his criticisms, is that they do not become the stipendiaries of the State. The preacher would not escape the reproach were he to adopt the contrary course. " Would," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, "that the clergy could write with perfect freedom." Whether this remark is to be restricted to the clergy of his own Church may be doubtful, but it certainly includes them ; and, in support of his view, it were easy to quote many a reference from the latest work of the season — THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 369 the most attractive biography of a singularly attractive man, the great Master of Balliol. Tennyson puts it in a different form when he makes the " Northern Farmer " to describe the preacher in those oft-quoted words — " An' I 'eerd 'um a bummin' awaiiy loike a buzzard-clock ower my 'ead, An' I niver knaw'd whot a meiin'd but I thowt a 'ad summut to saay, An' I thowt a said whot a owt to 'a said an' I coom'd awaay." The notion common to all these is, that the preacher is not necessarily true to himself ; and one more fatal to his influence it would not be easy to conceive. If the speaker is not a real man, who out of the abundance of the heart gives to others the lessons which he himself has learned from God, but preaches only what he thinks men will be pleased to hear, and what he is bound by law to preach, — if he is more careful to abide by some legal standard of orthodoxy, than to set forth the truth which has been revealed, — better that he should undertake any other office than that of the minister of the gospel. He, at least, should be a man of the strongest, noblest type — a man who, like the great preacher of the Scottish Reformation, never quailed before the face of man. There is nothing which so helps a man to this fearless attitude as a true and adequate sense of what the office of the preacher is. Paul's ideal was lofty, and it is set forth very distinctly in his Epistle to the Corinthians. " We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us : w^e pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." The man who realises this, dare not allow himself to seek the praise or tremble at the frown of man. He has to deliver a message from God ; and to be turned aside from his duty by the fear of man, is simply to confess himself unworthy of his calling. The definition of the office itself excludes many who have too readily, perhaps thoughtlessly, assumed its functions. A lecturer on religion, who professes 24 370 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT himself greatly interested in all the problems connected with the human soul and its relation to the infinite ; who has closely studied and compared the different ages and countries, and has sought to solve them ; who is familiar with the specula- tions of philosophy, perhaps a master of the science (if such a thing there be) of comparative religion, but has no experience of the living force of spiritual truth, is certainly not a minister of the gospel in the New Testament sense. He may or may not be a searcher after truth, but he certainly is not an ambassador from God, who, having a message to deliver, is straitened until his mission is accomplished. Or the mere Church functionary, who has undertaken to do the particular service which the Church has assigned to him, and to do it in accordance with the obligations he has voluntarily contracted, — whose one concern is that he should not transgress the laws of the Church, and who is for ever appealing to its authority as supreme and decisive, — falls very short of the apostolic conception of the ofifice. Far be it from me to suggest that among the philosophic students or the Church officials there may not be true ambassadors from God. What I insist upon is, that unless they have the divine call, — unless, like the old prophets, they have the "burden of the Lord," and are constrained to speak the divine message which they have received, — they have no rightful j^lace in the pulpit. It is necessary to emphasise the need of the divine call ; but it IS not necessary to throw around it anything of a mystical character. It comes in the deepening sense of the grandeur of eternity and its realities ; in the hold which Christ and His salvation take of the mind, imagination, and heart ; in the quickening of conscience to a sense of the obligation which the love of Christ lays upon all who have felt its renewing power ; in the widening and deepening sympathy with humanity which matures into that passion for saving souls, which fired Paul, and which has fired every man who has caught anything of the Master's spirit, and, THE rULPIT AND THE PRESS 37 1 like Him, has been intent on working out the divine thought, to seek and to save that which was lost. These are the heavenly visions to which the true minister of Christ cannot be, dare not be, disobedient. These are the divine calls which may appear ridiculous to the mere man of the world, but which are sufficiently intelligible to all who are en- lightened as to the things of the Spirit of God. The man, thus stirred, to whom the message of the divine love is the one truth which men need to hear, and who is possessed with the passion to tell it, and to tell it so that men may believe and live, is marked out as an ambassador for God. Such a man speaks, not because he holds the office of a speaker or preacher, but because he cannot help speaking ; and he does not trouble to inquire whether his speech is such as man expects or approves. But while he muses the fire burns — then speaks he with his tongue. It does not follow that what he says, even under this inspiration, is to be received as infallible, or that he is speak- ing as an ambassador from God, in God's stead ; but he has authority only as he speaks the divine message. Mr. Ruskin's exposition of the text, and his exposure of the way in which it has sometimes been perverted, are as admirable in expression as sound in exegesis : " Ecclesiastical tyranny has, for the most part, founded itself on the idea of Vicarianism, one of the most pestilent of the Romanist theories, and most plainly denounced in Scripture. Of this I have a word or two to say to the modern 'Vicarian.' All powers that be are unquestionably ordained of God ; so that they that resist the Power, resist the ordinance of God. Therefore say some in these offices, We, being ordained of God and having our credentials, and being in the English Bible called ambassadors for God, do in a sort represent God. We are Vicars of Christ, and stand on earth in place of Christ. I have heard this said by Protestant clergymen. Now, the word ambassador has a peculiar ambiguity about it, owing to its use in modern political affairs ; and these clergymen assume that the word, as used by St. Paul, means an ambassador plenipotentiary ; 372 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT representative of his king, and capable of acting for his kino-. What right have they to assume that St. Paul meant this ? St. Paul never uses the word ambassador at all. He says simply, 'We are in embassage from Christ; and Christ beseeches you through us.' Most true. And let it further be granted, that every word that the clergyman speaks is literally dictated to him by Christ ; that he can make no mistake in delivering his message ; and that, therefore, it is indeed Christ Himself who speaks to us the word of life through the messenger's lips. Does, therefore, the messenger represent Christ ? Does the channel which conveys the waters of the Fountain represent the Fountain itself? Suppose, when we went to draw water at a cistern, that all at once the Leaden Spout should become animated, and open its mouth, and say to us, ' See, I am Vicarious for the Fountain. Whatever respect you show to the P'ountain, show some part of it to me.' Should we not answer the Spout, and say, ' Spout, you were set there for our service, and may be taken away and thrown aside if anything goes wrong with you. But the Fountain will flow for ever.' " This eloquent passage, pregnant in suggestiveness, con- tains some truths which need to be strongly accentuated. It is hardly too much to say, that on the due appreciation of their full bearings rests a right conception of the functions and powers of the pulpit. The preacher, as we have already seen, is not a theological expert, to whom men may refer difficult spiritual problems, even as a barrister is consulted on questions of law, or an eminent physician on pathology or hygiene. The simple-minded believer in Christ may be^ indeed often is, as capable of imparting wisdom to the eminent theological scholar as the latter is to instruct him. Often in reading the elaborate discussions on nice points of doctrine, in which much metaphysical subtlety is shown, but no certain result reached, one cannot help longing for the plain words of some unlettered disciple, perhaps some nine- teenth century Priscilla, who would deal with our philosophic divine as she did with the young Apollos, and in a few plain words, drawn from personal experience, set forth the way of the Lord. Still less is the preacher to be a pioneer in the THE PULPir AND TlIK PRESS 373 path of speculation, startling the world by ideas evolved out of his own ingenuity or spiritual consciousness. He is simply a servant intrusted with a definite commission — an ambassador for God, with a message to deliver to man, Ruskin rightly comments on the ambiguity of the term. He may be a plenipotentiary with a certain liberty of action, for the wise exercise of which he is responsible ; or he may be a Minister commissioned to arrange a friendly under- standing, but on definite terms from which he must not depart ; or he may be a mere functionary of the State which employs him, its representative, in the common details of business, or on grand ceremonial occasions, such as are an- ticipated at our own Court during this memorable year. Of course, when these special historic occasions come, there is care that the dignity of the individual may give a certain importance to the office, and thus be a sign of the high consideration in which the friendly Court is held. The qualifications for the right discharge of such a service are not of the most exalted character. It is enough that the dignity of the State be supported with a due measure of "pomp and circumstance." Courtly manners, personal dignity, due regard to the severest demands of etiquette and custom are all that is really essential. If this were a fit analogy for the minister of Christ, if he was simply to play a prominent part in the ceremonials of religion, there would be no occasion for any distinguished qualities either of head or heart. Originality of thought, power of expression, tenderness of sym[x-ithy, spiritual wisdom, the rare charm which gives some such power over souls, are almost wasted in the office of a mere functionary. He should be correct, precise, formal, even dignified, but there is no demand on the soul. A subordinate work at its best this of the priest; and if proof were necessary of its inferior character, it may be found in the eagerness the priest shows about the mint and the anise and the cummin ; the extraordinary value he 374 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT attaches to times and seasons, as though changes of feeling must follow the revolutions of the earth ; the care he bestows on the cut of a vestment or the colour of an altar-cloth ; the minute directions he observes as to gesticulations and attitudes. What a miserable conception of religion underlies it all ! for if this be the work of the ministry, what must the religion be which gives him no higher service? It is not his work to lead to profounder reverence or larger philanthropy, to make men thrill again with zeal for righteousness or love for God or man, to be an inspiration to languid souls or a stern reproof to wicked ones. He is simply the leader in an imposing form and a majestic ceremony. There is no difficulty in the multiplication of priests. The prophet or the preacher is not to be manufactured, but is called of God. But there is an ambassador of a different kind. He has a definite service to perform, and one on the success of which the prosperity or power, nay even the very existence of his nation may depend. He is sent to avert war and secure reconciliation between parties who are at variance. On his conduct very much may depend. He may, by lack of judg- ment or even of tact, widen the breach he was sent to heal, and hasten the war which, it was hoped, he might avert, or at least postpone. It is needful, therefore, that he be a man of exceptional endowments, with power to humour the feelings of others as well as to control his own ; with insight, therefore, into the character of men and the tendency of events ; with well-balanced mind and sympathetic temper. To be lacking in any of these points may be to ensure failure. Especially is it necessary that he understand the policy which he is sent to carry out, and that he be loyal to it in every point. He is employed not to throw out unauthorised suggestions of his own, not to present his individual wishes, but to represent those of his nation. Else he may betray his trust, and make confusion worse confounded. This is the type of the THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 375 Christian minister. He is not even a plenipotentiary for Heaven. If he addresses men on God's behalf, it is God's truth, the word of His message, which he has to speak. The great apostle never leaves us in any doubt as to his conception of what that message is. He is not ever waiting for some fresh revelation which he has to communicate, and which may in fact alter all that has gone before. He has a distinct proclamation, and it is always and everywhere the same. There is to be neither diminution nor development, but the repetition in every varied form and with all strength of emphasis of the one message. You find it in the " word of faith " spoken to the Romans, " Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is Lord, and with the heart shall believe that God raised Him from the dead, shall be saved." You have it set forth as the gospel which had been preached to the Corinthians, and in which they lived, that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and that He rose again, according to the Scriptures. You hear it in the earnest appeal to the same Corinthians — that they would be reconciled to the God who was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself It was the text of Paul's first recorded sermon, and it rings in the echoes of his entire ministry: "Through this man is preached unto you forgiveness of sins.'' An ambassador simply has to do his sovereign's will, and the will of our King is that all men should turn to repentance and live. It is for His servants to publish the terms of peace, and beseech men to accept them. If this were better understood and remembered, it might save us from many an error and many a weakness. There arc some whose minds are possessed by what they hold to be sound beliefs. Unfortunately that faith does not work by love. It has not deepened their reverence nor kindled their enthusiasm. It has led them rather to think of God as though He were like unto themselves, and to judge their brethren by some arbitrary standards which they have been 2,j6 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT pleased to set up. They are bitter in their judgments as they are shrivelled in their creeds, dwarfed and contracted in all their sympathies. They test men not by their accept- ance of the message, but by their agreement with their theological theories. Too long has this tyranny sat heavy upon the Church. Men are at last shaking it off, once and for ever, and are not to be affrighted by the angry grow^ls or bitter denunciations of the survivors of that old regime, its fossilised representatives, who are for ever prophesying the decay of the Church and the death of faith, because at last Christian teachers are insisting on the message in its sim- plicity, and refusing to add to or subtract from the plain truth : " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." It is just as necessary to guard against the wild novelties in which some delight as it is to emancipate the mind from the bondage of old systems. The attention given to-day to the theories and speculations in which men so love to indulge is one of the phenomena of the time. A theory may be crude, absolutely unsupported by evidence, inconsistent indeed with all our own experience and observation, yet if it have about it enough of a sensational character, if it be indorsed by a popular or even a striking preacher, — above all, if it be boomed by some journal, — it must be treated as having some claim to serious attention, and be discussed with a gravity becoming a proposition resting on some weighty authority. But the one authority to which all Christians must bow is that of the message. If it be not according to this word, there is no life in it. Men may be eminent for their gifts and conspicuous in their graces, but at best they are only Christ's ambassadors, and they have simply to speak in His name the word which He Himself has taught them. Any authority which belongs to the minister of the gospel is that of the King's messenger, not of His represen- THE PULPIT AND THK PRKSS 37/ tative. He has to preach the gospel of the grace of God, not some theory of his own. There is abundant room for the exercise of the highest gifts with which a man is endowed in the proclamation of that truth ; but whatever the variations in mode of treatment, the theme must still be the same. The true character of the servant of Christ is sacrificed for that of a preacher of speculations, novelties, personal fancies or hopes, and the power to affect souls is lost. All this seems very simple, and it is in fact only elementary truth, but it is truth which is continually for- gotten. There are men who are continually seeking to discover what God has not revealed, and in their diligent study of the mysteries are neglecting the loving and eternal truths which ought to be the substance of their teaching. They fatigue themselves in useless attempts to explain what has only to be set forth as the divine message, and they are never weary of taking their hearers into the con- fidence of their own uncertainties or misgivings. They may- be ingenious, clever, brilliant, but they are not powerful ministers of the New Testament. Yet men are excited by them. They are said to be interesting, as they are certainly startling ; and those who are carried away by the originality of their thinking, or the eloquence of their periods, do not stop to inquire whether they have really been listening to a message of Divine Love from Heaven, or whether, in fact, the pulpit has not wholly changed its character and been converted into the rostrum of a religious lecture-room, or the stage of a religious theatre, on which arc periodically given performances for the moral or religious good of the audience. The press has always regarded tlic pulpit with a certain amount of jealousy, and it may be admitted that it is not altogether unnatural or even unreasonable. But, to say the least, it is carried to excess, and ought to be corrected by an 3/8 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT intelligent and discriminating view of the difference between their respective spheres and functions. Taking the press in its broadest sense, and regarding the distinction between the two agencies as that between spoken and written thought, it may be assumed that they represent two entirely different kinds of influences, A preacher may combine both — he may move great congregations by his sermons as delivered, or he may affect them by his printed volumes. But this twofold success is secured by the exercise of two different classes of faculties. The discourses which produce the most abiding impression on the reader are not for the most part those which have been most effective when delivered. The true preacher is abundantly conscious of this, and probably will make changes in the sermon as spoken, which will adapt it to the uses of the study and the sickroom. Too well he knows how impossible it is for him to reproduce some of the qualities which have made the sermon most effective — the light touches of pathos or even of humour, the words of gracious sympathy, the tender appeals which have been quite unpremeditated, and which, had they been, would have lost most of their charm and power. From personal experience, I should say that the most telling (in the truest and deepest sense of the word) parts of a sermon are those which are intuitions — what I heard Hugh M'Neile once describe as "sparks struck off from a blacksmith's apron." These have a vitality and point, and produce an impression which cannot be revived by the same sentences read, without any of the accessories, on the printed page. There is really no place for rivalry between pulpit and press. They use entirely different weapons, and practically their work admits of no com- parison. But taking the press in its more restricted signification as applying to journalism, there is, if possible, even less room for hostility. It is not difficult to understand, indeed, that THE PULPIT AND TilE PRESS 3/9 the press should chafe under the authority which is often claimed by and for the pulpit. But the claim is unwar- ranted, and is never urged by those who have a true concep- tion of the preacher's office. On a great number of subjects, and those with which the press is chiefly conversant, he has no particular claim to speak at all. There are men, indeed, and among them are some journalists, who are continually calling on ministers of the gospel for deliverances on some of the burning questions of the time. The requirement is unreasonable, but it shows in itself an utter misconception of the sphere in which the minister of Christ claims to speak with any measure of authority. If this were more clearly defined, and the limitations strictly preserved, there would be less rivalry and less clashing. It may be worth while to try and mark out the bound- aries of the two territories over which pulpit and press respectively exercise jurisdiction. We have recently been discussing the question of foreign policy, especially as regards Crete, Turkey, Greece, and the European Concert. A journalist looks at them with the eye of one who has access to special intelligence, and who is assumed to have a special aptitude for interpreting its full significance. The preacher, on the other hand, makes no such professions, and therefore when he speaks on details of policy is dealing with problems for the solution of which he has no peculiar aptitude. But in laying down the broad principles on which all these questions are to be determined, in expounding the great law of righteousness as applied to nations as well as individuals, in urging his hearers to trust in God and use all their influence as citizens to promote a policy of right, he is doing the work to which he is called. Whether the journalist can be an effective critic of the preacher is a question to which different answers may be given. If the sphere of the pulpit is to be extended after the fashion which finds fa\our in some quarters, and is to be 380 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT occupied with the discussion of the "burning question " of the day, then of course its utterances will have to be sub- ject to the same kind of treatment which is accorded to all public deliverances. The pulpit loses its distinctive char- acter when the preacher undertakes to discuss vexed points on political, social, or ecclesiastical controversy, and so con- verts his pulpit into a platform. The expediency of such a course is open to very grave doubt, which our observation of the movements in this direction does not help to modify or abate. There do come from time to time great crises in national affairs when the Christian minister may speak with great advantage ; but the less frequent this intervention, and the more careful he is in the selection of his opportunities, the more likely is he to be effective. But the inevitable tendency is to make these utterances more frequent ; and my own strong conviction is that it is one which is full of peril, and ought to be resisted at all costs. For, I venture to repeat, the preacher has his message to deliver, and his first care should be that it neither be neglected nor pre- judiced by the intrusion of other matters not directly related to it. The extent to which the special work of the pulpit itself may be hindered by the introduction of topics which are ungrateful to the hearer, and which do not in the remotest degree touch his spiritual well-being, it is impossible to determine ; and whatever may be said in favour of this wider view of the sphere of the pulpit, it remains true that these do not belong to the special business of the preacher, and that in all probability he has no particular competence for handling them. The example of the old prophet is often urged as a justification for this wider view of the preacher's office with which we are dealing. But the analogy is too incomplete to justify such a conclusion. There need be no objection to men who are competent for it following in the steps of the THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 38 I old prophet. To rebuke unrighteousness in public as well as in private affairs, to bring all issues connected with national and social life to the test of God's truth, to treat all great public questions on the basis of Christian principle, is certainly a high function of a minister of Christ. He is to be a preacher of national righteousness in every sphere of human life. But he has so many other platforms on which he can make his voice heard on these and other questions, that the expediency of using the pulpit, save on very rare and exceptional occasions, for this purpose is, to say the least, very questionable. There are, too, very obvious objections which may be noted. The almost certain result of such a course of action must be to stamp a partisan character upon congregations. Numbers go to the sanctuary with a desire for spiritual refreshment and help. They are weary of the world, its disappointments, its vexations, its hollowness. They want spiritual quickening and help ; and if they are treated to discussions on the claims of the democracy or Christian Socialism, or perhaps even some one of the questions which have been occupying the public mind during the week, they go away disappointed, possibly in a state of semi-irritation, probably with a half-formed determination to seek a different kind of ministry in the future. Of course there must be diversities in congregations, and the result of the divergence may only be the creation of a fresh variety. But it would scarcely be a desirable addition to existing diversities. For if it were to be accepted, there would be sure to come the second evil, which would be an antagonism of Churches — probably even of the same order — on purely political grounds. It would be worse than folly to try and limit the freedom of the pulpit. But to return to the point from which this digression started, it must be admitted that the more the preacher confines himself to the grand aim of his ministry, 382 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the less room is there for rivahy between him and the journalist. So far as the latter is concerned, he may, on the one hand, keenly resent the intrusion of the preacher into what he regards as his own pecuHum, and in all probability will do so if the position which he takes is hostile to his own. With treatment of this sort we are all familiar, and it is the very last kind of suggestion which would be likely to influence an honest, independent, and courageous man. It is essential to the right discharge of ministerial duty that a man should sometimes defy the censure of public opinion in support of what he believes to be right. But it is quite as necessary on the other side that he should be on his guard against the seductive influence of the praise which commends action, the wisdom of which, at all events, may be doubtful. It is but few journalists, indeed, who arc competent judges of the preacher. They may be perfectly competent both from their intellectual and moral qualifica- tions to judge of the literary character of his sermon. They may even be well fitted to pronounce on its theological ■correctness — they certainly can often present the most vivid sketch of its style and delivery, and even to form a just estimate of the immediate effect of the sermon. It is not to be denied that these are all matters of importance, and the preachers will be wise to take heed to any valuable suggestions which may be made in the course of these com- ments. There is no man who more needs wise and yet kindly criticism, and no man who is less likely to get it. If a newspaper supplies it, the newspaper is doing him a real service, by which he should seek to profit. But such instruc- tion needs to be received with care. The purely newspaper test of success is not that by which a true minister of Christ will be content to judge his work. To-day the newspaper is at work everywhere, and I am one of those who believe that the publicity which it gives and the interest which it awakens in preachers and their THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 383 work is, on the whole, decidedly good. But it would be a melancholy thing if, in a desire to be boomed by a news- paper, a preacher was to forget his own special and distinc- tive mission. That mission is to lead human souls to God. A failure to accomplish that would be simply spiritual disaster. He might even do other good work in the Church and in the world, work not to be underrated, much less despised. But the special service which he is called upon to render to God is to win souls, and if he fail in that, he has lost his true crown. That work has its own peculiar difficulties. There are those who suggest that, though in the early days of the Church it was necessary that Paul should make the preach- ing of the message and the pleading with the souls of men his special business, the necessity for this in a country saturated with Christian ideas, and to congregations who have been trained in the midst of them, is not so obvious. The argument is very crude and inconclusive. We have certainly to deal with difficulties of a different kind. But it is doubtful whether they are really less serious. Knowledge is not always accompanied by faith. Familiarity with the gospel does not always imply a sympathy with its aims, or a ready susceptibility to its appeals. A careful survey of a modern congregation certainly would not suggest the idea to a devout Christian preacher that the need for careful exposition and earnest appeal did not exist. Take, for example, its young people. It is true that they have been nurtured in Christian traditions, instructed in Christian truths, probably even have a certain sympathy with Chris- tian aims. But they are acted on by a thousand and one influences of an entirely different character. There was a time when the pulpit, if not the sole instructor, had com- paratively few competitors for influence over congregations. Literature, at all events, was an extremely insignificant, almost unknown, factor. Among the many changes which 384 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT have marked the Victorian era, few are more important than that which has taken place in this respect. We have been living in a time of intellectual development, so continuous and so extensive, that it amounts to little short of a revolu- tion. The daily penny newspaper and the electric telegraph, which has made it so vivid a representation of the world's life ; the cheap issues of classic books, which have brought the choicest works of literature within the reach of the humblest readers ; the railway bookstall, a survey of which itself has so appetising an effect on the mind that it even has a certain educational value, are among the influences which have been at work to change the mental habits of large sections of the community. It is only necessary to try to imagine ourselves without these ordinary accessories of modern civilisation, in order to get some idea of the change which their introduction has wrought. There is no desire to exaggerate their real value. It may be that very much of the knowledge which is thus obtained is superficial, and not of a high order even of that. A mind which feeds itself on the scraps which are so popular will certainly not acquire any real force nor much knowledge of any particular subject. But, at all events, the diffusion even of snippety literature of this kind is a sign of the times, and is not without its effect. After all possible discount has been made, it is not to be denied that the number of readers has enormously increased in this generation. It is not too much to say that this age realises the description of the old prophet, " Many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased." It is no comfort to a preacher who has to deal with this state of things, to be told that the mental furniture of a large section — indeed of the great majority — of readers is extremely imperfect. As a general rule, the less a man knows the more dogmatic is he about everything. The class with whom the preacher finds it most difficult to deal THE rULriT AND THE PRESS 385 is the quarter-educated, who have not learned enough to perceive the depths of their ignorance, and who are able to chatter about all things in heaven and in earth in unconsciousness — happy so far as they themselves are concerned, but very provoking to their hearers — that at every point they are only showing how much they need that some one should teach them the very alphabet of knowledge. The increase in the numbers of this class cannot well be exaggerated, and it is not to be doubted that it is at once a difficulty and a danger. Occasionally we hear one of them declaiming probably on a political platform, and it is curious to observe the facility with which he can dispose of problems that have exercised some of the keenest intellects the world has ever produced, who have been forced to dismiss them unsolved — the dogmatism with which he can pronounce on questions which most sharply divide the world, the quiet assurance with which he can set up his own authority as though it were conclusive. He is provoking and yet instructive, for, after all, he is a superior example of a type of mind which is very common, and with which the preacher has continually to deal. Young people, possibly well trained in their early days, are liable to be affected, not so much by men of this order but by the influences which have formed them and made them what they are. They, too, are likely to catch the same conceit of their own wisdom, the same foolish notion that those who do not accept all the new ideas thereby give proof of their own intellectual inferiority, the same super- cilious contempt for the past, the same surprising assurance that whatever is new must on that account alone be absolutely true, at all events until it is superseded by some- thing that is newer still. It does not need any keen insight to perceive how difficult and yet how necessary the work of the preacher must be under such conditions. His gospel cannot have 25 386 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the surpassing charm of freshness with which the message of the apostles must have come to men to whom the idea of a loving Father in Heaven, who sent His own Son into the world to die for the sins of men, had all the surprise and marvel of a revelation. It is an oft-told tale, which, alas! the hearers of whom I speak are disposed to treat with cynical indifference, perhaps with sceptical disbelief. Through the week their minds have been detained among an entirely different set of subjects. Their reading may probably have inclined them to treat the spiritual world and all belonging to it as a mere illusion. Day by day they are reading or hearing that the march of thought is leading men away from the gospel of Christ, that the most intelligent preachers, in the hope of keeping in touch with the Zeitgeist, are quietly putting aside the ideas on which their fathers most relied, and that those who still cling to them are either too old to learn, and therefore to be pitied as venerable relics of a bygone dispensation, or too cowardly to break loose from established tradition, and therefore to be despised. The man who would meet and counteract this needs, indeed, to be a strong man. Let him beware, how- ever, how he tampers with it, and seeks to meet it by con- cessions for peace' sake. The appetite for concession is certainly one which grows by what it feeds upon. It is for the servant of truth to preach what he believes to be truth, whether men bear or whether they will forbear. Concession is a word that can have no proper place in his vocabulary, and if it be once introduced the only result must be the weakening of his influence. If new light has broken in upon his soul, he must give his congregation the benefit of it. But this is not a concession to their tastes, or an act of homage to the fashion of the times. It is an act of simple loyalty to conscience and truth — a ministering to others of that which the Spirit of God has first taught him. In this will be found his true power. The only man, it may be THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 387 confidently said, who can really influence a restless genera- tion, such as I have described, is one who makes it feel that he speaks only what he believes, and because, so believing, he must speak. Where writers, and especially the writers of fiction, have so large a constituency, the religious tendencies of the literature which is so popular must be a matter of supreme interest and importance to the preacher. As a matter of fact, the novels of the day are so largely talked about, and, perhaps, even so widely read (though it by no means follows that everybody who talks about them, and even criticises, has read them) by members of congregations, that the preacher is almost compelled to take into account the influence which they are likely to exert. It is not suggested that he ought to make them the topic of his sermons, and deal directl}' with what he regards as the mistaken ideas which they are propagating. It may be necessary occa- sionally to do even this. But it is a kind of work which needs extreme delicacy and judgment. It is rather as an element in determining the character of his own teaching that the presence and power of this literary force has to be taken into account. The books which have obtained a ^' record " circulation, which are found lying about on drawing-room tables, which are eagerly discussed in social circles, which are continually boomed in newspapers of accepted authority, and which, in fact, occupy a good deal of thought and attention during the week, cannot safely be ignored by Christian teachers. Haifa century ago these books would have been placed under a strict boycot. But in the present generation we have changed all that. Our grandfathers prohibited the reading of Scott or Fenimore Cooper. To-day even Sarah Grand is tolerated. It is only one of the many examples of the swing of the pendulum. But it is a matter of vital 2)8S THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT moment, and needs careful consideration. Some years ago a distinguished lawyer of the Baptist persuasion gave me an account of a conversation between himself and a lady of society, whom he happened to take down to dinner. Her first question to him was, " Have you seen such a play ? " — naming the popular play of the hour. " Never go to the theatre," was the reply. " Dear me ! " was the exclamation of surprise. But the answer to the next question caused her still greater astonishment. " Have you read " ?■ naming the popular novel. " I do not read novels," was the amazing response. Possibly the lady may have thought it all explained when the next piece of information communi- cated was that he never went to church. When this was followed by the statement, in answer to other queries, that he did go to chapel, and that some of his favourite reading was Milton's prose works, the state of mind to which the lady was reduced may be safely left to the reader's imagination. Whether the lady thought that her neighbour was an escaped lunatic, or an antiquated fossil, may be a matter of question. I know him to be a man of keen intelligence, as well as high character. He is a strong type of Puritanism as it was in its best forms. It is possible that it might be for the benefit of English Nonconformity if it had retained more of this spirit. The extreme severity might have been modified with advantage. But the un- restrained latitude which is at present enjoyed is, to say the least, of more than doubtful benefit. At all events, no preacher can safely forget that the fiction of the day helps to produce an intellectual and moral atmosphere, which its readers are breathing for six days in the week. To say the least, it is not conducive to robust- ness of religious conviction or depth of spiritual feeling. There is in it a widespread and resolute determination to ignore the restraints of religion. They are included under the general name of Puritanism, and to the writers in THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 389 question Puritanism is a thing abhorred. Then there are the eternal discussions of what is euphemistically called the sex problem, which in their ultimate result undermine the very foundations of morality itself. It is quietly assumed that considerations of art must override all others, and, in fact, that any endeavour to modify its realism is to be regarded as a proof of Philistine stupidity. The pulpit, which has to deal with minds saturated with ideas that are thus borrowed from popular literature, and disseminated widely by a certain section of the press, has no easy task. Two features in particular demand his most thoughtful attention if he is to supply the necessary corrective. The first is the lawlessness, which is defiant not only of precedent or conventionalism, but of all authority, human or divine. The second, which is like unto it, and, in fact, is only its legitimate development, is godlessness. Happily, there are modern novels of a different spirit, and the popularity which they have achieved is the best evidence that numbers have felt the need of something different from the books which had for some time been the fashion. But the press still pours forth a number of publications, the general tendency of which is towards a thinly -disguised paganism. It certainly cannot be combated by mere sensational ex- pedients, and still less by unwarranted compromises. The man who is to effect it must be one who makes his hearers feel the reality of his manhood, the breadth of his sympathy, the firmness of his intellectual grasp of the problems of the hour, the depth and intensity of his convictions, the enthusiasm of his loyalty for Christ, and the fervour of his desire for the salvation of the souls of men. The qualities essential to his success are very different, but they are not antagonistic. It is possible to preserve a due respect for the old, and yet to be free from that hard Conservatism which will listen to no charmer charming never so wisely, if in his music there be any fresh note. The most devoted service of 390 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the truth does not necessarily mean a hard judgment even of those who stumble through unbelief; nor is a high spirituality of thought and aim at all inconsistent with a sympathetic recognition of the work which the man of the world has to do in the sphere of daily life. In a word, largeness of heart may exist where there is an eagle's keen- ness of vision and a lion's strength of limb. This is the ideal which the preacher must keep before himself. In conclusion, it may truly be said that the very difficulty of his task should only make the work of the preacher of to-day more attractive to a man fired with unselfish spiritual ambition. There is no more foolish talk than that of those who represent it as a spent force. The wish is father to the thought. But its futility is shown by the eager appeals which are continually made to the preacher to throw the weight of his influence into some popular movement, and the bitter complaints which are made by those who do not secure this assistance. The preacher himself is the only man who can destroy his own power. If he be a mere slave of precedent, seeking to form himself upon some model of past times, without regard to his own capabilities or the necessities of the age ; if he dwell in a cloister, and is disposed to glory in his isolation ; if he mumble out old formulas, instead of speaking living and loving words, it is certain that men will not be greatly moved by him. Or if, on the other hand, he seeks to tickle the ears of men instead of moving their hearts ; if he trembles before the prejudice he ought to defy, and tries to conciliate by compromise the error he ought to oppose to the death ; or if he parades before men his doubts and difficulties, instead of the certainties of his faith, there can be but one issue. He may obtain momentary popularity, but of spiritual and enduring success he can have no hope. No strength of resolution, on the one hand, can be too Till-: PULPIT AND THE PRESS 39 1 forcible, no wealth of tenderness too rich, as a qualification for him who has to grapple with the spirit of the times, as seen alike in its literature, its science, and its politics. That spirit is distinctly anti-Christian ; it is, as we have seen, ready to scoff at moral restraints, and fancies that it has passed a sufficiently condemnatory verdict upon them when it describes them as Puritan. The contempt thus poured upon one of the noblest names both in our religious and civil history is itself one of the most significant and painful indications of tendencies that are at work amongst us ; and that must have their effect upon the youthful mind. The minister of Christ, who has to commend the gospel to men affected by the literary, the scientific, and, last but not least, the social temper of the age, certainly cannot afford to regard his special work with indifference. His opportunities are few, and it is for him diligently to improve them. It is a small matter to him whether he attract public attention. He may well be content to remain, if need be, in obscurity, provided only that at the close he be amongst those who, having turned many to righteousness, shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and as the stars for ever and ever. APPENDIX THE WITNESS TO THE SPIRIT (A FRAGMENT) By henry ROBERT REYNOLDS The plan of this book originaUy included an Essay tipon the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, as set forth in Scripture and verified in human experience. The topic ivas ejitriisted to the Rev. Hejiry Robert Reynolds, D.D., Principal of Cheshunt College, who entered upon his task with much readitiess and delight. It is matter for lasting regret that he lived to acco?nplish only a small part of his scheme ; but the section here given, complete in itself, is so characteristic of Dr. Reynolds' thought and style, and so full of interest, that it has been detennined not to withhold it. The paper has been inserted by kind permission of the author s surviving representatives. Further discnssioti of the doctrine, in others of its varied aspects, will be found in the First Essay, the plan of which was modified in consequence of Dr. Reynolds' decease. APPENDIX The Witness to the Spirit My theme is not confined to the theological doctrine of the witness of the Holy Spirit with our spirits that we are the children of God (Rom. viii. i6) ; yet that very remarkable phrase covers and names one of the root facts of our spiritual history, apart from which we should not know whether there be any Holy Spirit. The widely spread dis- inclination to concede the idea of the so-called "personality" of the Holy Spirit, as distinct from that of "the Father" or " the Son," turns on the possible discrimination or otherwise we can make between these two testimonies. Can we, or can we not, discern any difference between the witness of our reason and affections that the Eternal God is our Father and that we are His children, and the supernatural testimony borne in the depths of our own conscience to the same surprising fact, by God Himself, and God known to us as distinct from "the Father" or "the Son" (or "the Logos"), and yet separable in thought from the fundamental idea of " God " ? Many answer this question with a reverent negative, and are content with a pious agnosticism in dealing with such mystic realities. Others, by long habituation with the formula of theology touching the Holy Trinity, can, or at least do answer the question with strong affirmatives of entire confidence, and even do more, discriminate the per- sonal convictions of our own conscious ego, from the gentle ministry of the Spirit of Christ, and also from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of the Father and of the Son. 395 396 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT Some are content to do without any doctrine or teaching concerning the Spirit, using perhaps all these familiar terms — Father, Spirit, Son, Lord, Grace, as virtually equivalent or equipollent in meaning. They leave, moreover, to the theologians to draw their distinctions, which connote differences imperceptible to the practical mind. Grave charges must be brought against any theological system which must go back sixteen hundred years to find philo- sophical terms to use for these transcendent themes, and cannot find all that is necessary in the deliverance of consciousness, or at least in the testimonies of the Lord, of the prophetic word, and of the current teaching of the apostles. Whatever Christian doctrine we examine, whether it has to do with God or man, with the nature or the redemption of man, with the Word, or the Church, or the Sacraments of the divine life, we seem led by irresistible mental processes, to the idea of " the Spirit," " the Spirit of God," "the Holy Spirit." In fact, the most fundamental idea of God, given in consciousness and preserved in the most venerable fragments of religious speculation, is that God's own essential nature is " Spirit," as antithetic to matter or to chaos, or to body, or to things without life. Our own ego contrasts itself sharply with all that is not ego ; and that utterly irreducible element in which our conscious- ness abides, discriminates itself from all beside. The infinite non-ego, including even our own bodies — which are not ourselves — divides itself, as we do divide ourselves, into Spirit, and any or all of its great antitheses. This is the most essential analogue and measure of the Deity. What we call Spirit thinks ; persists through all its own states, and is more than they ; operates in all its parts ; pervades all that is not conscious self ; is the order, force, purpose, meaning of the whole. The beginning of inquiries into the nature of God, whether in uncultivated heathenism, in Indian or Hellenic thought, supposes the underlying energy that THE WITNESS TO THE SPIRIT 397 pervades nature to be akin to that which thinks, feels, acts in the worshipper. From the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, " the Spirit " is the most characteristic expression for the Almighty, in His great acts, His omni- presence in the universe, His accessibility to man, His special working in souls, in conscience, and in the providential government of the world. The idea of "Father" or "Son," of " Lord " or of " King " are later differentiations of the stupendous and more simple conception of the Spirit, In some frames of mind we seem to need nothing more than this presence and power deeply interfused, this " motion and Spirit" which fills eternity and thrills through all things, and works in us, and is the life of our life and "the light of all our seeing," the Person with whom we have to do, to whom, so far as we are free creatures, we are responsible for every act and habitude. Many want no more, are satisfied with the simple creed that " God is (a) Spirit," and suppose by avoiding such terms as " Father," " Son," they escape from the bete noire of anthropomorphism. They are not, however, emancipated so easily, for the word " Spirit " is perhaps the most perfect anthropopatheia possible. It would seem as though, say what we will, we are so made that we cannot but think of the supreme Presence, which the Fetishist and Hcnotheist, the Hylotheist or Christian philosopher, dreams of as akin to that which is within us, which wills and thinks, spirit rather than body, spirit rather than matter, spirit rather than " things /^a' se'' If we allow ourselves a step further, and dare for our own solace to name the character or functions of the Spirit, and assign the most comprehensive term to His relations with us, the highest minds of our ancestors, as well as some of the most vigorous, have called Him " Father." This has been done by those who meant by it our " Creator," or the Governor of the Universe — "the Father of Gods and Men " — but in the highest revelations, or even call them " speculations " of our race, the Great Spirit 398 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT has been hailed as "the Father in Heaven," one who has actually assumed towards us parental functions, who has given us His own spiritual nature, who has breathed it into us, and thus made us what we are, " children of God," with all corresponding relations and obligations. But the thought of a Father has led to the sublime conception of one who is a Father per se, who has always been throughout finite time, the Father of spirits like His own, the Giver and the Lover of natures like His own. If always, then He has been so " in the beginning," from before all time ; and His Eternal Nature as Father looms upon us out of the very depth of the Eternal Spirit, as generating the perfect image and perfect likeness of Himself, with whom all subsequent creatures share a common life. The idea of "the Father and the Son" posits an eternal relation, the infinite Subject and Object, both of thought and love; we see without effort the Son in the bosom of the Father, the archetypal Child of the Eternal, in whom all other life consists, as eternal as eternity. And thus, " the Spirit of God " being the primal conception of Deity, the mind has flowed on to the twofold conception of " Father" and " Son," as the very basis of all rational and moral relations with spirits that have been breathed into Being from Himself and after His likeness. In like manner, the idea of the Spirit as God (^£&s) in the process of emergence from the one to the many — from the Eternal Silence and Stillness to the Universe, the " all things " ('xavra) — including not merely " spirit," but -/.oa/j^og, " world," and t,oj7i, " life " — had shadowed itself forth as the eternal relation between (Ss6g and Xo'yof) " God " and " The Word." Eternal Thought and eternal Word have been or been felt to be inseparable. As in the case of Father and Son, this is only another name of the same eternal relation, when we are helped by great and well-known sentences to grapple with some of the most fascinating problems ever presented to human minds, and even to concede that THE WITNESS TO THE SPIRIT 399 "the Word was" not only "with God," but "God" Himself, that "all things came into being through Him," that in Him was " Life " and " Light." Is it not, however, possible to move one step nearer to the central mystery, as early and later thinkers have done, when they have endeavoured to name more closely the relation of the Spirit to the Father and to the Son ? The Apostle Paul taught the Corinthians " Who of men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man w^hich is in him ? In the same manner also no one hath known the things of God, save the Spirit of God" (i Cor. ii. 11). The Spirit of God is then the self-consciousness of God. This term connotes the self-consciousness of the Father, and also the self-consciousness of the Son ; and the whole analogy of nature shows us that these two are one. The Eternal Spirit is the unity of the Father and of the Son, the unity of the Godhead, the thinking, loving, central reality of the stupendous conception of Him with whom we have to do. In the Old Testament, in the sublime record of the dealing of God with man, this great concept transcends in operation even the more familiar " Jahveh " or " Lord of Hosts." He is represented as brooding over the formless void, and causing it to teem with life ; as the Creator of all things ; as the efficient cause of the difference between the life in man and in all other creatures ; as striving with man when in his waywardness he pursues his self-centred and sinful life ; as working in the hearts of men to give to them special faculties, the sense of beauty, the skill to express it, the craft to give utterance to the throes of genius ; He is the source of all the higher feats and great achievements of the understanding, the joy of the world, the subconscious leader of His people, the wisdom to guide them and strength to rule them. The whole underlying wonder of persistent force, which constitutes the reality of all things, is the indwelling and abiding and native Spirit of God. We reach 400 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT the very limit of our faculty if we try to think out for ourselves, what we are taught by science to believe is the behaviour of a solitary atom. Still more baffling does it become, if we stretch our imagination to conceive the great masses of matter, and the world of space ; still further, to apprehend the mysterious wonder of the life cells of plant and animal, the balance between their respective kingdoms, and constant operation upon every point of the created universe ; of the physical forces in their ceaseless correlation and inexhaustible fulness and conspiracy of all together to evolve a harmony and charm of co-operation and progress, which embraces every element of wonder and splendour, and calls for every emotion of adoration and praise. Nothing less than God can accomplish any of these physical effects. His thought and purpose are required at every atomic centre of energy throughout the universe, for every infinitesimal fraction of time. Thus we reach the concept of the Great Spirit, not as a delegated angel of the Eternal Presence, but as the living, loving God Himself. The complicated rhythm of the infinite fulness of activity in which we and all other things whatsoever live and move and have their being, becomes a revelation of the Spirit of the Lord God, the unity of the Father and the Son, the unity of God and the Word, the God of the spirits of all flesh, in the amplitude of whose embrace they all are living. The greatness of this conception becomes more con- spicuous in the preparation made by the Spirit of God to perfect the work of redemption and renewal, in bringing the Eternal Son into closer and final union with humanity. Great was the working of the Spirit with every soul of man. Mar- vellous were the special functions which the Spirit of sonship, the spirit of the Logos, wrought in the elect souls of the race. Measureless was the augmentation of the faith of Abraham, the courage, the insight, the prophetic energy of Moses, the royal powers and poetry of David, the vision of Isaiah, THE WITNESS TO THE SPn^ We fall back upon the infinite One. We say this is the breath of the eternal activities of heart, mind, and will, that are more than human heart, mind, and will. We catch the notes of the almighty voice, of an infinite Wisdom, of the I'lternal Love and Purpose. So we trace in the operation of certain minds, more, even infinitely more, than those minds in the utmost tension could have produced. We discern certain minds travailing with comprehensive thoughts which are divine revelations, which lose themselves in the skirts of His garments, which are the Secrets of God Himself, hidden in their folds, the 406 THE ANCIENT FAITH IN MODERN LIGHT drawing near of the Eternal One to His loved children. Thus the luminous thoughts of a (ew become the heritage of generations. Poetry and all true art of the highest kind, which are beyond the power of education or circumstance or analogy of nature to produce, do mediate the thoughts, wishes, and ideals of the Most High God upon us and the world. We must not underestimate the extent of these revelations, these coming near to our consciousness, of what is of the nature of consciousness, but is not the human will, or the human spontaneity. Certain flashes of (what we call) genius have revolutionised the world. Certain forth-breathings of melody and harmony there are, leading the way into the region of the unnameablc glories of reality and eternity. The chords and movements of sweet sounds convey what cannot be put into any human words, what cannot be expressed in any other methods known to us, what is more than and different from any known emotions. Fragments are they, snatches of a reality, which none of us have yet explored. Many things in our human life transcend our sense, our reason, our imagination, our emotions, and are yet " the master light of all our seeing." Science, music, art of every kind, rest upon invisible, intangible, unnameable realities of what is below our consciousness, and yet is probably the far larger part of our Ego ; which, though transcending all our X6yo; of every dimension or intensity, and never coming into consciousness, is yet never excluded from it. The finest moments, the grandest situations of history, give the nearest approximations to the articulate voice of the Almighty. The voice, or seeming voice, which convinced the greatest teachers of our race of some of the positive characteristics — so far as we can think or feel them — of Him " who is and was, and is to come," who says, " I am what I am," who said, " My Father and your Father," " My Father, into Thy hands I THE WITNESS TO THE SPH^IT 407 commend My spirit," " My grace is sufficient for thee '' — this voice we call " revelation," and its confirmation comes ill some answering echo from the depths of our consciousness. Throughout the whole history of the true Church of God, i.(\ of elect souls, "the testimonies" which could take shape in consciousness have been augmented ; and yet comparatively speaking they are few and Catholic. They are infinitely precious, and those who accept them as X070; cast their plumb-line into fathomless abysses, and say, " Oh the depth ; oh the depth." This leads the brotherhood of the one fellowship into very blessed interchanges of common love and hope, and oneness in that which is Eternal. Still this testimony of the brotherhood of God's elect, of the fellows of the Son of God, vast, deep, and impressive as it is, does fall short of the testimony which we find within ourselves ; for, apart from the true imvard witness to the divine and infinite reality, the other voice, if voice it be, will be unheard. INDEX Acts, the Book of, a fragment, 102. Agnostic teaching of the young, 314. Agnosticism and antluopomorphism, 8, 61, note. Agricultural labourers, influence of evangelical teaching upon, 292. 'All things to all men,' meaning, 354- Altruism, modern, 325. Ambassador, (]ualihcation of an, 374 ; 'Ambassadors for Christ,' 371. Angels, as described in O.T. , 13, 16 blood, 200 ; on ' Christ made sin for us,' 214 ; on restoration through Christ, 219 ; on his own early Chris- tian training, 318 ; and Pela iritis, on Sin, 133. ' Authority, of Scripture as interpreted by the Holy Spirit, 267 ; in matters of belief, 321. Balfour, A. J., on Arianism, 171. Baptism, 345 ; infant, 329. />ai(r, F. C, on Arianism, 170. 'Angel of the Face,* 14 ; 'Angels of Belief, sound, without love, 375. the Churches,' 253 Anglo-Saxon race, the, and the Bible, 73-. Animistic views of evil, 113. Anselni, on Ransom, 217, 2x8; on Satisfaction, 221. Anthropology, modern; views of man's origin, 117. Anthropomorphic terms in N.T. , 26. Anthropomorphism, Hebrew, 7 ; of l^lato, 9 ; and personality, 10 ; in describinginanimate objects, 62, iiole; in the idea of ' Spirit,' 389. Apollinarianism, 1 71. Apostles, the, and early evangelisation, 242 ; relation to the Churches, 259 ; successors of, 261. Apostolic organisation of the Churches, 236. Arianism, 170. Aristotle, the (]od of, 6. Arnold, Dr. 'J'., on early signs of de- pravity, 330. ' Athanasian Creed,' the, 169. Athanasiiis, on Law fulfilled in Sacri- fice, 210 ; on the Vicarious Sacrifice, 220. Atonement, the, Christ the self-expres- sion of (iod in, 56, and Incarnation, 190 ; the expression of Divine Love, 198 ; holiness, the object of, 225. Attributes of our Lord, distinction in the, 173. Aiigttstine, on the prohibition to cat Beneficence, in Stale enactments, 277. Bible, the, 'and the Bible only,' 267 ; conceptions of, 322 ; general ignor- ance of, 316 ; instruction in ele- mentary schools, 317. See Scrip- tures. Biblical criticism, and the teaching of the young, 323. Bishops and deacons, 249. Blood, the life, in sacrifice, 200. ' Book of Origins,' the Bible a, 83. Brahmiiiical and Buddhistic pessimism, III. Bread of Life, the, 201. 'Bringing many sons unto glory,' 182, vole. Bruce, Dr. A. B., 'Humiliation of Christ,' 185, note. Bunyaii, John, his types of Christian character and Church life, 348, 349, 350- Bits/inell, Dr. H., on Christ's testimony to Himself, 162. Call, Divine, to the ministry, 370. Calvin, on Substitution, 224. Carlyle, T., on Conversion, 334. Catechisms succeeded by liie Hymn- book, 316. Centre of Christian belief readjusted, 189. Chad'i'iik, Bishop, on the title ' .Son of Man,' 186, note. Chalcedon, Formula of, 169. i09 410 INDEX C'lanniiio, Dr., on Unitaiianism and I'iety, 164. Character of a country to be judged as a whole, 288. Charles, Mrs. E. A'., on our Lord's Knovvledije, 172. Chastisement of the forgiven, 56. Cheync, Prof., 'Job and Solomon,' 8, 'Founders of O.T. criticism,' 59: on anthropomorphism in the I'saltcr, 6r, note. Childhood, moral imperfection in, 330 ; its capacities for good, 331 ; religion of, 332. Child-theologians, 318. Christ, not understood by His own followers, 45 ; His removal not absence, 46 ; the embodiment of perfect morality, 97 ; His Deity and Humanity correlated truths, 158; increased attention given to His Life 157 ; His self-assertion a proof of I3eity, 159; the f.ife of the believer, 162 ; Revealer of Truth, 179 ; witness to the Old Testament, 180 ; teaching of, respecting His death, 195 ; per- fected through discipline, 181 ; the Representative of our race, 210; 'made Sin for us,' 214; the chil- dren's Friend, 339 ; His Life the study of childhood, 340 ; in the hearts of the young, 343. Christian, a, defined, 230 ; ( hrislian life, and the Spirit, 39S. ' Christianised consciousness,' 144, 149. Christianity, not an appendix to Juda- ism, 86; ignored by secular historians, 87 ; a religion of principles rather than precepts, 232 ; connexion with morals, 296 ; practical, its counter- parts in nature, 297. Church, the Christian, its early ex- tension, 241, 243 ; no model form for its organisation, 254 ; appeals to, on doctrine and discipline, 256, 25S; no authority in matters of faith, 266 ; its life of many types, 270, note ; larger than the Churches, 299 ; fit- ness of a child for membership in. 345 ; a home, 347 ; a sphere of service for the young, 343 ; a school of instruction, 349. Church-making, no business of ours, 299. 'Church Teaching,' 314. Churches and the Church, 229, 299. Colossians, Epistle to the, its motive, 204. Comings of the Lord, manifold, 404. Communion with God, a condition of human progress, 121. Comte, A., on radical impeifection of human nature, 136. ' Confirmation,' religious value of, j^^. Conflict of Christ with powers of dark- ness, 202. Congregational Church principles, 346. Conscience of the State, 277. Consequences of wrong-doing not wholly removed by forgiveness, 56. Constitutional sin and personal trans- gression, 143. Controversies, a hindrance to good work, 309. Conversion, necessity of, 333. Co-operation among the several Churches, 269. Corelli, Marie, ' The Mighty Atom, '315. Cosmogony, the Hebrew', 6. Cosmopolitanism, true, 293. Covenant, the new, 199. Creation, the, history of, 85 ; second narrative of, 78. Crisis, the, of a man's spiritual history, 145. Criticism, fallibility of N.T., 61, note. Criticisms, various, of preachers and preaching, 356, 376. See ' Higher.' Cross, the. Synthesis between Law and Forgiveness, 57. Dale, Dr. H. IV., on the basis of Scripture authority, 322 ; on the re- ligion of childhood, 343. Darwin, Charles, on spiritual powers, 328. Davidson, Bishop Randall, on neglect of Bible teaching, 316. Deacons, their office probably not identical with that of ' the Se\'en,' 241 ; passages where mentioned, 250. Death, meaning of, in connection with the Fall, 126, 138; is God with- drawn, 139 ; various biblical usages of the word, 140 ; general meanmg of, in Scripture, 226. Death of Christ, its mysterious efficacy, 195 : that efficacy threefold, 197 ; the Life of the world, 201, 213 sq. Debt of mankind, as paid l)y Christ, 220. Decision, religious, to be urged on the young, 334- _ Definiteness in religious teaching, 315- Denney, Dr. James, 'Studies in Theo- logy,' 341 ; on Kenotic Christologies, 185. Depravity, universal, 135. Destiny, as viewed by the Greeks, 50. Dichotomy of man's nature, 1 17. Discoveries, new, ever to be made, 404. INDEX 411 Disinterestedness of the preacher, 364. Dissent, a quickening iniluence, 2S8. Divine image in man, limitations of, ."7. Divine in tlie Human, 401. Divine Sulf-expression, 32. Doctrine imlependent of criticism, 166. Doddridge, Dr. K., an example of religious training, 319. Dogmas of the Reformation era, 224, Dogmatism and ignorance, 3S5. Doketic views ot our Lord's Person, 158, 176, 181. Doriier, Dr. J. A., on the Sin against the Holy Ghost, 147 ; on progressive Incarnation, 176; on the eternal purpose of Incarnation, 188; on the history of the doctrine of Substitu- tion, 219. Dri7\r, Prof. , criticised by Prof. Cheyne, 59, «'"''■• Drtiinmond, Prof. _/., ' Via, \'erita:^, Vita,' 62. Dualism, 113. Earnestness and sincerity in preach- ings 367- ■ Eating the Flesh ' and ' drinking the Blood ' of Christ, 201. Edwards, Principal, 'the dod-Man,' 1 88, note. Elders of the Churches, 244 ; identical with Bishops, 249, 7iotc. Eliot, George, ([uoted, 163 ; her early Christian experience, 319. Epistles, the, as Literature, 81. Erasmus and the Bible, 73. Lstablishment of a Church by the State, 281. Eternal Sonship thinkable, t,}, ; ' Eter- nal Creation,' 30. llthical religion, its basis, 6; standard of Christ, the, 53. Eicsehius on ' the first-fruits of be- lievers,' 241. Evangelical Faith, the, cosmopolitan, 293- Evil contingent, not necessary, 115. J'lvolution, anti-supernatural tendencies in the theory of, 327. Exhortation, the preacher's chief function, 360. ' Exinanition,' 173, note. Experience, testimony of, to the living Christ, 103. ' ICxperts' in the Gospel, 360. Fact, the prerequisite of Faith, 339. Fairlhiirn, Dr. A. A/., on Sin as a specifically Christian notion. 129; on the ' Return to Christ,' 157 ; on Christ's Temptation, 184, note. Faith, the larger Reason, 296 ; incor- poration with Christ by, 212. Fall of man, the, 123 ; a postulate of the entire Bible, 124; results of, 127; signs of, 329. Father, the Divine, and His children, 57 ; ' Father in Heaven,' 390. Fatherhood and Sovereignty of God, 336 ; P'atherhood and Sonship, an eternal relation, 398. Fear, place of, in religious training, 326. Fellowship, Christian, a result of union with Christ, 231. Festus and Paul, 365. Fiction, modern, 387. ' Finger of God,' the, recognised, 404, Flesh and Spirit, once harmonious, 1 19. ' Foolishness of Preaching,' the, 303. Forgiveness, how related to law, 49 ; a part of the moral order, 54 ; con- ditioned by Repentance, it'. ; con- sistent with chastisement, 5O. Form in the Divine, ineradicable crav- ing for, 41. Fourth Gospel, the, Christ's Deity in, 161. Francis of Assist and the Bible, 72. Genesis, its declaration of Mono- theism, 5 ; First cliapter of, com- pared with Proverbs viii., 6. Genius, intuitions of, divine, 405. Gethsemane, the Agony in, 203. ' Glory of the Lord,' the, 19. God, invisible and inscrutable, but not unknowable, 13, 34; often reduced in thought to a negation, 40 ; as revealed in the Prophets, a postu- late of man's deepest experiences, 100 ; in Christ, the creed of the simple believer, 167 ; the child's thoughts of, 335, 336 ; fundamental idea of, 396 ; an all-pervading Power, 400. Good and evil, knowledge of, 116; their varieties cla>;sified, ill. Go7-e. Canon, on Dogma, 317; on the Cluirch as the ' Household of Grace,' 346. Gospel history, the basis of laith, 339. Gospel, the, adapted to literary, scien- tific, and social needs, 391. Gospels, the, as Literature, 81. Greek Philosophy, on Moral Govern- ment and Free-svill. 49; Tragedy, its view of Evil and Retribution, 50, •15- 412 INDEX Gregory of Nyssa, on Christ's Conde- scension, 174. Guilt, the accompaniment of Sin, 137. Hall, Hobekt, on 'believing in the UevJl,' 335. Hard thinking and hard work, 309. Harnack, l^rof., ' Chronology of Ancient Christian Literature,' 60, note. Hatch, Dr., ' Hibbert Lectures,' 49. Hearers of sermons, unsatisfied, 3S1. Heaven, the child's thoughts of, 334. Hebrews, Epistle to the, on the Divine Humanity, 182, lienotheism among the Hebrews, 4, 5 ; distinguished from Monotheism, ib. Heresies regarding our Lord's Person, 168, 171. ' Higher Criticism,' the, legitimate in itself, 58, note ; unscientific use of, 59, note. Histories, Jewish, classed with pro- phecies, 92. Holtnes, Oliver Wendell, on Watts' Hymns, 32c. Holy of Holies, the vacant, a symbol, 13- Home and School, as guardians of the Ancient Faith, 313. Hosea, his quotations from earlier writers, 70. ' House Beautiful,' the, 350. //ozve, John, on human Depravity, 136. Human Suffering, problem of, iii. Ideal, lofty, of the preacher's office, 369- Idolatry, general tendency to, 41 ; ground of its criminality, 42. Image of God, man made in the, 7. Imputation, 219; theory of, 207. ' In Christ,' import of the phrase, 163. Incarnation, a special form of an eternal revelation of God, 35 ; God's neces- sary Self- manifestation, 40 ; de- manded by man's sensuous nature, 43 ; reveals perfect Holiness and Love, 187 ; culminates in Sacrifice, 188 ; a recapitulation of Humanity, 211 ; human life, and divine, 401, Individual Responsibility, 267. Individualism in Religion, 294, Inductive method, applied to the Gospel History, 171, 172. Innocence and Holiness, 120. Inspiration, the complement of Revela- tion, 48 ; theories of, 105, note. ' Inward witness,' the, 407. Iaiiveh, in the Old Testament, 399. Jerusalem, church-assembly at, not a ' Council,' 247, 249. Jews, modern, and Christianity, 3. Job, the Book of, 79. John, the Baptist, as a preacher, 364. John's Gospel, Proem to, 37, 187. Journalism and preachers, 357. Jo-weft, Fro/., reference to his Life, 36b. Judaism, as regarded by Theists, 3; modern, rather a Philosophy than a Faith, 12. Judgment, day and hour of, unknown to the Son, 179. A'i.vr, Immanuel, on radical Evil in Human Nature, 136. ' Kenosis,' 187 ; Kenotic Theories, .I73> 185. Kingdom of Christ, apprehended by the child, 342. Knowledge, Christ's, intrinsic and im- ^parted, 175. Knox, John, a type of fearlessness, 369. Law, and Mercy, 21 ; from the point of view of Christianity, 52 ; trans- lated into Love by Christ, 53. Lawlessness, modern, 389. Laws, rigid, of Church organisation, not in N.T., 235. Leo the First, and the Chalcedon formula, 169. Letter, the, and the .Spirit of Revela- tion, 103. Levitical Law, its teaching on Sin, 129. Liberty, Christinn. restrictions upon, 264 ; in Church organisation, 262. Liddon, Canon, ' Bampton Lectures,' 179, note. Life, human, and the Bible, a mutual Commentary, 104. Life of Christ in us, because of His death, 200. ' Light ' and ' Luminary ' ; God and the Lamb, 40. Literary Beauty of the Bible, "]"] ; and spiritual value of the Bible com- pared, 82, Literature, modern, largely anli- Christian, 387 set]. Logos, the, 398; inadequateexplanations "f^> 37i 62; in the Septuagint, (}},, note. Love, the fundamental demand of the Law, 23. Lnther, on Justification, 223 ; his little daughter, 243. M.\N, a 'miniature of God,' 30; created in the Divine image, 117; INDEX 41 akin to the Divine, 186 ; greater than the material universe, 299. Man-made images of God, 42. Martenscn, J)r. II., on the Internal purpose of Incarnation, 188. Martincau, Dr. /. , on Christ's moral perfection, 161 ; on the Paternal Objective, 29. Mason, Prof. A. J., ' Conditions of our Lord's Life on Earth,' 177, 178. Masses, tlie, not the only ht objects for Evangelism, 307. Matiry, HI., on Ancient Greek Re- ligion, 115. Mediator, no human, between the soul and God, 264. Alelaiic/ithon, P., his definition of Depravity, 135. Mercy, as revealed in O.T. , 20. Message of the Gospel, the great, 375. Methodism, and the agricultural labourer, 292. Mill.John Stitarf,\\\>, early training, 31 5. Mind, workings of, a revelation of the Infinite, 397. Ministry, a common privilege and duty, 239 ; the Christian, might lie represented in Parliament, 2S5. Miracles of Christ, 175. Mission-halls, 310. ' Monogeny,' the teaching of Scripture, Monotheism, Jewish, not a ' Semitic instinct,' 85. Moral need of mankind, met in Christ, "5: Morality, Divine training in, 94 ; and religion, 27, 282, 296, 332. Mortality, conditional, 118. Motives, a preacher's, 355. Mailer, Dr. Julius, on ttie Sin against the Holy Ghost, 148. Mailer, Prof. Max, on the Logos, 63, note. Music, suggestions in, of unexplored realities, 39S. Mysteries in the natural world, 403 ; theological, often stuilicd to the neglect of practical truth, 377. Mythical theories concerning Christ, 97. Name of God, the, as declared to Moses, 19 ; the hope of the contrite, 22 ; interpreted by the Cross, 56. National Discipleship, 289 ; Religion, how far possil)lc, 291. ' Neighbour,' the word as used in Scripture, 295. Nestorian theory of our Lord's Person, 171. New Covenant, the, in Christ's Blood, 208. New Testament, completion of the Canon, 71 ; histcjric records in the, 88. New Testament on the Divine Unity, 25; Criticism, results of, confirmatory of the Ancient P'aith, 60, nole \ Ethics of, balanced and complete, 95. Neivinau, F. 11'., on the Self- Assertion of Christ, 161, no/e. Newspa]ier tests of success, 382, Nonconformists and tiie vState, 283 ; on Religious Instruction in Schools. 317- Nonconformity, two aspects of, 287. Novelties, theological, of our day, 376. OFFiciiKS of the Churches, silence of the history concerning, 243, 246 : slightness of apostolic reference to. 257. Old Testament, the, its idea of God, 4 ; discordant criticisms respecting, 59, nole ; Influence of, in the Greek world, 70 ; Christ's witness to, 180 ; a Book for the young, 324. Older schools of thought, value of their Teachings, 320. Oldest of all Bibles, the, 297. Omnipotence, displayed in Christ's Self-humiliation, 173. One God, or No God, the only alter- native, 25. Organisation of a Church to be propor- tioned to its life, 271, Jiole. t);7'^'(7/, his doctrine of Ransom, 218,220. Origin, Divine, shown in human life, 329. OUlej', I\. L., on Incarnation, 174. Panthkism, 26. Papacy, the assumptions of, 268. Pastors, plurality of, in apostolic Churches, 250. Patriarchal histories, naturalness of, 78. Paul, his treatment of the law, 52 ; a type of the true minister, 365 ; on Mars' Hill, 358; and Festus, 366. Pentecostal symbols, meaning of, 237. Persecution, modern forms of, 286. Personality, 11 ; of God, affirmed in N.T. , 25 ; and moral consciousness, 142. Persons, known otherwise than by Form, 43. Perspective of .Scripture, 99. Pliilo, his allegori>ing, 14 ; anthropo- morphic vocabulary of, 8. Plato, testimony of, to man's depravity, 135- 414 INDEX Politics and Religion, association of, 279, 291. Polytheism among the Hebrews, 4, 5. Populaiity not success, 356. Poverty, uses of, 30S. Power in preaching, secret of, 362. Preacher, the, and actual life, 297 ; his true greatness, 300 ; doom if un- faithful, 303; his chief claim, 357 ; his true sphere, 379; his chief diffi- culties, 354 ; not a mere teacher or professor, 362 ; or theological ex- pert, 371 ; or lecturer on religion, 369 ; or Church official, 370 ; or a pioneer in speculation, 372 ; or dignified functionary, 373 ; must defy censure and be indifferent to praise, 382 ; his message to intellectual superiors, 359. Preaching, in primitive times, 241 ; new methods in, 301 ; after the model of Christ's, 301 ; that misses the mark, 306 ; [jrimitive compared with modern, 383 ; much criticised, 353 ; as a profession, 363. Press, the, its increased attention to thepulpit,356 ; often jealous of it, 377. Priesthood of Christians, universal, 265. Priestly authority substituted for that of Scripture, 71 ; priestly spirit, the, 373- Priscilla, a modern, needed, 372. Probation, necessary to moral advance, 120. Progress, infinite, man's capacity for, 119. ■^ Proof-texts' on Christ's Deity, 165. Prophet and preacher, 380. Prophets, Jewish, their ethical value, 93 ; as Literature, 79 ; in New Testament times, 245. Prophetical, not priestly commission to Christ's Disciples, 238. Propitiation, 206. Proverbs, the Book of, 324 ; the eighth chapter and Genesis i., 6. Providence and Society, 282. Psalms, the, 79. Public questions and the Christian ministry, 379. Punishment, universal of guilt, 138. 'Puritan,' modern contempt for the name, 391. Puritanism, Unitarians charged with, 164 ; a modern type of, 388. ' Ransom,' and ' Redemption,' different words, 217. Reason, the Christian appeal to, 322. Reconciliation of God to man, 2i6. Redemption, a doctrine often mis- conceived 193; some inadequate views of, 194 ; illustrated by the Doctrine of Sin, 153 ; as Deliver- ance, 217. Regeneration through Christ's Death, 200. Religion and Morality, 277 ; of a State, how to be understood, 277. Religious training of Mankind, 232. Remission of Sins, a Sacrificial idea, 198. Renaissance, the, and Bible Studies, 72. Reiian, Hf., on the Apostle Paul, 367. Renonf, M., ' Hibbert Lecture,' 1 15. Repentance, its nature and value, 55. Retreat, religious, and Bible Study, 72. Revelation, how made possible, 16 ; stages of its advance, loi ; confirmed by consciousness, 398. Rich, preaching to the, 307. Ritschlian theory of Divine Mani- festation, 189. Romanes, G. J., 'Thoughts on Reli- gion,' 338. Ruskin, J., on early Bible training, 316 ; on ambassadors for God, 371. Russell, Lord John, on the Dissenting ministry, 368. Satanic influence, as conceived by children, 335. vSatisfaction, the Doctrine of, 210. Sa7'ouarola, and the Children, 343. Scepticism, a habit of thought, 321. Scholastic Theology, characteristics of, 222. Schopenhauer, pessimism of, 1 15. Science, leading to Faith, 337. Scientific spirit, the modern, 327. Scripture, unwarranted affirmations re- specting, 68 ; spiritual value of its earlier parts, 69 ; adapted to every class, 74 ; its influence on Literature and Art, 75 ; its value unimpaired by critical research, 76 ; its historic value, 83 ; its moral and spiritual worth, 90 ; a record of growing moral enlightenment, 91 ; and the volume of human experience, 104. Sectarian preferences by the State repudiated, 286. ' Seed of Fire,' the, 350. Self-consciousness of Ciod, 391. Self-revelation, difficulty of, 44. Sermons, spoken and written, 378. ' Seven, The,' officers of the Church, 240. iNni:x 415 Shaflesbury, Lor J. chiklhuod of, 315. ] .Sin, a cry for help to Cjod, 57 ; j Doctrine of, in old and recent Theology, 109 ; ]jostulates Responsi- bility and Law, 110 ; and Crime dis- criminated, 110; its origin according to Scripture, 122 ; characterises the whole human race, 128, 132, 134, 136; conscious or unconscious, 128 ; before and after the awaking of moral consciousness, 142 ; con- demned in Christ. 226 ; sins of ignorance, 144 ; Sin against the lloiy (Jhost, 146. ,Sin-l)earer, the. prefigured in Isaiah, .'99- Sin-offerings, not available for wilful transgression, 21. Smith, GohkiHit, on clerical restraints, 368. Smith, Prof. Robertson, on Prof. Cheyne, 59, note. Social questions, best approached from the Cross, 304. Socialism, Christian, 293, 294. Society, a Divine structure, 282. ■ Son of (iod,' import of the title, 1S7. Soul-winning, 383. Source and Spirit of all things, the, 405-. Sovereignty and Fatherhood of Cod, 336. ^ . Speech, imaginary, on the Churches and the People, 304. Spencer, Herbert, on the Personality of God, 26; on Eternal and Inexhaust- ible Force, 39 ; adopts the Cliristian ideal of conduct, 52. .Spirit of Ciod, O.l'. doctrine of the, 17, 18; the revelation of God as, immanent, 48 ; the persistent force in all things, 399 ; the Self-imparta- tion of Christ, ibid. ; ' Spirit ' and ' P'ather,' 397 ; in the souls of men, 400 ; witness of the, distinguished from that of the reason and affection, 395 ; not always present to con- sciousness, 403. Spiritual cravings of Humanity, 99. State, the, re-defmed, 275 ; not atheistic, 281, 291 ; its supremacy over the Church repudiated, 248 ; what it might legitimately do for tiie Church, 284. State Church, the, 280. Stromr, Dr. A. H., on the Sin against the Holy Ghost, 147. •Subject and Object in the Divine Nature, 27, 398. .Substitution, different views of, 206. Sufferings f)f Christ regarded as penal. 206. Sully, Prof., 'Studies of Childhood.' 329- 335> 336) 337- Supernatural, declining sense of the, 337. .Surety of the Covenant, Christ the. 209. Swayne, IV. S., 'Our Lord's Know- ledge as Man,' 178, note. I Synoptic Gospels, their witness to \ Christ's Deity, 159. j Taylor, Sir II., on Obedience, 332, note. j Teaching of Christ, subordinate to Hi.> Sacrifice, 225. ! Teaching, the function of, widely dis- i tributed, 361. ; Temporal side to Church life, 282. Temptation, 124; not fall, 126. Temptations of our Lord, the, 184. Tennysojj, A.,'' The Northern Farmer,' ; 369- ' Terminology, heathen, employed for • Christian ideas, 64, note. Testimonies to the co-action of the Spirit with our spirits, 404. Theism, O.T., essentially ethical, 18; Christian, and the Unity of God, 24 ; a regenerative force, 58. Theology, and Religion different things, j 279; of childhood, 343. 1 Tlieological Definitions and the Child, 315- Theophanics in the O.T. history, 14, Thoughts that are divine revelations, .405- Timothy and Titus, their mission tem- porary and special, 252. IVee of Life, the, 118. 'Tritheism, implicit, of some ancient Creeds, 24 ; unconscious in modern thinkers, 168. Triumph of Christ, vicarious, 204. Twentieth Century, Forecast of the, 298. I'ylor, Dr. E. P., on animistic faith, 113- Unckk'i AiNTiF.s and misgivings, un- suitable for the pulpit, 377. Uncleanness, Levitical doctrine of, 130. Unconscious heretics, 168, 171. Uniformity, not found in apostolic Church organisation, 253. Uniqueness of Christ's redeeming work. 225. Unitari.inism, metaphysically unten- 4i6 INDEX able, 31 ; not a home of rest, 26 ; spiritual inefficacy of, 163. Universality of the Gospel message, 237 ; of Christ's gifts, 238. Vicarious suffering, 297. Vinet, Dr. Alexander, on Faith, 342. Voluntary principle, the, 290. Ward, Mrs. Humphry, on defects in Unitarianism, 165. IVails, Dr., Hymns and Child's Cate- chism, 320. Wedgwood, Miss Jtilia, on changes in religious thought, 319. Wesleys, the, religious training of, 319. Westcoii, Bishop, on Our Lord's Know- ledge, 177 ; on the eternal purpose of Incarnation, 188 ; on the Church and the World, 344. Westminster Assembly, on our Lord's Person, 170. Wine of the Covenant, the, contrasted with Levitical symbol, 199. ' Wisdom,' the Book of, 8. 'Word,' the, the necessary and eternal Self-expression of the One God, 33 ; the Eternal, 398. See Logos. Word of God in Scripture, the sole authority in faith, 265. Words descriptive of Sin in O.T. and N.T., 128. Work, the supreme, of the Spirit, 402. Zeitgeist, the, 386. Zoroastrian dualism, 113. PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EOINIIUKGII Messrs. T. & T. CLARK'S NEW PUBLICATIONS. Now ready, in crown 4to (i)p. 1040), price 2Gs. net; In half-morocco, or in half-(;alf, 31 8. Gd. net. A CONCORDANCE TO THE GREEK TESTAMENT. According to the Texts of WESTCOTT and HORT, TISCHENDORF, and the ENGLISH REVISERS. Edited by W. F. MOULTON, D.D., and A. S. GEDEN, M.A. *»* It will be genentllij allowed that a new Concordance to the Greek Testament is much needed in the interests of sacred scholarship. This work adopts a new principle, and aims at providing a full and complete Concordance to the text of the Greek Testament as it is set forth in the editions of Westcott and Hart, Tischendorf {Vlllth), and the English Revisers. The first-named has throughout been taken as the standard, and the marginal readings have been included. Thus the student with any one of these three editions in his hands will find himself in possession of a complete Concordance to the actual text on which he is engaged; whilethe method employed, it may fairly be claimed, precludes the omission of any word or phrase which, by even a remote probability, might be regarded as forming part of the true text of the New Testament. On the other hand, passages disappear, as to the spuriousness of which there is practical unanimity among scholars. The Right Rev. B. F. "WESTCOTT, D.D., Bishop of Durham, writes:— ' I can express my jud!j,nient on its excelleuce hy saying that I propose at once to take it into the i^lace of the Bkuder which has been my constant companion foi- nearly fifty years.' Professor "SST. SANDAY, D.D., LL.D., Oxford, writes :— ' There can be no question as to thn value of the new Concordance. It is the only scientific Concordance to the Greek Testament, and the only one tliat can safely be used for scientific imrposes.' Prospectus, with Specimen Page, free on application. The Prophecies of Jesus Christ, relating to His Death, Resurrection, and Second Coming, and their Fulfilment. By Professor Dr. Paul Schwartzkopff. Authorised Translation, by Rev. Neil Puchanax (Translator of Beyschlag's ' New Testament Theology '). In crown 8vo, price 5s. ' Deserves aniplw recognition as an honest, reverential, and able attempt to solve one of the most diflicult problems connected with the Person and Work of Christ. . . . lie bas jiroduced a book blossoming on every page with suggestions, and worthy of the most serious study of theologians.' — Professor Maucus Dods in The Critical Review. The Hope of Israel : A Review of the Argument from Prophecy. By the Rev. F. H. Woods, B.D., late Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. In crown 8vo, price 3s. 6d. 'The book is a convenient and attractive one. And the subject being the keenest controverted in our day, being, indeed, tlie one subject which has passed into feverish inter(!st and unrest ; and Mr. Woods, being a master on both sides of it, this volume shoidd have a wide and thankful welcome.' — The Expository Times. Life after Death, and the Future of the Kingdom of God. By Bishop Laus Nielsen Dahle, Knight of St. Olaf. Translated by Rev. John Bevehidge, ^F.A. In demy 8vo, price 10s. 6d. Eev. C. A. Fkkky, D.D., writes: 'Messrs. T. & T. Clark have enriched modern theological literature by the j)ublication of this book. The volume is a careful, scholarly, and evangelical treatment of the doctrine of " Last Things," and bears evidence on every page, not only of close and prolonged study, but of the profound piety and charming spirit of the writer.' T. & T. Clark's New Publications. God the Creator and Lord of All. By Samuel Harris, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Systematic Theology in Yale University, Author of ' The Self-Revelation of God,' * The Philosophical Basis of Theism,' etc. In Two Vols, post 8vo, price 16s. *^* In this worh Professor Harris develops the principle that the idea of God is not attained by mere subjective thinking, but that God is known through His action revealing Himself in the constitution and evolution of the universe, and in the constitution and history of man issuing in Christ, and in the Holy Spirit bringing gracious Divine influence on men, SuMMAiiY OF Contents : Part I. God the one only Absolute Spirit. — Part II. God the Creator. — Part III. God the Lord of all in Providential Government. — Part IV. God the Lord of all in Moral Government. — Index. 'Professor Harris is in touch with the most progressive, active, enterprising theology of to-day. But he has not lost his hold of yesterday. He knows what the youngest Kitschlian is saying ; he has not forgotten what Augustine said before him. The whole field of the history of theology is in his sight, and long labour has given him possession of it. Yet he is as independent as if he had not read a book; his clear, rapid, forcible writing is a constaut and most agreeable witness to his independence.' — The Expository Times. Recently Discovered Manuscripts, AND ORIGEN'S COM- MENTARIES ON MATTHEW AND JOHN. Being an Additional Volume to the 'Ante-Nicene Christian Library.' Edited by Prof essor Allan Menzies, D.D., St. Andrews University. Con- taining : Gospel of Peter (By Professor Armitage Robinson) — Diatessaron of Tatian — Apocalypse of Peter — Visio Pauli — Apocalypses of the Virgin and Sedrach — Testament of Abraham— Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena — Narrative of ZosiMus — Apology of Aristides — Epistles of Clement (Complete Text) — Origen's Commentaries on Matthew and John, etc. In One Volume, 4to (pp. 540), price 12s. 6d. net. ' It was a happy idea which occurred to the publishers of the " Ante-Nicene Library" to supplement that series with a volume containing translations of the more important discoveries of recent years. A judicious arrangement has been observed in grouping the recovered treasui-es. ... It has been compiled with great care, and the Introduc- tions are short and to the point.' — Tlie liecord. ' Notwithstanding the undoubted wonder of the archasological finds of recent years, the greatest wonder, and the greatest number in the way of " finds," is in the region of Early Christian literature. Some of these finds made nothing short of a sensation when they came ; but their value was great enough to outlive it. Now, all these Early Christian finds have been gathered together, translated by competent scholars, and edited by Professor Menzies. Those of us who, at much labour and some expense, gathered editions and translations of these many works as they appeared, will grudge the labour now. For this is better in every individual case, having profited by all the books that weot before; and it is most convenient to have them all in one.' — The Expository Times. NEW BIBLE-CLASS PRIMERS. Paper covers, 6d. ; cloth covers, 8d., The Exile and the Restoration. With Map and Plan. By Professor A. B. Davidson, D.D., LL.D., Edinburgh. Christian Conduct, By Rev. T. B. Kilpatrick, B.D. The Miracles of our Lord. By Professor J. Laidlaw, D.D. NEW BIBLE-CLASS HANDBOOKS. The Times of Jesus Christ. By Rev. L. A. Muirhead, B.D. With Map. Crown 8vo, 2s. Foundation Truths of Scripture as to Sin and Salva- tion. V>y Professor J. Laidlaw, D.D. Crown 8vo, Is. 6d. T, & T. Clark's New Publications. 'By a bright, attractive appearance, by a very comfortable typography, by the participation of dignified scholars and experienced writers, this series is likely to enjoy a deserved popularitj-.'— T^e New World. Evas of the Cbristiaii Cburcb* EDITKD BY JOHN FULTON, D.D., LLD. Messks. T. & T. CLARK have pleasure in announcing the Serial Publication of ' Era.s of the Chuistian Church.' Christians of all denominations have begun to understand that many of the existing divisions of Christendom had their origin partly in misapprehensions, and partly in causes which have long since passed away, and that the cause of imity will be most surely promoted by a calm and impartial study of the Church in its long and varied ex- perience under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is impossible, however, for persons of ordinary leisure and opportunity to make a profound study of ecclesiastical history. It has therefore been suggested that a series of popular monographs, giving, so to speak, a bird's-eye view of the most important epochs in the life of the Church, would supply a real want, and this series is intended to furnish such monographs. The series will be Completed in TEN VOLUMES. Three Volumes are now ready, price 6s. each, The Age of Hildebrand. By Professor M. R. Vincent, D.D. 6s. The Age of the Great Western Schism. By Clinton Locke, D.D. 6s. The Age of the Crusades. By James M. Ludlow, D.D. 6s. ' These " Eras" are histories that will be enjoyably read and easily remembered. . . . Professor Vincent had a great subject allotted to him, and " The Age of Hildebrand " is an altogether worthy treatment of it. . . . In " The Age of the Crusades" we have the prose version of a story familiar to most of us in the trappings of romance. Dr. Ludlow holds the attention of his readers. . . . "The Age of the Great Western Schism " is a bright and popular resume.' — The Literary World. The following Volumes are in preparation : — The Apostolic Age. The Post-Apostolic Age. By the Right Rev. H. C. Potter, D.D., LL.D., Bi.shop of New York. The Ecumenical Councils. By Professor W. P. Du Boss, D.D. The Age of Charlemagne. By Professor Charles L. Wells. The Age of the Renaissance. By Henry Van Dvke, D.D., and Paul Van Dvke. The Protestant Reformation. By Professor W. Walker, Ph.D., D.D., Hartford. The Anglican Reformation. By Professor W. R. Clark, LL.D., D.C.L., Trinity College, Toronto. T. & T. Clark's New Publications. DR. PLUMMER ON ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Luke. By Eev. Alfred Plummer, M.A., D.D., Master of University College, Durham. In post 8vo (pp. 678), price 12s. *^* Being the Fifth Volume of 'THE INTERNATIONAL CRITICAL COMMENTARY.' ' Dr. Plummer's work is, it need Lardly be said, admirably done, both in tbe Introduction and in the Commentary. Readers will peruse with pleasure his treatment of the leading cliaracteristics of the Gospel. The linguistic analysis leaves nothing to be desired.' — The Record. ' We feel heartily that it will bring credit to English scholarship ; and that in its carefulness, its sobriety of tone, its thoiightfulness, its reverence, it will contribute to- a stronger faith in the essential trustworthiness of the Gospel record.' — The Guardian. ' Dr. Plummer's St.. Luke is full and rich. The volume is indeed the largest yet issued in this series; nevertheless, its space is used to the uttermost; so skilfully indeed, that, numerous as the pages are, their number is a feeble indication of the wealth of matter the book contains. ... In short, this seems to be the edition of St. Luke we have waited for so long. It will take its place without disparagement beside Dr. Driver's Deuteronomy and Dr. Sanday's Romans. These works have made the name of " The Critical Commentary " a household word, not in our country only, even on the Continent also. Where they have gone Dr. Plummer will follow, and we dare predict as favourable a reception.' — The Expository Times. The Spirit of Power : As set forth in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. By Eev. Thomas Adamson, B.D, Small 8vo, price Is. Principal Moule wi-ites : ' It will repay not only reading, but reading again and again, . . . A book of rare and solid value.' The Right of Systematic Theology. By Professor B. B. "Warfield, D.D., Princeton University. With an Introduction by Professor J. Orr, D.D., Edinburgh. Crown 8vo, price 2s. Contemporary Theology and Theism. By Professor E. M. Wenley, M.A,, D.Phil., D.Sc, University of Michigan. Crown 8vo, price 4s. 6d. Christian Life in Germany: As seen in the State and the Church. By Edward F. Williams, D.D. Now ready, post 8vo, price 4s. ' The number of English speaking youth in the Universities and Technical Schools in Germany is increasing every year. It is interesting to know what kind of religious influences are within their reach even if in their student life they do not yield to these influences. Great Britain and America owe a debt of gratitude to Germany for the literature she has furnished their people, for the contributions blie has made to Christian song, and for her devotion to higher Clnistian learning. In the attention given to the results of special studies, particularly to the results of the so-called Higher Criticism,, both countries are in danger of overlooking equally important contributions in practical Christian work. Few people, either in Great Britain or iu America, realise the extent and importance of the Foreign Missionary work which the German Churches are carrying on, or of that still more wonderful home work which is embraced under the general term Inner Mission. . . . The purpose of this book is to set forth, in as few words as possible, the real condition of the Protestant Churches in Germany, to describe their present spiritual condition, and to furnish data on which to form an opinion of their probable future.' — Extract from the Peeface. T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, & CO. LTD.